Water-catchers: letting the story become itself fully and truly

"Young writers often think -- are taught to think -- that a story starts with a message. That is not my experience. What's important when you start is simply this: you have a story you want to tell. A seedling that wants to grow. Something in your inner experience is forcing itself towards the light. Attentively and carefully and patiently, you can encourage that, let it happen. Don't force it; trust it. Watch it, water it, let it grow." - Ursula Le Guin

Enveloped in the big red storm coat bare feet tucked comfortably into my birthday-gift of red rubber boots I began my first walk of the day. It was still dark when I held the rail to climb down the steps of the vardo.  Stopping for a moment, I looked up at the sky just peeling back clouds to let out the eerie layer of light that might be sunrise, or, evidence of the freeway across the Sound, or, the blazing lights of Boeing Field where they build jets. The song of the winds in the trees, I could hear it. The treads gripped, I was grounded. 

Good morning Land, Sky, Firs and Cedars.

Before heading to the kitchen I shined the blue plastic flashlight in the direction of the sandbox. Atop the metal cover in place for the winter are two stainless bowls: one big and round, good for making a generous salad; the other an equally round but flat thing more a tray than a proper bowl. After the most recent storms both bowls were filled. Proper water-catchers. When heated in the large soup pot,  the rain water mixed with a bit of baking soda and a splash of vinegar becomes a pot-and-wash-cloth bath. If I time these baths just right Pete is there to help shampoo my hair. Pouring the hot silky rain water from his taller-than-me position the affect is intimate and simple.

Come with me as I take you back a few years to make a connection with a story called 'Water-catchers'. It begins ...

"Jack and Jill (not their real names) live on ten acres of old sugar land in Pahoa. I can't remember exactly how the non-electrical gate marking their kuleana operated but when we pushed on the handle to make the gate lift I knew we were entering Tinkerland...What caught my eyes and funny bones was the water-jug tree. A large tree hung with plastic jugs filled with water. I later learned the water jug tree was a puakenikeni whose branches would have grown too high without the jugs. What good is a sweet-smelling five-cent flower (that's what puakenikeni means) if you can't reach the fragrant beauties? I laughed out loud when I got the explanation. Puakenikeni was my Papa Honey's favorite flower. He would love the hanging jugs.

The water jug tree was just one of the many marvelously creative life-ways this pair of water-catchers has woven into their lives. Pulleys were everywhere. The friendly warm, wooden handle on the front door has no sharp edges, but is rounded and easy to use. The front screen door opens by moving it left or right. There was that bottle of water again. Dangling from a white cotton twine rope wound around a pair of pulleys a quart-size water bottle served as a weight to open and then keep the door open as folks walk in. Laua'e fronds were cut to hide the bottle. What a pleasant greeting the laua'e gives as friends and family come and go..."

Shortly after the article was published (in the Hawaii Island Journal) I received a letter in the mail. Written on light green paper bordered by a design of Hawaiian greenery I read this:

 6/5/2002

"Dear Yvonne,
Thank you for writing the article about Jack-n-Jill who went up the hill! Your words made me feel like I was there. The smell of the laua'e and the Puakenikeni in the yard was/is a vivid picture. Touching--how you put about Papa Honey. It tickled me that you laughed out loud when you saw the bottle tree. So lately when the phone rings, it's been for Jack or Jill. In the grocery story I hear "Hi Jill"!
Because of your article, we've had many fun conversations recently from family and friends. It makes us feel good that you see us as water-catchers who have a life worth living. Please call us before your next visit.
Malama pono,"
It was signed by the real Jack and Jill, the water-catchers from Pahoa on Hawaii Island

You know how some things tickle at you from the inside? You realize, a story is tying together several digits on a known hand with digits of an unknown hand. The stuff of myth, the scent of Mystery.

The digits of the known hand ...

• Pete was building water tanks. 
• I was writing about people who caught water to fill plastic jugs on a limbs of a puakenikeni tree -- my father's favorite flower -- brought within reach to be enjoyed. 
• Simple tools like pulleys and laua'e fern in the Pahoa water-catcher's home comforted me then, and continued to inspire.
• When it was time to paint our golden wagon, built to simplify our life with environmental illness, it was laua'e that I stenciled on her door and back wall. 

The digits of the hand yet to be ... 

• That 2002 article was written long before I had ever heard the word blog, but in the larger scope of things, the ancestors were preparing me to be a blogger. 
• Sixteen years later (2018) where does my son live and work? He lives on O'ahu and works with a company that builds water tanks. Pete worked for that same company in 2002.

