All the Names This Country Has Earned

We don’t fit in here.

I wear my kelly green “Read books. Walk dogs. Fight fascists” teeshirt to the condo community’s parade. My husband wears purple. Nuala, true to her Pyrenees breed, is way too hot, and she couldn’t care less that it’s the fourth of July and everyone in this made-for-summer place is wearing their red, white, and blue.

We don’t fit in here.
But, of course we do.

We don’t have the money or the status of the second homeowners (my dad and stepmother are of the small cadre of year-rounders), but we’ve got just as many degrees and all the privilege that comes with “being from here.”

I was born on Cape Cod. I come back here for weeks every summer. The tides and winds and sands of this place anchors a vital part of me.

But I wouldn’t call myself a native Cape Codder. That word is not mine to own. Not when I know I can squint through the haze and look across the Bay to what we now call First Encounter Beach where the Wampanoag People and the Pilgrims from England met for the first time.

As soon as I finish writing this, I will trade my teeshirt for a bathing suit and head down to the beach, with Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God tucked into my canvas bag. I hope you’ll spend part of your day with Kaitlin today, too: To Fall from the Sky, To Cross Over the Sea: Stories and Conversation with Kaitlin Curtice just came out on KnotWork Myth & Storytelling.

I hope you already know Kaitlin Curtice and her Substack pub, The Liminality Journal. Kaitlin is an author, poet, storyteller, and citizen of the Potawatomi Nation. She joined me on KnotWork to tell the story of Giizhgokwe, Sky Woman, the first human to set foot on the place that would be known as Turtle Island.

Listen Now

Kaitlin has been writing a lot about Indigenous grief, particularly as we mark 250 years of the United States. I’m so grateful to be able to bring you her stories and her perspectives this particular week.

In this episode you’ll learn the Potawatomi term for this land is Mshike Minis (Turtle Island), but the word for the country that was founded on it is Chemokmankik, which loosely translates as “land of the long butchering knives.”

I get that knowing this is uncomfortable. It stirs up even more feelings than being someone in their patriotic Old Navy gear meeting a woman in a green teeshirt that says “fascists” on it on the fourth of July, but I think being American demands that we witness all the names our country has earned over its history.

As with everything I know of Kaitlin’s work, there is such heart and presence woven into the most difficult truths. I promise that listening to her stories and visions will only enhance your ability to play your part to bring this country closer to the 1776 ideals that are still waiting to be realized.