Mt. Wai'ale'ale: The Top of Kauai

Waimea Canyon State Park is a major Kauai geological feature that some poetic-thinking person dubbed "The Grand Canyon of the Pacific." (It wasn't Mark Twain; he'd never set foot on this island) It's a grand place that has no comparison that I know of in the islands, although Haleakala Crater on Maui is  spectacular in a similar way.

To get there from here (the north shore of Kauai) you have to drive nearly all the way around the island, on a two-lane highway through several charming coastal communities, so even though it's a distance of about 70 miles, give or take, it takes about 2 or 2 1/2 hours to get there.  We set out after breakfast and found ourselves distracted by lots of things along the way.  We'll do them some other time.  The top of the island was calling today.

I'm not a good navigator for driving because as soon as I read a map or book while the car is moving, I start to feel queasy.  The road leading to the canyon is winding and climbs from sea level to 5,000 feet in about 18 miles.  I wanted to study the map, but my tender stomach would have none of it, so I just watched the centerline and hoped for the best.  We drove into the park and began noticing koa trees and other native Hawaiian plants like ferns and maile vines.  Koa looks similar to eucalyptus in the sickle-shaped silver-gray leaves and gives a highly prized hardwood that's now very expensive.  The park has a YMCA camp and a Boy Scout Camp as well as a few cabins that can be rented from the park headquarters.  In the area of the park cafe and museum, we noticed redwood trees and Monterey cypress growing.  Home away from home, I guess, planted by someone long ago who felt that the climate is similar.  About 90% of Hawaii's botanical growth is now made up of nonnative species, so every koa tree was very encouraging to see, holding its own against extinction and invasion.

When we finally got to see Waimea Canyon, it was splendid with color, several thousand feet deep, very wide and fed with many side canyons.  Apparently, a crater had originally been formed a few million years ago, which collapsed eventually into itself, and then a side formation of a different kind of stone gradually emerged, creating layers of color and two contrasting kinds of stone one on either side of the main canyon area.  Then, the Waimea River's headwaters gradually eroded away the ever-deepening canyon to its present form.

The top of the island is Mt Wai'ale'ale at 5,140 feet and the wettest place on earth, receiving about 400 inches of rainfall a year.  Mist was light today, thank god, because we didn't have a poncho or jacket to protect ourselves.

After exclaiming about the huge size and depth of the canyon, its tributary ravines and gullies, we drove on through more koa forest until we got to the final parking lot and took a look.  Before us was a mist-enshrouded expanse of whiteness beyond the railing, but soon enough features of geography began to appear in the mist.  There were no interpretive signs, so we weren't sure what to look for, but then the fantastic fluted mountainsides of the Na Pali Coast took shape, then the ocean far below and a rainbow arching between them.  We took a few dozen pictures and walked around looking for more viewpoints and talking with other visitors who were all looking dreamily at the vista below us.  It's free to drive into the park and see the sights and worth taking the time to get there.  Superlatives hardly touch the feeling of wonder you are left with.

We visited the museum, also free, although a donation is suggested and then drove back down to the coast to Waimea Town, down a road - Hwy 550 - that is the closest imitation of a roller coaster you'll ever find.  It has dips, drops, turns, climbs and then even more precipitous drops, and every single inch of it provides panoramic technicolor views of the canyon or the vast plains of western Kauai or the wide silvery-blue Pacific and islands beyond.  Or forest, ravines and coastal towns.  Or combinations of any of those.  It has just been paved nicely and is just fantastic.  I wonder if they haven't filmed a few car commercials on it; it wouldn't surprise me a bit.  Unbelievable.

We drove to Port Allen to an beach in a small industrial area locally known as Glass Beach to look for seaglass and found some old blobs of brown, some polished white glass and a few kernels of blue, but it is a popular hunters' beach, so you have to be patient and get there at optimum tide.  We spent about half an hour, maybe an hour, in the afternoon sun and warm water, picking through the beach made of glass beads, ground over decades, looking for special pieces.

Our appetites were in full roar by then.  We got lucky and spotted a sign for Monday night pizza buffet at Brick Oven Pizza in Kalaheo for $14.95 each, all you can eat salad, pizza, pasta and clam chowder - fresh and good.  Then, we headed east once again to see Spouting Horn at Poipu resort area at sunset.  This is a wide shelf of old lava rock that has two or three blowholes that the surf shoots up through when the tide is right.  One of them makes a loud blowing sound that is haunting in nature, a lot like a whale blowing when it reaches the surface.

It was a day of sightseeing, thinking about 4 million years of island formation and the changes the little round island has seen in all its days.  It feels like it has personality, wisdom or character, maybe all that, but it is a special place.  My friend who said I'd be bored in a week was so wrong I can't even say.  I keep finding more I want to do and learn.  Of course, as is true on all journeys, the place is changing me the way it changes most visitors, slowing things down and asking for patience and a closer look.  It seems to be an easy thing to do, no problem at all.  

Kalalau Day Hike: A Mud Fest

We are somewhere on Kauai's north shore, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Western Hemisphere, Planet Earth. This part of the globe is wet and crazy, with rainbows and roosters thick as thieves.  The ocean is aquamarine and warm and has pounded the shore for enough time to create miles and miles of golden soft sand out of reef coral and shells.

I hear the surf and night insects and sometimes a car going by on the narrow highway beyond the yard, and there are loud drops of rainwater tapping on the lanai's awning, a corrugated metal surface.  No barking dogs.  No sirens or yelling people.  Nothing but various kinds of water noises, sometimes showers of rain.  There's also a white cat, Leroy, snoring next to me as he sleeps upside down the way cats do.

We got a wild hair this morning and decided it was a good morning to go hike on the infamous Kalalau Trail to a point two miles distant from its trailhead in Ha'ena State Park so we could see the Na Pali Coast.  Neither of us had hiking boots, bandana, or snack food to carry, but we set off anyway.

