The story I am engaged in writing is about a fellow who is making the abrupt change from childhood to adulthood via a tradition of his own country.

Here is a first draft 7 page sample:

The peace of summer shined in every direction. Bees and hummingbirds attended the purple flowers in grass, flitting back and forth between them.

–illustration: a plains view with grasses to horizon and some flowers & birds in foreground–

Suddenly, a tiny blue Hummingbird flew in urgently chirping and zipping between the birds in the flowers. Then he flew away and they went too. They were headed south east, toward the trees. Along the way more hummingbirds joined and so their numbers grew. Their little swarm entered a clearing where a stream gurgled out of the hills. They followed it.

—illustration: against dark green background hummingbirds in flight to the right –

Not far into the trees were giant magenta flowers in a rock wall in front of which the web of a spider held one shiny little hummingbird, helplessly fluttering.

Other hummingbirds were harassing the spider, which resorted to safety in a woven tunnel but made occasional attempts to run up to the web and take possession of it’s prey.

Hummingbirds kept it at bay.

The rescue operation was dangerous. That web was capable of capturing more hummingbirds and if it were pulled off it’s anchors wrong could wrap it’s catch who might never then be freed.

The birds loaded it up with leaves and sticks.

Down at the tunnel, the spider crouched avoiding the reach of the long beaks that could drag it out in the open. It’s eyes and bent legs could be seen at the end of the tunnel as it waited.

Finally, the captured bird was released by the others and they all flew away out of the shady forest, and fanned out into the sun.

The spider began a new web, hungry but relieved to be safe from the scary big bugs!

The lucky hummingbird, Elsa, flew away until she reached the river town Seepeesaw. Famished and exhausted, she was still shaking from fear. She found a bird feeder and drank and drank. Then she flitted over to a tree branch to rest.

Two young men were nearby in conversation.

One was just on the cusp of adulthood, a fit fellow of just under six feet in height with broad shoulders and light brown hair that barely touched his ears and only had the slightest wave. His nose was straight. He thought it was “pointy”. He’s called Bell.

She lazily listened, mesmerized by the lyrical sounds of their speech. It was wonderful to her ears, like music.

This is where I come in. I’m Bell. This is part of my story.

I was visiting my cousins and though I saw Elsa, my mind was on other things. She really was beautiful, and one of the reasons I like that garden is for the hummingbirds. I had no idea what kind of a morning she’d just had and she had no idea what sort of day awaited me. There we were, our separate unrelated lives intersecting ever so slightly, both aware of each other and neither with a clue.

I was in the back yard and garden with cousin Alvin jabbering about school and girls and hobbies and food. His younger sisters Liza and Angel came out too, and ran over to the tree swing. Liza touched the rope and called, “first!” and then sat on the board. Angel helped her get it going, pushing from behind. They were really too old for such play and yet perfect for it. Weekend play. During the school week they are so serious, according to Alvin.

We were on the subject of the immediate future when Alvin said, “You can settle into a job. You can build yourself a house. Where would you put it?”

That was the problem.

I said, “I don’t see it. I mean, probably in the canyon but I don’t know for sure. It doesn’t seem as sure as I want it to be. I’m not ready to build a house. It seems like I should wait. But that’s where I’d build.”

“Wend River ?” Alvin asked.

“Yes, near the end where the canyon gorge opens up a bit, northeast of Proxa.”

“You like the hills?” Alvin asked.

“I do. And those forests with the huge trees! But they’re further in. I’ve been asking myseld, what if I discover that I love the coast? Or the islands? I’ve never been on the Meladeez or seen Mintomen. I’ve barely explored the plains either here or at Ligwatt. And then there I would be all settled. Maybe I should wait. But then what?”

I thought about the many places I had read about and seen pictures of.

After a lull, I said, “I have heard the funniest stories about those three towns -”

“Fuit? Oygh?” Alvin broke in.

“TotanuhgoganaEtafig!” we said in unison.

Funny. The place has a reputation.

The girls heard and laughed too.

