One early summer Saturday morning, six years ago I sat on a bench outside the Kohala Public Library immersed in a mystery book. At the time, my son Darien was seven years old. Enthusiastic he was lining up to hear a local children's author read a book and to fork into a plate of breakfast. A neighborly woman was cooking pancake stacks for twenty or so children anticipating story time and a culinary treat.

Yet I was needing some Mama time, and this event was an occasion where I could lean on the childcare help. While starting the day earlier at Kapaa campground, I was grateful for a shower, an outside one piped to coastline property where millionaires build homes along the Hawai'i Island ocean shores. Simply not this far north because land has been conserved in perpetuity away from development. For $7 a night on panoramic ocean side acres, devoted to the public, we had optimal accommodations given that outdoors nature is my truest home. And our efficient family of two had been car camping, for we were still in search of lodgings.

Sitting on the library bench, I didn't want to be bothered. Childcare was in the works, I was way into the mystery book—page turner is not a cliché but an action—and yet a tall woman is there. Standing a few feet from me, she floats an easygoing smile and I return the aloha. And resume reading. She turns the corner and goes away. Success I mumble and turn the page. In a few minutes, she is back. Ever so reluctantly, I close the book. Talking she is and social duties call. I walk with her to the family breakfast gathering.

Visually I scan the adult crowd applying gaydar and on my screen I detect several lesbian women. Maybe we could live in this rural area? If a few gay woman are circling around my life, and I am in theirs however lightly, then a geography can matter. People first has been my sensibility. As the pancake celebration starts to close, a butchey woman (short hair, confidence gait) walks to my car that is obviously crowded with living items, and asks if she can help. I'm uncertain.

“Do you mean that?” I ask.

I was 46 years old when Darien was born and as a gay white woman raising a Black boy, the journey has been eventful. Kind people can suggest helping and then connecting on the follow through often was not happening. Some mystery, I had been learning. How did the disconnect occur? The offer sounded sincere. And I understood well before I began that parenting is a full-time work focus so no need to cue self-pity. What I learned was to simply clarify: “when is a good time for you to help our family?”

She laughs some and confirms. “I can cook dinner. How about hamburgers?” We hadn't enjoyed a home cooked meal in quite a while and I was going grateful in a second. Later in the evening, we three are inside her house, a white-canvas dome structure on rural land where cows and horses mill around on nearby countryside acres. I am a few weeks having departed living in an urban cement, skyscraper landscape called San Francisco where car alarms blare at all hours and screeching ambulances are like lullabies to signify the day's complete 24 hours.

Having stayed in this Kohala Hawai'i village Kapa'au for the last seven years, I am writing today on a laptop at a desk in a house we have rented for two years—in a row, one address—I recall vividly the hamburger plate. Well-grilled patty, thick tomato slice, lettuce leaves, and no shyness on the raw onion. Each hamburger was served by our new local friendly and the plate cleared, in a few minutes.

While talking and connecting I kept wondering what was absent. I couldn't hear car alarms and ambulances and police sirens. That was the huge listening difference. As night began, birds went into full sing-song mode, cocooning the moment in nature's way to comfort, to reassure. We have you, you blissful Hawai'i newbies, the birds kept singing. Just take the next right action and each day we will sing you a song.

And yet relaxing in that dome house, so welcoming the community meal, a late spring evening in May 2018, doubts were my nemesis. I was scared. Could I make a reliable enough growing up space and place for my son, for our small family? Every parent who has ever raised children has concerns on being good enough.

For my own one specific life, I was stressed that my lesbian white middle-class-ness might prevent me from seeing my Black son whole and holy. Carrying my inside fears—a world familiar to we who have addiction temperaments—I removed the symbolic parachute when landing in this rural area, and several months later we decided to relocate. Sure, I was confident in some ways and visibly anxious, too. This morning I briefly saw the woman who cooked those hamburgers years ago and the comparison between our family life in that moment and this one is so measurable.

I learned to bring the witchery. Witchery simply means that I admit my female magic invites sorcery so unexpected, impossible, unlikely, and far-fetched and yet are now commonly routine work modes to any ordinary of my days. This summer's witchery has been gleefully healing and anybody's guess as to when and why and how we change our lives, but dammit if we don't.

Especially useful for when evil gremlins, the world's incredibly active factory of frenemy production, are surrounding your every breathe. I've needed back up for a long, long while and I have sourced the best sorcery ever—a witch's hovel where I can pray and meditate to align inside, spiritual elixirs that make any moment, any day's alchemy a wisely mixed potion in right ratio. During most daily obstacles to healthy life flow, I'm standing at the fire-scorched metal cauldron stirring my witch's brew.

When I saw the pancake and hamburger cook again this morning at the Kohala Tool Library, a neighborly group that rents tools for free (mostly), she seemed healthy, comfortably herself. I was returning a lawnmower rented for one landscape work site and to also care for our house lawn. In other words, seeing her reminded me that today I focus on the basics as we call them in recovery land—food and shelter as primary. I don't mess around on these. True most folks routinely ensure the basics happen, yet I have had struggles.

With a masters degree in literature, I am happy to landscape for earning income—however the funds arrive, at least they do. My doubts on being a good enough mother are repurposed into providing adequately for my son's material comfort and, once accomplished, then I listen gently but actively to whether I am seeing him through empathy lenses.

