I am the kind of tired that only the sun can make you feel after too much of it. A carmine color traces my shoulders and my back, the negative space taking the shape of a sports bra.

I painted my catchment tank today. Well, I hand-scrubbed and then hosed down and then primed (with two coats) my catchment tank. Kev helped, then he had work calls, so I finished the first coat and did the second by myself.

Don’t feel bad — I like this kind of work, the kind that leaves smudges of dirt (or, in this case, paint) on your face (and elsewhere). The kind that makes the corners of your mouth taste salty and gets grit beneath the nails. The kind that makes the backs of your arms ache and your muscles twitch from overuse (or, more accurately, from underuse and then overuse).

Since I started working at age 14, most of my jobs have been manual labor. I started in my family’s doughnut shop, stamping boxes, catching hot glazed off the line, and dipping filled ones for the case out front.

I farmed my way across Ireland and Wales in my 20s, shoveling chicken s**t, wrangling sheep to mark them for mating and treat their hoof rot, and chasing down escaped bulls.

I spent 14-16 hour days in coveralls and rubber boots, making wine (physically making it) in California’s wine country. I operated a forklift and climbed ladders resting against 10-feet tall stainless steel fermentation tanks. I balanced on a narrow plank of wood stretched across the top to “punch down” 5k gallons of wine below me.

I often had visions of myself as Charlotte’s Web’s Templeton, swimming in a pitcher of lemonade at the fair. I never did fall in, but plenty of earwigs fell into my pockets (and elsewhere) while I sorted grapes. I left the cellar soaking wet and wrung out at the end of every day, and I loved that feeling.

Like today.

We catch our rainwater here and use it for everything: It pumps through the sinks, showers, and toilets. We wash our clothes and our dishes in it. It fills our pool, and we drink it.

Our 10k gallon tank allows us to make use of all this glorious rain. To be self-sufficient and not have to rely on the county for water. To not pay for something that nature gives us as a gift. (Hawaiians say, “Everything we need comes from the sky.” That’s not figurative.)

The catchment tank is corrugated metal exposed to the elements, so it rusts. Painting it helps protect it from corrosion. This is one of the many homeownership things one has to learn on the fly in Hawaii. It’s not something you can call your dad about (there are so many things here like that.)

We went to Home Depot last weekend to pick up primer, outdoor acrylic paint, rollers, and brushes, guessing what we would need. Absent the rain today, we opened up the paint cans while we had the sun and the wind on our side.

The first coat was messy. We Pollocked the crap out of our grass and our legs and our cats (well, they Pollocked themselves). It took a few panels to get an idea of the best approach: horizontal required going back and doing the underside of the ridges. Vertically worked better but called for more rolling. By the time we got the hang of it, it had become clear we’d need a second coat. And… we were out of paint.

Someone once referred to me as a homesteader. Who, me? No way. Homesteaders know how to do stuff like weave and knit, and dye fabrics using plants. They know how to build stairs, harvest herbs, kill animals for meat and… paint catchment tanks.

But we’re not homesteaders — we’re just winging it.

When we first moved here, our real estate agent helped us clean up some of the junk left behind by the previous owner. I think he sensed our overwhelm, that we were in over our heads. And at the end of the day, as we were loading up his truck with garbage bags to take to the dump, he said, “You know, you guys will figure all this stuff out. That’s one thing I wish I’d realized earlier in my life. I can do most things — it’s just a matter of figuring them out.”

Maybe that’s what homesteading is: learning what you need to know to live without relying on someone else — whether your parents or your partner or the government — to get by.

I aspire to that type of noble living: in connection with the land, and in integrity with, sovereignty over, and responsibility for myself.

Call it what you like. It’s about having the humility to say "I don’t know” and the courage to say “but I can figure it out.” And trust, as we’re silently painting side by side, that we will.

Credits

Accompanying music: Prickly Pear by Portico Quartet

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachaelmaier.substack.com

Click the play button above to hear me read this. (For the full experience, put in headphones and close your eyes.)

It’s small in size but sturdy. Well-built enough to withstand the tides and ages, one in the same.

It’s rocked by a gentle but unrelenting current, bumping against the legs of the dock to which it’s tethered. The sound is pleasant, calming. It doesn’t hurt the boat.

It has two oars, oak. Polished but worn, meant to last. It has two small seats, no life vests underneath. None needed.

