Brooding

In the end I settled into brooding the two eggs myself. The twenty days and nights were an incredible time.

The kihei of soft warm kapa that appeared in the small room above The Safety Pin Cafe those years past, covered me and the growing young creating soft folds beneath and around us I cradled the eggs against me. The kihei enveloped each egg, separating them only enough to be a membrane to keep them from premature cracks. Raven served us hot and cool teas, cinnamon toast and daily doses of healthy mounds of shredded meats and bowls of warm greens. Maha and The Fairy Lady supplied savory soups seasoned with herbs and tidbits of magic from the gardens and the Cafe. An ingenious contraption made with tackle and pulleys and a harness-like seat allowed me to climb in and out for stretches and toilet time. I was never away for more than a few minutes in truth it was more than enough time. I missed the contact of the smooth shells and my body craved the contact perhaps more than my soul. Pela. Paha.

The nest was large by any bird's standard and with little effort Raven perched on the edge his prominent beak well into the hallow. In his bird form the sounds that are as myriad and diverse as sun, wind and darkness filled time and space. The memory of the growing babies snapped at his uttering swallowing them whole to be used when they too have beaks that pronounce and preen. Imitating the creatures that share his world Raven was at once the donkey annoyed and braying when there was no attention or her favorite grains and Gravensteins tart and sassy; then the caws that are almost indistinguishable yet different from Crow. Clicking and clacking in language that I need interpretation, my silver-haired partner tell his children the stories of long ago; and the ones that will make for daily laughter. There are no birds who have as much fun as do Ravens. I sleep to his storytelling and drift to the border towns of dream.

Max and the Grandmothers come most nights. Sometimes it is Tutu who oils my hair and untangles the wet hair of my sacred baths, 'au'au kai. In the salty ocean I douse myself and swim in those turquoise oceans. 

"There will be times of bird and then there will be times of being human," the grandmother, Papa, came to me for the first time during the nights of brooding. Her large and substantial body was covered with a soft kapa the color of the last light of day. No introduction seemed necessary, she was simply there to tell me what I needed.

"So long in coming, these answers," Papa is my grandmother's mother a woman I call 'aumakua, guardian, a person goddess. I laughed in my sleep to consider what effort it took to uncover the stories of my genealogy. We are such secret-keepers. Her big hands working at my hair, I felt her stop occasionally, to squeeze my head massaging my scalp, relaxing tensions I denied.

"Your children will learn the language of birds and the movements of wind. Like breathing they will move between the worlds and have little resistance to their histories. It is a gift, this wedding between the 'Alala and you, the protected weed girl. We have kept you in the dark so you could blossom later." Her laughter was deep and unrestrained. "Late bloomers, like you, Pale, age in reverse. Which is good because these children will demand it of you!" There was a great seriousness in that last statement. It was the night of 'Ole Pau. What she was saying would have long term reverberations. I got that.

In the morning, my hair still wet with salt water and the oil of coconut, I felt the early signs of the cracks in the shells. Ready or not, here they come.


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