'Aha Update: Joy Luck Club

Amy Tam's classic Joy Luck Club a story of Chinese family history; secrets kept and revealed; recipes of continuity; adaptations and assimilation; and the joys and luck of real life over time, is a favorite in our house. We have read the book and more than once, more than twice, we have borrowed the movie from our local library to watch Waverly's rise and fall as chess champion in her formative years. Then there are the moments where I cringe at the affect of the white husband who marries for the exotic in spite of rich mother's caste system don't go there monologue; and the other white husband who adds just a little shoyu to flavor Lindo's signature squid dish at a formal family dinner. 

November has been a month of many initiations; the south winds and storms have been ferocious; a new decades begins for me; we left the forest for the prairie.

We woke to this red sky in the morning on Sunday.

The promise of heavy weather delivered throughout most of the day. Winds, fierce and rilling, stirred the environment (all of the environs of elemental and sentient beings). The red sky signature, this observation was present for less than a minute and then was gone POOF.

We drove into town  to get away from the wind for a little while. When we pulled up in Scout the Subarus Pete spotted this rainbow glowing and growing in the north.

And just as quickly as the red sky's message left within minutes, so too did ke anuenue. POOF.

The Raven Couple, resident corbae who I watch for expectantly every day, treated me to their thermal grace. A long effortless glide in the sky above loosened the tension that built throughout the red sky infusion of extreme winds. These are the native wind people.

And then sometime before midnight when we could not sleep, Pete pulled his cards and captured this spread of luck. I sat and watched from my perch on the futon, unsure of what he was capturing. "First time, first four cards I turned over," was his answer when I began loading picture from the camera.

We have so much to learn about being wind people; it is not my favorite condition. Wind is the kuleana of my younger brother. In a dream my brother and I were together, he said before the dream's signature POOFED, "You be my good luck." I heard a question in his voice before he left, and wondered what he might be telling me. We have Chinese swirling in the blood. A bit of joy shatters a hundred griefs. Ancestors tether me to the joy, sit me at the game that brings good luck long enough to recognize it; or wake me when the omens are ripe for plucking.

Wheww.