A tattered rope keeps it in place. The knot is sodden, not easily undone. But it can be.

The boat remains tied there, unused. Through many storms and many sunsets. It grows moss. It gets shat on. The sun bleaches the bird droppings and fresh piles cover over those. A spider has made an elaborate home under the seat at the bow. Many flies are not happy about this.

One day, footsteps approach the boat. They’re loud against the stillness. A person you recognize kneels and reaches for the knotted rope. Impossible, you think. They couldn’t. They wouldn’t.

The knot is suddenly undone. You watch as they coil the rope carefully, placing it beside their shoes. They step into the boat, one solid leg and then the other.

The boat rocks beneath their weight and steadies.

There’s a squeak as they remove the oars from their resting places and push off against the dock, slicing the still waters.

They are a few yards out when they stop rowing. They turn around, looking towards the shore as if they forgot something. They see you standing there and smile as you wave and call after them.

They face the horizon again and resume rowing. They must not hear me, you think. So you continue yelling, louder. But they continue rowing steadily, disappearing into a distant dot.

It falls dark while you stand there, waiting for them to return. You sit down on the dock and take hold of the rope, rubbing the warped part where the knot had been.

It occurs to you they’re not coming back.

You undress slowly and silently, letting your clothes drop around your feet. You take a deep breath and dive into the black water. It is cold but it feels good. It shocks something awake inside of you.

You spread yourself wide across the surface of the water and float, looking up. Looking up at the vastness of the night sky. At the millions of quaking stars, at the moon like a lighthouse. At the immensity of a sky that can hold so much darkness, and yet so much light.

P.S…ssst!

Hey friends, how do these postcards make you feel?

Know anyone who might also like to feel that way?

Get them to sign up for this newsletter, and I’ll send you a real, in-the-mail postcard from Hawaii — just respond to this email with your address.)

Credits

Accompanying music: Water Memory 1 by Emily A. Sprague

Listen on YouTube or Spotify.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachaelmaier.substack.com

I’m chomping on the residual grit of raw coconut meat like gum while I wait on hold with the company that manages my 401k. I left my job with no other options on tap, and I’m trying to sort out some finance stuff. I’m trying to be responsible.

But I’m not thinking about my future or even my past as they drudge up active and old accounts attached to my social security number. Accounts where I’ve hidden away a percentage of each paycheck for the last decade, like a worried squirrel afraid it won’t have enough food for winter. Accounts that will dictate when I can retire, translating the effort of working since the age of 14 into USD.

But the future is the farthest thing from my mind at this moment.

I am anchored in the present, in the very now-ness of being. In Hawaii, tasting the coconut that was scavenged and cracked open last night. That was unlocked from its shell with the tip of a butter knife like an oyster. The coconut that grew on the same land where I am now. That digested vitamin D from the same sun I feel on my face while I’m removing dead palms from its base. The same trade winds that rustle its palms rustle my hair as I sit on the porch. Waiting for a customer service rep who said the birds here sound different than the ones they have there.

I’ve always loved coconut. As a kid, I’d sneak open the kitchen cupboard where my mom kept the baking supplies, shaking clumps of sweetened shreds into my hand. Rolling up the bag and replacing the blue rubber band borrowed from a long-ago eaten bunch of broccoli or asparagus. Crunching grated coconut between my teeth hours later while mimicking the moves of Mario as I punched buttons (A-B-A-B) and he punched bricks.

I never had any hesitance picking from the option of spinning slices in the display case on a diner counter. Cherry, apple, blueberry, pecan... I’d settle for any of them when paired with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. But coconut custard pie... it doesn’t need rescuing with any sides. It is its own cherry on top, the top shelf of desserts. If one ended up in our fridge after a cookout, I’d cut myself smaller and smaller slivers as the pie disappeared. The foil pan gleaming like a time-lapse of the moon phases every time I opened the fridge door.

I recently discovered that placing coconut milk in the fridge for a few hours turns it into whipped cream. If I had known this as a child, I wouldn’t have emptied Reddi Whip bottles into the back of my mouth. I would have much preferred the coconut version.

A coconut will take root not long after it falls. If you don’t remove it right away, a ‘keiki’ (baby) tree will start growing in that spot. My friend says if you remove it right after it sprouts, its insides will be the equivalent of coconut-flavored cotton candy, spongy and sweet. Angel food cake — another childhood favorite — comes to mind. My taste buds explode at the same time my mind does. I need to experience this delicacy. We grab the machete and go on a hunt.