My parenting sailing strategy is two-fold. When I was raising two white daughters, nobody and I mean nobody, questioned my Mama skills. Some even asked me for parenting strategies. But when my infant son arrived into my life, nearly everybody who I met—parent or not—had advice for me. We call this racism. Because the advice givers were mostly white. Black friends or acquaintances could see that I was truly trying to pay attention to this new parenting environment. And qualified that as good enough, right there and then. I had their respect before I could give some to myself, doubting Mama who I had been.

So, strategy one has been to stop listening to nay-sayers and advice-givers. We have experienced nontraditional housing sources, true, yet each and every day has had routine on food and story. From when he could ask, my son requested that I tell a good story and spontaneously make them up I did every afternoon. And I had read aloud every day the first ten years of his life. Sourcing diversity in stories from myriad cultures is where I went and even popular culture. For example, we went through every page of the Harry Potter series, seven books and thousands of pages total.

And now that he is 13 years old, my second continuing strategy is listening openly—those imagination, intellect, and emotion aspects in active empathy—to his worldview. This summer he chose a hairstyle all his own in design. His fashion sensibility is selected as he lets me know what to buy and where. On a basic level I wish for him to see people of color all through the house, so I have books and calendars and art work that value diverse beauty.

And through my lesbian sensibility I am listening to filters he returns to the house with that portray women as fragmented rather than whole and complex. Mainstream American culture infuses his life. We keep vital conversations open to continue dialogue on how misogyny works. One way to mitigate the effects is taking equitable action. He does his own laundry every Sunday. Making meals for himself is routine. A broom and mop are familiar tools. And when we made a decision as a family to adopt a dog, he agreed to follow through on dog care. And he has; an afternoon walk each day has been his kuleana (responsibility). Before most family decisions happen, I ask his point of view, first.

Ultimately the most active gift a parent can give to the child she raises is to build her own life. My son sees my life interests and the energy I bring to those projects. He absolutely knows that my primary responsibility is to continue creating a comfortable house where we live in a secure, fun environment. These memories are foundation in his growing up years. Meanwhile I have my own life flow that he witnesses as I schedule priorities in any given day. I believe youth value adults who stay active in life, enacting healthy life curiosity as a way to thrive.

When I look back on gifts given through this rural Hawaiian culture, I am astounded. My confidence as a mother has grown wonderfully. Local sobriety resources have surrounded our family and I am grateful. I have evolved into a productive writer, calling this craft as my own for now and for good. Humility seems my core energy, choosing simplicity tasks and then going for them with great care. Living these days is an expansive way of life.

And still I would be dishonest to ignore how these last seven years have been far too difficult. True that a few irritating sand granules make the effervescent pearl. Problem is that I'm feeling quite pearly these days and yet sheets of sandpaper still arrive daily to minimize my energy. I'm a humility maximalist (a witch's phrase) and my intuition has me curious. Lightly, I am researching. Staring into my crystal ball, a future prediction tool, I ask questions. Will our family stay local, choosing for the 9th grader the high school a few miles away? I'm also looking into two other high schools in northern Cali. One of those? Or a one year road trip across the US, a home school on wheels? Our family has some decisions to make together.

In my witch's haven, I reflect and conclude that the move from San Francisco to rural Hawai'i has taught me resourcefulness. Every day since living here, I have learned a brand new life dynamic. Takes fortitude and energy and laughter to persevere. Now that I have some skill sets to acclimate better to the local environs, I share tribute to Polynesian culture. The ocean wayfarers have always inspired me in their highly advanced sea faring skills without formal mechanistic tools. They observed their environment—wind, stars, waves, clouds, and birds (sign land is near). I'm drawn to the land and so while on casual walks I aim to bring resourceful tools—observing and paying attention. The land is my teacher and I her student.

For one month or so I have been walking with Bell (the family canine) in the morning, after I bring my son to school. Earlier today I quickly traipsed through a fence opening to continue walking the path. Yet I stopped abruptly to listen. What was that sound? Gurgling, rushing water? Where? This path is buried in familiar tropical forest trees on solid grassy ground for a few miles. What gives?

Retracing my steps, and standing at the corner where I usually turn, I bent several plant branches to take a look. A few hundred feet away a flowing stream was working so industriously to coordinate her travel down the hill. Last Sunday we had rainfall pummeling at least 24 hours long. Now the hill banks where I stood had saturated soil. Easy does it were our steps.

Still, Bell and I learned what intrepid hikers we could be. When crossing the mild river, at first she ran away hoping to find another way. When I scolded her on being wimpy, she huffily returned and walked right through the stream. New day, new challenge, new skills. These sources of life—dog, water, trees, and boulders—were all so new to me and I was humbled that I got to watch.

What was not remotely new was the structure from many decades ago. In rural spaces around the world building detailed walls from adjacent rocks is familiar. These particular Hawaiian architects had mad skills because the walls on each side lead into and supported a tunnel that had its purpose as a funnel to conduit heavy water running. I chuckled out loud at today's modern river trickle, idly coursing through the wide tunnel, casually on her way.

What I'm guessing around for in terms of meaning is what we say in spiritual circles, the basic kind that grant humility, is nothing arrives by accident. Discovering a historical Hawaiian aqueduct while on a ordinary walk with the family dog is ranking high as very cool. Hawai'i Island continually has these walks where an activity to get exercise shifts into archaeology learning sites. The portent I left with is life's infinite supply on change. Whatever family decisions we make, I will be continually listening to blessings and magical signals as any gentle witch can do.