Let me tell you something:  The Kalalau Trail - if you hike beyond the two-mile marker where  Hanakupi'ai Beach lies - is an intense and challenging hike with unparalleled views.  It's steep in sections, slippery with mud, rocky, narrow and has a severe drop-off to the ocean, sometimes a thousand feet below. There are no facilities anywhere along its length; you must pack everything in on your own.  It's considered one of the most dangerous hiking trails in the U.S.  So, if you hear someone say they hiked it, buy them a treat; they deserve it.  The initial section to the beach is considered "moderately difficult" in comparison.

The four-mile round trip we undertook today was about all we could handle.  I was wearing Ecco sport sandals (like Tevas), nylon pants and a thin no-sleeve top.  I would have been a lot happier in hiking boots, but the sandals did okay.  I could not have gone any farther than I did with them, as sandals offer no ankle support and no toe protection really.

This is the rainy season in Hawaii, especially in Kauai's northern area where the trail is.  Hawaii's soil degrades into a gooey, sucking red mud that is slippery and tractionless when you're going up- or downhill.  But, off we went, feeling adventurous.  We strode past a host of signs shouting last-minute warnings about falling rocks, steep slopes, sun and wind exposure, and rocky surfaces.  We felt as ready as we'd ever be to hike this trail, even if that was not really true.  The trail is immediately thick with glistening lava chunks and dripping water from trees overhead, and it heads uphill at what seems like a 45-degree angle, although it's more likely less.  After a quarter of a mile, you are rewarded a beautiful view of Ke'e Beach and the pulsing blue Pacific that stretches to infinity. And then the rain starts.  But, so do rainbows.  Big, thick, vivid Walt Disney rainbows that practically sparkle on their own.

We picked our way along the boulder- and root-strewn muddy trail for the next two hours, stood in the lee of tall trees, hatless, while showers passed along the coast and rainbows beamed everywhere.  There were only a few serious uphill sections after that first stretch, so aerobically the hike was not bad.  But...the mud is treacherous and each footstep must be carefully placed or you are in some peril of doing a classic pratfall, landing on either your backside or some other bony aspect of your anatomy, graceless and embarrassed.  I managed to stay upright, but my dear husband hit the ground three times.  Oh, will he be sore tomorrow.

The trail is very popular because of its beautiful views of the tropical, rugged Na Pali Coast.  This coast is inaccessible for the most part unless you helicopter over it or take a boat or kayak down its length during calm-water months in summer.  The popularity of the day-hike trail means hundreds of human feet trample it into muddy oblivion on a daily basis, which turns the path into a wide slimefest most of its length.

Every single person we encountered on our hike today was friendly, and most of them were younger than us, which actually felt pretty good.  It's certain that if we hiked regularly, we would be more prepared for a tough trek, but we made it and feel pretty okay at the moment.  In my mind, I keep hearing the sucking slurp of our footwear in the brown muck of the trail - all sorts of gurgley, slippery, slimy sounds.  The round trip took us about five hours including a rest break on the beach.

To reward ourselves, we indulged in a long hot shower, put on dry clothes and then went to Princeville Center to find North Shore Grindz for exceptional (ono) hamburgers and iced tea.  On the way back home, we explored the taro field road in Hanalei Valley that is home to a National Wildlife Refuge.  It's backdropped by layer after layer of jagged volcanic mountain ridges that look like Chinese brush paintings.  We saw two very rare Nene geese, an endangered Hawaiian native bird.

Now the little cat next to me is sleeping more quietly and the day is over.  We're planning a trip to Waimea Canyon tomorrow, the grandest feature of the whole island.  But first, some sleep.

Kauai Talks Story Quietly

There is a thing you have to do as a traveler, and it may relate more to eastern philosophy than to western.  As much as you would like to think you're prepared for a new area after you've read and listened to stories of other travelers, you still have to let go and swing into the wild blue yonder without a rope, letting go attempts to control the outcome.  Then, it's you and the place, meeting each other.

Oftentimes we who believe we have a high standard of living impose ourselves on the universe and think we are conquering it, teaching it how we must be treated so that we will be comfortable and have the upper hand.  It's like teaching a dog to say hello in English.  Have you listened to it, heard what it had to say, in Dog?  Not really.  It has only learned to mimic what you wanted it to say.

I asked my friends what Kauai is like before I came here.  I asked them what to see, what they liked about it.

"It rains a lot, but it's pretty," they said.  One said, "You will be bored out of your mind in a week, guaranteed."

We got up this morning and felt soft, cool air on our skin and saw that the sky was covered with rain clouds.  A few small birds sang a lilting song, and a rooster crowed as if mimicking another rooster in jest.  I thought I heard it laugh afterward.  Then drops of water began a random patter on the lanai awning that grew to a steady downpour.  The rain sluiced off the large leaves of the breadfruit and palms in the yard.  Green on green with splashes of vivid pink or orange met us as we waited for the  rain to stop.  It ended in ten minutes and then all was quiet except for drainpipes gurgling and leaves rustling in a very light breeze.

Bound for Limahuli Garden and Preserve two miles to the west of us, our exploration and swing into the wild blue was beginning.  The region is lush, green, dense with growth and feels like a tilted world decorated with flowers.  Mauka way (toward the mountains), there is a rambling skyline of overgrown lava peaks.  Makai way (to the ocean) the water is aqua blue and lined with curling white breakers.  In between is a riot of undergrowth that you might think only needs Tarzan to go swinging through it or velociraptors so that the prehistoric jungle can be complete.  But, it's quiet.  You hear wind or water on leaves and the restless surf.  Tarzan or velociraptors is not what the forest and jungle are talking about; they would be an imposition in this nearly silent place.

Kauai's north shore feels soft as it meets you, talks to you quietly about water, how it flows through and around rocks.  The undulations of land, rivers, forests and beaches muffle sound and baffle the wind.

We slowed our pace quite a lot today and took time to feel the change.  We drank less coffee, stopped more often to watch and listen and felt delight come over us, very slowly.  We were not bored out of our minds.  Instead, we have a longer list than before of places we want to see and spend time with.  We forgot what day it is today and have no inclination to watch television or take part in fear and violence.

