Measure me or not?

The pancakes filled them with all the things they loved. The freshly laid eggs came from the hens who scratched and tilled the orchard floor. Butter melting in the small orange pan just smelled right. Lei'ohu pinched enough of the sweet-smelling cinnamon to sprinkle over the whole wheat flour and old-fashioned oats. Sophie nodded when she thought there was enough. "Mommy uses a spoon to measure things like cinnamon when we bake." Sophie had her granddaughter wrapped in a patch-worked apron and encouraged her to use it to wipe her fingers and hands as needed. "There are many ways to measure what you need in a good recipe, Sweetie Pie. Some cooks will tell you spoons and measuring cups are must have's. Other cooks have an eye for what's right, and a feel for how much flour should go with that much (she pointed to the mountain of oats) oatmeal. I am one of the Lucy Goosey Cooks. Sometimes I measure, but not always. Other times, I just picture how things go together ... and most of the time I'm right."

"Mostly is good enough ha, Tutu."

"I say mostly good is good enough. It's not a good thing to waste food, so I always cook with a big bunch of love ... just to be sure the Kitchen Goddesses are happy with my efforts." Spirits, gods and goddesses and the family of Others was something Sophie Lei Maku'e was generous with sharing. But that had not always been the case. She considered the changes that made her world open as she watched the little girl cracking the soft brown shelled eggs now. She'd watched her grandmother do it lots of times, and was trying to do it without leaving a lot of shell. Her small hands were still covered with the powder of the spice, leaving her fingerprints like the red dirt. Sophie Lei did not direct or correct the girl, but watched as Lei'ohu tap,tap, tapped the shell as she had seen her grandmother do with the first egg. These were fresh eggs, laid by roaring hens, the shells were thick. It took a little effort. On the second trio of taps the deep nearly orange yolk as bright as noon sun slid into the buttermilk. A chunk of shell followed. Sophie clapped, "Nice work. Now pull the shell out or The Old Man will complain about too much crunch in his pancake." Lei'ohu smirked. She knew her grampa would never complain about food. He loved everything her Tutu cooked for him.

There was no rush to the creation of these pancakes, and once all the ingredients were blended and stirred together the batter sat in the humming red refrigerator for half an hour so the oats soaked up the wet. While that was happening Sophie had milk and bitter sweet chocolate melting into some hot cocoa for the girls. That would help take the edge off the long fast. A sprinkle of cinnamon topped the drink, and a teaspoon of blackberry honey sweetened.

"Let's go find The Old Man and your sister. They can only be up to some sort of grand mischief." Sophie refilled her Blue Willow tea cup with coffee, and poured the hot cocoa into a second lidded mug for Kikepa. Sophie stopped before they left the house, set the drinks down and undid the big bow holding the patches of many favorite shirts and a paisley dress she'd long forgotten was once hers. "You might need this when we start baking those pancakes. Inside apron, honey." Lei'ohu understood as she slid her socks into her boots tucked just outside the kitchen door.

The Anna was smiling a smile as big as bowls. She was taken by the patience grandmothers had with little girls who weren't their daughters. She noticed how Sophie was filling her memory with events that adapted her life to the present moment. There would be other things the little girls could not predict, there was danger in living and sometimes all the measuring in the world wouldn't keep every cake from falling. The tiny bird used her powerful wings to form the figure-eight hovering about the steam of chocolate and dark coffee.

And then? click

Breakfast

"This was the look of the sky when Sophie opened her eyes to the new day."

Her camera was close-by, she pulled it off the glass-topped table, careful to untangle plump limbs replacing the faded and still favored quilt. Lei'ohu and the Old Man were outside. Kikepa snuggled deeper into the pillow her long-fringe of lashes opened briefly. "Morning, Tutu." Sophie kissed the girl on her forehead. "Morning, 'Kepa." This one loved the linger of dreams, and now was prime dream time for that sort of thing -- when no one else occupied the bed-- and the day was yet to become real.

