It seemed more natural to milk an oat in the ways her people used to milk walnuts, but she had stopped having that argument a while ago. It’s not like cows were indigenous to this place either. At least oat milk didn’t give every lactose intolerant Native she knew heinous gas the way too much milk and cheese did.
She used her hip to bump open the front screen door that no longer latched properly and made her way to the old Mazda in the gravel driveway.
Lost in her thoughts, Juniper pulled into the parking lot of the Tribe’s large, central administrative building. This building was a recent development and had replaced the multiple administrative office trailers that originally sat on the land. She remembered beaming with pride at the ribbon cutting ceremony last summer. It was evidence of what her community could do when they came together, united in their purpose. Ever since, she’d had her eyes set on finally getting her program up and running and having it find a home within these walls. As Juniper climbed the expansive front steps, herbody buzzed with energy.
She stopped by the front desk of the building.
“Good morning!” She smiled brightly, as she greeted and handed over the mug of coffee to the very cheerful administrative assistant, Gloria.
“Morning, Junie. You are too kind, my dear.” She took a long sip of her coffee and grinned. “I wish I could bottle up some of that glow about you for myself.”
Juniper splayed out both hands on the tall desk counter in front of her and leaned forward.
“Auntie, I’ve been waiting for this day for so long. I couldn’t be more ready.”
Gloria smiled at her and set her coffee down.
“I know you hate being called resilient, but you have weathered quite a bit of storms to get to this point. I’ve admired watching you keep going. It’s been the highlight of these last few years for me. Here, I wanted to give you something.” Gloria reached into her oversized purse and pulled out a small gift bag. She handed it to Juniper. “Just a little something from me.”
Juniper pulled out the tissue paper from the top of the gift bag, and then held up a lanyard with rows of colorful beads sewn around it in various patterns.
“For your official new ID badge,” Gloria added while lifting up the ID badge she had strung on the beaded lanyard around her own neck. She handed over Juniper’s new badge to go with it.
“Auntie!” Juniper indulged in a squeal as she pulled the lanyard over her head and clipped on the badge. “Now I get to be all official like you.”
“I asked another niece to bead it with the colors of the three sisters, since you were the one who taught me that story and how to plant. I thought that might be special, all things considered Ms. Runapewak Traditional Foods.”
Juniper looked down at the swirls of yellow, orange, green, tan, and brown ascending the lanyard in the way that corn,beans, and squash work together to help each other grow upward.
Their community held the story of the three sisters — their most important agricultural staples and cultural foodway. The story goes that the oldest sister was corn who grew tall and strong to support the development of her two younger sisters. The middle sister was bean, who coiled up the corn stalk to be near her older sister and added nitrogen to the soil. And the youngest was squash, who lay at the feet of her older sisters, cooled the soil, and kept the weeds away. When the sisters were planted together, they nurtured each other like family.
Juniper also thought of her community in a similar way — everyone had a role to play in its protection and in its cultivation. Gloria had played such a significant role in that way for her, whether through advocating for Juniper’s traditional foods program to officially be brought under the Tribe’s administration or for her ability to live openly as a queer woman in a community that hadn’t always been accepting, and in many ways, still had work to do.
Juniper couldn’t really put into words how much that meant to her in that moment. She was so full of happiness and hope she felt like she could burst.
“Let me know if you need anything, dear. I take lunch between 12 and 1, but I’ll be here otherwise.”
“I will,” Juniper responded before squeezing Gloria’s hand and heading to the stairwell.
“Oh, one more thing –”
Juniper looked back and laughed at the alarming way Gloria’s eyes doubled in size in excitement. She mirrored the same look back at her.
“Someone else started today. She looked about your age. Real cute too. She looks like your type.”
“My type?” Juniper laughed again. “Auntie, how do you know my type?”
Gloria’s face twisted up in a sneer. “We all remember Jess.”
Unfortunately, no one would ever let Juniper forget Jess, herlast major relationship with a woman who she found out was an actual, certifiably awful person. Past the breakup, it had dragged on in some kind of a situationship for months where under the completely untrue and fabricated guise ofI’m just using her to get what I want I swear, Juniper just couldn’t fully let her go.
Juniper rolled her hands around in the air to encourage Gloria to get to the point – or at least get past the mention ofher.
In return, Gloria waved a wagging hand down her own body as she curved side to side. “This woman had thatedgeyou like.”
Juniper’s eyebrows creased together from a combination of laughter and cringe. “What kind ofedge?”
“I don’t know, Junie! Don’t try to catch me saying something I’m not supposed to! She had on a button down shirt and fancy shoes that looked like they came from the men’s section, looking all smart and mysterious. Nice hands – I remember you saying something about that. Okay? Or was it forearms.”
