Saturday in Seattle: finding the inner braid

"I've lived in this place too long." The comment rolled off my tongue from some place of dissatisfaction as if where I live or don't live is the saving grace to living life well. Pete was driving the stretch of highway we both used to call the Mukilteo Speedway a place that has changed a thousandfold since I first lived in Washington in 1971. Then the road was a two lane barely highway with no lights and very steep ditches on either side. To be native to that place meant you and the car or truck you drove were intimate with the curves and the edges. The drive then might not have been intuitive but it felt that way as I recall it. Dark country road in a timeless space. Pete showed up from the Midwestern America a decade later on his way to Wenatchee; we would meet briefly during the 80's but our stories remained separate until 1994.

To be on this road that connects Whidbey with Seattle on a Saturday in winter, the comment just needed to be uttered like an owl working out a pellet or a cat spitting out a hair ball.

First stop: Pike's Street Market. We're outside Left Bank Books. Sorry for the slight decap, Pete. To do this selfie on the sidewalk I (holding the camera) needed to go up and he being tall needed to come down. 

Transition to Pioneer Square: after a wild and wonderful Pike's Street Morning seeing the old places that are still there, and awing at the expansion and changes we left our very convenient first parking space but not before turning it over to a beautiful Poly (Polynesian) woman who asked, "You leaving?" We were. Pete said, "We'll wait for you." I handsignaled her to turn around. Her face lit up with glee. 

We were hunting for a gallery in Pioneer Square where a review in the Seattle Stranger describing wood engravings of ravens had caught Pete's eye. Fate had something else in mind for us; we never found the gallery but did run into a very friendly man who worked another gallery (Stonington Gallery). We ended up spending a few minutes of uplifting company with Northwest art created by both Native and non-native arists depicting The Red Moon; the story of why Sun loved the Moon so much he died each day ...; Puffin Woman; three being in a canoe a piece entitled "Journey"; totems huge and powerful... Very friendly staff and inspiring art reminded us of Story's vital role in the way we relate ... "As Gary Nabhan has written, we can't meaningfully proceed with healing, with restoration, without "re-story-ation." In other words, our relationship with land cannot heal until we hear its stories. But who will tell them?" -
Robin Wall Kimmerer Braiding Sweetgrass

The photograph above and the two below are of the same tree (lovely bark and texture with such punctuation in curves and bumps) growing in the city...

this one I love because of the colors other than All Weather-Black people in Seattle donned for the Season. (check out the bare feet in the shoes; it's temperate for December)

the brickwork is lovely

Next stop: China Town the International District. We had to go to Uwajimaya for the sounds, faces and foods that we both miss. The languages, the many nations represented in faces and the food. We sat to eat with chopsticks: huli huli chicken with brown rice and shredded cabbage and lettuce. Gobbling like we were eating plate lunch at one of our favorite Hawaii hang-outs, the food court in Uwajimaya resets the inner clockworks. Pete shopped for holiday cards to mail to folks, we bought mochi with red bean paste for dessert, bought two bags of poi to remember Uncle Jerry Konanui who just passed away. I mahalo Uncle Jerry for reminding so many of us how to care for kalo, taro, so kalo can care for us.

The Inner Braid: the search for something no longer there. When Pete and I did meet again in 1994, we were driving together much like we did yesterday. I was driving rather than Pete in 1994 and we were doing a Seattle tourist day while  he visited me. I was in between places, preparing to return to Hawaii. There's that inner braid, a deja vu repeating again, and again. So often I have been 'preparing to return to Hawaii."
In 1994 and yesterday we were looking for Red and Black Books.

 Like looking for the gallery we didn't find, we didn't find Red and Black Books yesterday. In July of 1994 we circled Capital Hill again and again trying to find the bookstore that fed the activist and broad seeking genetics in both of us. It was there, we just needed to persist! Yesterday, we couldn't find it; but I knew who would know. I called our friend Jude on the cellphone (twice). While I stood at the corner of Madison and some numbered street in Seattle I left a message something like this:

"Hi, I'm on the corner of Madison and ... looking for Red and Black Books. Where IS that book store? Call me back if you get this message."

Later, while I was standing in line in Elliott Bay Books my friend called me back. The reception wasn't very strong but the message was clear. "Red and Black closed back in the 90's." Silence. Serious silence. Somehow I already knew that, we had already had this conversation.

"Hope you find something else fun to do," she said. I told her I was in Elliott Bay books and yes, we were having a wonderful and fun Seattle day.

