Why I Write: A Story about Ukus

        My friend blessed me with this story about a story I had written about ukus.

When I lived in Honolulu, I used to write scripts for the Honolulu Theatre for Youth's annual Christmas Talk Story. The artistic director at the time invited writers to submit a script for a monologue from a child's point of view about some aspect of the holidays in Hawaii. I loved this aspect of my writing life, just small enough to be doable, and to consider myself a writer. I think I had 4 different stories in, and then there were 2 "Best of ..." shows, which were bonuses. (There were also 2 rejections along the way.)  Two of my scripts were published in a book that included a CD of actors performing the stories.  One of the stories is about sibling rivalry over a favorite cousin and the other is about ukus and mother-daughter bonding. 

My friend shares the book with her class before winter break and always reminds me about it every year. This year, during the break, her sister and niece were visiting. California lice (since they were from California, they were not Hawaiian ukus) stowed away on her young niece, so they had to deal with it when they arrived. It was not a pleasant experience, and then my friend remembered my story, so as her sister was combing the lice from her little girl's hair, my friend, the Aunty, read the story to them. She told me that both her sister and her niece were touched by my story, relaxing as the lice were combed out and away. 

I used to say that if I can touch even one person by something that I wrote, I would be happy. I still think that's true. I am not very ambitious, except to have enough of these validating moments. 

Thank you, friend. 

Note: I wrote this in January and was going to post the uku story with it. But I had written it on a different computer and can't access those files, so they need to be retyped again. One day I will do that.