Here I am, with a new friend, in the Red Rock Country of Sedona, Arizona.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Milo's gone
Last night Mark received a text message from our son Jonah on the Big Island. "Milo was hit by a car. He's dead". Since the day Jonah adopted this pug-faced poi dog from the Humane Society, everyone has loved Milo. Kalei cried out "No!" when she called this morning, and I told her the news. She said "Jonah needs that dog".
Jonah and Mark exchanged a couple one-line emails, and Jonah said to "give him a few days". At such times, he doesn't want to talk.
It is hard to believe that Milo is gone. Though this is hardest for Jonah, Mark and I are surprised how much grief we feel -- for our son, and because we loved our "grand-dog" who brought so much delight to our family.
Living with the sorrow today, I found myself reading Thich Nhat Hanh's "Peace is Every Step". He offers some simple words to say with the breath:
Breathing in, I calm myself
Breathing out, I smile
Dwelling in the present moment,
I know this is a wonderful moment!
How can such a fucking terrible day be a wonderful moment?! I yelled in my head. It is so dark and painful to know that my son is suffering.
Because we have been through other losses these past few years, our family has been bound together by our grief. Jonah and Kalei's sorrow is ours as well. In the midst of this sadness, I cannot help but feel grateful that my son is such a deeply loyal and caring man who does not love lightly. This assures there will be more love and sorrow and joy in the years to come.
Jonah and Mark exchanged a couple one-line emails, and Jonah said to "give him a few days". At such times, he doesn't want to talk.
It is hard to believe that Milo is gone. Though this is hardest for Jonah, Mark and I are surprised how much grief we feel -- for our son, and because we loved our "grand-dog" who brought so much delight to our family.
Living with the sorrow today, I found myself reading Thich Nhat Hanh's "Peace is Every Step". He offers some simple words to say with the breath:
Breathing in, I calm myself
Breathing out, I smile
Dwelling in the present moment,
I know this is a wonderful moment!
How can such a fucking terrible day be a wonderful moment?! I yelled in my head. It is so dark and painful to know that my son is suffering.
Because we have been through other losses these past few years, our family has been bound together by our grief. Jonah and Kalei's sorrow is ours as well. In the midst of this sadness, I cannot help but feel grateful that my son is such a deeply loyal and caring man who does not love lightly. This assures there will be more love and sorrow and joy in the years to come.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
My baby flew to California today, returning to college and the Boyfriend. Here's where Kalei is now...
What a difference a year makes! Her winter break in Hawaii last year was one big stressful conflagration for her from start to finish, involving underage drinking, a court date, community service, health problems, nicotine dependence, and many moments of defensiveness and conflict with the parents. This year by contrast, she was mostly delighted and delightful, transformed into a motivated and successful student, rattling on enthusiastically for hours about the details of botany, now her major. Maturation and happiness leaves her far more patient and loving with us, and willing just to hang out with her family. Equally amazing was a new willingness to explore her inner space. In the calm that followed one rough melt-down, a post-teenage tantrum, when she was ready to run out and reach for a nicotine fix, I suggested we go to Hilo's only kava bar for a little harm reduction, and then dared to ask "What do you think made you so angry?" Rather than letting her psyche head for the hills to escape the painful moment, she stopped and reflected on what was at the root of the powerful emotion-fueled outburst, performing self-therapy in my presence with an almost scientific interest in furthering her own psychological development.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Rachel Getting Married
Good movie, some great acting! Jonathan Demme directs, Anne Hathaway is mesmerizing, Debra Winger is the Mom (!)in this contemporary urban cross-cultural wedding, plagued with age-old demons. Warning: for those of you with any family issues :) it's intense, but the very cool eclectic music, dancing and visuals provide essential relief. Hand-held camera work left me at times dizzy and claustrophobic...or was it the wine?
Check out the trailer...
Check out the trailer...
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
election reflection
“ The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual” writes Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times .