I stood on the hushing shore at sunset once again this evening.  While the aqua swells lifted and fell on the golden sand, an image of white snow falling silently filled my mind.  Earlier this afternoon, I watched paddleboarders gliding across Hanalei Bay while glittering light played on the hammered gray metal water, and I thought of shooting stars.  All silence in all of nature was speaking its own language, talking story, peacefully.  Now the singing insects are keeping a trilling pulse-like rhythm in the night, the lullaby of the ages.

Kauai Evening

After having a unique (read:  space- and budget-constricted but fantastically flavorful) Thanksgiving dinner with our two loved ones and their young friends yesterday, we packed up our bags for an island hop to Kauai this afternoon.  Before leaving, we were treated to breakfast at a locals' favorite called Bogarts Cafe, located just east of Kapiolani Park and the Honolulu Zoo.  I saw signs on the wall boasting "best breakfast bagel in Honolulu," so I tried it and completely agree.  Coffee's great.  The food's fresh and very tasty.

Years ago, when hippies were a lot younger than they are today, quite a few of them chose to drop out of society and escape to the most remote reaches of Kauai and live "naturally."  That meant living nude, smoking dope, camping out, growing sprouts and "living off the land," which has always been a euphemism in hippy parlance for doing as little as possible for as long as they could.  Eventually, the park system flushed most of the hardcore society drop-outs from the Na Pali Coast area where they'd clustered.

Those days are gone now, and hundreds if not thousands of people challenge themselves with hikes on the extremely rugged trail that boasts views of a jagged and nearly vertical 11-mile stretch of fin-like cliffs, considered one of the most dangerous and gorgeous in the entire country if not the world.

On past trips we'd always found the jungled, tropical and rural areas of other Hawaiian islands to be most attractive and beautiful, eschewing mega resorts and elaborate accommodations in favor of uniquely "real" places that are locally owned and operated.  Well, we've found another one, and at the moment I can't even tell you the name of it, but I can say I feel like Robinson Crusoe in the jungle.

We landed at Lihue Airport and began driving our rental car north on Hwy 51, eating at Bubba's Burgers in Kapaa, then driving through Kailua, Princeville and Hanalei, places that will have no meaning to you at all unless you've been there already.  Let's just say, you start off in shrubby, windy and rather dry-looking coastal areas and wind up in a lush low-lying valley with wide flooded fields of taro with a backdrop of tall craggy and steep mountains wrapped in puffy clouds as a backdrop.

This is a B&B with only three different spaces that are rentals.  Ours is a cottage with a lanai (veranda or porch), a kitchenette and a small yard filled with tropical plants.  It's private, has its own entrance out of view of the other small buildings and the main house and an outdoor bed to use if we want to, and a larger indoor one with books to read.  There's no TV but we do have good internet access.  No phone.  No one around.  Just us.  We have to let the owner know a day in advance if we want to have breakfast next morning so they can buy supplies and cook for us.  If we want to, we can cook our own meal in a little kitchen area off the main room.  We feel like, hmmm, explorers I guess.  The skinny two-lane highway just beyond the yard here is lined with large home built way up high off the ground that I suppose allow for air and/or water flow beneath them.  I mean, some are 20 feet up off the ground on pillars.  Ours is not, but it's further removed from the shoreline.

We took a walk for about a mile to Tunnels Beach, a tawny-sand beach that's golden, long, with curling aqua-colored breakers thumping on the curving shoreline.  It's not quite the last stop on the road, but it is famous for a few caves there as well as fantastic sunsets.  We did a rather quick reconnaissance of the area before having to walk back quickly before darkness fell.

We ate dinner across the street and down a ways at Mediterranean Gourmet Restaurant, an oddly self-descriptive name lacking any romance.  The food was terrific, the setting romantic and handsome.  The chef is from San Francisco and did himself proud with the seared ahi and chicken kabob that we ordered.

Now, far after dark, cricket-like insects are trilling in the distance and light showers are sprinkling down on the lanai overhang as I write.  It's cool, maybe 70 degrees out tonight, and in the distance the surf is making the same muffled rumble we are so used to hearing in Pacific Grove.  The bustle of Waikiki is far away, and we are ready for discovery and adventure.

Aloha and Gratitude

It's Thanksgiving today.  I wondered if gratitude and appreciation are very much different from each other as I walked over to Duke's from our hotel on Kuhio St. this morning.  I sat on the open breeze-caressed veranda at Duke's, eating my just-fine buffet breakfast and watching people down on the beach and out in the water, playing.  

Waikiki looks like a living postcard most of the time with Diamond Head standing like a 1930s travel poster icon.  With things so bucolic and tender, you almost want to poke it to see if it might poke back.  

People living in the area the day Pearl Harbor was bombed felt the same way, felt that paradise was almost too much to be grateful for, that life was so simple and easy they wanted to make more of a ruckus so they wouldn't all nod off into a nap.  Then, the harbor was bombed horribly and everything changed in a day.  Thousands of men were killed, caught off guard and unable to respond to the Japanese attack.  This is the kind of thing you think of on Thanksgiving day in Honolulu if you stop for a second, pause between your tropical fruit and your cinnamon brioche french toast.

But, you also think about land and sea, air and fire, because they are all so palpable here, and they create an enveloping environment that feels very close to what you imagine peace to be.  How ironic that paradise was once bombed and sent up in flames when the pervasive value of its people was aloha.

Waikiki is a curious place to be when you are faced with questions about gratitude because so much seems idyllic for the visitor.  Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire, a fiery form of mother nature, is a lady flowing with gifts and beauty here.  All of them relax you and fool you into thinking life is wonderful everywhere, just like it is here.  In Oahu communities, locals look out for one another and extend aloha to each other.  Our waiter at Duke's this morning told us, "This is a small island, and everyone knows each other, so you have to stop and say hello."