We find two, but both are moldy inside. So we walk the perimeter of the property, scouting a few hiding trees. We weave our way through a tangle of jungle to find more. A short tree has dropped four. None have sprouted yet, but these are good for water and meat.

We each carry one back to the front yard. She kneels in front of them in a long white skirt, whispering a few words of thanks. Then she raises the blade over her head and comes down hard, straight through the middle. Then another whack, and another. She looks like a warrior princess slaying a dragon, like so many fantasy movies of my youth. But this is Hawaii on a Wednesday evening, and there's no Netflix in sight.

It’s now the following day, and I’m on hold with a financial services rep about my retirement plan. He returns and asks me a slew of questions I’m not sure I have the answers to. Questions about what risk level I’m comfortable with. About desired market values. About what age I anticipate retiring. I am trying to stay with him.

When he asks how financially secure I feel right now, I ask him to explain what he means by that. He defines a spectrum in terms of assets and liquidity and income and...

I am not listening. I'm grinding coconut meat between my molars, staring out into my yard, counting coconuts on the tree.

Credits

Accompanying music: Soul Alphabet by Colleen

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachaelmaier.substack.com

The Hong Kong orchid tree in my front yard blooms magenta flowers the size of fists with leaves that look like lily pads. Its sweet nectar fragrance wafts across the yard and catches me.

When I'm walking back from feeding the cats, head down and caught in a maze of must-dos. When I step out into a moonless night to see the stars shine like Christmas lights left up past the new year. When I'm auto-piloting on the back-and-forth track to the laundry room.

Whatever I'm doing, its scent catches me like a car interrupting a curbside daydream.

This time of year it stands nearly bare, its skeleton unprotected from the alternating harshness of Hawaiian sun and rain. My cat scales it with ease. His footsteps drop leaves like melting icicles dangling from a south-facing eave.

It seems a strange time for it to go dormant, when most other living things are emerging from the deep sleep of winter. If I hadn't been here this time last year, I might mistake its slumber for something fatal flagging it. I might suffocate it with heaps of compost and fertilizer in an attempt to resuscitate.

But this tree is cycling to its internal rhythm. Independent of my deeply conditioned expectations of May. Independent of my desires and presumptions. Independent of this impatient audience shuffling in seats awaiting its performance, demanding to see colors burst forth this time of year.

Its mutedness is not antagonistic, but intentional. It stands solidly against the verdant cacophony of its environment. Adamant in its selfness, standing in stark sovereignty. Willing to bare itself in contrast, despite all external indications to do the opposite.

This tree's nakedness exposes its beauty. A beauty deeper than its smooth show of bark. A beauty that lies not in its flowering but in all its stages of being and becoming. In the very nature of its existence.

And following its own timing, it will make itself visible to the world again. It will express itself in a language that alerts us to its aliveness. When it's ready, and only then, it will call the bees with its blossoms.

It will astonish itself awake in a spectacular display of its vibrancy.

Credits

Accompanying music: Approaching Spring by Jakob Ahlbom

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachaelmaier.substack.com

The wind animates, blowing the tops of trees like drunken heads. Swaying together to a song that reminds them of their high school days. Unsteady and accidentally rhythmic.

The wind animates, shivering the full length of tall blades of grass. Like the hairs on my forearms that extend themselves atop goosebump mountains. White-blond flags of surrender.

The wind animates, swirling the chimes on my lanai that speak for the breeze. Like an interpreter hired to make some foreign tongue beautiful. To give it voice in the familiar shimmers and clanks of one’s home.

The wind animates, whispering everything alive. Everything that gives itself to the gale force, surrenders to the this-way-and-that-way waffling. The gentle push and pull. Letting go of the exhausting need to be upright constantly.

The wind animates, surfing the birds. Like prima ballerinas bending into the shape of sails for their partners, reactive pedestals, to display. The supportive arms of wind currents.

Like the supportive arms of my father, moving me as a sleeping babe from the safety of his shoulder to the cool-sheeted crib below. And every time an internal gyroscope startling me awake with the feeling of falling.

Forgetting to trust those arms like birds trust the wind. And eventually learning that hard-earned, skinned-knee alleyway lesson: Even when you do fall over, you can get back up.

