Field Day in Elsewhere

"... Elsewhere we use our hands for cups and the rivers are clean and drinkable. Elsewhere the words of the politicians are nourishing to the heart. Elsewhere charlatans are known for their wisdom. Elsewhere history has been kind. Elsewhere nobody would ever say the words bring back the death penalty. Elsewhere the graves of the dead are empty and their spirits fly above the cities in instinctual, shapeshifting formations that astound the eye. Elsewhere poems cancel imprisonment. Elsewhere we do time differently. Every time I travel, I head for it. Every time I come home, I look for it." - Public Libraries and Other Stories, Ali Smith 

There were dozens of Robins in the grassy fields here and when they were not in the fields tugging at worms they were perched in the bare-limbed trees replacing summer apples with their winter exuberance as the sun tempted us all ... 

Robins in the Crab Apple Tree

Or, they were bathing in the bath as if springtime. It is near 50 degrees, so yes the birds are thinking 'Spring-like.' Maybe they know a change in weather is coming and make hay while the sun is shining.

Earlier in the week we were visited by a long-time pal, a friend I have known since we were in college at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. It was a time of crossroads, a time when I was being influenced by a gaggle of haoles in the 1960's. My mother was crossing her fingers and toes praying the path I was one would end up well. In our encounters then, and my dreams now, Ma's protective cloak and her talisman of safety pins leave me clues as to her conclusions. In reciprocity, as a sign of respect for her guidance I write stories and toss her pins into the mix to say, "I got 'em." There was no turning back for me I was on the road to Elsewhere -- except for the many back and forth years, and for better or worse the way has been one that is, perhaps, less traveled and very interesting. This friend knew my mother and drank beer with my father. I tell her, "You are among my longest time friends, who still consider me friend. My life hasn't gotten too hard for you to keep showing up." Lucky me. 

  

Me, Elaine and her friend Janet

Elaine traveled from her California home armed with a cooler of black-eyed peas and ham for New Year what with her Dothan Alabama roots still intact. We shared a bit of this and that's with our guests before we walked the land we call the Prairie Front. My friend brought her friend, and both of these friends brought time and place to us weaving their lives and their times with ours. When Elaine is not in California she is Elsewhere, in a place others call Volcano on the island of Hawaii. She has lived on a beautiful place in the rain forest near the very active eruptions of Tutu Pele for many years; and with the goddesses caring for her path, she will be there near Pele more and more.

We walked and talked about the hybrid-variety in our life paths and it was with this old chum that my heartache crumbled the well-tended boundary, protective veil, that knows I will always want to be on those islands but instead I am on this island. As I concluded my tender revelation, my friend caught my gaze and lifted her arms, "Look," she said. "Look, no high rises ... beautiful." All around us the sky, the Firs, the field under foot. Not many words just the ones that fit the occasion like hands holding water for drinking. This is a friend who is also one of our benefactors, our supporters who contributed financially to our dream to return to Hawaii. She wanted to see the real Vardo for Two and be where the golden wagon and her people were if not on their way back home to Hawaii.

It was no more than a couple hours of time spent on the field on Whidbey Island on a day when by the thermometer's reckoning it was 80 degrees. Just for a few minutes perhaps, but, enough to set the gauge on time and place differently. For those minutes and those two hours we were in Elsewhere.

The Robins, and the company of friends who love the moments of connection are the themes of community that make the difference between bitter and sweet; the shift in creation stories that are as different as knowing and living out Skywoman's story versus Eve's story. On the prairie here on this moku, this island, I hold space for my first born child whose Freeland Washington based great-grandfather on his father's side was probably a logger of first growth Tree People. A week ago during Christmas time we walked South Whidbey State Park where evidence of those Elders told me, "Tell the boy-man that story about his great-grandfather." He, my son, lives on the island where I was born. He learns to hunt with a bow to eat piggies who are eating the farmers' kalo. We have switched places, and crisscrossed stories. I bet that  in and amongst the many descriptions of Elsewhere there is a line that says, "Elsewhere the stories of one are the stories of the other. Like water, it is the same water Ancient and Present. Water is life."

We looked at the weather forecast for the next ten days and saw rain and wind coming from the south east. That is the wind and rain that blows into the porch of the vardo. Pete replaced the curtains that normally hang as walls on the porch. In their place the brick red metal siding we used on our wash house in the woods is screwed in like shutters to prepare for a change in weather, temporary protection.

The stories told in Elsewhere circle, spiral, touch on everyone's story. E ola. Such is life.

What stories do you tell? What stories tell you?