Contact us at: whispernthunder1@gmail.comSage Bear's Quest Beyond the Reservation
~ Daniella James
Early morning light cast long shadows racing across the Apache reservation's parched ground as Sage Bear paced the porch beside her family's simple dwelling, a small suitcase clutched tightly in her hand. She was nineteen and had never been farther than the borders of the only world she had ever known, but today would change all that forever.
"You have your grandmother's spirit," her mother whispered, securing the turquoise necklace around Sage's neck as a farewell present to remind her of home. "Courageous and curious."
Sage swallowed hard, her throat closing up with emotion. The reservation had shaped her, taught her the ways of her ancestors, but something within her yearned for more. She wanted to see the world her textbooks had only hinted at.
The trip to the Phoenix airport was a haze of desert and nerves. Inside the terminal, Sage was like a learning child, fumbling with boarding passes and security. Each step was unfamiliar, yet exhilarating.
"First time on a plane?" an older woman in the seat beside asked as the plane prepared for takeoff.
"First time out of Arizona," Sage replied with a soft smile.
The woman smoothed out her hand. "The world has waited for you, dear."
California greeted Sage with a song of strange feelings. Pacific Ocean air scented with sea salt enveloped her as she stood along the Santa Monica shore, waves washing over her toes. She laughed at full volume, arms flailing, as if embracing vastness before her. This water, so foreign in contrast to the curative springs of home, spoke of infinite possibility.
She noted in her journal that evening: The ocean is like our creation stories—strong, old, and mysterious. I am both small and endless when I stand before it.
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Sage stepped out of a bright yellow cab into canyon-like streets one year later. The reservation had prepared her for navigating by star. Here she walked past giant skyscrapers and the ceaseless flow of humanity.
"You're hogging the sidewalk," grumbled a businessman in a rush.
The city's coarseness surprised her initially, but then she discovered patches of humanity such as the Dominican family that owned the bodega outside her hostel. They taught her Spanish phrases. Here the street musicians sounded like ritual music but with contemporary beats. The New York City public library was so large where worlds had worlds.
From the top of the Empire State Building, Sage gazed down not at a city but a canvas of dreams and stories. The reservation was home forever, but her heart was expanding large enough to embrace more.
Mexico was next—her first foreign trip. The crossing was a big thing, a threshold between the known and unknown. In Oaxaca, colors were more vivid, flavors more intense. Sage was drawn to the markets where families had sold their wares for centuries.
"You have to taste this mole," a grandmother at one booth said, holding out a sample in gnarled hands that brought Sage's own grandmother to mind.
What struck her most was the way families spent evenings in the evenings in the zócalo, talking, laughing, sharing. Nobody stared at their phones. Children played while the elders sat by and spun tales. It was like tribal gatherings, but different—the Spanish words flowing like music.
"Americans always rush," said Miguel, a local guide who had taken her under his wing. "Here, we know time is for connection."
Sage wrote in her journal: Perhaps the world isn't divided by borders so much as by those who remember the humanity in people's eyes and those who forget.
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Puerto Rico came as a surprise, sweetened by having convinced her college friend Chrissy to join her on her adventure.
"I wouldn't have been able to say no to this," Chrissy admitted as they strolled through El Yunque rainforest, the air thick with water and life.
When their rental vehicle broke down on a remote road just outside Rincón, Sage freaked out for a moment. In a matter of minutes, a local family had stopped, diagnosed the problem, and invited them to dinner while a cousin repaired their vehicle.
"Why are they being so nice to us?" Chrissy asked softly. "They don't even know us."
Sage smiled, remembering such gestures of kindness toward strangers on the reservation. "Perhaps this is what the world is supposed to be like."
Evening dinner on their hosts' porch, sitting to watch as the sunset color the sky in hues impossible to capture, the family spoke stories of survival after Hurricane Maria—of neighbors saving neighbors, of communities caring for each other when systems failed them.
"We had nothing," their host, Elena, replied, "but we had each other. And somehow, that was everything."
That evening, after waves crashed against the beach outside their guesthouse, Sage and Chrissy spoke into the night.
"Do you think it's naive to believe the world can be good?" Chrissy asked.
Sage envisioned the reservation. Then she envisioned the sea along the California coast, the libraries of New York, the Mexican plazas becoming crowded with families assembling, and the helping hands of Puerto Rico.
"I think the world is not good or bad," Sage eventually replied. "It's a mirror that reflects what we bring to it. My grandmother taught me we all have medicine—the power to heal. The choice is ours."
In her journal that night, Sage penned: The reservation will always be my center, but I'm realizing that home isn't a place. It's a feeling you create wherever you are. Every person I've met has a piece of truth with them. Every place has some kind of magic. The world breaks your heart and puts it back together, sometimes at the same time. And somehow, that's just the way it is supposed to be.
As she closed her journal, Sage touched the turquoise necklace around her neck, feeling the presence of the generations that preceded her—women who perhaps had hoped to see beyond their own horizons. She was keeping their hopes alive, and bringing home stories that would become part of her people's continuing journey.
From the novel Jane Eyre: The world, she discovered, was big. Yet it was full of surprise, sweetness, and loveliness for the brave enough to look.