Last stop: Ballard. The day was rapidly turning to dusk. We headed to Ballard for a last hit of eat treats. Totem Drive-Inn for a vanilla milkshake. For $4.00 plus change we split a delicious cold milkshake in the funky and friendly old school drive-inn staffed by young and chatty Seattleites while listening to Tina Turner, the Doors, and a version of Blue Bayou that might have been Roy Orbison. This was a time travelers' excursion for two makua o'o elders in training. 

Waiting for the ferry: back in Mukilteo

This morning: surrounded by the goodness of memories, and memories being made

"Those who’ve logged more than a decade of residence on the Hill may remember Red and Black Books on 15th Avenue East, where Shoprite currently plies its trade. The store featured a huge variety of publications simply not found in other stores. Leftist political treatises, obscure poetry, multicultural children’s books – the store’s mission was to sell non-mainstream titles. Logically located on the Hill and run as a collective of devoted members, its model worked for years. And then did not: the store closed in early 1999." - "The ghosts of hill's indie bookstores past"

That inner braid of a model that worked for years -- a bookstore, a way of life, a belief system, a cosmology -- and then did not. Back on the prairie front the thought of a model that worked, and then didn't, lingers in me as I eat my breakfast of warm oatmeal between the thoughts braiding themselves into a plait. Being in the city where successes linger and evolve: the long line of customers waiting to go into the first Starbucks on 1st and Pike; the bronze pig everyone still loves to rub. But, old buildings and small business once vibrant are torn down, even on a Saturday morning. New something will replace it. The tents of homeless moved from town to Ballard has people up in arms. So much for shared resources. Ah, but there are shared bikes slowly rolling out on the Seattle sidewalks. Seattle Department of Transportation has recently approved two permits for two private bikeshare companies: Spin and Limbike. As we drove down Denny Avenue on the way to Ballard a trio of young Santas on bright yellow bikes navigated the sidewalks beside us. We saw the newest version of Seattle streetcars and trolley cars while in Seattle; buses as well as the many personal vehicles like the one Pete and I occupied moved people from one destination to another.

Rain has returned to Whidbey after several days of sunshine. When we returned from Seattle last night I climbed from my navigator's seat to close the wooden gate behind us. "Go ahead, honey. I'll walk back." It helps to ground yourself, myself, between the many transitions that take place on journeys. In a few hours we drove, walked, observed and ate our way through the present while braiding the past into a single thick plait. With the flashlight in hand I saw that puddles filled the dirt and gravel road. We had been lucky to experience Seattle without rain. We found things we weren't looking for, and didn't find others we were looking for. Life is like that.

Before going to sleep last night I read the opening essay in Braiding Sweetgrass. It was Robin Wall Kimmerer's collection of essays and stories that we were after on our adventure; it was the last copy on the shelf at Elliott Bay Bookstore. How lucky we were in our exploration and journey to Seattle. Then later in the night I re-read the essay/story when Pete came back to bed, this time I read the essay/story Skywoman Falling aloud. He fell asleep as he often does if I read to him. He says he just likes the sound of my voice; I remember that he would fall asleep when we talked long distance during our early courtship times; he in Wisconsin and I in Mukilteo. "There was a time difference," he defends. No defend needed really. To read to someone you love is like braiding their hair.

Kimmerer is a gentle and powerful storyteller. I love her work and her life for the example it provides me and any who seek her service as teacher, scientist, Native keeper of story. When I forget what is most important she reweaves the plait for me. She begins Braiding Sweetgrass with a Preface that should in my opinion be read again and again both silently and aloud in its entirety. The words are personal and timeless, precious and tender, strong and enduring. Here is a sampling of the Preface.

"Hold out your hands and let me lay upon them a sheaf of freshly picked sweetgrass, loose and flowing, like newly washed hair.. A sheaf of sweetgrass, bound at the end and divided into thirds, is ready to braid ... Will you hold the end of the bundle while I braid? Hands joined by grass can we bend our heads together and make a braid to honor the earth? And then I'll hold it for you, while you braid, too...I could hand you a braid of sweetgrass, as thick and shining as the plaiting that hung down my grandmother's back. But it is not mine to give, nor yours to take. Wingaashk belongs to herself. So I offer, in its place, a braid of stories meant to heal our relationship with the world...It is an intertwining of science, spirit, and story --old stories and new ones that can be medicine for our broken relationship with earth ... healing stories that allow us to imagine a different relationship, in which people and land are good medicine for each other." 

What are the inner braids of story that sustain you over time? I would love to hear about them in the comments or in an email.