They chanted the song, “TotanuhgoganaEtafig, ya want to say it fast but it’s way too big. You won’t ever go cause you’ll never come home. Everything’s long like a middle age poem. You want to ask the time but it takes five minutes, they try to say it quick but it’s never quite finished. TotanuhgoganaEtafig while you say the word a whole page of news has sure enough occurred!”

“I wonder about that place.” I told him, “Don’t you?”

Alvin said, “Been there. It’s all true, and yet not. Depends on you. Strange place and yet where else would all those TotanuhgoganaEtafigians live but there? It’s perfect for them. I’m glad I went and saw for myself. Their funny ways almost make sense when you’re there. And if the Figians are going to live somewhere then I’m glad they’re there instead of here, charming though they are. By the way, don’t ever call them Figians if you are there.”

“Why?”

“Just don’t. Or maybe, do. Then it will make my day when you tell me what happened.”

Something clicked in me right then. I realized that I didn’t know any of these places. All I knew was the stories and songs and jokes.

I saw cousin Angel and cousin Liza in their happy state and imagined the loss if all I knew of them was some one else’s description. I saw them. I felt their joy. I heard them. Nothing could substitute for actually being there.

At that moment I realized that I was going to go. I hadn’t seen most of my own country, didn’t have a clear plan for my place in society, and had curiosity. Contentment came easily to me, but something had nagged at me for years that might be remedied by the very thing I’d dismissed as wasteful.

“Doing it!” I exclaimed.”I’m doing a DY!”

It’s what we call ‘Discovery Year’ though that is all too proper and DY is the more common way to call that time where one transitions from their parental home to their own place by taking about a year to tour the country or to immerse ones self in whatever fancies them. I’d always thought it was a waste of time. Suddenly it made sense. It felt right.

In Chichihyaboo ‘Discovery Year’ is an integral part of the culture. No one is expected to go. It’s not a mandate. It’s not regulated or forced or withheld, but the DY experience is part of growing up for some and it is entirely ones own matter to decide. Around a third of us do it. The rest will marry or start businesses or integrate into family enterprises straight out of school. Some delve into professional learning. Thus we begin our adult lives.

DY is not everyone’s cup of tea, I get that. I never saw the sense of it till that moment when suddenly I did. Chichiyabooans don’t ‘kill’ time. DY is a chance to leave the routine and see the world fresh. New eyes, some call it.

In other countries maybe this would not work. Chichiyaboo is a culture where it does. People love DY’rs and help them when able. They take them in. They give them chances to earn their way.

For Chichiyabooans the age of adulthood is 18. Some will embark on a DY at age 16 and they get treated as adults. For me, adulthood was one week ahead.

Angel and Liza had climbed very high into the tree engaged in play while Alvin and I caught up with each other. Time raced by. Hours passed and soon we were all called to dinner. The girls continued acting out their play as they descended branch by branch. As soon as she dropped to the ground, Liza called out, “Race ya!” And they bolted for the door to the house, brushing against us on the way.

“Fun!” said I as they whooshed past. I loved that their enthusiasm never seemed to dry up.

“Always” said Alvin. “Wait till they find out what mom talked dad into making!”

A few minutes later came shreeks of joy from within the house.

Alvin and I went inside and washed up.

Ian Kelvidon and his wife Mara were related to me through my father. That’s what I’ve always been told. Alvin, Liza, and Angel were my cousins despite the different surname.

They lived a fair distance from us in the last few years owing to his work and Aunt Mara’s love of the area they chose to live. She is now involved as a historian there.

Ian had a different look than the rest of my dad’s side of the family. He had a salesman’s face with that confident air. His hair was always right, apparently without any need of tending. He could be an adventure show host, physically well proportioned. He was my vision of a competitive leader, manly in an office environment sort of way but also in a speed yacht captain sort of way. He got things done.

Mara reminded me of a child actress who grew up without losing any charm. She was innocent in a knowing way, unlike a child who trusts everyone fully. She had an enviable people sense. I would trust her with anything. She liked cats, dogs, horses, gardening, and art. I’d seen pictures of her in her youth where she was a girl’s girl who grew into a pretty tomboy. According to the photos she’d kept her dark brunette curly locks at neck length all along. She was the one who taught me to maneuver a canoe.

