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@@ -1,3 +1,68 @@ + + + + + +## following your path campfire talk + +It was a quiet night. Her father usually played the fiddle and Aunt Māra and her husband and Kadiatu and Tamba would dance, but tonight he never reached for the instrument. They sat talking, or quietly watching the flames flicker. + +She loved the way everyone's face glowed ruddy orange around the fire. Faces were more animated, expressions sharper and clearer, everything looked better by firelight she decided. She wondered briefly what she would do if they lived in a house somewhere, with no fire to sit around but hearth or an iron stove. She glanced up at the stars. It was good to live outdoors, she wasn't sure why anyone would want to cut themselves off from the world by spending all their time in a house. + +"Papa? Why do people live in houses?" + +Her father laughed. He glanced around the fire at everyone and sighed. "I do believe it's because they don't know any better." He smiled at her. + +"We should tell them." + +"No we should not," said her sister. "Then they would all come out here and there would be nowhere for us to have our camp and make tar and careen ships." + +Tamba was nodding. "You don't want everyone rushing out here." + +"They would not come, my darling." Her father stared at the fire. "You could tell them and tell them til you turn blue in the face and they would not believe you. Even if they came out here and saw why we love it, saw that they to could live this way they would not. It is not an easy thing to do you know. The comforts that house offers, the ease of living in the city, these are not things that are so easy to let go of. We don't think of them because we have never had them, or not for long, but for people accustomed to them it is difficult to leave them behind. They do not believe that they can leave them behind." + +Everyone was quiet. Kobayashi smiled. "Shipwreck like me, then you learn." + +Her father laughed. "I prefer the way I came to it, by birth, but I suppose a shipwreck would do it. It takes something, something to jar you out of the habits and patterns that shape your life so that you see life, instead of your life. And once you see life, that never leaves you and it'll make you change your own in a hurry. + +"What if you saw life and realized it was supposed to be in a house." + +"The devil's best advocate this one." Her father smiled at her. "Then you had damn well better get you a house. How you live isn't that important my girl, what's important is that you live how you are supposed to. Not everyone need live the same way. Some people need a house to do what they are to do, others of us need the sea and a way upon it do what we're supposed to do." + +"What are we supposed to do?" + +"I don't know what you're supposed to do Birdie, I know what I am supposed to do, but it took me a very long time to discover it, so don't feel rushed." He laughed. "Some people spend most of their lives trying to figure out what they're doing with the their lives, I was nearly one of them." + +"What are you supposed to do?" + +"Well now, why does that matter to you my girl? Everyone has a path, there's no need to know everyone else's path though. It's enough work just to keep track of your own." + +"How do I discover what I am supposed to do?" + +"Well. That's hard to say. I have known people who seem to have just been born knowing. They have been getting after it since the day they were born it seems like. Then on the other side there are those who never seem to even think that there might be something they should be doing. And in between those two extremes are most of the rest of us, stumbling our way along, groping the dark it seems like many times. I have had many false starts, blind alleys, paths that turned out to not lead where I thought they led. At your age Birdie, I hadn't even had the thought "what am I supposed to do" so if it makes you feel any better you're far ahead of me." + +Birdie smiled. "Well I do know I want a ship, not some silly house." + +She expected her father to smile, but he did not. "Houses aren't silly Birdie. Everyone has their own path remember. Our path is not better than any other. It is different, that is all. Don't look down on others who are on a different path, if anything, we help them." + +"But you said not to tell them how much better it is to live outdoors because they will all come out here and take our island." + +He smiled at her. "Helping them isn't telling them to be just like you. Helping them is trying to see what they need, and if you can help them with that need. If they ask for help. The secret to helping is to wait, wait until it's asked for. If someone doesn't want your help, that's okay, they might not need it. They might need to keep on struggling with whatever they're struggling with or succeeding with whatever they're succeeding at." + +"So I just worry about me and what I am supposed to be doing?" + +"That's a good place to start. Once you've parsed that out and got yourself on the path, then you're in a better position to help other people find their way. If you just jump in to help when you yourself haven't plotted a course yet, well then you're liable to run a whole fleet of ships onto the rocks rather than just your own. Make sure you have your course, then you can signal the fleet how to set the sails." + + + + + + + + + + + ## Bridie goes on a hunt It was midday before the Henri and hunters returned with two boar and a deer. The crew had already built a fire and wasted no time cleaning the animals and loading them onto spits. Henri strutted about the camp like some great warrior hunter even though Birdie knew he hadn't had anything to do actually killing any of the animals. Her father caught her glaring at Henri's back and asked her why she was scowling. On a whim she told him it was because no one ever asked her to go hunting. Her father looked at her for a minute and then smiled. "Well Tamba's going again this afternoon to get something for us to bring when we head south, tell him you want to go." He turned and then spun back around and added, "And tell him I said you can use my gun." |