Free Celia's Song by Lee Maracle Page A

Connecting with Celia is a chore for her. The woman dreams beyond her capacity to keep up. It is rare that Rena feels Celia is on ground solid enough to be engaged in conversation, but this is something she herself has been thinking about. She knows about the loss of aromas in the old kitchens. The old houses were cedar planked — some double-walled, others not, but all of them wood-faced on the inside. The walls soaked up smells, held them, and layered one smell over the next until the smells of the day before and the days after created a unique blend of the family’s favourite foods.
    â€œCentral heating is lonely,” Rena says.
    I begin to get what the agony of their present is all about.
    â€œThat’s it. It is so lonely,” Celia says, with a satisfaction like she’s found her shoe after looking for it all morning and still has time to go to town.
    â€œSmells identify a home. They say something about a woman.” Stacey puts her paddle in the water.
    Jacob picks up the cedar his aunt put down and lets the lilt of the women’s voices play with the skin on his back. He stares at this branch that had captured his aunt’s attention. It had Celia turning the women down a road he knows nothing about but finds himself hungry to see more of. He feels as though they are telling him something he has always wanted to know but didn’t realize till he heard it. His insides are quiet for a moment, pleasantly still, soft-forest-just-before-you-see-a-doe kind of quiet.
    â€œIt changed the way we cook. We don’t cook with the sun anymore,” Momma says. The glare of the uncased kitchen light bulb emphasizes Momma’s eyes. The white light pushes the tired out from the skin around them and puffs them up. The light is stark and cruel; it deepens the sad lines around Momma’s mouth and thins her lips so that it is hard to tell she was ever young or beautiful.
    â€œWhat do you mean, Momma?” Stacey asks, trying not to look too closely at her face.
    â€œDinner was always early in winter, on time in fall and spring, and late or never in summer,” Momma laughs. “I don’t know how many times I heard, ‘Go pick berries, I’m weaving today,’ from my Mom or Gramma, and I don’t know how many times I said it to you. ‘Go pick berries …’”
    â€œâ€˜â€¦ I’m sewing today.’” They chorus the finish, even German Judy and Rena sing out along with Stacey and Celia.
    â€œFood doesn’t taste right on an electric stove. I just can’t bring myself to fuss over it.” Momma winces as she speaks.
    I cannot imagine having my food source altered, but I sympathize.
    â€œMaybe that’s why we don’t fuss over cooking anymore,” Celia offers. “No one will visit unless the host fusses over the food.”
    Rena doesn’t think so. She looks at the electrified house. It’s because it’s only half like a white woman’s house, she tells herself. The design is right: an island for cutting things stands in the middle of the kitchen, an electric stove squats left of centre, kitty-corner from the island, directly across from which sit double sinks. Apart from this, the rightness changes. None of the dishes match. The pots aren’t good ones from expensive kitchen stores. Half the women here still use cast-iron or aluminum pots. No CorningWare or environmentally friendly stainless steel pots. Mixed-up plates and odd bits of silverware that is definitely not silver. Half the women have additional electrical appliances, most of which do not work. The other half do not have any at all; it was half-annoying for them .
    It strikes me that it is like waking up to find your forest gone, no trees, no food. No sense of place. No opportunity for survival.
    â€œMaybe matching plates would help. I’m going to get us matching plates, Judy,” Rena says. “The kitchen has got to be an Indian