in the winter parka, with the furry-rimmed hood up, and pulled tightly around her face. This particular morning, I saw a familiar figure walking down the street. I’d seen her so many times that I knew her shape, and her slow, steady gait. I knew it was her, even without the parka. She was still wearing the denim skirt, and the shoes with no laces. But, this day, she had on a long-sleeve red top. Bright red. Her hair was long and flowing — mostly silver, but the dark black was still in evidence underneath. As she got closer, I realized I could see her face much more clearly than I could when it was framed by the furred hood of the parka. As I looked, I noticed that her features, while similar to the image of the Babushka, this woman was different: her Native American features where much more obvious. 
I’ll admit to being surprised, but, surprise was short-lived. Rather, it made me contemplate our interconnectedness, how common traits have survived through generations of human evolution. It’s is believed that the earliest people to inhabit North American emigrated across Europe and Russia, crossing into North America from Russia, via the Bering Straights. Every generation we go back, we all get one step closer together, one degree closer in our blood-relationship. Here, in my neighborhood, was this woman who, depending on how she was dressed, was the embodiment of this connection: she’s the image of two separate types of women, but, really, it is more likely that she’s the image of one type of woman who has appeared in various times and places.
Once I realized that she wasn’t Siberian, the Russian princess stories drifted off into the ether. It did, however, seem to increase The Wise Medicine Woman stories I had floating around in my mind. Colorado is prime Native American territory, or, at least it was, once upon a time. Maybe she’s a descendent of the Native Americans who were massacred not too far from here, at Sand Creek. Maybe her relatives were honored warriors. Or, perhaps, she’s descended from a long line of Medicine Men and Women. Maybe her story is metaphor for our treatment of the original natives of this continent: how we took away their land, and rounded them up on barren, desolate soils, leaving a once great nation of tribes to eek out an existence on the reservations, the metaphor playing out with the image of this Wise Woman collecting cans to pay for food.
It’s been five or six years since I first saw The Wise Woman. Whenever I see her, stories and images flash though my mind. And, maybe the stories of her that I’ve imagined are nowhere near the truth of her life. Maybe she’s as average as most of us. Perhaps she was simply a young girl, who studied hard in school, worked hard, and achieved her dream of meeting the perfect man, with whom she had several children, and now has many grandchildren. And, maybe she just collects cans because it makes her feel like she’s doing something useful for the planet.
Whatever her story is, ultimately, her story, just like each of our stories, is The Story of Us All.
That a woman whose ancestors may have lived on that land now collects beer and soda cans produced by the conquering culture in order to feed herself is just too sad to bear. Maybe one day you’ll write a short story about what happened to her, where she went, what she found there, what she left behind.
I love this! I want a Babushka for my own… or to at least read your fanciful stories about her. So get writing!
Thanks for stopping by, and for the compliments. I’m sure you know that we writers are always desperate for approval.
I’ll see what I can do about Babushka stories!