PODCAST

With Aloha

Rachael Maier

A reprieve from the busyness of doing. rachaelmaier.substack.com

music philosophy

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2:12

What if...

With Aloha ·

2021/08/31

Our universe is someone’s cup of pour-over morning coffee? Our planet one air bubble of many, the galaxy a swirl of brown foam, the stars moist grounds that catch the fluorescent kitchen light. The percolated drips sucked into the black hole of the carafe below, each pour of hot water reconfiguring the stars and the planets. Sugar cubes extinguishing Things That Came Before Us. Cream spiraling to form bands of the unexplainable, to which we give names like the Milky Way. Grains floating to the

6:26

Here's one off the cuff...

With Aloha ·

2021/08/24

I know most of you read rather than listen to these. But this week, there are no words to read because I didn’t have anything prepared. I didn’t write anything new, and by the time I sat down to, I didn’t have time to write, edit, and record.Instead, I closed my eyes and spoke into the microphone. I felt like I was telling you a long-distance secret, sharing a memory that’s buried so deep its presence is unknown to me until the moment it’s leaving my lips. It’s the kind of thing whispered at

4:01

I think we can all agree...

With Aloha ·

2021/08/17

2020 was a storm of a year. In my personal life, though, the first 10 months were in overwhelming contrast to the external world: I moved to Hawaii, got married, bought a house, and got pregnant. It was exciting and a lot of change all at once, and it required adjustment and some grit, but I like change and have grit.Those first 10 months were what I now realize to be the eye of the storm because, in November, my world started to unravel as quickly as it came together. And in December, it altogether

2:26

The parts of you that are fading...

With Aloha ·

2021/08/10

Are like dry skin cells sloughing off in the shower. Something you once carried, the tiny particles of who you were but are no longer racing towards the sucking swirl of the drain.Let them go.They served you then, but you are stepping into now… and now… and now. They can’t keep up, just like the scattered leaves left behind by the wind of a fast car around a tight bend to somewhere better.You are better today than you were yesterday, and your body is preparing you for tomorrow if only you’ll allow

3:36

The fly and the flower bud...

With Aloha ·

2021/08/03

A tiny fly just walked across my table to a teeny fallen flower bud. As he approached it, I marveled at how similar the two looked. Same size, dark and compact. One animated, the other contracted and lifeless. Then I marveled again when the fly lifted a wee arm to shake the bud awake. It did not wake. So he climbed up onto it as if crawling into bed with a loved one upon realizing they had passed.I don’t know what the fly was thinking. Did he mistake it for one of his own? Was he a floral enthusiast

7:00

I exist in a constant serenade...

With Aloha ·

2021/07/27

While I am waist-deep in the ocean of my dreams, the birds are practicing their musical scales, warming up their vocals. By the time I’m wading into a new day, they’re in full chorus — and they have stamina; they continue throughout the day. Some hours are more polyphonic than others but their singing is constant.When the sun begins its steady dip beneath our eye line, the birds clock out as the coqui frogs punch their time cards, dutifully posting up for the night shift. They sing in a different

3:25

Songs from friends...

With Aloha ·

2021/07/20

Click the play button above to hear me read this.(And for the full experience, put in headphones and close your eyes.)I'm sitting at a desk left behind by a National Geographic photographer whose wife left him behind. I'm trying to apply to my writing the same elbow-grease discipline I used in my previous career. It isn't working. Trees are quaking in the hot air balloon rising-heat of summer, just beyond the line of sight of my computer screen, when an email from a friend appears, with a link to a

5:31

At night I practice dissolving...

With Aloha ·

2021/07/06

Click the play button above to hear me read this.(And for the full experience, put in headphones and close your eyes.)The process feels how a time-lapse video of a decaying log looks. Like sugar melting into hot water or a patch of sand swallowed by the hungry tide. When I was first learning how to do this, my body fought it. It would jump me awake into a startled state, like when you're falling asleep in class. The fear would swell — I'm dying! — and then subside — you're surrendering. I practiced

8:27

The disappearance of 25k...

With Aloha ·

2021/06/29

Click the play button above to hear me read this.(And for the full experience, put in headphones and close your eyes.)I open my computer and log into the site I logged into every day for 80 days in a row from January to April. The site is called Akimbo, and I signed up for their 100-day program called the Creatives Workshop while I was on medical leave this year. After about a month, the novelty of laying on the couch curled up in a ball had worn off. I needed something to do, somewhere to focus my

2:34

I'm standing at the edge of the rest of the world...