Remembering this as I bend over curled toes the moment before jumping into frigid waters below. Anticipating the sting. Knowing the risk, and needing to jump anyway.

Like a baby bird on her first flight out of the nest. Feeling that she's falling and yet trusting her wings to guide her. Trusting that she will not continue to fall.

The wind animates, catching and lifting. Until suddenly, as if by magic: She knows what it is to fly.

P.S.

If you get someone to sign up for this newsletter, I’ll send you a real, in-the-mail postcard from Hawai’i! Just respond to this email with your address.

Credits

Accompanying music: Itasca by Elskavon & John Hayes

Listen on YouTube or Spotify.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachaelmaier.substack.com

I was wiping off my yoga mat when I heard it. A delayed sound. A glitch.

It barely would be detectable if I were in a hurry or not one to notice details. I fit neither of those descriptions. I don't need an algorithm monitoring my speech to tell me that "Look!" and "Wow!" are two of my most-used phrases. Both are usually accompanied by a pointer finger aimed like an arrow at a distant target.

In this particular moment, I heard the eee-eee of something being cleaned. I heard it after I removed my hand with the towel from the mat. Not long after, but enough nano-seconds to notice that the action and its sound weren't completely synced.

I sat back on my heels, pulling my hand away like I'd hit a bad tooth while chewing. And the first thought that came to mind is the tape got stuck. Or the sound effect guy had fallen asleep in his booth. That I caught a snag in the curtain that hides all the props behind the stage.

I went about the rest of my day, scooping out the seeds from an overripe papaya. Folding the clothes from the dryer. Making the 45-minute round trip to the mailbox. Picking up a few odds and ends that I'd forgotten to get at the store.

But that sound. The eee-eee. It followed me all day.

I listened extra hard. I watched more carefully: the color sequence of changing traffic lights, my fingers across the keyboard, the wind blowing the trees.

Now, I'm not a paranoid person … even for a person who feels the need to say "I'm not a paranoid person!" But I've experienced enough — especially in this last year (I know, we all have) — to know that things aren't always as we expect them to be. And as much as we think we know, take that and times it by negative infinity, and you'll get close to what we actually know.

Is it a sign of maturity or resignation to admit that? I don't know. But there's a baby gecko moving like a tadpole across the railing in front of me as I type this. I think I'll go ask him if he knows.

I have a feeling he might.

P.S.

Spread the aloha! Share this with one other person you think might like it.

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Accompanying music: Sad Seine by Lambert

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachaelmaier.substack.com

My brother and sister are here. After 16 hours on three different planes, across the whole of America that separates us. Across the ocean that symbolically and otherwise separates Hawai'i from the rest of the country. After a two hour trek across the island that I now call home. All to be here, to stand in the same space together.

The least I can do is give them an adventure.

We'll drive north and up and up and up cliffs and then straight down to their base, where water meets black sand. Where a mountain stream meets ocean. Where water falls and wild horses roam. Where the kings used to live.

A guy in a ranger's hut at the top of the road will check our truck for 4-wheel drive. He'll ensure, as best as he's able, that it won't Cinderella-turn-into one of those abandoned ones at the bottom. That we will make it back up the treacherous stretch from sky level to the shallows of the ocean floor. The steepest road its length in all the US.

We're going to Waipi'o Valley today. So they can experience the land before time, after traveling all this way. After a year and a half without seeing each other. After a lifetime of me leaving.

First to New York for college then to San Francisco, where I lived six blocks from the land's end. My dad joked when I moved there that I got as far away from Pennsylvania as I could without leaving the country.

Technically, he was wrong.

And so, here we are in Hawai'i. On the island that roots the rest of them, the anchor of the chain. One of the remotest places on earth. And after traveling to its ends, we will sit in its cradle together.

I'll make sandwiches and fill extra water bottles and pack sunscreen and beach towels and band-aids (just in case). I will show them an adventure. Like the older sister I am.

Unlike the Atlantic grays of our childhood, there's no lifeguard on duty in the rough and tumble Pacific blues. These waters will bob us up and down like balloons against a living room ceiling. Struggling against gravity and any structure that tries to contain them. Tethered to a wrist to prevent them from going too high.

