Chapter 1 #2
Responsibility, not just to her family, but to her community was woven deeply into Juniper’s DNA.
Her primary focus was always on what she could do to take care of others.
She hoped to expand the new traditional foods program to break down even more barriers to accessing traditional food.
Especially for Elders who didn’t always have reliable transportation, the Runapewak needed a way to actually distribute the food to the community.
She dreamed about repurposing the food truck for that, but she was also realistic.
Pragmatic almost to a fault, after a lifetime of serving as the family problem solver, the mediator, the unstoppable people pleaser, the one who despite all of those aforementioned titles feared more than anything else a life without her own personal fulfillment.
She would have to put that dream off for a long time.
One day.
After showering and grabbing a strawberry shortcake ice cream bar from the freezer, Juniper clicked on the small television as she sat down across from her mom at their kitchen table and breathed in the scent of cornbread sizzling in a cast iron skillet on the stove.
She lifted her feet up to rest on the chair beside her.
Juniper and Anita shared a small but cozy trailer on their land allotment on the Runapewak Indian Tribe Reservation.
A river cut through the top of the 5-square mile Reservation, their Rez as they called it, leading out to the bay that flanked its outer edge.
The Rez was small, sparsely occupied, and equal parts rural and coastal.
It was where she had learned everything; it was who she was.
Even though so many people from there dreamt about leaving, and to be fair she had at one point too, she couldn’t imagine that now.
Not after everything her community had worked to build over the last ten years.
Not after everything she’d built over the last seven.
“Junie, is that Rowan Birdsong on the tv?” Anita asked.
Juniper’s eyes shot up to the screen. She hadn’t been paying attention to where her mom had stopped flipping the channel. And when she looked up, she saw her. She let out an exasperated sigh.
“Yep. Sure is.”
“Wow, our little Ro on national tv. What’s it saying, I can’t read the captions,” Anita asked as she squinted at the text, her nose wrinkling up to displace the glasses that were clearly no longer useful.
“Rowan Birdsong, climate justice lawyer and international Indigenous environmental rights advocate, joins our show today to talk about honoring Indigenous leadership and traditional ecological knowledge in the global climate justice movement.”
Juniper couldn’t help the sarcastic drawl her tone had taken towards the end.
She had followed Rowan’s rise to national prominence as a climate justice lawyer with absolute disdain, to put it lightly.
Immediately after high school, Rowan had left to attend a prestigious university with a full ride scholarship without so much as a goodbye, even though they had spent nearly every day of their childhoods together.
Juniper had seen her at a distance from time to time on school breaks when Rowan visited her father, but she didn’t make her presence known to anyone.
On the off chance when Juniper had seen her around at the gas station or dollar store, Rowan couldn’t even make eye contact.
At this point, she wasn’t even sure the last time she had even seen her around the community.
“Is that like what you do, Junie? With the traditional foods program?” Anita asked.
Juniper barked out a sharp laugh. “No, not at all.”
“Ayy, ok ok. No need to get snappy.” Anita cut her eyes at her.
“Sorry, it’s just that what I do is for the good of the community. What she does is to get national, and I guess now international, praise for environmental work that benefits no one directly.”
“Hmm,” Anita paused, pressed her lips together, and looked curiously at Juniper. “Even after fifteen years.”
The subtext of why Anita felt the need to hint that was left unsaid.
“Yes, even after fifteen years.” She pleaded with her eyes to drop the subject.
Anita didn’t push further. She loved her daughter too much, even through her flaws, to intentionally press on her pain points. She looked back to the television.
“Well, she’s always been a smart girl. I wonder why she keeps her hair so short though. She always had the most beautiful hair.”
Juniper had to at least admit that was true.
Her eyes flicked back to the screen, and she allowed herself a few seconds to watch.
Who she saw on the screen was so different from who she had known.