I’m not sure about the correct order of things remarkable regarding this election, but surely one of them is gaining a leader who comprehends the complexity of our world and was elected without hiding his light under a bushel.
The first election I can remember (or perhaps only heard stories about) was the Don Quixote-esque campaign of Adlai Stevenson in the 1950’s. What I seem to recall is the strange and pleasing sound of his name, and having my photograph taken while wearing a large Adlai Stevenson button. Supported by a choir of idealistic FDR liberals, Stevenson was dismissed as an “egghead” by the Eisenhower crowd. “After one of Stevenson’s high-brow speeches,” Kristof writes, “an admirer yelled out something like, You’ll have the vote of every thinking American! Stevenson is said to have shouted back: That’s not enough. I need a majority!”… No wonder he lost.
Politics and liberal left social change were central organizing forces in the Washington DC house where I was raised during the 1950’s and 60’s. Our family sang union organizing songs in the car to stave off my legendary car sickness, and I walked picket lines with my parents outside the segregated neighborhood amusement park, rather than ride the roller coaster like most other (white) kids my age. My hometown lay barely south of the Mason-Dixon line, yet a world apart from neighboring Virginia with its deep South confederate identity. Who in that era could imagine that a half-century later Virginia would cast its electoral votes for the son of a black African man and a white woman from Kansas?
Strangely, I can locate no memories of the Kennedy-Nixon election, but do recall walking along hot and humid DC streets one August day to join an enormous throng at the conclusion of the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Less than 3 months later, while baking cookies with my girl scout troop, news came across the radio of President Kennedy’s assassination.
Of the 1964 Johnson-Goldwater competition, my memories are of the strange apocalyptic fears the adults around me exuded and the cool smoothness of large campaign buttons. By 1968, I was a 9th grader and old enough to have my own opinions; and to note family generational conflicts; while my father passionately favored “The Happy Warrior”, Hubert Humphrey, my cousin and his wife supported anti-war hero Eugene McCarthy. The country had been rocked and was still reeling from assassinations, first of Martin Luther King, then Bobby Kennedy. I have a strong sense memory of the dark weight that settled on us all that summer at the beach as we sat around a small TV set at night watching the Democratic Party come apart at the seams and in the streets; as college student “radicals” fought with working class police officers, calling them “pigs”. The ballot box was hardly seen as the road to progressive change by most youth, and the wartime economy kept the Silent Majority afloat, so Richard Nixon triumphed over first Humphrey, then McGovern to govern for 1 and ½ terms in office.
Long, hot summer nights continued to mix with politics in my memory. The endless macabre spectacle of the Watergate hearings mesmerized my high school boyfriend and I most nights when I came home from my Italian restaurant job - where I did a mediocre job of impersonating a waitress - the summer before I left DC for college and the feminist awakening of the early 70’s.
As it was for most young people of that time, the Ford and Carter campaigns were a blur of relative unimportance; political pabulum along the continuum of the personal is political. We knew Reagan would prove to be a disaster, but were too busy settling down to raise a family in the wilds of Kalihi, Wai’anae, and Aiea to do more than note the giant sucking sound as the money flowed to the wealthy few at the expense of the bottom and middle many. A smiling Grinch stole Christmas, and the only thing left in Who-ville to trickle down was sweat.
A President from a town called Hope tickled our latent ideals, evoking high expectations, and yes, a glimmer of hope…perhaps we can love again. Who can forget Maya Angelou’s elegant tribute at the Clinton inaugural parade and the sweet soaring sound of the lovely old Shaker hymn: 'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free, 'tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, and when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'twill be in the valley of love and delight. We experienced a brief moment of exhilaration at having an admirable first lady who planned to do stuff, like fix health care, married to what appeared to be a pragmatic progressive of our own generation who could communicate with the good old boys. It was a moment of promise that turned too quickly to talent gambled, opportunities wasted, and progress lost – handing victory to reactionary bandits waiting in the wings.
