Aerospace I : The Lunar Cycle

Aerospace I - Lunar Harp

Lunar Harp

Gordon Best

Chapter 1 : The Awakening

My name is Ellinore Kita. I am half Chinese and half Japanese. That is what my family says. They hint at some Hindu in the ancestral tree. But I researched it. I know the truth. But it is something that I can never mention in my family circles.

There was a certain black man from the Sydney tar ponds, in Nova Scotia and his Chinese wife Sarah. His name, Alfred Lewis. A son, Sanford, had light skin, worked on the railway and settled in Saskatoon, to marry a local Chinese restaurant girl. He never spoke of his family, nor the Tar Ponds. A wise man, Sanford.

The couple worked their lunch wagon, serving the factory people and the potash mines. They raised two girls. One is my mother, Martha. She married a Japanese bookseller, Kenta Kita. I and my older sister Stella are the result.

My mother was self-educated. Working in a bookstore helped broaden her outlook. She loved to learn and she loved people. She even learned how to speak Japanese. Enough to serve the people that arrived. Kita Bookstore was a hub of activity. Whenever officials or entertainers were in town, Japanese, Chinese, black Americans, Korean, they would all drop by and have tea with my parents. We had a little settling spot in the back of the store, next to the old piano. Music would ring out at odd hours.

It was my father that was beautiful, straight and tall. Kenta Kita was admired by the women and they came to the store to sneak a peek, as they browsed the shelves. But I don't think that he wandered. He loved my mother and he loved the way she seemed to have a healing effect on the customers. She knew that the store's success was partly because of these women coming to be close to my father.

They did not know what to think about me. My sister, Stella, was the reliable and predictable one.

I was smart, beautiful, but that would come out more as I reached maturity. I loved to swim and got my lifeguard papers by the time I was sixteen.

Mother had this thing about Kenyan runners. She learned that they ran in bare feet as children, and only put on shoes when they became adults. These were the best long distant runners in the world.

So from my earliest days, she made me shoes with flexible soles and very thin heels. Then, when I was seven she took me to a shoe maker, he was Japanese, and she explained to him that if he wanted her business, then he needed to make shoes to her liking. I tolerated this until I was twelve and then I insisted that I chose the design. I went out and bought some barefoot sneakers. They were called Primus Trail SGs, pale green. I had big feet even then and it was my one extravagance.

Now what happens with this type of shoe? You walk on your toes all the time. Your legs become naturally strong and healthy. I became a long distant runner in highschool. It suited my character because I am a loner. But I also work with children, as a lifeguard, in the school pool. I taught hundreds of children how to swim and I loved them.

What I did not love was guys coming over at my work... I did not even know these creeps. They hit on me as if I would fall all over them. The ones who were more discrete would look at me and try to figure me out... My skin was getting more tanned as I got older. And the colour would not leave at winter's wane.

What did it matter? What was race in the 21st century?

I am tall and slim. My nose is sort of long and straight. My eyes do not look oriental. I like the expression, 'whip of a girl'.

My mother loves music, she has the old piano in the back, and she could play some tunes. I played what I learned from our many guests. We lived upstairs. I would play that piano, out of tune, into the evening. In school, I learned flute and would have played in the band, but running and lifeguard duties made my schedule too tight.