Photo by J. Lawrence Dixon.
Teepees at Fort Peck Reservation
Photo taken at the “Creator’s Games” at the Buffalo Ranch on the Fort Peck Reservation. The week-long program is centered on youth empowerment and wellness, immersing participants in cultural activities and real-life discussions related to relational, physical, and mental health well being. The youth who stayed overnight slept inside the teepees during this program.
by J. “Jay” Lawrence Dixon, MSW
I leaned back into my seat as Fargo evaporated behind me, the promise of a fifth travel contract ahead. The sky had been pouring since yesterday’s nightfall, the I-94 now darkened with rain. Ahead of me were the endless prairies I had grown accustomed to in northern Minnesota, during my third contract. The problem with driving on straight, flat land is a gust of wind can easily lift the hood of a two-ton Jeep Wrangler, causing the vehicle to sway. It is disconcerting at certain speeds, mostly those above 75 mph.
I am at the point in my life and career where I judge a state based on the condition of the roads and the speed at which I can consume them. North Dakota passed my test, as it was an easy drive to Bismarck. When I journeyed through, I stopped at a local coffee shop in an attempt to stay on task for my doctoral capstone. I drank my standard dirty chai, read a disturbing article from the local paper about a chiropractor gone murderer, and finished that week’s assignment on the free wifi. From there I headed north through the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, passing over rolling countryside littered with the vestiges of an “oil boom.” It was a rather odd way of getting to Williston, but what is the point of roving if one does not see the beauty of the land?
I travel alone and there are rules of comfort I follow, things I have decided upon after wandering solo for so many miles. Before I leave, I ensure that Steve the Jeep does not need an oil change and air pressure in the tires is good. I have an assortment of “road warrior” tools in my back seat such as a first aid kit, roadside assistance bag, box cutter, and an old anti-theft car device that really acts as a large and heavy club. I never let the tank get under the half-way mark. I never stop in unlit areas. I keep my sweatshirt hood up, eyes open, and listen to every whisper around me.
The rules are to decrease danger, but nothing is fail-safe when you are a femme roaming alone. Last winter, as I passed through the southwestern corner of Colorado, there was no mobile phone reception, gas stations were sixty plus miles apart, and my debit card stopped working. Despite best efforts in prepping my banks for this incessant moving, even they made mistakes and froze accounts.
Traveling through Colorado reminded me of a Steinbeck novel. The Americana scenery was breathtaking as much as it was humbling. There were buildings clustered in towns of less than 100 people. The Depression-era styled homes sat on what looked like platforms, occupied with people who were passing through their normal day. I saw old mills still producing the life blood of rural America. There were small, rusting playgrounds sitting at long-lost rest stops. The roads curved into the lands of First Nation Peoples, the backdrop a piercing blue sky studded by majestic, white-topped mountains.
These are snapshots of my story as a social worker, specifically as a travel social worker. Each assignment, also referred to as a contract, I consider a chapter in my career. Like any good book, each chapter builds upon the next, flushing out the character that becomes me. I am a writer, a wanderer, and a human who makes mistakes with frequency. To understand this journey, I will go back to my first day as a traveler.
The sunrise was peaking over the mountains on I-17 north, the rays cutting into my eyes as I yawned. I had a suitcase packed in my trunk, and I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. I took this job because it paid well, and as of late, we were a single income household. I did not know what I was doing as far as negotiating base pay. I barely understood what per diem meant, and I was nervous at being so temporary. I found out quickly that there is no “how to travel as a social worker” guide. Travel knowledge is acquired from building relationships with other travelers, networking with recruiters, and cold, hard experience.
My first contract was chaotic and the ultimate learning curve to this field. It was a behavioral health contract in an outpatient setting. I found out later that behavioral health assignments were rarer and harder to get without an independent license. However, out of five contracts, three of mine have been in outpatient behavioral health care settings. What started as a “temp to perm” placement turned into a springboard for my new career. The work had awoken the wanderlust inside of me and intrigued my partner. That early morning on a warm September day in 2017, heading to northern Arizona from my Phoenix home was just the beginning of a love affair with the road and the wind.
With every new place, every new supervisor, every new job, I learn a hundred things more. In my first contract, I was introduced to trauma-informed care wedded with neuroscience. I worked for a psychiatrist who focused on the integration of therapies to create what they thought was a “truly dual diagnosis” program. My clinical supervisor dubbed me stubborn, clarifying that the stubbornness was what made me good at what I did, but also made me a somewhat difficult supervisee. Before I left, she handed me The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist’s Notebook—What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love, and Healing, by Dr. Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz. She told me I would like it. I finished it in three days and carried it with me to my next contract.
Chapter 2 of being a traveler started as a Tribal contract in rural Arizona. In this setting, the impact of colonization was blatant and ever present. There was an ongoing water crisis. Gaps in services, transportation concerns, limited access to healthy food, poor cellphone service, and high prices on goods were a few of the issues I observed. In and outside of therapy sessions, I was told about boarding school abuses, stolen children, purposeful destruction of the language, and other forced assimilation processes brought by the government and religious groups. There was a long history of genocide of the people and of their culture.
One of the first things said to me from a colleague working in the same building was “do not continue to colonize them.” I was taken aback by the statement, but it caused me to reflect on cultural humility and my therapeutic practices. Textbooks “white wash” history. I think I read a paragraph about the Trail of Tears in elementary school. In college, things were not much better. Even before I stepped foot in that outpatient building, I had armed myself, or thought I had, with truthful historical information. I had read intersectional and international feminist literature alongside the knowledge gained from my social work education. Unfortunately, that combination of knowledge and truths was still dominated by privileged Eurocentric theories and practices. Do not continue to colonize them would become one of the most humbling phrases said to me, but also was the spark that started a change in how I “social work.”
It is an honor to be allowed to work with Indigenous Peoples. It is an honor to be allowed to read and hear their stories and hear their language. It is a gift to be a visitor on their land. I read the Navajo Creation story. I began to attempt to say basic greetings and words. I learned about the specific historical injustices perpetrated against the Navajo that included multiple attempts at genocide and assimilation. While I did this, I tried to gain the information from Indigenous scholars dismantling the notion of “right history” or rather, “White history.” The time I spent there changed who I was in profound ways. I took that with me to my third contract in Minnesota and then to the fourth one in Phoenix, AZ. I keep it close at my current Tribal contract in Montana.
There is a reason I prefer to drive from contract to contract. It allows me to connect with colleagues all over the U.S. It provides an opportunity to see my country, in full. Most importantly, the time I spend on the road between the chapters of my career is marked with deep reflection submerged in silence. Travel is hard on the body but rejuvenating to the spirit. I use the hours on the road to think about who I am, who I want to be, and how I can be a better social worker. I reconnect with a path of social justice. I see the towns and people sometimes forgotten. I drive through cities, normally only dots on a map. I experience vast tracts of the United States in short periods of time, absorbing the gifts of the cultures around me.
Self-reflection is healing. Self-reflection is educating. Self-reflection is necessary.
J is a queer, non-binary femme who loves to adventure with their spouse, toddler, and too many Chihuahuas. You can follow J on Instagram @travel_msw, twitter @travel_msw, or listen to their podcast The Roving Social Worker hosted through Anchor.