Tag: #canyondechelly

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COVID-19 Report: Vulnerable? Who Me?

Italy in better days, when Italians were allowed to be Italian.

At 66, I find myself branded with a category I never expected at my age. In the days of COVID-19, I feel like I have a sign pinned on my back that says, “over 60 and vulnerable.” I am healthy. I live in a suburban home in a New York State county that as of today has only 63 confirmed cases of the virus (that’s an old news number; 3/27 update: 160), while New York City, where a lot of my family live, has over 9,000 (that’s an old news number; 3/27 update: about 23,000). And let’s not even mention Italy, where a thousand vulnerable citizens died in a day, in part because Italians couldn’t grasp the meaning of social distancing.

My health club is closed on orders from Albany, but I walk 2-4 miles daily. I practice yoga. I confess that I did have a cold this winter, but I can’t remember the last time I had one before that. In short, I certainly don’t feel vulnerable, despite what Dr. Fauci says. (But don’t get me wrong; I thank God for Dr. Fauci.)

Then there’s my husband. His profile checks all the boxes of COVID-19 vulnerability. He’s over 80, diabetic, with a couple of arteries held open by stents. One of his Sunday jobs is organizing his medications for the week. But there he is, taking his daily walks along the nearby canal, cherishing the site of herons diving for fish, the scampering of small dogs on these bright mornings of early spring. He’s not feeling very vulnerable either. Yesterday he got a call from our supermarket pharmacy, which is about a half mile from our house. They called to ask how he was feeling, did he need any medications delivered to our door? “I’m okay,” he said. “I’m really okay.” My husband is from the former Soviet Union. When the call from the pharmacy ended, he said, “Wow. America.”

New York City was different a few weeks ago . . .

The State of New York is essentially under lockdown now. I talk to family and friends often . . . those who live here, in New York, LA, London, North Carolina . . . They’re all okay.

But I’ve been worried about a Navajo friend of mine who also has all the vulnerability boxes checked. Even before COVID-19 took over the news cycle, where I suppose it will remain for the foreseeable future, my friend was in poor health. She’s over eighty, has diabetes, high blood pressure. She lives alone on the rez, and recently, when she’s called for an ambulance for various non-COVID-19 health crises, she was told an ambulance couldn’t reach her due to road conditions. She lives off US Rte. 64 on a road that I’d experienced a couple of years ago on a good weather day. For fans of bumper cars and pogo sticks, the ride to her house is a rollicking good time. Navajo roads are notoriously awful, preventing kids from getting to school, and, in my friend’s case, the sick from getting to a clinic that could help them get well. You can bet that, regardless of her age and underlying health conditions, my friend is not getting any calls from a pharmacy offering to deliver necessary meds to her door.

A solitary steer in Canyon de Chelly. Social distancing is part of the very fabric of being in the Navajo desert.

I check on my friend by email, text or phone from time to time to see how she’s doing, if she has help, if she might be considering accepting care of relatives off the rez. I checked last week as the COVID-19 collective consciousness swelled, and I didn’t hear from her, and so I fretted. When I read that I am “vulnerable,” I want to shout, “Don’t tell me I’m vulnerable! I know who’s vulnerable!”

Social distancing at Costco, standing 6 ft. behind the person in front of me at the checkout line.

I know Britain toyed with ordering “vulnerable seniors” to stay home until July. Then Governor Gavin Newsom mandated that most Californians stay home. My millennial son is coping with this. Our own Governor Cuomo followed Newsom’s lead. And I’m happy to fall in line and stay home (save trips to buy groceries), maintain social distancing, take my walks and do yoga to free videos on YouTube.

But I think about my Navajo friend. Who’s buying her groceries? I wonder. Who’s making sure she’s safe?

Today, my questions were answered, because my friend replied to my text. She is feeling better and is being careful. She has a mask. She wears gloves when she shops. I had asked her if she was alone. She replied that she had too much company, which she defined as “crows that scold . . . hawks that smirk . . . dogs that beg . . . cats that remind her she forgot milk.” With all the frenzy around social distancing in these days, it’s easy to overlook that living a solitary life is not anathema to many who live in the desert, or in the mountains, or maybe around the corner.

My house is situated near an expressway, where there is usually a rush of traffic that, if I can wax romantic, sounds like ocean waves. But there’s very little traffic now. Now, when I step outside, I can hear the chirping of birds . . . every single chirp. So let’s take stock, breathe the fresh air, pitch our ears to sounds we couldn’t hear before, stay connected while living apart. When we eat through our supply of pasta, we can take heart that we’re not in Italy. We’ll adjust. We’ll give virtual hugs and blow virtual kisses. We’ll get through this.

If this is lockdown, I’m ok with it.
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Denny’s is the Best Restaurant in Town

Rock formation in Canyon de Chelly kissing the midday sun
Canyon de Chelly: A Light Shines on the Navajo Past and Present

When we saw “Salisbury Steak” listed on the cafeteria “Specials” board at the Thunderbird Lodge near Canyon de Chelly, my sister logged into Trip Advisor for restaurant recommendations.

This wasn’t my first time in Chinle, so I was rather amused at the oxymoronic concept that Chinle appeared in the headline of  anyone’s “Best Restaurants” list. The last time I was in this small town in Navajoland, the restaurant of choice for the locals was the A&W.

Based on Trip Advisor ranking, my sister, niece and I went to The Junction, and we ate what we ordered until our hunger subsided. We’d had a full breakfast in Cortez, been on the road since morning, and it was now after 7 PM. There isn’t much to say about the restaurant Trip Advisor designated as No. 1 in Chinle except for one remarkable thing. Earlier in the day, a friend had read us a poem about the disappearance of black hairnets, but it was clear at The Junction that black hairnets hadn’t disappeared at all from Navajoland. Rather, they had swarmed onto the heads of the restaurant’s busy servers like delegates at a national hairnet convention.

