Who is Kirsten van der Geest?

Kirsten was born to Lucy Dreamweaver in Sioux territory on the smallest and poorest reservation. Her earliest memory is of the songs her mother’s friends brothers and sister’s would sing when drunk on lysol whiskey and glue. Her brother was born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and drowned while swimming with Kirsten in a blow-up pool in their backyard. As an adult and throughout her life Kirsten always blamed herself for his death. She is no stranger to pain, her mother believed in the rod and often beat Kirsten with a belt buckle and her favourite stick. Kirsten never knew her father, her mother though used to often swear at him in her sleep. Years later Kirsten found a photograph and since then burned it. When the house were full of sad drunks partying to PinkFloyd and Gracie Slick and Elvis Kirsten’s great-grandmother would usher her and her little sister to a shack down the road. There her Great-grandma would make traditional tea and frybread, Kirsten would stay up and listen to stories her Nana would tell while stroking her sleeping sister’s hair. Even though she endured her mother’s visitation late at night, where she would lie still whilel her mom touched her ‘down there’…Kirsten never lost her spirit. There were good times. There was a community….blood was thicker than water and no matter where she went she was welcome. Her beloved Nana would teach her the old beliefs, even gave her a naming song which Kirsten has only sung once…she keeps it in her heart, where she knows it is safe. One night when she was 15 her mother found her ***** video collection. Kirsten for the first time physically defended herself from Lucy Dreamweaver. After her mother hit her in the head with a wine bottle Kirsten punched her mom in the nose and fled. At the edge of the reservation she looked back at her birthplace. Her heart ached to go back…to get her little sister, who would wake up the next morning and wonder where her big sister…her ‘hero’…had gone. Kirsten wanted to go back and see her Nana, but she felt inh er heart that her Nana would know….Nana would burn sweetgrass and sing a prayer for her. So Kirsten left walking into the night and the unknown…her chest aching with each mile. Kirsten would never blame her mother….her mother had been through ***** and survived the only way she knew how. She used to be herself, she used to have dreams of the future….but an incident Kirsten would never know of changed all that, that incident changed Lucy and she was never the same again. Kirsten walked on, and on…till a red pick-up truck came ambling along, Kirsten raised her hand and thumbed it down. The driver was an old man with a pot belly, he was kind, he gave Kirsten a hundred dollars before dropping her off in the city. This was Kirsten’s first time in a city. Kirsten had grown t be a beautiful girl, she was stunning. She had olive skin green eyes dark brown sleek hair and a proud almost arrogant face that called to mind her ancestors. Though she felt tempted to drink, it was easy to try and forget her sorrow….she did not. Instead Kirsten thought of her Nana and somehow survived. She took the GED test and earned her high school diploma…she learned the vlaue of education. She worked, she fell in love, she had her heart-broken. Kirsten lost her virginity to a super-butch woman in her forties who cooked her pesto and gave her a ride to LA. Here Kirsten tried not to think of her little sister. An inner strength that had laways been passed down fromg generation to generation…a strength only Native women had, the strength that helped them survive all that they had been through for the last hundred years…that was in Kirsten, she fed off from it and always thought of her Nana. Kirsten got into Police Academy, she lived with an old Sioux woman who taught her secret stories and ways…she learned about her heritage…and she tried not to think of her little sister…Dina. Her brains matched her brawn and Kirsten found a peace that took years to find…even though memories haunted her she kept her peace. Her body was strong…her spirit was strong. Sometimes she lost her temper…it had always been a fault of hers…losing her temper. But Kirsten has since learned to control it, she had to considering she was a police officer. The downtown natives like her, she is gentle with them….they know she is familiar with the Rez…how it haunted them, how it made it so unbearable the bottle is the only way to deal. Kirsten has lived by herself now for years…today she is living in an apartment and commutes to work by bus. She lives alone but she is familiar with *****, she has had several flings and even a few relationships. But she cannot give up her independancy, she does not want to live with someone, she feels she has sacrificed too  much to give up that. That was before she met Bette Porter. she had heard of her, attended shows when she was very young…but seeing her…..it hit her like a thunder bolt. She was in love. Kirsten is not afraid of talking to people, so she talks to Bette…..Bette knows of Kirsten’s feelings. Kirsten bides her time, becomes Bette’s friend…..she loves being her friend. But Kirsten’s stomach flips each time she sees her, each time she touches her in a friendly way. But Kirsten can feel that other woman, Bette’s dead partner….her spirit hangs around them…and Kirsten will not trangress that boundary. But she feels that it’s time to take that step, to slowly be with someone, be with Bette…she can feel Bette’s interest….it will be new for Kirsten. She thinks of this…thinks of how beautiful the world is, how painful how wonderful, but she tries not to think of Dina, her little sister…one day Kirsten will go back and rescue her.