Alvin is a few years my senior and I’ve always looked up to him, not just because he’s tall.

Our families did outings from time to time while I was a boy, mostly camping at a favorite spot in Wend River Canyon. Fun times.

We didn’t see them often, but it was something I looked forward to and very much enjoyed. Such a nice bunch!

With graduation behind me, I was still pondering my next move. I thought I knew what I wanted to do and had been very certain of it but there was a gnawing hesitation in me about starting.

Since my early days I was sure I’d be an artist.

But I was interested in science. I was fascinated with language. I loved gardening and landscape design. I wrote poems and devised jokes. I loved machines of transport. There were more interests each year and each was a new and equal enthusiasm for me.

Choosing one of them for my vocation wasn’t the easy thing I expected.

Of course I could do them all on one level or another as a hobby, but if I did that then another problem would arise, being the question – what is my real destiny, assuming we come to the world intended to fulfill some particular thing that makes our part in society help society work well.

I knew too much and I knew nothing at all.

My many interests and the understandings connected to them were not helping me settle on how to launch my adulthood.

My plan for years turned out not to have been a plan at all and now that came to haunt me. Mine is not a family of planners. We’re resourceful. We respond. We’re workers. But we don’t architect grand designs in our lives.

So my wishful acceptance that I would paint pictures and somehow turn that into a livelihood was as much planning for success as I ever did.

Life was black and white simple. I would graduate school, then I would commence creating and selling art.

Something happened. Two ladies were chatting in the Library one row over, so that I heard them but never saw their faces. One was gushing over a painting she’d acquired and very much enjoyed. She said, “And it only cost twenty five!”

The other was impressed. “How?” she gasped. “How that little?”

“Oh, simple. You’d be surprised how reasonable an artist can be when they’re starving!”

That woke me up. It sounded conniving and yet she was right to believe that the price an artist would accept was a price that was fair. Right there I determined that I would not be desperate.

My father suggested I learn a trade and have that to fall back on. The thought appealed to me.

I reasoned that as a true artist I ought to first make my way in the world so as to prove that I’ve done well by effort and intellect rather than instinct and secondarily apply to prove the talent.

Why any of that should matter I did not question.

I had hoped that my visit with the Kelvidon’s might give me space in which to think and answers would come as I sorted through all the perplexing thoughts in my heart.

I didn’t expect that anyone there had the answers, but the long drive to and from their place might help. Their home was hundreds of miles south east, so one day there, the next day back. Done. I hadn’t seen any of them in almost a year, and that’s too long.

Dinner was ready when Alvin and I took seats at the table. It was a joint venture with Aunt Mara creating the main dish and both she and my uncle collaborating on the rest. Uncle Ian made the dessert that the girls so loved and attributed the effort to my visit. When he made that announcement both girls pushed their chairs back and ran to me, one on each side and kissed my cheeks. Then they ran and did the same to their dad and they hugged their mom. As they zipped back to their seats, they bopped Alvin playfully on his head. Angel got back out of her chair and hugged her brother from the side and then sat again. Liza made a fist and she and Angel bumped knuckles together.

This being the first time I had ever visited the family on my own, not connected to any event or outing such as the camp trips, I’d never had them all to myself. So I was curious.

“Do any of you have DY stories?” I asked no one in particular, knowing that the girls were too young and Alvin hadn’t gone. I was too shy to ask directly and didn’t want to put either adult on the spot if they would rather not comment.

“Well, how do you feel about that?” Aunt Mara asked me.

She set more dinner rolls on the table and took her seat.

“Mixed,” I told her. “Always thought it was a waste of time. I mean, what could it accomplish to put off everything?”

“Put off what?” she asked.

“Start a job. Build the house. Make a business.” I found it easy to rattle off the things I thought I should be ready to do but which my heart could not endorse though I wanted it to.