There was coffee, and a note on the counter top next to three brown eggs. The Old Man's open scrawl said, "We vote for pancakes." Two hearts and smooch marks were drawn in pink crayon. This was the look of the sky when Sophie opened her eyes to the new day. She focused, making sure the treetops filled the bottom of the frame, then clicked. Within the hour the sky was a blanket of solid cover, no blue, no puffy clouds. The old woman set her camera down, reached for her favorite Blue Willow cup and saucer and poured herself a cup of coffee. She liked almond milk, and a teaspoon of raw sugar. She found the carton of milk, and lifted the lid to the mottled porcelain sugar bowl. After years of wear and at least a couple patches the small lid was more patch than lid, but, it still worked to bring pleasure to the morning. It was her mother's sugar bowl. Sophie loved having her coffee with her Ma.

The coffee was dark and strong like they both preferred. The milk and sugar made it a decadent morning brew. Thoughts of coffee, canned evaporated milk, Saloon Pilot Crackers with margarine floating in big chunks. Who used butter in those days? Early morning. Breakfast with her dad. The bull dozer man. Between the daddy who drank till he forgot, and the one who sat at the Formica table. This one. The sugar was C & C white. She was the same age as Lei'ohu and Kikepa. Only two, maybe three, tears seeped from her eyes.

"It won't change the taste of the coffee," from the window between the cupboard and vintage Philco V Handle refrigerator (kept in tiptop shape by the Old Man) the Anna hovered. Of all the windows in the house, this small one gave the tiny bird a beautiful view of the still-bright red refrigerator. Color mattered. It, the refrigerator, maintained her inimitable hum that was particularly delightful if you were one to notice. Everyone in this household noticed, and so it was not surprising this window collected more smudges than any other.

"You're probably right," The long silence between the comment and her reply included a nod to the hummingbird.

"How many more tears are in me?" Sophie walked the short distance between the counter and window.

"Sophie Lei Maku'e, tears lubricate the heart."

That made the old woman smile, "I didn't know that."

~*~

'What, Tutu? What did you not know?" Kikepa sat cross-legged beneath the yellow cotton quilt her eyes bright and ready for this day. 

"Tears lubricate the heart." 

"What does lubricate mean? 

Sophie laughed, and leaned into the window leaving the first smudge of the day. "Good question. Why don't you help me make pancakes and I'll show you what lubricate means." 

"Pancakes!" Lei'ohu climbed from the big bed and in her bare feet crossed the room to grab her grandmother. "Who were you talking to, Tutu?"

"Someone very special. Someone who can't wait to meet you!"

More.

Open House

"There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served." - Jane Jacobs

The Old Man was a long-time fan of Jane Jacobs and though Sophie and he lived on the outskirts of town, and a thirty minute drive from a city, there was a mark of Jacobs' in the way he built their home and the way he spread his philosophy. He loved to say "I'm the ruler of this shovel." Though his youthful years as a laborer and hands on construction were more story-based than actual, The Old Man knew tools and could ferret out which ones could do what needed to be done. The shovel was one of his favorites;  he knew how use it and kept the tool mended, repaired or replaced.

What a shovel has to do with Jane Jacobs' beliefs about cities, urban planning and human development lies in The Old Man's choices: He hated wasting a lot of time pretending a lot a talking was going to ever fill a pothole (He's where the shovel came in.) Wasn't a supporter of wiping out blackberry bushes in the name of cleaning things up (Brambles for critters especially Rabbits was primary in his definition for neighborhood). And, when it came to designing a house, except for walls to a bathroom his was an open house (How will the story spread if you wall it off? was one of his other favorite Isms.)

~*~

By the time Sophie, Lei'ohu and Kikepa were ready to leave the moon tattoos and questions, Mahina had sunk behind the wall of trees. It was nearly dawn. The Old Man was fast asleep, enjoying the shift of his long tuned internal clock. This was a new thing, a very different thing. He had kept the small lamp lit for the night-shift of three. His long lean frame was curled onto his side of the punee, the large daybed that was really an any 'ole time bed. Sleeping bags and piles of pillows unfurled beside the punee.

"Brush your teeth!" Sophie whispered.

"I'm too tired, Tutu." There was an echo from the two curly headed girls.

"If you don't care about your teeth, your teeth won't care about you." Sophie rattled her false teeth at the sleepy girls, almost asleep in their boots.