I'd be silly to believe that all is perfect here.  Humankind has a way of making its own self miserable even in places like Hawaii.  Drugs, alcohol, jealousy and territoriality mar the paradise that many strive to create.  But even sillier would be to dismiss the spirit of aloha in the island's residents, an age-old value of giving generously and extending a welcoming hand of friendship.  It is far more pervasive than anything else and underlies all the sweet memories visitors take with them when they leave.  For that I am very grateful today.  Aloha.  It gets down to love, all over again.  For the grateful heart is the one that extends love to the world.

An International Day in Honolulu

Honolulu, like most big cities, gets up and roars from before dawn on through the day and late into the night.  On the stretch of playground called Waikiki, the bus system is an arterial flow of people borne in large vessels to every reach of street and highway.  It's all about pleasing tourists, moving them  around, feeding them and seeing to their every need.  In quieter parts of Waikiki, you can hear the rustle of palm leaves in the tradewinds, the soft swish of waves on the long beach, and small Hawaiian doves calling gently.

This morning, we went to Chinatown to buy groceries for tomorrow.  We parked at the Aloha Tower complex nearby and walked a few city blocks to the middle of Chinatown.  This oldest part of town is nearly a separate nation, distinguished by its nearly total dependence on Chinese culture, started back in the 1840s or so.

The Chinese immigrants who were brought here as laborers more than 150 years ago gradually recreated China complete with all its delicacies, fabrics, art and customs, and the many city blocks that were the heart of the community are still in use today.  All signs are written in Chinese as well as English, and you get a sense of both Disneyland and foreign territory as you walk around.  The Disney aspect comes from the scaled-down size of things including many diminutively sized people bustling about their business.  I felt very tall.  A very long line of people was formed outside of the Lee Bakery on one street.  We didn't want to stand there with them to find out what was so amazing, but found out later it was pork buns.

With several bags of produce in hand, we piled all of it into our car and drove a little way south to Ala Moana Park, a sprawling city park with a fine large lagoon where I swam for a half hour or so.  It was fun to stroke along and see parasails on the western horizon, Diamond Head to the south and the Honolulu skyline to the east.  There were  few rainbows now and again and other folks out for runs or swims with me.  Paddle board riders floated by talking story in pidgin.

Next, we drove across the road to Ala Moana Shopping Center, a shopping mecca, where we shopped for Thanksgiving dinner supplies.  Thai food back in Waikiki was pretty good, not the best, and then we stopped for a nap back at the hotel.

On an impulse, we put our swim suits back on, walked over to Waikiki Beach - two blocks away -  and shopped around for an outrigger canoe ride.   Everyone shoves the canoe into the edge of the surf, gets in, gets a 20-second lesson on how to hold a paddle, and off you go to join the lineup of surfers, hundreds of them.  The helmsman turns you around, tells you to paddle like the dickens and you catch a wave and go powering along to the swish of whitewater, keeping up with surfers standing on their boards next to you.  We surprised one guy swimming back out.  He saw our outrigger coming straight at him and ducked under water just in time to avoid a new buzz haircut.  

To top off the day, we rounded up our two loved ones and found a wonderful Indian and Nepalese restaurant in Kaimuki, not far from their home, called Himalayan Kitchen.  Kaimuki is an old community that could be called a suburb of Honolulu to the southeast a bit.  It has always been home to blue-collar workers and students, and its main business district is definitely eclectic.  In the one-block area where the restaurant was, we found nine other ethnic cultures represented in cuisine.  Locals in the know flock to the hidden gems in Kaimuki.  After a fine meal in a warm and hospitable setting, we walked home in a spritzing effervescence of rain, tired out, heads full of Thai, Chinese, Nepalese and Hawaiian culture.  

No Place Like The North Shore

Waikiki is one version of paradise, if you like shopping and thousands of shuffling tourists everywhere, but the naturally gentle feeling of the air and water  make it feel a lot like perfection no matter how many people you see.  Waikiki and most of the leeward side of Oahu including the southern, southwestern and western areas from Hawaii Kai up to and past Hickam Air Force Base are thick with people and cars.  That includes greater Honolulu and neighboring communities, definitely Waikiki.

But, complain as you might about traffic density and human impact on the island, step into soft morning air and then into gently surging waves of ocean water that's about 77 degrees and your fussing stops.  It's so easy to fall in love with it.

Today, we walked from our hotel to the Moana Surfrider two or three blocks away, admired their lovely open lobby and veranda where you can have tea in the afternoon under the shade of a giant banyan tree, and then walked over to our favorite, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.  Nicknamed The Pink Lady for the bubblegum pink color of the Spanish Colonial style of the original buildings, the hotel is surrounded by high rise modern structures where once she stood alone with tropical gardens all around her.  The nearest hotel was the Moana Hotel, both of which still appear far more stylish and beautiful than anything that has been built since.

We splurged on a delicious breakfast on the open veranda under the shade of pink umbrellas.  Gracious and excellent service marks the restaurant as well as the entire hotel as proud grande dame from a bygone era.  There is a hat shop on the property that sells fine handmade Panama hats.  I tried on my dream hat - a beautiful ladies summer hat that felt like a feather on my head and fit perfectly.  It's a hat that needs a hat box, a pretty dress, good jewelry and an estate to live on.  $200 is too rich for me.

After a quick walk back to the hotel, we hit the road north and then east to Kaneohe by way of Interstate Highway 3 (H-3).  Yes, there are interstates in Hawaii, but it's due to a technicality, I've heard, allowed because the highways connect federal lands together (military bases).  Yeah, I know.  H-3 is a spectacular 10 mile highway that goes from the leeward side of the island, through the high jagged peaks  by tunnel, and then suddenly out the other side where you skirt the mountain side and see the eastern, windward coastline, far below.  We drove that way just to get the view, which is stunning.  Then, winding north along the coast road with the top down on our convertible, we drove through small communities of a more rural quality and past roadside huts selling souvenirs and pineapples.

