Somebody always singing you

As the child of African American and Native American parents, Kaylynn TwoTrees grew up hearing herself called "half breed" and "mixed blood," terms which now, after many transforming experiences, have positive and powerful meanings for her. This book spanning the first fifty years of her life is the account of her extraordinary journey into an understanding of her rich and complex heritage. Her poignant, honest memoir tells of her birth to a Lakota father from a South Dakota reservation and a black mother from an urban neighborhood in Des Moines. She spent summers during her early childhood visiting the Pine Ridge reservation. Her grandmother's teachings from those days sustained her throughout the subsequent years. After the murder of her mother, Kaylynn was adopted by her black grandparents, who had worked to achieve a middle-class life. She was later sent to a Roman Catholic boarding school where she was the only person of color. After she gave birth to a baby girl, whom she released to the care of relatives, she set out on her own. The ensuing journey took her from Chicago to a life in Europe, where she lived for several years as a dancer and a manager of dance companies. Returning to the United States, she lived first in New York and then in the Southwest, where she has spent recent years absorbed by a study of the landscape and the indigenous cultures and by performances and workshops. In this candid account of self-discovery she details a life journey filled with both exhilarating and painful moments and an understanding of the diverse strands of her multi-cultural identity. Always carrying with her the love and the lessons from her Indian grandmother and many others, she has come to understand the value of her multiple heritages.