"Ahhh, Tutu." It wouldn't work, but the girls tried the long slow whine anyway. Lei'ohu was still awake enough to offer a bargain. "Can we sleep with Grampa if we brush our teeth?" Sophie looked at her old man tucked into the pillow with his hand gripping it like his shovel. "I suppose. Grampa might think you're his shovel and then what?" That was enough to get the girls to giggling between the brushing and the toothpaste.

It was a super king sized bed that stuck out into the big room unapologetically. The Big Room was a place for sleeping, resting, love-making. It was also the place where meals were eaten, stories told, arguments raised and at the opposite wall furthest from the bed was a computer. Dangling ropes and pulleys created a ceiling maze, encouraged monkey business and inside extravaganzas. As Sophie and The Old Man aged, the ropes and pulleys took on other functions. We'll save that bit for your imagination. A low half-wall with a tiled counter top separated the cooking and dish washing.

All three girls were already dressed for sleep, and with her own toilet complete Sophie switched the bathroom light off, closed the door behind her and found a space to circle herself around two blazing heads of red hair. When the morning light replaced all signs of moon, The Old Man's  large hand clamped lightly around Lei'ohu's tiny arm. The Anna saw it all.

More here.

Akua Po at Midnight

Amazed at midnight

Words came later

~*~

Some nights are not meant for sleeping. Sophie wondered about the Anna and the Raven, she was filled with questions something that was usually causing a night for not sleeping. The moon was 'full-ish' as the sky guy liked to say. Her Ancestors took care of that detail by recognizing there are four full moons. 

"Place specific! All the people who have noticed how everything is connected know that what is true is observed again and again and again. The stories, what people notice are passed along."

"Passed along where?" Lei'ohu held her grandmother's hand but pulled at the same time to see how her shadow changed in the moon light.

"What's specific?" Kikepa held to words wanting meaning. She leaned into her grandmother's side looking at the old woman's face that was amazed at the brilliance of the moon.

Sophie answered Lei'ohu by gently rubbing the little red-head on the top of her head, "First the stories come through here. Your lolo. Like Mahina's light, tonight she is giving us a chance to see the trees and the orchard and the everything in the moon's time. We're making our own story tonight. You'll remember it coming in through your lolo. Later, the story will go inside you ... maybe finding a nice place in your chest (Sophie tapped her own chest, then that of her grand-daughter). Or maybe the story will swirl around in your opu, your belly and make noises when you get hungry and the moon is full like tonight." 

Kikepa, the serious, crinkled her eyebrows, "Really Tutu, this story could go in here? (She was rubbing her belly and leaned even harder against her gramma's hip.)

"Stories love to find places where they can grow Kikepa. If it's story that belong to you, it will grow and you will know where to find it." 

"Tutu," Kikepa was tenacious. "What is specific?" 

"Hmmm." Sophie wasn't sure how to explain that. "I was talking about how people who watch the Moon, like us watching Hina tonight, will see the shape of her different that a tutu watching with her grand children in the city. Specific means we are here watching the moon, and your daddy if he is watching the moon might be seeing the shape of the moon different."

"I'm not exactly sure what you mean, Tutu?" Kikepa was not easily convinced, but, she trusted her grandmother and liked the sound of that word specific. It sounded like Pacific, and she loved the ocean. 

From her place the Anna observed the little band of human people. "This is exactly the right time, and these are just the right people. My people." The curiosity was mutual. It was not a night for sleeping, and yes the stories were looking for places to settle in and grow.

Ceremony and ritual

" We live in a world that defines “story” as something solely of human making; an invention that defines us apart from the rest of the living beings of this planet. But what if story is really the thing that weaves us back in, and always has been? All the wise old cultures of this earth call stories medicine." As Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko writes in her wonderful novel Ceremony

"You have great friends," over her shoulders the old man read the email, muttering something else his commentary trailed into morning as the kettle hollered. The email included a sentiment Sophie believed more and more each day: stories are medicine. She was nearly seventy, and the good friend who sent the message had watched and read every story she'd written before and after the Career Years of Sophie Lei Makue's corporate life. The Old Man had the kettle of boiling water flowing into his first cup of the day. He wasn't a big tea drinker preferring instead the simple heat of a clear cup of water.

