Shivers*

"When you're sitting here, the reasons for believing is easy."

Maydene shook her head sending droplets of water off the ends of her newly shorn hair. Steam filled the shower, and the whole of the bathroom was as humid as the air was thick outside. The Trees had made their collective shift and shiver from exhaling, to inhaling. Added to the rain that had become an earnest downpour the forest was wet. "How do they do that Aunty May? How do the Trees go for so long without ... at this point the little girl always held her breath ... taking a breath?"  Imagina was born without forgetting. She had questions full and unstopping. In those days Maydene and Calypso were the inseparables. Partnerless, these sisters had history that braided like Sweetgrass. There was Calypso, Maydene, Imagina and All Others. It was another time, another house. But memories don't let that stop them, do they.

In the steamy room Imagina's voice traveled the gossamer. Maydene wrapped one towel around her head and indulged in the second as she closed the toilet lid and sat for a spell. Well yes, she allowed herself a small spell to remember ... "How indeed do they manage to exhale exhale exhale? Imagina, it is their dance with the sun that makes it easy, makes it ... just what that were born to do. Sun, wind, Lono, Tree. Oxygen." The answers always included a bit of language, a word or two that were from an Older Time, or a time where all words knew each other.

"What is Oxygen?" As though the question was just that much too much for a steamy bathroom conversation with a ghost, Maydene heard galloping on the steps outside the door. "Aunty May!!"

It continues ...

* I've just finished reading Sightings: The Gray Whales' Mysterious Journey written by Brenda Petersen and Linda Hogan. Late in this haunting and relevant book of essays Hogan describes what happened on the Makah Reservation prior to the first whale hunt in hundreds of years. The shiver and the line that begins this entry opened more space for this.