Member-only story
Echolocation of The Soul
Women in the Cherokee society were equal to men. They could earn the title of War Women and sit in councils as equals. This privilege led an Irishman named Adair who traded with the Cherokee from 1736–1743 to accuse the Cherokee of having a “petticoat government”.
The women owned the houses and their furnishings. Marriages were carefully negotiated, but if a woman decided to divorce her spouse, she simply placed his belongings outside the house…
— pridenative.com
*
After we were almost grown, after he was almost retired from his life at the phone company where he spent decades in a commuter train traveling to a cubicle to support his family…. after every brick of our house settled into the mortar and everything was finally paid off, my father realized his lifelong dream. He bought a boat….
The boat whispered yes, yes, — you can be happy…
But to my mother the boat was a mistress in a red dress. She saw tiny hooks that barely held the breasts of the temptress in the fabric. She saw the rudder as taking my father in one direction — away from her….
Within one season, and just a few times out on the ocean, my father gave up on his dream, and sold the boat….