"What was it you said dear? I have great friends and then ...?" The space between their questions and answers was stretching with the years. There was less of a rush, most of the time, to fill in or answer for the other. There was a sense of accepting the wait, and that was new.

"Ahh. What did I say?" they both laughed at the blip in memory, like a scratch in old vinyl. Sophie waited. "Oh I said, you're lucky to have friends who know you know and knew you when you lead the way as a woman in business. A brown woman in a world of white men ... with ties." The Old Man's enthusiasm tweaked his gray eyes with sparks, and straightened his bent shoulders more than a tad.

"Geez, you said all of that in that stream of mutterings. I'd better pay more attention." These sorts of deeply revealing conversations were often the ones the two old people had in the dark when they lay beside one another in the quiet of their bedroom. The quality of telling was blessed by the dark and threads connected like a spider doing what she did best.

"I actually try to forget about those years. Success came with such a price." It was a sappy thing to say. Well, it was what she did and then she was worn out and so was the marriage that put her on a jet plane at twenty-five to start life away from the Valley. "And, the thing about that choice to try to forget about those years? It's tougher to get over that habit of valuing myself only when I'm earning the big dollars."

The couple had twenty years together, years that began at the tail end of those high-earning corporate years. The Old Man was witness to the charisma of Sophie Lei Makue in action. He remembered. "She does fly," was a common descriptor for her in those days. "I don't exactly know how she does it, and when I ask for explanation about it she's goes oyster on me."

"Do you remember how I used to say, 'She does fly!" The Old Man was dunking a bread and banana sandwich into the mug of hot water. Before Sophie could answer the wind which had been obviously somewhere else all morning was back and creating a wind dance in the treetops.

"It's a Kapu Po, moving from Hua to Akua. The Elementals are demanding their due." That was the thing had slowly yet deeply and completely made its presence known in their lives since the fire of those years of public life started winding down. What was valuable once, was being replace with a different currency. Ceremony and ritual was retooling the native fern. Spirit and Faith was as strong as Dandelion when it came to cracking life up.

So the timing tracked by the Goddess Mahina was moving water for both the old people. Sophie Lei was remembering her dreams again, and the Old Man was glad. "Ma came to visit last night. She brought me underwear." The Old Man laughed. "Does she know you don't wear any these days?"

Now Sophie was giggling, "I thanked her anyway."

"Right, ghosts don't stop doing what they did while they carried flesh and bones." The Old Man dunked another bit of bread and banana. Like ritual, he could count on it.


And then this happened.

Nothing starts without them

The drive home seemed longer for some reason. A simple yet bench marking excursion was exciting. With so little practice socialization was a muscle like her leg muscles, in need of slow and regular movement. I've gotta do this more often! Sophie said to herself as she drove the familiar road without the distraction or company of music.

"Call it a juicy slurp of something delicious!" The small and highly-pitched voice surprised Sophie, but then she was hearing it out of context so being surprised, that was, well ...  understandable. The Anna was making her presence known without her shimmering body. This was a first.

"You're reading my mind."

"No, I'm giving you a clue so you imprint the feeling," the bird was setting a pattern in the old woman's system. "Repetition, we do it all the time. A sweet spot becomes a place my whole body recognizes. A flower. A glass tube with sweet water. You're having one of those and it makes a lot of sense to move it around so your whole self will know one when you have it again."

"Thanks, you're a lot better than the radio." Sophie settled herself into the seat with a comforting wiggle.

"What's a radio?" The Anna really didn't know what a radio was.

Sophie pushed the black plastic button. Classic FM started in. Violins. The deep floor of a cello. "That's the radio, music coming through the air into those two places in the wall of the car. Speakers."

"I like it." For the rest of the drive home Sophie left the radio on low and the Anna said nothing more until the little truck pulled into the long driveway. It was getting dark by the time she put the truck into Park and turned the key off in the ignition.

"Nothing starts without pollination. That's what's happening with your memory, Sophie Lei Makue. In a very real way those words, and names that you're forgetting are remnants. Being pushed through to make room for pollen."

The tiny bird was retreading the old woman in ways she couldn't possibly object to. She wasn't sure that made sense, but it was better than frett'n. Could she believe that? Maybe. At the very least it was going to be fun to teach her grandchildren how to listen, and talk to tiny birds.

