But, it's nice to pretend
"But it’s nice to pretend. And sometimes in pretending we tune in with a precision we couldn’t reach consciously.” Pisces Moon (Retreat from Madness) ...Satori
Owls hoot outside. In the trees they call to one another. Wooing calls, I'm told. But, they don't mate here nor build their nests. Where, I wondered do they take themselves for that, and why? The separation between my life within the walls of our home and the world that is all other is a slim border. Enough to be an illusion of our separation, convenient sometimes, and a mirror at others.
A big windy storm has blown through, leaving marks and memories. Hours and days without the convenience of light at the flick of a switch, or hot water at the turn of a dial. Our friends who live at the water's edge at the north western shore of Whidbey Island were part of the ocean during the storm, with "a bit of a mess" left where their graveled beds once lay in frames built to contain still-life.
Yesterday, a Saturday morning, town was very quiet. We shop at the break of dawn, first thing after our local market open. But maybe the feel of this morning was a subdued after-affect of winter's marks.
January is still the thick of winter. We have begun to think of our next move, our future blinking with potent possibility -- a promise of spring to come -- while our past still shakes with old disappointments and tradition shudders at my pretense.
As Pete lingered in the Subaru after a hearty and satisfying breakfast of long simmered and roasted chicken sausages, green beans and grits (yellow corn polenta) cooked in mushroom broth, I returned to the vardo to find my Sunday gift of story candy: an essay from Emergence Magazine. This morning I found and listened to "Unraveling the Stitches" written and read by Kalyamee Mam, Cambodian film-maker. My attention, and my heart were drawn to the piece even before I heard her voice. I am a stitcher and know at such a deep level the connection of threads that cross time, situation, and ancestral memory. I write about stitches often, and did so here.
The story Kalyamee Mam spoke of is about unraveling stitches -- the jewelry and gem stones hidden and sewn into the seams of her mother's clothing -- once safely away from the peril of the Kymer Rogue in 1981. Not unlike many other mothers before and since, Kalyamee Mam's word pictures soften the steely cage around my own story. Memories of Daddy's stories about my Grandmother Eucebia's jade and ruby jewels that came with her to a plantation town in Kane'ohe town on O'ahu. I swoon as I assess the wobbly stability and value of our moveable home and life on wheels. My stitches unravel, my resolve and ancestral gems of tenacity and creativity listen for their voices; my ears search for their faces.
To be recognized and listened to. To be loved and supported for who they are, who I am, not who I pretend to be.
The Year of the Metal Ox, the newest Chinese New Year, begins on February 12, 2021. Pete was born in the year of the Ox. The other day, while the sun was bright and the rain a recent memory, he and I took a ride to the junk yard -- a favorite hunt for both of us -- to look at scrap metal to incite the imagination of the energy that comes with the new year.
The pictures above were taken when we wandered and wondered what might be useful in the fabrication of a new version of our lives.
At the edge of the forest where we are juggling the pieces of a new life with our friend Hope, the forest is tall and the shade is big. There is little sun for most of the year.
When we were out to imagine what might be, we stopped at the beach. Pete found a fallen ancestor tree, leaned up against him on a yoga mat dressed in his Carhart jacket holding his copy of Art of Motorcycle Maintence by Robert Pirsig. I set off on a beach walk. As I left he said, "Think about bringing in the sun ... " I said I would.
"For the first part of the week, we have a daily focus on things as they’ve been, things we’ve put one heck of a lot of work into. Foundational concerns. Once in Aquarius, we’re looking forward and outward, not just out but all around – in, up, down, other dimensions! The mode of the day lightens up a bit, but it also requires an novel orientation that takes us past tradition for how we expect our days to go from here on out.
We’re leaving orbit" - more Satori, describing the week coming up.
The milk-painted walls of our vardo built for two show the wear and tear of life on the roads, in the woods, prairie front, and temporary camps of a dozen years. Milk-paints should not have held up as well as it has. But, we mixed media and used the wax of bees to protect the milky color long enough to get a feel for what life in a wagon, in twenty-first century America is like. So many experiences, and so many encounters with fixed values, old beliefs, and prescriptions that no longer (if they ever did) worked for more than the white population that breathed entitlement.
Like the mix of media we chose to build and protect our outside walls, Pete and I show up as old white man and old many-cultured woman. We are the Sam Tall and Sally Round of my very first fairy tale, and continue to live a life that includes so much 'let's pretend' to make a life that suits our stubborn believes about a diverse, quirky and multiple chemical sensitive way of living.
We have been pet projects, or experimentation in opening up to shared living spaces for many people. We have learned as much if not more than the people who have either welcomed us or been convinced we were worthy of being on their land. At this point in the journey I believe pretending has a place in the process of making up new versions of my story. Fairy tales, myths, and the very best of children's literature is filled with the fantastic and impossible, including the Yaga's house on chicken legs that houses witches and can gallop through forests, and paddle through the cold and icy North Sea.
It is those stories and the dreams that include visitations from my ancestors that help stitch, or unravel the seams of my our clothing -- metaphoric and mundane. When others see us as a threat to their healing, or feel their sense of entitlements intimidated it's so important for me to seek out the voices and faces of people who know who I am, and support me. Too long bullied by others or worse by my internal bully I must find the face that is my real self without exotic and smiling feminine masks stitched through with true stories fashioned by the long memory of tales that only appear to be impossible.
A body wears different when you have lived as long as our two friends have lived. Sam’s shoulders bent a bit forward and his right hip ached with stiffness after climbing up and down his favorite ladder one too many times fixin’ this or that on the long days of summer. Sam’s people bred in him the energy of lightning—quick-witted, and fast in pace. Aging tempered Sam, but then can you really temper lightning? Sally wore her years with a bit more complexity. The round one was gifted, or cursed, depending upon your view with the ability to smell things that weren’t quite right._ - Sam and Sally
I highly recommend listening to "Unraveling the Stitches" to consider the affects of your belief in the American Dream, and entitlement. This country is built upon the love of competition and oppression, and the economy it has bred depends upon it's populace believing in the illusion of scarcity. "Hold your own, protect what you own." "They probably deserve to be homeless; karma just comin' round."
It's nice to pretend as a retreat from madness, but when you awake the courage comes when you know what "storing the surplus in the belly of my brother" means, and do that. Not for your own good -- or to horde, but for the good of all the stitches unraveling to reveal the gems, or holding us all together as members of family. Listen or read the essay and consider the gems. And then, listen to Robin Wall Kimmerer tell us about The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance.
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| Pete doing a 'Cosmic Hug' |
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| Moki with her eyes open to receive warmth |
To Martin Luther King Jr., I offer these words, this stitch of stories to honor my belief that BLACK LIVES DO MATTER. My voice and my true face matter. Here they are.
E Ola Mau,
Mokihana
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