The trail beckons

Creaks and groans accompany us along Aiea Loop trail on this bright and windy winter Sunday afternoon. No, it is not our middle aged bones, but the strawberry guava, eucalyptus, koa, and ironwood trees rubbing against each other in the wind as we walk. I am so deeply happy to be here again, in our seldom visited backyard park along the pali, where so many memories reside, where nature brings us back time and again to our precious present.

We pass the place in the trail where years ago Mark and the kids took Mahina-the-cat's remains, and we are comforted to know her bones lie there still. We pass the spot Mark calls "Hi, doo-doo" for the surprisingly sassy greeting a tiny and usually polite Kalei gave a puzzled stranger as he hiked past. At the end of our short hike, Mark as always heads for the bathroom, and I announce "I'll be over here making a mouse-house". The words conjure another Aiea Loop ghost, an end-of-hiking ritual our children insisted upon: building a rodent-sized house of gathered stones, scraps of wood, crunchy brown leaves, needles of thick pine and fine ironwood.

These memories return, not sadly or heavy with regret, but light and easy to carry like my small back pack; they soften and slow our steps a bit, but do not trip us up any more than do the prolific tree roots. Only conscious attention to the present, and a good guava walking stick, is required to navigate the trail gracefully and in harmony with mud, roots, and memories.

It is so good to be here as the afternoon light glistens and sparkles through the complex network of branches, highlights the patchwork of yellows, whites and greens in the valley below, and coats the vista of ridges near and far in pastels petticoats of quickly passing sheets of delicate raindrops.

Life has been in such continuous transition that I can't recall the last time we swam in the ocean or walked in the mountains of our home island. Waiting for life to return to normal, I secretly wondered if we ever would. Yet today, something called me to our neighborhood wilderness, whispering that that life cannot be put on hold, but must be lived starting now...starting here...in your own backyard. Carpe diem! The trail beckoned, and the path while winding, windy and ocasionally wet, was easygoing, and with our guava sticks we walked lightly, carefully, and gently on the earth, putting life back on track one step at a time.