"I'd like to introduce you to a couple of really great little humans." Sophie said before leaving the truck.

"You mean your old man and the little woman who cleans the big house next door?" That really set Sophie into a belly laugh. "No, not my husband and Caz although I think I will be telling my old man about you. He'll be glad to know we've got a thing going here. No, I mean to introduce you to my grand kids. They're coming to visit."

"When'll that be?"

"In a couple of weeks. They'll stay for the whole month of March."

"Salmon berries might be starting in, and there will be many of us if the flowers pop."

"They're city kids, so there might be some in between time before they can learn to listen." Sophie was hedging her bets with the tiny bird hoping this creature was truly a personal god, an Aumakua the children could get to know before they turned five.

"So they are twins, aren't they?" The Anna was buzzing and backing up outside the truck window weaving between the lacy arms of the Cedars.

"Yes."

"We'll all just have to wait and see about how good their hearing is. The Salmon berries won't have to wait though, they're well on their way and count on us dipping our needle snouts into their nectar. And besides I've signed up for the long haul. You can count on that."

Sophie Lei Makue liked the sound of that.

Next.

Some never leave

Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.-Willa Cather

"Our friendship is as old as our children." The wind blew over the wetlands bringing with it the cold; the thin shawl was doing nothing to keep her friend warm. Sophie shoo-ed,"Get inside." She blew a final kiss and headed for her car glad for the red storm coat that bundled her like bearskin. Two long- time friends spent time covering the terrain of history without rush, a deck-side tea party faced the grand Pacific in the company of birds dangling from a nearby feeder all the while.

"I've never been this close to them ... they are Red-wing Blackbirds aren't they?" Between sips of hot Catnip Tea sweetened with blueberry honey, Sophie could not believe her luck. There were her sweetheart's favorites. The birds with songs that drew memories of hitch-hiking near wetlands of the Wisconsin midlands were chatting briskly as the women sipped the sweet tea. There was room for the Blackbird, and a young man's recall inspired by that thrilling sound and the flash of red on black.

"Yes. They are Red-wing Blackbirds. And they aren't back early, they never left."

"They never left?" Sophie could not miss the connection between the near dozen Blackbirds and the Anna who was making herself at home in her woods, and in her mind. The delight of company, and the conversation with this friend was part of a slow and long recovery process for Sophie Lei Makue. Willa Voyageur was part of Sophie's young years in America when there were two sons, one a piece, raised in the ruckus decades of Bette Midler on vinyl and home-grown cannabis drying in the basement. Hippy mamas now retired from careers, remarried, and reconnecting after decades of separate lives bundled up for tea as if they too had never left. But, of course, they had.

Find out what happens next.

Funny as in odd

"It's funny how the language we use and even the voice we use changes."

"You mean you think that's not normal?" The drizzle had grown to a steady rain, not a mist but a pour. Sophie cinched the ties to her hood. The Anna hovered an arm's length away.

"The different languages we use to speak with different people, or the way my own voice changes when I catch myself as stiff as stale bread and trip on my rigidity, embarrassed at my bossiness." Sophie Lei Maku'e was the older sister. She missed her brother and thought of him at moments that slipped between the cracks of her usually controlled environment. A laugh cackled from her bent rib cage. Oh how she missed the Pidgin that would spill from her because Kawika was on the other end of the line.

"No, I see what you're questioning. Who speaks in a constant monotone?"

Sophie kept walking out the long winding driveway to the edge of the woods where the clear cut had emptied the forest of trees. A commodity of trees, a cash crop. That was odd: trees grown as a commodity. Strange, the way we made up words to fit our crooked thinking. "A raw material that can be bought or sold. Like coffee or copper; or trees."

"I'm reading a book about tea. It's called Liquid Jade. Do you know what books are, do you know what tea is? " The Anna was no where in sight. She had found a limb of Cedar and perched her short legs under cover but had heard Sophie's questions. The bird simply stilled, then shook her head at a dizzying speed to dry herself. The woman walked. The rain fell.

