The phrase “you can't go home again” is an indelible one stamped upon the American psyche. Whether taken literally in the physical sense or viewed as a reflection on the effect the passage of time has on earlier memories, Black Belt Eagle Scout's Katherine Paul would likely reject such notions out of hand. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Paul (friends call her KP) returned to her childhood hometown in the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, some 70 miles north of Seattle, Washington.
For most of us, home may be some abstraction of the town you were born in or the house where you were initially raised. But given Paul's Swinomish ancestry that ties back generations upon generations to the very land they are speaking from, it is hard to grasp the depth of the meaning of her return to this place. As Paul puts it, “My people have been here for so long. Our bones, our essence, are within this land. It's part of the systems here. The waterways and the soil, the trees, all of that stuff.” With the release of Paul's appropriately titled third album, The Land, The Water, The Sky (on Saddle Creek), it's a time to reflect on beginnings, journeys, family, place, and the lines that inexorably tie those things together into an indistinguishable whole.
RITES OF PASSAGE
Paul was born in June 1989, just outside of the Swinomish tribal lands in Anacortes, Washington, and was raised within the Swinomish Community. The Swinomish tribe is part of the broader Coast Salish aggregation of indigenous nations of the Pacific Northwest. Paul's parents have deep ties to the Swinomish Community. “My dad spent 15 years as a tribal senator and my mom went to law school after I was born and became a licensed attorney in the State of Washington. Our [community's] sovereignty and way of life are vital passions of my family and I grew up with strong parents to
