Turquoise Windows

"Tutu, tutu. Tell me a story."
"Your tutu is too tired to tell stories tonight, little girl."
"Oh, tutu. Please just one story. Tell me again. Tell me again about the windows.
Tell me that little story, tutu."

There were very few things the woman denied her granddaughter and to share a favorite story would soothe them both of course. Coco brown eyes and freshly washed hair on a child the size of a hand of Apple Bananas -- yes, this keiki girl was a small precious bundle -- nestled into the softness of her tutu's well-worn purple and white muumuu. The girl settled in for one little story.

Once upon a time tinkering was a valuable trait. In this society, everyone believed time was flexible and if one person had more of anything, sharing was common. People shared as easily as they breathed. No one worried much about anything, and everyone was happy with the amount and variety of foods they ate. They enjoyed the lives they lived and loved the homes in which they lived. They respected the funny and sometimes odd ways their families and neighbors spent time. Most importantly, people in this land liked who they were and weren't afraid to change things including themselves, when and if the need arose.

People's jobs fit them. Everyone earned just enough to live comfortably. No one had a lot of money, but there was always enough for everyone. People knew who tinkered with a car that wouldn't go, or a drain that gurgled shut rather than run. Tinkers were open and honest about their opinions, and weren't afraid to speak up. A person wasn't expected to be anything other than who they were, and you wouldn't think of asking anyone to be any different. A finely-developed ability to disagree without battling made life in this place exciting in a joyful way. A day and night in Tinkerland had more life lived in twenty-four hours than grains of sand in your back pocket after an afternoon of body surfing. Tinkers listened to what another person had to say, and if it took a week of Sundays to work out a compromise that was time well spent. Things, people and ideas changed often in Tinkerland.

The colorfully painted homes throughout this place made newcomers chuckle out loud. Visitors immediately noticed the whimsical slopes in the roofs of the tiny homes, slanted into water slides to catch rainwater in old shells of cars that no longer ran. Cleverly sculpted shapes of car tops, turned upside-down with windshields and windows rolled shut became catchment tanks for water. The cool temperatures and high peaks that surrounded this high-elevation community provided plenty of rain. The rain sustained the people, and Tinkers knew the rains came because there were trees to attract moisture in the first place, and not the other way around. Each home was as colorful as the brilliant flowers that shared space with the compact dwellings, and no two homes were painted exactly the same. The reds of Ohi'a lehua, the persistent reminder of the Tinker's connection with the Goddesses and Keepers of their land were captured in the paint pots used to tint many of the framed homes. Coats of golden sunshiny yellow reflected on houses tucked beneath the rough, spread of mango limbs left to grow into huge monuments of living oxygen-makers.

One thing that did repeat itself consistently in the color scheme throughout the township was the shades of blues and turquoise found around every Tinker's windows. Some folks still remember that the water shades of aqua-blues and turquoise are a constant reminder of a time long ago when Tinkers fell into a period of great despair. In that time of sadness and disjointedness, Tinkers lived with temporary spirit-loss, forgetting their place in the union of all things; accumulating more surpluses than the community could use in one cycle of the moon. The unfamiliar excess led to clenching reactions of guardedness, fear and finally greed. The easy sense of comfort and simple appreciation for one's day of glorious life turned to a pallor and dryness in the texture of people's skin matched in the drab colors of the homes Tinkers built in the Sad-times. Those people who suffered mostly severely from greed became bloated, constipated with hoarding ideas that eventually turned the normally light-hearted Tinker folks into Thinkers.

Fortunately, the trees, flowers, stones, water guardians and critter folks of Tinkerland watched this crippling turn of events and wouldn't put up with it any longer. A full turn of the Earth round the Sun was plenty enough foolishness for Those-who-watched, and there was a revolution. No one was hurt in the process, but things had to change. The trees, flowers, stones, water guardians and critter folks turned to th Ocean and the great Order of the Dolphins. A song of exquisite beauty came from the outstretched limbs of the giant mango trees, flute-like melodies rose from the centers of each flower, clicking percussion sounds from the stones and boulders added to the symphony and the winged-ones, many-footed ones and crawling critters gave their voices to the composition.

The Composition of Joy is the music dolphins sing. That's what Dolphins were made to do for humans ... remind them of their joy. One-by-one over a period of thirty nights the dolphins dreamed the constipated Tinkers through their obsession with thinking. The dreams reconnected each family of Tinkers with their watery beginnings, guiding them securely through the obstructions and hardened thinking. At the end of the thirtieth night, the men and women of Tinkerland woke with the sunrise and heard the beauty of the voices in Those-who-watched. They heard everything: the voice of the giant trees, the flute-like melodies of each flower, the clicking percussion sounds from the stones and boulders and the songs from the winged-ones, many-footed ones and crawling critters. The memory of aquamarine gradually replaced the dried nature of the kindly people. They remembered who they were, and have trimmed their windows -- the eyes of a home, in colors of the ocean ever since so they'll never forget.

"Good night, little one, sweet dreams."



This story was originally written and published in the December 16-31, 2002 Hawaii Island Journal as a Winter Solstice story of hope and unity. I've added a slightly modified version here as a Summer Solstice gift sixteen years later. Turquoise Windows is still one of my favorite little stories, and reminders of what's important. I hope you find it so for you, too. E Ola. 

At the picnic table on Samish Island. Thank you, Len!

Happy Summer Solstice and much aloha kakou!
Mokihana and Pete