Images and memories of printed words from the book about tea kept Sophie company as she walked. There was room, plenty of it, between her steps. Ritual tea. First in China. Did her Ancestors of the long long past pick the leaves or trade them? Why did her family have to be involved in the books she read? Puddles of rain were already collecting her boots splashed rather than avoided them. There. Splashing in puddles --that action-- Sophie shifted, if there was a voice it would be gleeful. The Anna met her at the head of the driveway. "We had a home in the trees that lived out there. The clearing of many trees at one time is odd, but not funny. I think the word commodity makes for a lot of too muches. Follow me!"

The rain was softening, the cell of dark Pig Clouds had raced north. Sophie lifted her hood to keep up with the Anna's flight plan. The bird had back pedaled to a mound of slash left by the loggers. Seedlings were up to knee height. Douglas Fir was the commodity tree of choice. A one tree forest was odd, as in not nature's way. The owner of this land was into growing trees for money. "It will be a long time before birds will nest here again. Ground dwellers move in quickly. Ants. Beetles. They don't hesitate. Spider will make her appearance too."

"What can we do. I mean, what can I do about this messy thinking going on?"

"I say," the Anna moved to within inches of Sophie Lei's hood. "just keep feeding me those thoughts of yours. They keep me fed with the calories I need, and there's something within me that sorts the ... uncertainties. Then we have times like these. We become connected. It makes a great difference. A small differences perhaps. But then it builds."

These conversations lasted moments, a string of moments at the most a handful of minutes. Sophie wondered whether they really happened.

There's more here.

Familiar

"...get yourself a therapist, coach, astrologer, or friend (or all!) delve deep into your life until the sting is out of the story. You’ll need to tell and re-tell your story until you can see it as one drama within the larger story of your life. Consider what lessons or insights can be gained and be open to the idea of how this experience can generate new possibilities for you." - Healing Pluto's Wounds, Elizabeth Spring

"I've been listening to you," the Anna was quiet in her approach but not unpleasant or surprising being such a morsel of a presence.

"That's something. We humans get so caught up in our own nattering it's quite something to hear that. Just how much have you heard?" Sophie was out in the orchard, thinking it might be time to turn her garden bed. Last year's herbs had wintered over without so much as a shrivel to the oregano. The seasons were definitely changing and more than likely a hot summer was due them. Global warming.

"Too many too muches."

"What was that?"

"Too many too muches. Your kin, have taken too much for too many terms. You are thinking it is global warming. But more simply it is too many too muches." The zipping movement of the bird was not easy to follow. She was fast that Anna and in between the forward and backward flight pattern Sophie wondered what the little bird was feeding on.

"The truth of it is I am feeding on you Sophie Lei Maku'e. I feed on your thoughts which are, in the main, as sweet as summer nectar." The hummingbird left Sophie to consider the information. From her perch high in the fourth limb from the top of the Great Pine, the Anna watched the turning of the heavens. Clouds in layers of different textures, shapes and speed alternated in their shuttering affect of blue sky. Dark streaks of fast moving clouds left the white pillows of near stand-stills as company. She read the goings on and knew it would be best to wait before turning that garden bed over.

The iridescent green body lighted on the fence. "I've decided to wait on the garden."

"Good idea."

"Funny, but I have the distinct sensation that you had something to do with me waiting. If you have been feeding on my thoughts, is it possible you affect what I think as well?"

"Yes, let's start small and say I did observe a pattern in the winds and the clouds and THEY know what will happen with the weather. They are weather!" It was possible the sound that Sophie Lei Maku'e heard was a hummingbird's laughter something less than sneezing and more like popcorn popping (very small popcorn). The Anna continued, "If I am feeding on your thoughts and you are now tuned to our symbiotic arrangement it is exactly right that you should then become aware of what I am thinking."

"My god. The potential for this is r e a l l y something. If you and I have this thing going on, and, I am forgetting things here and there, is it possible you weren't kidding about all my forgettings being at a party somewhere. Somewhere known to you?"

"The possibilities for interstitial and inter-species community is not a far-fetched and fantasy riddled screenplay. The relationship has been an ongoing conversation since the first coral polyp gave birth in the deep dark night of Po. The Year of the Fire Monkey is cleverly unveiling the unraveling coil of silly thinking." Sophie Lei Maku'e was among the first to make space for utter transformation. Pluto was crossing her Ascendent and in place of who she once was, a truer more familiar self was emerging.