In the morning, Dave Wilson, our Navajo guide into Canyon de Chelly, pointed out the new Denny’s sign on the way to the park. Denny’s  beamed out its shiny red and yellow welcome high above the essential emptiness that is Chinle.

“It opened last year,” Dave Wilson said. Though his tone betrayed no excitement, the fact that he mentioned it at all gave us a clue that perhaps we should go there before leaving town.

Exterior photo of Denny's in Chinle, Navajoland
Denny’s in Chinle, Navajoland

“You know, the good Mexican place closed down,” Dave said, and I wondered if the Mexican place he was talking about was where I had a Navajo taco back in 1980.

Dave Wilson and his family have a long history in Chinle and in the Canyon. They were the cultural consultants on the video shown at the Canyon de Chelly Visitor Center. Dave still nurtures fruit trees on the canyon floor—“peaches, pears, apples . . .couldn’t do grapefruit or oranges, though. Not enough year round heat.” He pointed out his house on a small rise in town.

Dave’s father lived to the ripe old age of 102. Dave sighed after he told us this, betraying that reaching a milestone like that didn’t happen much anymore. “We didn’t know about drugs back then. Drugs and alcohol . . . that’s what the kids know.” In the canyon, Dave explained that the tribe had to take down the wooden ladders that tourists used to climb to the ruins in the rocks. “We got to protect,” he said. “There’s vandalism. We got to protect the homes of the ancients.”

My niece asked Dave about Kit Carson and the atrocities he led against the Navajo in the canyon in the 1860s. “He was a friend to a lot of tribes,” Dave said. “Cheyenne, Arapaho. He was a scout. Then the US government paid him a lot of money to round us up. He starved us. He blocked us off in the winter with boulders.”

I tried to wrap my head around the fact that Canyon de Chelly, one of the most spectacular and spiritual places on earth, had been the Navajos’ Warsaw Ghetto.

“He retired comfortably up in Taos, you know,” Dave continued about old Kit. “He settled down, had fun, watched his videos.”

Petroglyphs on a sunlit rock in Canyon de Chelly
The rocks with tell their tales long after we’re gone

The Navajo signed a treaty and made it back to their borders marked by the four sacred mountains in 1868.

And now there’s a Denny’s as bright as day in Chinle. We had lunch there. Its hostess was cheerful and cheering. “I need to tell you it may take 30 minutes for your food to come out, because we’re so busy,” she said. We assured her that was fine.

The patrons were mostly Navajo. A health care worker sat at the table across from us. She wore a crisp, colorful uniform designed to brighten a patient’s mood. She was wearing a red ribbon HIV awareness pin. The health center in Chinle is a big employer. “160 beds,” Dave told us.

Our Denny’s server was energetic and eager to please. I had a club sandwich, and, compared to my hamburger at The Junction, my Denny’s sandwich was a piece of heaven. Make note: Denny’s now sits at No. 4 on the Trip Advisor’s “Chinle’s Best” list.

Red Beautyway Tours jeep and my niece in Canyon de Chelly
My niece ponders the dramatic history of the canyon

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A Senior Citizen Returns to Navajoland

The author in her youth, sitting in the shade in Canyon de Chelly, Navajoland
Me, age 20 something, resting in the shade in Canyon de Chelly, Navajoland, 1980

After graduating from Vassar College in 1975 with a degree in Sociology, I moved to a village on the Navajo Nation outside of Gallup, New Mexico to teach at an elementary school. After leaving the village, I moved around New Mexico and Arizona, always remaining within day-trip distance from Navajoland and its sacred spaces, for several years more.

During my itinerant time in the Southwest, I was an editor at a regional press, a contributor to a curriculum project led by Gloria Emerson for Navajo Nation elementary schools, and an employee of a marginally dubious publishing brainchild of Forrest Fenn (of recent “Fenn Treasure” fame).

I reluctantly but abruptly left the region in 1982 to head back East. But Navajoland, and the Navajo people who’ve called it home for over 1000 years, have remained my muses to this day. I’ve written about the region (published a “Santa Fe” novel back in the day), but in my elder years, I find myself focussing on Navajoland and its people, who first inspired me to take pen to paper.

Nearing the age of 65 in the spring of 2018,  I travelled to Navajoland to reconnect with old Navajo friends and old feelings about what I have come to understand is as this Jewish American girl’s Jerusalem. It is in this parched yet glorious part of the United States where I am touched by an eternal landscape that breathes its ancient power, where I am touched by the Navajo people who  continue to live up to its challenge and strive to reflect its holiness.

Petroglyphs on a sunlit rock in Canyon de Chelly, Navajoland
The rocks tell their stories

A confession:  I am a privileged visitor who can bask in the sacred spaces of Navajoland,  physically and psychically, at my pleasure.  But Diné, the Navajo people, struggle to maintain balance, harmony, and beauty, the Navajo ideal of sa’ah naaghai bik’eh hozho (long life happiness) in their parched homeland.

The Navajo are plagued with diseases relatively new to them, like cancer and diabetes, from their uranium mining past and the drastic lifestyle changes of today. There is little for their livestock to eat, little opportunity to see beyond a day to day struggle. 

I write now in prayer and love and hope that the beautiful and indeed holy Navajo people can dwell in sa’ah naaghai bik’eh hozho far into the future.

The author on horseback today, in Monument Valley, Navajoland
In Monument Valley, 2018, reconnecting . . .