We continued all the way to the north shore where Sunset Beach, one of the main surfing areas in the entire world, is currently hosting the Triple Crown of Surfing for the next week.  I'd have loved to have sat and watched the waves and surfers out in the far break for hours, but we had to get going after a short while.  The best waves we saw were about head high there, breaking about a half mile out at most. I've never been lucky enough to see giant waves on the north shore, but when a big swell is on its way, the crush of surfers who head for the area is epic.  Parking becomes a horrible mess and spectators line the beaches high out of harm's way for miles.  I'd go anyway, just like all of them, to see the spectacle of such power and beauty.  Nearly everything about North Shore is surfing, made even more fabulous by the rugged open land and agricultural region of the whole north end of the island.  Distant high mountains and big cumulus clouds piling up in the west create quite a backdrop for the long tawny beaches and aqua-blue sea.

We stopped for a late lunch in historical Haleiwa and then drove home again, getting caught in rush hour traffic in the last few miles.  There seems to be no really good time to get to the north shore except very early in the morning.  Beaches have free access, some offer showers to rinse off sand when you're done and lifeguard towers.  I've been to the north shore a handful of times and I've never gone away unhappy.  There's always something beautiful you can never get enough of, and you always want to go back.  Always.

Waikiki: Many Ways to Play

We are staying two blocks off of Kalakaua Blvd, the main stretch of the tourist mecca of Waikiki Beach. With such easy access to a wide variety of water toys, everyone ends up in the waves sooner or later.  We, for instance, obtained beach towels from our hotel desk, walked the two or three blocks to the beach and strolled along for a while looking for an area that offered easy access to waves (other areas have walled-in swimming where waves are blocked out) as well as no cigarette smoke, the right slope to the beach (has to be just to your liking), and interesting buildings to look at.  It sounds like we're picky, but we had a few places to choose between.  The Royal Hawaiian and the Moana Surfrider offer the most options for things to do, ease of access and protection from possible theft.  So, we set up our spot and fit right in.

We waded out into the rock-a-bye motion of the waves shortly after we slathered on a few handfuls of sunblock.  Hundreds of people were playing contentedly at whatever suited them, all ages, all happy.  Outrigger canoes, surfing classes, stand-up surfers, boogie boarders and plain ol' swimmers came and went.

Then a catamaran came sailing in. Ah! Now that looked very appealing. After watching them unload a set of tourists, we decided we needed to sail with them.  Come back at a bit before 5 PM and see the sunset, the beach boys said, dark and muscular, lithe as cats.  This boat was smaller than most of the others; the size appealed to us.  They would offer drinks, but drinking was not the main focus of the trip as most of the others do.

So, we set off with about eight other passengers and three crew and made our way out past the surf lineup under power.  Then, they cut the engines and the two sails were set.  We caught very light air, so we just doodled around peacefully with waves slapping the hulls of the vessel.  Slack key and Hawaiian favorites played on a sound system, and we watched kayakers, the other larger catamarans stuffed with people, shipping tankers on the horizon, and, of course, the sunset.

The sun went down in a flaming blaze of glory, lining clouds with a thin crisp of gold around all their edges.  The gold reflected off the thousands of windows in the tall skyscrapers on Waikiki; they looked like gilded tiles from a distance.

After an hour of lolling about with sunset soaring and then waning gradually, we motored back to the beach, landed and disembarked.  Now we have hit vacation mode, just as if someone beamed Time To Vacation Now! into our minds at last.  Tomorrow, we'll take the top down on the convertible and head to the north shore, far from the city.

Big Blue Ocean

Just as the Boeing 767 began its gradual descent to the cerulean blue sea surrounding Oahu, a dozen babies began to scream, first just one and then all the others taking up the squalling chorus.  They had been peaceful little travelers up until then, but the descent triggered a group howl.  Then, as soon as we were about 500 feet above the ground, on final approach to the runway, they all stopped and peace reigned once again.

Flying to the islands is a bit of a miraculous undertaking for those of us who do not have any aeronautical skills.  Setting off from the San Jose airport, you arc and circle to the west and then leap once and for all into the blue beyond.  It feels like leaping off a high dive when you're a kid, but you don't land for another five hours or more.  You're flying at oh, 400 mph or so, I guess, and Hawaii is only half way across the vast blue expanse of water, at best.  It's the biggest thing there is on our earth, the Pacific Ocean is.  There's a lot we still don't know about it, but that's an odd statement, isn't it.  How do you know how much you don't know?  How do you know how big an ocean is unless you fly over it and never get to the other side of it?  You can tell me numbers all day long about depth, temperature, volume and the like, but the damned thing is just huge and that's all there is to that.  It is and you feel like a mote next to it.

Perhaps the babies knew collectively that what we had just accomplished was so stunning that they could only scream in amazement.  I'd like to think so.  They were like primitive tribespeople dancing around in front of the obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey.  The pilot and his crew who took on the task did a fine job and we landed safely, ready to have ourselves a nice Hawaiian holiday for the next two weeks.  The crew didn't pay much attention to the fact that 200 people had waddled into their big white bird and waddled out again after five hours, that they'd shot through the heavens in search of a cluster of small islands in the middle of the biggest ocean in the known universe.  But I did, and I am in awe.  

Off To Hawaii, First Stop Korea

I began my vacation to Hawaii today, rummaging in my closet and drawers for lightweight clothing and sun block.  We plan to be there for two weeks, on Oahu and Kauai, doing this and that, but mostly relaxing and slowing down a lot.  The weather on the central coast is cold, gray and threatening, which makes Hawaii seem wonderfully alluring now.

In preparation, I shopped, cleaned the place up a bit, caught up on bills and rearranged things that unarrange themselves when we're at home.  Laundry, sweeping, odds and ends that hide in the refrigerator determined to become science projects, all presented themselves as important today.   I like to get things in order before I leave, mostly so I can come home to a place that's ready for me to take up my life again when I return.

In the middle of the gray cold day, I went downtown for a pedicure - bright pink toenails to get in a tropical mood.  Colors can do that to you, put you in a mood, good or bad, but bright pink - well, there's a color you can't mistake for Norway or Russia.  Fuchsia practically plays a ukulele all by itself.