She, the old woman, started spinning in slow easy circles. "Where is that party? No, wait. Never mind, I've been there done that haven't I. No need lasso old ghosts."

The Anna made that small popcorn popping noise again. But since slow is not part of a Hummingbird's inventory, she made swift propelling angles with her beautiful feathers that lit like miniature fish scales in a heaven made of all kinds of space.

Read the next part here.

Sophie's Almond Cake (Gluten Free)

The almond cake Sophie enjoys in A Native Fern is real enough to eat. This recipe is a simple and easily adaptive treat. The * will give you clues to how you might change things to suit you.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups of almond meal or almond flour * (Raw or Blanched Almond Flour would work. I used Raw Almond Flour that I toasted a bit before using. To do that I simply lined the baking dish with parchment paper and spread the Raw Almond Flour over it. Bake for 5-8 minutes, or just enough to warm and dry the almonds a little. If you use Blanched Almond Flour I don't think you'd need to toast the flour before mixing with the rest of the ingredients.) 
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
a pinch of sea salt
1 egg
1/4 cup of honey * ( I used maple syrup instead of honey. Agave would work just as well, and you'd need less to be equally sweet. You can also adjust the amount of sweetener to suit you.)
1 tablespoon organic orange marmalade   
1 tablespoon poppy seeds

DIRECTIONS

Put all the ingredients into a medium sized mixing bowl. Mix well.
Your batter should be wet but not runny.
Pour the mix into a smallish baking pan or loaf pan lined with parchment

BAKE at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. 

Let the cake cool slightly. It's lovely warm with a cuppa tea or whatever is your fancy.

I wished I'd have been less hungry for cake, and ready with the camera so I could have a picture to show you. Next time I make Sophie's Almond Cake, I'll slip in a photo.

Dream jumble

The Year of the Fire Monkey was coming. Pluto, the small but mighty planet was pulling out the stops making it very uncomfortable whenever Sophie lingered in old-and-outmoded costumes or addictions dressed as innocent habit. Tampering with her dreams was no longer off limits. Was she awake or asleep? She couldn't tell.

"Notice how you feel," her teacher counseled. "Especially around the full moons and the dark moons pay special attention." The twenty-first century was an extraordinary time to learn. Thanks to the technology that was once reserved for spies Sophie Lei Maku'e could watch and listen to respected elders who looked like her, made jokes she could have heard in her mother's kitchen; language and culture wove a security blanket. If she was forgetting common knowledge, maybe, it was the sort that was forgettable.

The inconvenient memory lapses made for interesting encounters, sending a wobble to the way she engaged in small talk. The smell of freshly baked almond cake cooled, and anytime now the old kettle would be hot enough to tell her "The boils on!" A generous slice of Almond-Poppy Seed Cake and a cup of Lemon-Ginger Tea promised comfort without harm. At least that's how she figured things. The cake had no flour (gluten was all too damaging now), there was maple syrup. Instead of Wild Forest Black Tea (which now gave her the jitters) Sophie was steeping a bag of Lemon-Ginger Tea. Sitting to enjoy her afternoon snack the memory of an episode in the dentist's waiting room finally pieced itself together. She'd been trying to remember how the three-way exchange took place.

"The weather's changing," Sophie said as she stood looking out the window. Clouds collected and moved slowly into the recently blue sky. A woman with large red round plastic frames and blonde hair cut straight across her forehead and below her ears tugged at her red coat. "My APP said it's going to rain at 11:00. I'm from Southern California, and I just love rain. It could rain every day of the week, and I'd be fine with it."

"You've come to the right place," Sophie thought to herself, right ... another California! but said. "Do you live nearby?"

"Just this side of the bridge." That was close, this was her neighborhood. Sophie was standing after a ninety-minute drive.

A second woman sat behind her near the water cooler bundled in a blue denim coat. "My APP said it's gonna rain at two this afternoon." Sophie made a point of catching the eyes of both women who looked to their devices to determine weather.She didn't say what was going through her mind. The young assistant stepped through the door and called her name, it was Sophie's turn to sit in the chair. The small talk faded.