As the Bushes returned and their ilk flourished, we hunkered down for what Mark (and Doug Adams) describes as “the long dark teatime of the soul”, turning overly cynical, as did our children. Kalei, in 9th grade and wearing a uniform of black, wrote an essay in which she opined there was absolutely nothing she could do about the sad state of the world other than keep her eyes open and refuse to look away from the truth. I often wondered what had become of our youthful idealism, and had we infected our progeny with disappointment or realism or some other unknown contemporary virus. We lost jobs due to budget cuts, savings in the tech bubble, and retirement funds in the stock market. No longer young and single, these things actually mattered. We continued to think globally and act locally but there were days it rang trite and hollow, especially if you happened to say it out loud to the kids, who either smirked or smiled indulgently depending on the day they were having.
Yet here we have arrived at, nay been delivered to, November 2008, in a state I always dreamed of but never quite believed would come. We held an election in which my baby cast her first vote, and my first-born learned that the good guys can win. We all know we got a rough row to hoe, but how can one sum up the immensity of what has already been accomplished by our collective choice of a thoughtful, intelligent, strategic, balanced, real, multi-cultural leader who has re-inspired us to hope, idealism and action.
I’m not sure about the correct order of things remarkable regarding this election, but surely one of them is gaining a leader who comprehends the complexity of our world and was elected without hiding his light under a bushel.
The first election I can remember (or perhaps only heard stories about) was the Don Quixote-esque campaign of Adlai Stevenson in the 1950’s. What I seem to recall is the strange and pleasing sound of his name, and having my photograph taken while wearing a large Adlai Stevenson button. Supported by a choir of idealistic FDR liberals, Stevenson was dismissed as an “egghead” by the Eisenhower crowd. “After one of Stevenson’s high-brow speeches,” Kristof writes, “an admirer yelled out something like, You’ll have the vote of every thinking American! Stevenson is said to have shouted back: That’s not enough. I need a majority!”… No wonder he lost.
Politics and liberal left social change were central organizing forces in the Washington DC house where I was raised during the 1950’s and 60’s. Our family sang union organizing songs in the car to stave off my legendary car sickness, and I walked picket lines with my parents outside the segregated neighborhood amusement park, rather than ride the roller coaster like most other (white) kids my age. My hometown lay barely south of the Mason-Dixon line, yet a world apart from neighboring Virginia with its deep South confederate identity. Who in that era could imagine that a half-century later Virginia would cast its electoral votes for the son of a black African man and a white woman from Kansas?
Strangely, I can locate no memories of the Kennedy-Nixon election, but do recall walking along hot and humid DC streets one August day to join an enormous throng at the conclusion of the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Less than 3 months later, while baking cookies with my girl scout troop, news came across the radio of President Kennedy’s assassination.
Of the 1964 Johnson-Goldwater competition, my memories are of the strange apocalyptic fears the adults around me exuded and the cool smoothness of large campaign buttons. By 1968, I was a 9th grader and old enough to have my own opinions; and to note family generational conflicts; while my father passionately favored “The Happy Warrior”, Hubert Humphrey, my cousin and his wife supported anti-war hero Eugene McCarthy. The country had been rocked and was still reeling from assassinations, first of Martin Luther King, then Bobby Kennedy. I have a strong sense memory of the dark weight that settled on us all that summer at the beach as we sat around a small TV set at night watching the Democratic Party come apart at the seams and in the streets; as college student “radicals” fought with working class police officers, calling them “pigs”. The ballot box was hardly seen as the road to progressive change by most youth, and the wartime economy kept the Silent Majority afloat, so Richard Nixon triumphed over first Humphrey, then McGovern to govern for 1 and ½ terms in office.
Long, hot summer nights continued to mix with politics in my memory. The endless macabre spectacle of the Watergate hearings mesmerized my high school boyfriend and I most nights when I came home from my Italian restaurant job - where I did a mediocre job of impersonating a waitress - the summer before I left DC for college and the feminist awakening of the early 70’s.