Ian jumped in. “You like to work?” he asked. “I’m sure you do, because you are a good worker. Are you anxious to get working?”

Knowing the right answer, I quickly answered “Yes!”

“Why is that?” Aunt Mara asked.

“What job?” Uncle Ian wanted to know.

“Where?” Alvin inquired.

Alvin knew there was no job. He had the goods on me but let it be my story to tell.

The girls played a hand game that looked like Rock, Paper, Scissors while they ate, between bites.

I didn’t have an answer, but I tried. “The trades. I could work steel, maybe weld.”

Liza and Angel stopped eating and looked at each other. Liza looked quizzically at me. “You’re an artist,” she said. “You should draw me.”

“And me!” Angel said with her brows high and her eyes closed.

She and Liza went back to their hand game.

“You aren’t going to paint?” Aunt Mara asked. “Why not? I didn’t know!”

“Anyone can paint,” I told her. “I can always paint.”

“What’s your take, Mara?” asked Uncle Ian.

“Well, I did it. Eight months was all I needed. What’s funny is I didn’t know that was what I was doing until half way through. My parents sent me on an errand. It was a big deal and they convinced me that only I could help them with it. Turns out I was helping them, but really, it was for me. They’d planned for six years. Best gift they ever gave me too. Never ever would I have done that the way it happened if it were offered as a DY, but it was perfect. It was a surprise because I didn’t want to be away and they didn’t want to have me be gone but they still put it together so I’d have the experience. I remember sitting in a ranch house in Distelle four months later, realizing things. By then I already had proven I was fine on my own and could pick it up from there. I finished what I’d started and was glad. It was such a natural thing that I’ve never thought of it as a DY the way I grew up expecting it to be.”

“Such as announcing that you’re going to do it and having the send off party and getting letters and what not,” said Uncle Ian.

“On mine, I made three violins,” He added, “from scratch. The second one was good enough that the master builder handed over wood from his best maple stash to make a third. But he made me source my spruce.”

“Do you play?” I asked.

“No. But the master builder had a daughter who played very well. She tested it. A year or so after I built it I took it back and she played it and what do you know – it sounded really good!”

“Did you get a good price for it?” I asked him.

“Nah. Gave it to her.” he said.

Alvin was pleased to say, “She’s pretty good. You should play us a song on it, mom.”

“Doing a DY sounds over all positive.” I thought, and I must have thought it pretty loud because Angel said, “Pretty positive indeed!”

“So you’d both recommend it?” I asked.

“That’s why I asked you what you thought,” Aunt Mara said. “It’s such a personal thing. There’s no reason to go unless there is no reason not to. Are you engaged?”

“No.”

“Do you have health problems that would make it dangerous?”

“None.”

“Do you have a job or a business you urgently want to get going?”

“No.”

“Are you bored?”

“Not at all. Why would that matter?”

“Being bored is a symptom of something else. You’d want to get to the bottom of that first. It’s a good reason to put it off.”

“Ah. I do lose patience when people tell me every excruciating detail of crazy nonsense dreams. That’s as close as I’ve come.”

Aunt Mara asked what would be my DYJ when I went, meaning my DY job, which finances the venture.

“Artist.”

Everyone was still.

Alvin shook my hand. Aunt Mara didn’t say ‘if’ I went. She said, ‘when’. Alvin told me, “I think you’re going to love this!”

Liza pointed to me and said, “You are talking sense!”

Uncle Ian stood with a beaming smile and called for dessert. “Who’s with me?” he asked. “Let’s celebrate!”

The family applauded.

Whatever that confection was – a pie, a custard, or a cake – it was the best. No wonder my cousins squealed in joy to find it waiting for dinner!”

After dinner Aunt Mara did indeed play the very instrument that her future husband had crafted from Maple, Spruce, and Ebony wood.

Then we played some games of pantomime. When the girls had retired to their beds, the rest of us put our heads together to brainstorm about this thing I was about to do.

By the morning I still didn’t have a plan but I did have confidence to proceed.

I bid them all farewell and started toward home.