Weeks later, with the hot tea and warm cake becoming part of her Sophie remembered the punchline to that dentist office interlude. The feisty young Hawaiian teacher from Keaukaha who taught kilo wore a tee shirt that read, YOU'RE THE APP!

~*~

After almost a decade of living in the same place, Sophie was feeling cramped. She needed to get out. She wanted to move. But that was easier said than done. Where to? Forward or back? The dreams weren't clear, or if they were she didn't remember them when she woke. Suffocating. She caught sight of her brother. Inhaling felt heavy.

"I gotta go back, but I know like." The sound of his version of Pidgin wrapped her in comfort. They'd had such fun in the dream. She dreamed of her dead brother often.

"Would you like some of this soup?" She asked a favorite cousin still somewhere in dreams. A stack of pots offered a way to share a thick winter squash soup, Sophie reached for the pot of top. When she poured it into one of the pots she saw that bits of pot had flaked into the soup. Black specks mixed with the freshly made soup. Not a good way to share the goods.

~*~

"You're bilingual, switching from Pidgin to a full-fledged English." The tiny bird was back. Hovering just beyond the edges of dream, the Anna's wings stirred the air between them. The comment tickled Sophie.

"It's a relief to know I can still do that. With so little practice or reason to speak Pidgin I worry that I'll lose the taste for it. In dreams I'm able. People show up to draw it from me." It didn't seem to matter that Sophie was not sure if she was sleeping and dreaming or dreaming to wake herself.

Flying backward as if to get a better or different view of the woman the hummingbird left Sophie with this, "I've also heard you harmonizing with a lovely bit of near-base to a falsetto."

An eavesdropper had found an open channel.
Somewhere between a memory,
The logjam was freeing itself.

"Yes, that was me belting the harmony. Don't be afraid," Sophie confirmed. To herself she thought, Let those high tones ring. I'll fill in below.

Click here for Sophie's Almond Cake recipe.

Instant Recall

Common words were slipping from her. "Maybe they all gather somewhere and have parties when you're not trying to remember their names." The voice wasn't unpleasant but it bothered her to see no one she could attach it to. Once upon a time there wasn't a thing she couldn't name, and now she was hearing voices from invisible sources. A gentle breeze tickled a few more strands from under her cap. "You're forgetting not all voices come from human people." Sophie Lei Maku'e missed so many things. It was really no surprise that nowadays even the most common things were losing their places. "If you had it within your power, would you?" The voice was persistent today. Relaxing into the company of it, Sophie played along. "Would I what?"

"Would you want to have instant recall of everything you've ever known?" From over the top of her glasses that were forever slipping down her bridge-less nose, Sophie spotted the source of the curious voice.

"You're meant to be migrating somewhere warmer for the winter." The old woman blinked, took her glasses off and chuffed at the lenses to create a fog then cleaned them with the soft inside of her sweat shirt. She looked through her glasses, curious herself.

"Yes, I'm still here, and no I don't head south. Well, that's not entirely true I do occasionally migrate, but not necessarily. I'm an Anna, and it's because of you that I don't fly off like my other kin. Your kin took to a habit of dangling sugared water in glass tubes all year round. We're highly intelligent for a creature so small. But we've wandered off the trail Sophie Lei Maku'e. Have you forgotten the question?"

The morning had turned a much brighter color than it had for a long time. Laughing deeply the old woman was pleased to be reminded that she was still able to hear the voices. "No. I haven't forgotten the question." She was in fact delighted to engage in conversation, the banter warmed her. "I don't think I would like to remember everything I've ever known. The thought of it gives me a headache. It's just that forgetfulness can be inconvenient."

The tiny iridescent green Anna was thoughtful in her consideration of the old woman's answer. There was something very decent about it. Both the answer and the woman were worth future visits. "I would like to continue our conversation at another time. Would you?" Hummingbirds don't linger in one spot for extended periods requiring a near constant refueling, the female Anna's Hummingbird lifted from the branch of a particularly tall huckleberry bush waiting for the old woman's answer.

"I'll look forward to it." Sophie Lei Maku'e had found something to anticipate with joy and that was a very good substitute for forgetting.

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