1 / 15

Theresa from Wahpeton

Theresa from Wahpeton. Randi Beardslee. I was born on November 3 rd , 1964. My mother worked as a waitress at the local dairy bar at the time, serving up ice cream cones to the Indians and the whites alike.

holland
Download Presentation

Theresa from Wahpeton

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Theresa from Wahpeton Randi Beardslee

  2. I was born on November 3rd, 1964. My mother worked as a waitress at the local dairy bar at the time, serving up ice cream cones to the Indians and the whites alike.

  3. My mother was white, but I was half Chippewa. My Indian father left to – somewhere – before I had the chance to learn his name. The dichotomy I felt in my own blood was unbearable, at times.

  4. In the morning, I had to decide whether I wanted to braid my hair, or ask my mom to straighten the stubborn waves with the clothing iron.

  5. One day, I picked up a book on zodiac signs at our local library. The older white woman often eyed me with disdain whenever I came around. She scoffed fairly loudly at my book choice on that day.

  6. I discovered that I was a Scorpio. All of the listed characteristics and idiosyncrasies seemed to match me perfectly. I felt a sense of understanding and belonging when I read the book: it knew I was loyal, passionate, and observant.

  7. It also knew my secrets: I could be manipulative, paranoid, and jealous.

  8. Water was my element.

  9. I found a definition of myself that I had longed for my entire life.

  10. An interesting portion of the book outlined the various body parts which the signs were associated with. I discovered that, according to my sun sign, I was most closely connected with my genitals. This, accompanied with how often my sign insisted that I was such a “passionate lover”, disturbed me, but piqued my interest.

  11. As I grew older, my zodiac definition stuck in the back of my mind. I went through puberty, discovered men, and found that I really was a “passionate lover”. At least, that’s what Joseph Migwans told me in his father’s tool shed when I was 15.

  12. Eventually, the men I met and began to “go steady” with didn’t like my passion. They seemed threatened. They found it off-putting, like I was an over-excited dog that wanted her stomach rubbed.

  13. I felt disappointment, like I had done something wrong. So, I abandoned my Scorpio self. I forgot about sexuality. I became a waitress at the dairy bar, with my mother. I dropped out of high school, because that’s what my mother did. And she always turned out just fine.

  14. Then Kyle Olney got me pregnant. And, he left to somewhere, too. And I had a baby, a minimum-wage job, and a mother who hadn’t turned out just fine. Her boyfriend left her and the bottle found her.

  15. In short, I needed money.

More Related