An invisible tether that stretches the span of an entire continent and the adjacent ocean. Wrists attached to far-reaching limbs. Limbs connected to the sturdy straight trunk that anchors and roots. That connects and protects from dangerous drifting. Like a balloon riding trade winds past the continent’s edge, too far out to sea.

Like the older sister I am.

Credits

Accompanying music: Hold On We’re Going Home by Sly5thAve.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachaelmaier.substack.com

Not in the form of imaginary beings that haunt, but the hungry ones Buddhists say are cursed with an appetite that can't be sated.

The ones with mouths the size of pinheads and stomachs as vast as mountain ranges. Animalistic in their fervor to feed themselves. Exhausting themselves with their endless eating.

Theirs is desire unchecked, the drive to obtain. Más, más, más they say with each bite. This is suffering.

I have learned to let go of a lot over the course of my life, and this last year was a master class in it. I wanted a healthy baby. I wanted to see my family for Christmas. I wanted money back from my tax return. Love and money. A recipe for suffering.

Where I feel the most fear, I know, is where there's the most clinging. When paranoid what ifs begin dancing across the back of my mind like it's a dusty stage and the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy is playing in full orchestra. When I start my statements with shoulds in the sound of someone else's voice. When I feel my heart clench instead of leap. When I find my body holding tight against some wanting...

These are all signs the hungry ghosts are awakening.

What can break their spell? What can quiet their tummy rumbles? Can reassure them, there will always be enough? What will shrink their stomachs to a size appropriate to their mouths?

Only one thing: nourishment.

When have I ever felt full after eating junk food? I can eat cheese puffs til I'm orange in the finger, but I know I'll still be hungry. What are all these cheese puffs I'm chasing? Dinner will be ready soon enough. I'm not going to die of starvation.

But knowing this and knowing it are two different things.

Sometimes a visual reminder can help. So I look at my hands, balled into fists. Bracing against some phantom force that will take away whatever I'm holding. Clutching what I have with all my might.

As I unfurl each fiddlehead finger from its staunch stanch, I release some of the fear, some of the wanting. I allow the the blood flow to return and the slivered moon-prints in my palm to fade.

And because it seems these ghosts are also cursed with amnesia, it takes doing this over and over to remember: An outstretched hand is more apt to receiving. An open palm can hold more.

P.S.,

I’m creating this space, but you’re a curator of it — you can reply to this email to tell me what you thought, what you felt, what you want to feel.

And you can spread the aloha by sharing with a friend.

Credits

Accompanying music: Conversations by Fallow Dear.

This talented musician also happens to be a lovely human and my friend. Check out her work and forthcoming album and you can listen on Spotify. 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachaelmaier.substack.com

This is the time of night I find myself drifting in a vessel to other worlds. Suspended between worn cotton sheets and the thin veil of consciousness. On a hybrid mattress with enough fluff to feel dreamy and enough memory foam to trace my shape without feeling like a bag of sand.

This bed will be paid off in 5 years. I bought it within the same month I bought a house and a car. It was expensive for a bed, but the cheapest of the three and the only one that came with the option for a no-interest loan.

I laid on a dozen beds at the first mattress store, 5 at the next one, and 5 again at the first one. This was the one that came out on top. Not the most expensive. Not the least comfortable.

The Goldilocks bed.

The foundation for the dreamscape I enter every night. The solid grounding that catches me from imaginary falls. Where I collapse after running from monsters that appear as people from my past. The home base, like the Davis' curbside tree in childhood games of tag. The shores onto which I pull myself, tussled from the seas of subliminal exploration. Ravaged and wind-tossed. Cheeks salty with my own rain.

In this moment, I'm aware of my suspension, my consciousness the fulcrum of a squeaking see-saw. The quivering meniscus of a glass not quite overfull. Before the sun touches the tripwire horizon, alerting me to the day about to make its case. Before the moon has inserted itself into the coinslot of tomorrow. While the nightshade remains askance at the top of the window. Stuck in the gray area that lies on the spectrum of time convention: too early to start the day, and too late to go back to sleep.

I have a decision to make: Do I tuck back in and cower behind the sheer folds of night's polka-dotted skirt, hoping? Or do I bravely touch warm feet to cool wood and open eyes fully to the beckoning call of today?

The one I am writing you from now.

Credits

Accompanying music: Klass by Tom Ashbrook

Watch/listen on Youtube or Spotify.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachaelmaier.substack.com