I can’t explain #NoDapl to you.

I’m in Grand Forks North Dakota, sitting at a booth I spent uncountable hours at, writing, reading, and grading. I’m back here now years after that education, after traveling the five hours from the #NoDapl resistance camps to Grand Forks to visit my family. The last time I visited my family was when the Morton County Sheriff announced that they would be implementing a road block on Highway 1806. The language eventually changed to an “Info” Check point, and eventually the National Guard would smile and wave as they advised you that further south an unfolding protest was occurring.. “Did you know?” I left the camps at that time because I was worried of what would come next. The narrative the Sheriff was laying out of unverified reports of pipebombs, reports of gun shots in the area, a laser pointer at an overhead plane. Even though the pipebombs and gunshots were unverified, it was was enough for them to block a road, and open the door for more aggressive police tactics. It scared me. It scared me in that way that i didn’t know if I’d actually get a chance to see my family again. I didn’t know what would come, but I knew it would get bad. It would get worse. And it has.

I’m writing you to tell you that I can’t explain #NoDapl to you. I mean I can, I can sit and write it out, but in the end you’ll still have to explain it to yourself, and you’ll place the information into your bank of knowing and see what pieces fit your truth.

I arrived from the camps to my home at 6pm, and my mother tried to embrace me but I asked her to wait so I could shower. My nephew sprinted out of his room and twirled around the living room jumping. I smiled at him. I went to the bathroom, peeled off the clothes I’d been wearing for over a couple weeks, and jumped into the shower. I let the water pour over my body. I probably wept, but I don’t know.

After the shower I went into the living room and hugged my family, my mother, my father, my nephew. As I hugged my nephew he pointed at the table at the paper plate where he wrote “Welcome Home Lorenzo,” and made a smiley face out of sandwiched vanilla wafers glued together by frosting. “It’s for you!” He smiled at me and I held him trying to hold back everything, every damn thing, and just wanted that moment for a minute. He went to his room and I ate cookies. I did take a picture that I decided not to post. I just wanted to hold it in my mind a little, let it dig itself into my heart to stay.

I think about children a lot. And I guess maybe that’s how i’ll try to explain #NoDapl to you today. I’ve spent a lot of time at the camps. I’ve spent the majority of my life since August 9th, till now, at those camps. I spent enough time there for my personal relationships to shred as I just worked and lived to try to bring out something that people could see and hear. There’s a lot of reasons…

I’m sitting on my haunches trying to tell myself what I can be doing, and around me, people are moving from point a to b, they’re carrying tools, to build, to chop lumber, they’re carrying food, they’re carrying eachother. Everyone is moving and working, because a camp is a living place that needs people for it to live, they need everyone to do something for the camp, or it’ll stop. So I’m watching these people move, and they’re warriors you know? A warrior, as far as it has been described to me, is someone who fights for their people and also supports their people, and sometimes a warrior is just carrying food to the elders of the camp. Now imagine camo pants, and jackets, knives at their sides and hatchets, remind yourself, that a knife and a hatchet is a tool, that’s pretty useful when you’re cutting wood, and cutting rope to length and the their countless other uses. They go across the center of camp on their way to their next task, followed by the next, and across the front of them a small tornando of children swirl into their path. Their play and laughter stopping the person in their tracks. The kids demand that the person plays with them. And they do. They stop and listen to the kids, and suddenly one’s latched to each leg, another across their back and they spin across the center of camp laughing until their a puddle of bodies squirming in delight. Then the person picks up their tasks and lets the kids know they have to go to where they were going. The kids pout a little and they see their next mark a group of matriarchs deep in conversation strolling across the camp, and boom they intercept, and the women stop and listen intently as the kids explain this game or that, or how they wished they had this or that, and the women nod, some play for a bit, then they carry on. I’ve watched this interaction so many times. Each person stopping to listen as the children explain their world to them. They listen, bent over with their hands on their knees and I watch them nod intently.

This sticks with me. My experience in most spaces, protest space, left spaces, right spaces, spaces out in the western world, was to put those kids somewhere. You put them in daycare, you put them at the babysitters, you put them aside and away. So the adults can go about their important adult business. I watch these people stop and give the kids their time without hesitation and each one of them is about an important task, each is at something that makes everyones lives in the camp easier, but each stops, and listens to the children before moving on.

I’m sitting in a hotel room with a young women, I don’t know her age, because I’ve never seen a reason to ask, and we’re chatting the movement some. Where this part began, what happened here. And I tell her that I’m worried that one day they’ll just come and an evict the camps. She nods, and says they fear what we’ve created. I ask her to explain. She says that how we live, how we live is frightening to them. I let that wind around my skull and want to laugh. I want to laugh because i’m so concerned that they’re getting ready to get rid of everyone because they fear more people going out onto the worksites, they fear the constant disruptions and just want to finish their pipeline tally their costs and go onto the next money making project. This young women just says, no, we don’t live like people live out there, and she waves her hand away. I think of all those adults giving their time to the kids, how theirs just food around, shelter, a constant care and checking in, and she’s right. We don’t live like people do out there.

I’m on the side of a hill. A sacred place where ancestors were buried, and they’re hundreds of people around me with their meager protections, wooden shields plastics lids, the occasional respirator; above us the police in their shiny helmets and shiny guns lob tear gas onto us. I’m holding a microphone and wearing sunglasses and my eyes are streaming from the gas–I can’t breath. Eventually everything clears up and everyone around me is lining up staring up at the steep angle. I hear the line communicate, I hear them tell eachother that they can do this, that they can take this hill, they can do it together. Everyone on the line is unarmed, some have shields, some goggles, a mismatch of protective gear, above them a line of riot cops aim orange shotguns down on them, and wait to see if they’ll come. The cops hold pepper spray canisters that look like fire extinguishers, they wait. I can’t explain what I was feeling. I was in awe a bit. The odds were ridiculous, every advantage was in the polices favor, every single one, but the people formed their line, and yelled, “Inch by Inch, we take this back inch by inch.” Eventually an elder would walk in front and tell everyone to go back, to not disrespect the dead. Anguish played along the line, someone yells the dead are staring at us proudly. Eventually everyone backs down and appeases the elders pleas. I tell you that story so you know they would have gone. They would have walked up that hill into that police meat grinder.

Right now I’m visiting my family again. And I’m visiting my family again for the same reason I left the last time. There’s a December 5th timeline created. The police plan to stop supplies tot he camp. The weather is turning to North Dakota winter, recently a young woman’s forearm was blown clean of flesh by some police munition, humans were doused in water in 20 degree temperature, countless tear gas canisters and rubber bullets, blood stained the cement and frozen grass in front of the police line. It was a Sunday. The camp is still there, the people are still there despite a winter storm. They, the countless tribes have already experienced much worse. Hundreds of years of much worse. And I hear the sound of their smiles in the cold as they say that it’s nothing, nothing their ancestors haven’t already endured. I know I’ll be back amongst them all, the families, the elders, the children, the warriors and mothers. I’ll be back amongst the Water Protectors, because i don’t know what will happen. But I am worried. Worried enough to come home and tell my family i love them and to let them hold me as I hold them, and prepare to head back to see what happens.

Thanks for reading this. I wanted to just try to write something and this is what turned out. I rarely have time to write, because everything is so constant…

All love,
Lorenzo Serna

#NoDAPL Water Protectors Tear Gassed by Police During Attempt to Reclaim Sacred Burial Site from Unicorn Riot on Vimeo.