The ladies who own the manicure/pedicure salon are Korean.  As I sat in the pedicure "spa" chair and had my back rolled up and down by the massaging mechanism in its back, the miniature hot tub at my feet bubbling and humming, the women chatted in Korean. It was pleasant and lulling, another background sound, a language of exotic noises, lilts and tones that has no meaning to me.  The place was tidy, feminine, with laughing Buddha statues and flower decorations.  Everywhere were small bottles of polish, lotions, removers, and soaks, standing in tiny trays at each station.

There's something particularly self-indulgent about having your toenails painted pink by a small woman who speaks a very foreign language.  It was an intimate act, her handling my feet, giving me a bit of pleasure that way, taking care to see to my comfort.  She made brief gestures to indicate that I place my foot here or my hand there as she needed it moved.  She noticed my ticklish spots and smiled quickly at me, but her English was about 95% Korean, so we only exchanged the smile of understanding.

"You tickish," she said.

"Yes, I can't help it," I said, and the conversation died away.  We smiled.

She went back to her work and I went back to gazing out the window and enjoying the rollers running up and down my back.  I wondered when she had left Korea and what her life had been like there, how long she had been here in California and how she had managed to live in an English-speaking culture not speaking the language herself.  But, her friends, her community within the community, have established as much of what they admire about Korea including its language and laughing Buddhas as they can, a shielding blanket of familiarity that protects them from the strangeness of America.

She finished my nails after giving me a tender little massage of each hand, and I sat with them drying in front of a small fan.  She slipped some thin foam flip-flops onto each of my feet and stood back.  I handed her some cash and we all said good-bye, have a nice day, have a happy Thanksgiving, good-bye, good-bye, smiling in all the pauses.  I walked out with tropical toes and there merest hint of Korea on my skin.

Little Annoying Things

The common cold has sent my immune system into high gear, especially my nose, which has become a faucet of epic proportions.  It will all go away eventually, but I'm in the middle of it right now so it doesn't feel like anything except waterworks to the tenth degree.  I haven't had a cold in ages, so I'd nearly forgotten how hose-like a nose can be.  Amazing.  I think I could put out a fire without any trouble.

Just now a strange new buzzing rattle has begun in my kitchen, where I'm sitting.  It's coming from the fridge, just like that.  Why do things just go haywire all of a sudden with no provocation.  I mean, I can understand if an earthquake were to have initiated the strange buzz or if someone sneezed in my face to begin my cold, but no, they seem to have simply taken the initiative all on their own to begin annoying me.

Well, taking the Pollyanna attitude:  I'm glad the fridge is at least not blowing up.  A buzzing rattle is fine in that case.  And, at least I don't have to deal with cancer or severe injury.  A cold with its accompanying incessantly leaking nose is hardly anything at all when you look at it that way.

Since the day is threatening rain, having a cold is less restricting than if it were gorgeous outside.  Instead, I'll make myself some broth, curl up with a warm blanket and a good book and while away a few hours.  That sounds pretty good, cold or not.  First, though, I'm going to buy stock in Kleenex...

Flying While Swimming

A simple truth:  Your mind flies while you swim.  Those who don't like to swim laps believe it's the most boring thing in the world, but they're missing out on a remarkable experience.

In a pool, your body is essentially inside a big container, but your mind moves far beyond its boundaries, set free by the rhythm and motion of your arms and pattern of your breathing.

The coach on deck sets you off, but it's up to you to keep track of your laps and pay heed to pace and tempo.  If you've swum enough, your body settles into autodrive, and your mind is free to travel.  Of course there is a downside:  You lose track of the number of laps you've swum if you don't pay enough attention to it.  In the best swims, you keep track peripherally of your lap count, the way you're swimming.  It's very much like driving a car.  You pay just enough attention to the road and signage to keep yourself safe, but you're thinking about things a thousand miles away at the very same moment.   I've heard of some swimmers who worked on math problems, imagined conversations with friends, composed music, and others who escape to a place where they feel heroic and immortal.  Hardly ever do you notice the bottom of the pool with its wide black stripe below you.  Instead, you fly weightlessly.

Yoga teaches that rhythmic breathing, disciplined movement and mild exertion create mindfulness.  It's a meditation, a release of the mind and creative imagination that at the same time relaxes and reintegrates your body, mind and spirit.  Feeling yourself moving with the currents and pressure of the water, held afloat, sensing the resistance of still, calm water on your hands and arms as you stroke, focuses your mind initially on the task at hand.  But, as you settle into a pace, you may find yourself listening to a song, making plans for dinner, driving to Colorado, or flying to Paris.  Why not?  Anything's possible in the mind, especially when the body is busy at a repetitive movement like freestyle.

There is a balance to strike between being lost in thought and putting out physical effort.  Many times, especially for swimmers struggling to make an interval (finish the set of laps before they have to start again), the physical effort dominates the experience.  Once you find a balanced state, relaxed and aware yet detached and free, no container can hold you.  Who knows, you may find yourself anywhere in the universe, where time doesn't matter anymore.  

Side Streets

There is a broad main street in Pacific Grove, and there are narrow crossing streets along the length of it as it goes through downtown.  Merchants whose businesses lie along those skinny streets place signs on the main street corners to attract traffic to their front doors.  The signs stand like small dogs wearing saddles with their noses pointing uphill or down.

Spying something small and unusual as I wend my way along an avenue piques my imagination; the signs work.  If I have a few extra minutes, I satisfy my curiosity and look for things I haven't seen before, go places I've never been, find a new angle from which to view the world.

This may be the main difference between the way men and women shop.  I've heard men say - very often - that they just want to get into a store, find the thing they're looking for and get out as quickly as possible.  Wandering, touching, and exploring quietly are generally the things women do as they make their way along aisles of merchandise or along little streets in towns and cities.

If I were you, men, I'd keep this in mind when considering how to get a lady's attention and make her content and happy.  Allow her to explore and experience new places with all her senses if she needs that.  Rushing a woman who is ready to shop is a sad thing, and resentment will build and spill into other aspects of life.

