Making Leis

for leis

First we go outside to gather plumeria blossoms, climbing on a short concrete wall that borders the sidewalk to more easily reach the upper branches,  now and then poking through leaves and brushwood to pluck an elusive flower, our fingers covered with sticky white sap. When we have filled two bags with flowers, we go back into the house to string them into leis.

We empty the bags onto newspapers placed on the floor and we sit together on the orange carpet. Some of the blossoms are bright pink, and others white with yellow centers. Their fragrance fills the air like perfume, heavy and sweet. We each thread a needle from an old sewing kit and poke it through the middle of a flower, then pull it out through the stem, and on to the next flower. Sometimes we make a pattern of white and pink, other times we just go with shades of pink. Linette tears a large ti leaf into strips and we tie a flourish of green to finish each lei. There is no wrong way to do it, she says.

The late afternoon sun slants through the windows and onto the orange rug, and we seem to be sitting in a pool of light. We talk softly about people we have loved, mostly our fathers. We are making the leis in their memory.