With Aloha ·

2021/06/22

Click the play button above to hear me read this.(And for the full experience, put in headphones and close your eyes.)Leaning over the Cliffs of Moher like a flying squirrel mid-glide. A hood pulled tight around my head, eyes watering from currents as strong as my desire to ride them. Leaning into the wind — not backing away from it — tempting the gusts holding my body against gravity with my 20-year-old life.I remember French-braiding my hair that morning, eating blood sausage and scrambled eggs

I am the kind of tired...

With Aloha ·

2021/06/15

Click the play button above to hear me read this. (And for the full experience, put in headphones and close your eyes.)That only the sun can make you feel after too much of it. A carmine color traces my shoulders and my back, the negative space taking the shape of a sports bra. I painted my catchment tank today. Well, I hand-scrubbed and then hosed down and then primed (with two coats) my catchment tank. Kev helped, then he had work calls, so I finished the first coat and did the second by

3:26

Imagine a rowboat...

With Aloha ·

2021/06/01

Click the play button above to hear me read this. (For the full experience, put in headphones and close your eyes.)It’s small in size but sturdy. Well-built enough to withstand the tides and ages, one in the same.It’s rocked by a gentle but unrelenting current, bumping against the legs of the dock to which it’s tethered. The sound is pleasant, calming. It doesn’t hurt the boat.It has two oars, oak. Polished but worn, meant to last. It has two small seats, no life vests underneath. None needed.A

Coconuts vs. clamshells...

With Aloha ·

2021/05/25

Click the play button above to listen to me read this. (For the full experience, put in headphones and close your eyes.) I’m chomping on the residual grit of raw coconut meat like gum while I wait on hold with the company that manages my 401k. I left my job with no other options on tap, and I’m trying to sort out some finance stuff. I’m trying to be responsible.But I’m not thinking about my future or even my past as they drudge up active and old accounts attached to my social security number

3:46

There's a tree stood naked...

With Aloha ·

2021/05/18

The Hong Kong orchid tree in my front yard blooms magenta flowers the size of fists with leaves that look like lily pads. Its sweet nectar fragrance wafts across the yard and catches me.When I'm walking back from feeding the cats, head down and caught in a maze of must-dos. When I step out into a moonless night to see the stars shine like Christmas lights left up past the new year. When I'm auto-piloting on the back-and-forth track to the laundry room. Whatever I'm doing, its scent catches me like a

3:42

It's zephyr weather here...

With Aloha ·

2021/05/11

The wind animates, blowing the tops of trees like drunken heads. Swaying together to a song that reminds them of their high school days. Unsteady and accidentally rhythmic.The wind animates, shivering the full length of tall blades of grass. Like the hairs on my forearms that extend themselves atop goosebump mountains. White-blond flags of surrender.The wind animates, swirling the chimes on my lanai that speak for the breeze. Like an interpreter hired to make some foreign tongue beautiful. To give

2:50

When I heard it....

With Aloha ·

2021/05/04

Reminder: You can click the play button above (and put in headphones and close your eyes) to get the full experience. Give yourself a break. Allow me, dear one. I was wiping off my yoga mat when I heard it. A delayed sound. A glitch. It barely would be detectable if I were in a hurry or not one to notice details. I fit neither of those descriptions. I don't need an algorithm monitoring my speech to tell me that "Look!" and "Wow!" are two of my most-used phrases. Both are usually accompanied by a

3:04

Today we go adventuring...

With Aloha ·

2021/04/27

(Click the play button above — put in headphones and close eyes — to get the full experience)My brother and sister are here. After 16 hours on three different planes, across the whole of America that separates us. Across the ocean that symbolically and otherwise separates Hawai'i from the rest of the country. After a two hour trek across the island that I now call home. All to be here, to stand in the same space together.The least I can do is give them an adventure.We'll drive north and up and up

4:09

I've been thinking about ghosts lately...

With Aloha ·

2021/04/20

(Click the play button above — put in headphones and close eyes — to get the full experience)Not in the form of imaginary beings that haunt, but the hungry ones Buddhists say are cursed with an appetite that can't be sated.The ones with mouths the size of pinheads and stomachs as vast as mountain ranges. Animalistic in their fervor to feed themselves. Exhausting themselves with their endless eating.Theirs is desire unchecked, the drive to obtain. Más, más, más they say with each bite. This is

4:10

This is the time of night...

With Aloha ·

2021/04/13

(Click the play button above — put in headphones and close eyes — to get the full experience)I find myself drifting in a vessel to other worlds. Suspended between worn cotton sheets and the thin veil of consciousness. On a hybrid mattress with enough fluff to feel dreamy and enough memory foam to trace my shape without feeling like a bag of sand.This bed will be paid off in 5 years. I bought it within the same month I bought a house and a car. It was expensive for a bed, but the cheapest of the

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With Aloha

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