Young guys in high school and college always ask each other how to get a girl.  The answer is do what the girls love:  Dance, shop slowly, develop an eye for detail and intrigue.  Especially the intrigue.  There lies the flirtation, sense of play and a little bit of danger.  It's a funny thing, is intrigue and mystery.  It unfolds and reveals layers of the unknowable and interesting subtleties of life.

Poking around in places that invite exploration, imagination and that suggest possibility is where the excitement in a day takes on depth.  Hunting, seeking, and finding stir the spirit.

I saw one little sign today and took a side street, mentally marked the shop as I drove slowly by on my way home.  I'll go back on foot sometime soon, see what might be there.  I could see the merest hint of the interior through the front window, mysterious, dim, something that looked like many things I could imagine.  Now I want to solve the little mystery.  But not too quickly.  It's more fun that way.  

Odds and Ends

Why is it that when the bread runs out, the knob on the door won't turn, the newspaper ends up on the roof or the left front tire on the car is leaking air you feel the odds are stacked against you and there is no God?

And why is it that when the cake rises nicely in the oven, a discount is given at the register or your weight drops unexpectedly there is a kind, loving, benevolent God?

Little things add up, and before you know it you're cursing lucky stars or counting them.

Today was a quick day, I swear it.  Time went faster than usual, somehow.  Now it's gone, the moon is up and the God/Not God is making plans to trip us up somehow, remind us we are just ordinary little bags of water and chemicals burbling from one point in time to another.  

We'll see what happens next.  It's all a mystery, isn't it?

Please Comment

How many times to you really get asked for your opinion?

You take surveys and send them off never to be seen again, but I'll bet you can count on one hand the number of times someone has walked up to you, singled you out, and said, "Tell me what you think, exactly.  Talk about your ideas.  I'm listening and I'm writing it all down for consideration."

I did, once, take part in an interview where a person who was thoughtfully considering my opinions writing them down and listening carefully, comparing my words with others' and giving me plenty of room to explain.  Of course, I was in third grade and the survey was about how third grade girls like certain things, and so I gave all kinds of expansive ideas.  I became an instant fame junkie and wanted to give my opinion on everything else in the world, too.

On this blog site, and millions of others, too, you can actually give your comments freely (as long as they are fit for family consumption) and add them to the mix, start a conversation of sorts.

Every so often, I ask readers to make suggestions for posts, and this is one of those times.  Go ahead, tell me what you're thinking about, or comment on a post and get your idea out.  I'm always curious to read what bubbles up after you've read something.

Compared to Birds

3:00 PM, Boise Airport - The plane I am supposed to get on in a little while "missed the approach" to the airport, it was just announced.  I'm thinking the pilot should be replaced.  How do you miss an approach?  Boise is in a big wide valley and it has a wide runway with hundreds of buildings and hired hands everywhere.  It seems to be a pretty obvious place considering other smaller airports on pinpoints of land I've flown into.  Don't they have to be able to use instruments to guide them in even if its cloudy?

8:00 PM, Pacific Grove - The jet plane we were waiting for came eventually.  We loaded into its belly and it flew west, eventually releasing us like regurgitated lumps.  Sitting inside the silver beast, we joggled back and forth when it blundered into speed bumps of turbulent air, a whole bunch of bobble heads in four long rows.  Babies punctuated the white noise of the jet engines with little cat squalls and then the snack cart trundled down the aisle with its pair of attendants opening soda pop cans:  Fsh-shwockkk!

Approaching San Jose, the flaming tatters of a gorgeous sunset were spread across the whole western sky.  It looked like a band of vandals had raided the earth and was displaying its gory spoils of war.  The earth was left darkened, licking its wounds. All it needed was a grand orchestra playing a victory flourish with brass and drums.  

Mundanely, the jet's wheels met the tarmac with a brief puff of smoke and we became earthlings once more, shuffling away to find our luggage, flush toilets and look for the exits.  It wasn't a letdown so much as a shift in reality and attention had to be paid to dimension, time, and human space.

I hadn't been flying so much as flung in a long trajectory from one point to another.  Creatures who fly adjust to air currents, temperature variations and subtle changes in atmospheric pressure as it is felt along the lengths of their bodies.  Feathers and outstretched wings must feel uplifts and downdrafts, thermal vortices and fend off rain or snow.  A whole nervous system must sense the constantly changing air and adapt to it instantly.  

I had simply sat on a synthetically covered seat with a seat belt around my hips and waited for permission to stand up again.  Aviation is very ordinary compared to what birds or bats or insects do.  Not to say I didn't enjoy the view; it was spectacular.  The only ones who can say they flew were the pilot and copilot, and even that's a stretch.  They worked controls and the jet roared into the sky in a fury with its engines blasting compressed air backward and sucking it into its gullets greedily.  I rode in a seat lined up with other bobble heads, drank juice and then dozed while I rode in the belly of the beast.

It was very convenient to fly, very simple a system to negotiate.  But show me the most ordinary bird and you've got no contest at all.  Show me a hummingbird, and I'll show you real flight.  Maybe someday mankind will fly very similarly to the tiniest of birds.  For now, they fly circles around us and can do it backwards if they want.  Maybe upside down, too, with their eyes closed.  All I know is we are powerful but we have only produced clumsy imitations of the true masters of the air, our avian friends.

Thinking At 30,000 Feet

I am visiting Idaho.  Always, when you fly long distances in a very short time, you think about being high in the air, changing time zones and accepting the fact that you are someplace not in your usual routine.  You think about a machine that can fly a few hundred people and their suitcases from state to state, remembering that only a few short minutes ago, you were down there on terra firma, gravity keeping you leashed to the ground.

Then, klunk, you're on the ground far from home and you join the stream of humanity in that new place.  The space you fly over is nothing to you.  You have no sensation of it except as it looks to your eyes, a big wide map of geographical features and then clouds that shelter your view of it here and there.

