This, Not That
A Lesson from the Potawatomi Flood Story
This, not that.
This moment.
This variant.
This missed holiday.
This gathering.
This worry.
This extra zoom meeting.
Not that “normality”.
Not that holiday.
Not that beloved one.
Not that celebration.
Not that milestone.
Not that hug.
Not that moment on the airplane.
Today I stopped to consider what the word variant actually means. The definition is: a form or version of something that differs in some respect from other forms of the same thing or from a standard.
We have faced a variant of COVID, and now we face another.
And really, when you think about it, this entire time has been variant time— a year and a half of some other kind of life than what we knew before.
I know better than to say that we need that “return to normality” because we know that the status quo of “normal” often means that poor, immunocompromised, disabled, and minority communities are most oppressed.
It’s not a return to “normal” but a turn toward something else.
But while we are waiting for that turn, we sit in the variant reality.
I write about the Potawatomi flood story in my book Native, and this time we are living in reflects it. Just as Original Man and the animals waited for a new world, we are waiting for a new beginning, for a new world.
You can read the full story here, but I want to point out this part:
One time, long ago, the Creator Mamogosnan flooded the Earth. Original man, known as Wiske, was floating in the water along with all the Earth’s other animals. To stay afloat, they each climbed onto a large log that had been carried by the current.
Wiske, tired of hanging onto the log in the cold water, decided that they needed some land to rebuild the Earth.
Just like Wiske was ready to begin again, we are ready to begin again. We want That, not This. But for now, This is what we’ve got. We’ve got a new variant to deal with. We’ve got less hugs and gatherings. We’ve got to protect one another. We’ve got the fear of the unknown. We’ve got the cold water on our legs and a floating log and the lack of imagination for what the world might look like again.
But don’t lose heart. The story doesn’t end there. Two creatures joined the work to create a new world for Original Man and the animals: Zheshko, Muskrat, and Mshike, Turtle.
As the story goes, Muskrat dives to the very bottom of the water and brings back dirt, sacrificing their life to give us all life. And this is what happens next:
Mshike the Turtle, had watched all of this happen and was touched by Zheshko’s sacrifice and offered his shell as the platform to rebuild the Earth. Through Mshike and Zheshko’s efforts, the Earth began to form on the shell and grew larger and larger. Eventually all the animals were able to leave the log and walk onto the newly formed land that was built on Mshike the Turtle’s back.
We may not have That yet, but while we’ve got This, don’t forget to ask who’s holding you here. As the new world is born, what dreams will come forth?