As it was for most young people of that time, the Ford and Carter campaigns were a blur of relative unimportance; political pabulum along the continuum of the personal is political. We knew Reagan would prove to be a disaster, but were too busy settling down to raise a family in the wilds of Kalihi, Wai’anae, and Aiea to do more than note the giant sucking sound as the money flowed to the wealthy few at the expense of the bottom and middle many. A smiling Grinch stole Christmas, and the only thing left in Who-ville to trickle down was sweat.
A President from a town called Hope tickled our latent ideals, evoking high expectations, and yes, a glimmer of hope…perhaps we can love again. Who can forget Maya Angelou’s elegant tribute at the Clinton inaugural parade and the sweet soaring sound of the lovely old Shaker hymn: 'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free, 'tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, and when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'twill be in the valley of love and delight. We experienced a brief moment of exhilaration at having an admirable first lady who planned to do stuff, like fix health care, married to what appeared to be a pragmatic progressive of our own generation who could communicate with the good old boys. It was a moment of promise that turned too quickly to talent gambled, opportunities wasted, and progress lost – handing victory to reactionary bandits waiting in the wings.
As the Bushes returned and their ilk flourished, we hunkered down for what Mark (and Doug Adams) describes as “the long dark teatime of the soul”, turning overly cynical, as did our children. Kalei, in 9th grade and wearing a uniform of black, wrote an essay in which she opined there was absolutely nothing she could do about the sad state of the world other than keep her eyes open and refuse to look away from the truth. I often wondered what had become of our youthful idealism, and had we infected our progeny with disappointment or realism or some other unknown contemporary virus. We lost jobs due to budget cuts, savings in the tech bubble, and retirement funds in the stock market. No longer young and single, these things actually mattered. We continued to think globally and act locally but there were days it rang trite and hollow, especially if you happened to say it out loud to the kids, who either smirked or smiled indulgently depending on the day they were having.
Yet here we have arrived at, nay been delivered to, November 2008, in a state I always dreamed of but never quite believed would come. We held an election in which my baby cast her first vote, and my first-born learned that the good guys can win. We all know we got a rough row to hoe, but how can one sum up the immensity of what has already been accomplished by our collective choice of a thoughtful, intelligent, strategic, balanced, real, multi-cultural leader who has re-inspired us to hope, idealism and action.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Election eve and hope springs eternal
I found this piece that I wrote about the night of the 2004 election...
The election…what a downer. On election night, as the tide turned towards Tsunami Dubya, I threw 3 coins and consulted the I Ching. The oracle (and other elders) counsel patience, persistence and the cyclic nature of all things, insisting that any power so blind and arrogant resting on such a narrow foundation, will surely be toppled (or so I interpret their counsel). Hard, though, to watch our children lose their first election--- Jonah cast his ballot while Kalei keenly observed power and politics play out. What manner of world are we leaving them, I wonder? And yet, less than a week later, as we blue adults licked our wounds, two new buttons appeared on Kalei's enormous bag reading “Hilary Now” and “Barak Obama”. Hope does spring eternal!
here's hoping that the girl is prophetic!!
The election…what a downer. On election night, as the tide turned towards Tsunami Dubya, I threw 3 coins and consulted the I Ching. The oracle (and other elders) counsel patience, persistence and the cyclic nature of all things, insisting that any power so blind and arrogant resting on such a narrow foundation, will surely be toppled (or so I interpret their counsel). Hard, though, to watch our children lose their first election--- Jonah cast his ballot while Kalei keenly observed power and politics play out. What manner of world are we leaving them, I wonder? And yet, less than a week later, as we blue adults licked our wounds, two new buttons appeared on Kalei's enormous bag reading “Hilary Now” and “Barak Obama”. Hope does spring eternal!
here's hoping that the girl is prophetic!!
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