"Something in your inner experience is forcing itself towards the light. Attentively and carefully and patiently, you can encourage that, let it happen. Don't force it; trust it. Watch it, water it, let it grow. As you write a story, if you can let it become itself, tell itself fully and truly, you may discover what its really about, what it says, why you wanted to tell it. It may be a surprise to you. You may have thought you planted a dahlia, and look what came up, an eggplant! Fiction is not information transmission; it is not message-sending. The writing of fiction is endlessly surprising to the writer."

 - Ursula Le Guin

And now ... 

Pete and I have saved the money we received last summer and fall after we gathered friends at our vardo front porch and told a story about our love for Hawaii and our wish to move ourselves and Vardo for Two back. In old school fashion the gifts came to us without a Crowdfunding project, and did instead affirm old fashion values.

The story knew something about itself; we had to allow the story to tell itself. Reaching across time to find the story published on newsprint it was not fiction that I had written; fiction being what Ursula Le Guin was pointing to in the quote above. What it was was the prophetic future written about people living on old sugar land needing time to collect itself. Rather than move across the ocean we are caretakers on a chunk of the land  here on Whidbey. The land is familiar with us; and we are familiar with the land. We needed time to become proper water-catchers.

Digits weaving known with unknown.

'Water-catchers' seems to be another description for an elder-in-training, a makua o'o, in tutelage with Nature herself. Connections between the digits of hands here on Whidbey Island with those there on the islands of Hawaii continue in organic and sustainable time.

Flowing like water ...

Pete and I have begun investing and donating money to support the work of the non-profit organization Hui Mauli Ola. Our son, Christopher Kawika, is part of this Hawaiian group whose purpose is to:

Support intercultural exchange for practitioners to foster indigenous healing knowledge. Support practitioners development by creating interactive programs based on culture and land. Support and develop multidisciplinary educational experiences for communities which encourage them to live healthy and productive lives. Develop materials and programs to educate communities on indigenous health practices. Create environments for our traditional healing arts to thrive and flourish. Protect the rights of traditional cultural practitioners. Promote the use of traditional healing practices.

In particular, we are especially touched by the stories shared in regular podcasts called Leo Kupa.   Roughly translated Leo Kupa means "voices of those who are native." When I listen to these podcasts (co-produced by our son Christopher and Kamakanui'aha'ilono Jingao) I am transported. The tempo and cadence, the inflection, the flavor of pidgin and 'olelo Hawaii take me home. The stories are poignant, informative, and thought-provoking. Each time a new podcast is available I drink the wai wai (the water, the values) and reconnect.

We filled a a box and a Red Envelop and put it into the mail in time for the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year (to honor my Chinese ancestors). The puolu the gift has made its way to O'ahu.  Our Red Envelope of $200 spreads the good and the intention to 'go back home.' In the spirit of a gift-culture we start a new project called the Watcher-catchers.  What began as a dream to move back home to Hawaii has changed. The story had another version of itself to tell; we flow with it, like water.

Water caught, and flowing in an au wai, on the Prairie Front

In addition to connecting with Hui Mauli Ola, we have begun hand-carrying special bundles of offerings, to those who have given us financial support. Then, we will put that same bundle into the mail to reach our patrons who live away from us. Packages of my original writings under the bi-line Makua o'o along with a handwritten poem lay down a foundation, an au wai or water way to keep the goodness in motion.

For a moment we are water-catchers drinking our fill, but not drinking it all, before sending the gift on its way.

- an excerpt from the poem

The first article under the Makua o'o bi-line "A Journey of Becoming Kupuna" in Ka'u Landing, June, 1999.

I keep evolving the gift of storytelling using a hybrid approach of old and new school methods. Old fashioned visits, snail mail parcels and upgrades to my blog are the elements for making that Sponge Blog Cake I mentioned here. Soon I will be upgrading my blog to include ways to catch some water (make some money) from the posts I write. I have more juggling of the feedback from the blog poll, comments and email messages and will allow a month or so to circulate the pu'olo to all our patrons; weaving a gift-giving/patron culture into the strictly money economy takes some practical magic, and luck.

Soon you'll be able to follow our progress and learn how you can become a water-catcher, too. 


Mahalo nui to all the people who came to listen to a story from our front porch on the Full Moon in July last summer.
Mahalo nui to all of you who are reading these updates and posts as the  story grows into itself.
Mahalo nui for the gifts that come our way unbidden.
Mahalo nui na 'aumakua ;and all the rest of the 'ohana our Ancestors who guide us always, everywhere.

xoxo
Mokihana and Pete
The Prairie Front
Langley, Washington