You can too go home again and when you get there you will be welcomed and will be asked if you would like to Go to water. Cherokees, l can attest to this happening for me.
Once each of the last 3 quarters of a century, Fraysers have revisited the Cherokee homelands and had life changing experiences. The first of us to return were my parents who rode along with Original Allottees to meet their relatives who had remained in the homelands. I went alone for the next visit where the waterfall’s mist mixed with my own tears. Then last month my son and I experienced our return together because of Loren Waters’ short film, Meet Me at the Creek. It was chosen to be shown by the Museum of the Cherokee in Cherokee, North Carolina and she and I were asked to speak on panels about the film.
Dana Jim and I landed in Chattanooga, rented a car and without a map headed east toward the mountains of our ancestors. Thomas Wolfe is quoted to have written, “Home is not just a place, it’s a feeling that lingers deep within your soul.” And as we proceeded undaunted forward to discover the places of our legends, where our origin stories began, our first feeling was to follow the signs to a place called “Red Clay.” We did not know we would be solemnly asked if we would like to “go to water.” We found ourselves kneeling down beside a spring the color of the sky and wept spontaneously. That spring that absolutely all of our trailed relatives must have gone to before being forced to leave for Indian Territory. The sorrow that would have been felt we felt in our souls.
There are hundreds of stories to tell about our experiences on this trip but around every bend of the rivers, and each mountain we neared, to quote Thomas Wolfe again, we found, “Every corner of our home has a story to tell.” Where Legends Live: A Pictorial Guide to Cherokee Mythic Places became our guide to those places.
As the film screening event was winding down, we met the reigning Ms Cherokee for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians who suggested we find the Judaculla Rock, as it was the most visible relic of our ancient people. The petroglyphs on the rock are said to be the marks made by the slant-eyed giant Tsulkala by his feet when he leaped from the mountain down to the creek bank. The roads finally took us to a single lane on a farmer’s land, who understood the importance of the stone and had actually taken it on himself to build a ramp system to allow travelers easier access to see and learn about the stone and the significance of it to Cherokees.
Along side the entrance to the stone’s visitation the farmer had placed a familiar object: A Little Free Library filled snuggly with books. I hadn’t thought to open the door, but the title of one of the books caught my eye, You Can’t Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe. I had heard of that book but never seen a copy, never had one YELL AT ME to take it. But having felt this, I opened the door and pulled it out. My son and I were walking to our car, when another vehicle came up that lonely road, and a couple got out to see the Judaculla Stone. We spoke across the way to what we believed were fellow Cherokees, and sure enough they woke up the day before and decided to drive all the way to find this place, from where? Claremore, OK.
Don Williams is the country singer and my favorite song of his was “Good Ole Boys Like Me,” in which there is a line in a verse that kept running through my head after picking up that darn Little Free Library book, when he sang,
“Nothing makes a sound in the night like the wind does…
The smell of cape jasmine through the window screen,
John R. and The Wolfman kept me company
By the light of the radio by my bed,
With Thomas Wolfe whispering in my head.”
I didn’t want to write about this trip until I finished that 600+ page book. I wondered if he would be whispering in my head. Some, but more so were my rememberings of that trip and the places of our origin stories, the rivers, the mountains and knowing Thomas Wolfe really didn’t get that right.
You can go home again and if you make it to the Stomp Dance when they ask where you are from and you say, Oklahoma, you will hear from the heart the words, “Welcome Home” and know you are home.
Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim
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