Even though her irritation had absolutely nothing to do with the way her appearance had changed so much, her eyes were still drawn to the perfectly side-swept waves that traced along the top of her perfectly-arched eyebrow before stopping at the closely cropped sides that provided the perfect frame for her perfectly-rounded cheekbones.
Rowan looked directly into the camera. Juniper drew in a sharp breath and held it.
She averted her eyes to a random spot on a kitchen cabinet she started burning a hole into.
Juniper’s rational brain knew the sudden eye contact was to emphasize a point or do some call to action, something Rowan was so irritatingly good at doing to an audience.
But her irrational brain felt like it had been caught red-handed thinking things she had forbidden of herself a long time ago.
“That’s what happens when you move away from your home and do everything you can to forget who you are.” Juniper voiced into the open, finally exhaling.
Her mind drifted despite her best intentions for it not to.
After powwows as a teenager, Juniper loved taking out Rowan’s braids.
Her raven-colored hair was so long and full it hung past her waist by the time they were seniors in high school.
It was Juniper’s favorite thing to do, watching the golden hour light in the late summer afternoons shine onto the warm sun-kissed highlights at the tips of Rowan’s hair that appeared after a long summer spent in the sun.
With nimble fingers and soft, careful movements, she would meticulously unbraid each strand and comb her fingers through the waves.
She felt a sudden turn of uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. This was not her idea of unwinding after a long day, especially not seeing so blatantly how differently their lives had turned out over the last fifteen years. She snatched the remote and flipped the channel.
◆◆◆
“Alright, Rowan, thanks for coming on today,” Diego Reyes, the highly-rated political talk show host of Diego Reyes Reports, announced as Rowan unclipped the lapel mic from her charcoal gray suit jacket and placed the mic pack on the table.
As a semi-regular guest on the show, the two had developed a rapport over their advocacy of spotlighting and elevating the voices of marginalized and affected groups in public policy commentary.
“Absolutely. Thanks for having me again.”
“What a compelling segment. You know for someone who claims to be so introverted, you sure do morph into a confident and rather eloquent public speaker when the time comes.”
Rowan smirked in self-consciousness as she drew her stack of speaking notes off of the studio desk. “All the lawyer-ly training.”
That and the opportunity to advocate for climate justice movements led by Indigenous people worldwide.
Diego conceded with a chuckle and a head nod.
The daughter of a fisherman, Rowan knew firsthand how negligent – and sometimes downright corrupt – public policy could affect the daily lives and livelihood of those who depend on natural resources to make a living.
She had seen the look of fear and hopelessness in her father Victor’s eyes when the water quality of the bay started affecting oyster colony growth and bass, trout, and catfish spawning.
She also remembered the struggle meals they shared during those times when he had to sell all of the seafood or fish he caught that day and couldn’t afford to bring any home.
She still couldn’t stomach instant ramen, of any flavor.
And don’t even mention any kind of potted meat.
“I always appreciate you sharing the perspectives of Indigenous peoples’ rights and equity in climate justice. I think our viewers need to hear that information. Hopefully the platform you’re building gains more traction before the earth reaches the point of no return.”
“Thank you, but you know I can’t take credit for building the platform, Diego. This is the result of many, many people over generations. I’m just happy to be one voice in the movement.”
She truly was never one for the limelight, never one to use many words or seek external validation and praise. And more importantly, she still clung to the cultural teachings she received in her upbringing about humility and deference to those who have come before you.
“Still, your voice always makes such an impact on the viewers when you join the show. The comments we receive are some of the best after your segments. You seem to have a special way of making people want to shut up and listen to what some would consider radical. You make it palatable to the average American.”
“Thanks. Being palatable is my specialty,” she joked, folding her notes in quarters to slide them into her suit jacket pocket.
With a chuckle, Diego asked, “What’s your next move then?
I saw in your press kit you’re leaving Climate Justice Collective.
I’m a little more than shocked you’re choosing now of all times to leave the organization you founded.
The world needs an entirely BIPOC-led climate justice organization now more than ever. ”
“Well the organization isn’t going anywhere–”