Snow had sifted lightly over tall mountains, especially in the Sierra Nevada range, and it looked like an investigator had dusted for fingerprints with flour.  Being so high over terrain I probably will never walk on instilled a feeling of distance, detachment and even of lofty solitude.  I could easily imagine I was simply my soul flying over a green lumpy blanket looking for the gateway to heaven.  I wondered if my sense of unfeeling about the earth below me and my lack of a physical sense of how it felt down there could be how a lot of people go through life.  It seems likely or else how do you explain being indoors  and staring at TVs instead of standing on the plain dirt and listening to birds sing?

Not Really Missing

Hi Readers,

I am traveling this weekend and will be back to my desk again on  Sunday evening.  I wrote yesterday but was not able to post my work, so it's on a back burner - so to speak - for now.

Thanks for checking in with my site.  If you haven't already become a follower, I'd be happy to see the numbers grow.

'Til next post,
Christine

Art as Ephemeral Bubble

Everything changes all the time, even art, especially for the artist.

I was thinking about Edward Weston who photographed bell peppers with an idea about sensuality in mind.  In the final black-and-white form, they are some of the most seductive and curvaceous figures ever imagined.  They suggest tenderness, resignation, vitality, submission, and many other things to other people.  That they are capable of suggesting ideas is the art of his work.

When I was first learning about photography back in the day, Mr. Weston's images were interesting on a technical level to me because they were simple objects with interesting textures and lighting.  I was not sophisticated at all.  Back then, as a novice shutterbug, I took a picture of something and moved on to the next thing, did not understand iconic imagery or metaphor or other intellectualizations of shape and form.

I had heard about artists creating multiple images of one subject, but I didn't then realize what it meant to be in pursuit of an idea through image making.  I joked about being in my fencepost period or my apple period and didn't understand transcendence as an artistic pursuit.  Few teenagers do.

But now, as a novice writer in a different phase of life, one who wishes to express some exact concept or idea, I can relate to the images made by Weston.  The idea's inception is instantaneous, but the execution of the idea takes forever sometimes.  It seems always elusive, always tantalizing, sometimes discouraging but still fascinating.

Producing a beautiful bell pepper - one that becomes something much more than a bell pepper - an image suggestive of a curving female form is quite a feat, as is writing intense passion or playing love through music or dancing jealousy on stage.  Those concepts are variable and hard to define, almost impossible to pin down for more than a moment.  They are ephemeral, like a bubble that lands on your fingertip and then bursts.  But that quality of being delicate and exquisite is what makes it so satisfying to come close to attainment, always realizing that perfection is impossible in the end.  

Is She?

If there is a god, she fills the skies with a million birds that circle in vast flocks that settle down in marshes and treetops and then lift off again, circling and calling across burnt amber skies at the end of the day.  If there is a god, she sends butterflies migrating across mountain ranges or caribou across a thousand miles of permafrost and tundra or puts tiny lanterns on transparent fish with blind eyes in the compressed darkness of a cold ocean.  If there is a god, she coats summer grasses with dew drops that look like diamonds when her sun shoots its rays across a morning dawn.  If there is a god, molten lava looks like water fountains and mica flecks in dark ponds look like the stars scattered in a nebula.  

If there is a god, she's in the details, the wide scope of everything, the in between and the unwinding clock spring of all time.  

Random Things

The President is in India; a new dinosaur has just been discovered in Grand Staircase-Escalante, Utah; I have new internet service at home; koi ate fish food from a man's hand while children watched; whitecaps raced on the bay, running before a stiff wind; there is an increasing rarity and expense of chocolate expected in the future; my uncle is recovering from surgery; sweeping the floor was a good idea; fixing my clock still needs to be done.

Random images are leaping into the wading pool of my mind at the same time; all the water is gone, splashed out by the crowd.

I'm wondering if it's better to just leave it all there and go off to bed or try and find some deeper layer of understanding in it, some order and meaning.  Is wisdom to be found in this heap of incidental oddity?

Amidst the mile markers of the day stand signposts indicating a certain direction of travel that I pay attention to:  Equanimity and Love.

A few things that happen matter a lot.  Their impact is intense and flings you against a hard wall.  All the fine, good things in a long string of days prepare you for the inevitable situation when you find yourself hitting a wall, sliding down to the floor, undone and uncertain.  The good things get you through the hard ones, and it's love which nourishes you until you need it in times of fear.

All the junk and static in a day fades away gradually until I see the one jewel remaining:  Love.  It's always there but easily missed when fear grips me.  In the end, I have to laugh at what the day is filled with, take note of the random events sailing by.  When finally something important happens, I've got a reserve of love and sense of what I want to do about hitting that hard old wall.  

Two Hours For The Price of One: Daylight Saving Time is Over

Oops, we are not saving daylight anymore.  It's a free-for-all, a scrum and losers get the hindmost.  Get yours while you can because it will be dark soon and you won't be able to see a thing for a few months.  I wonder what the temporal version of "green" is.

Anyone whose stomach is on a meal schedule that was well established for the last eight months will have to suffer until they adapt to Standard Time.  If this is done for farmers, as I was told it was originally, I think the cows walking to the barn to be milked when their udders are full have the final say.  If this is done to put us all into jet lag all at one time, it's working.

My eyes pop open when there's a certain amount of light out, usually dawn, no matter what time it has been decided it should be.  When days start to get long again, that's when I'll be happy.  The tilt of the earth to and from the sun, shooting stars and the gibbous moon are better guides - certainly more fun - than arbitrary moving up and falling back of an hour of time twice a year.  Ugh, more coffee please.

Tumbling Rocks, Storm Surf

Walking in the salt-tinged rain this morning brought us to our senses.  Or rather, it brought our senses more to life.  We heard the loud crack of giant rocks banging and clacking in the surf while cold drizzle coated our jackets and faces.  The tossing and tilting waves spewed salt-laden mist heavy with kelp, fish and wet earth.  Debris thrown on the walking path crunched under our feet like glass.

The ocean's watery hand is violent and unrelenting in its insistent pounding.  Life and death intertwine, trading places often.  There is no room for weakness or ambivalence when the tide rises and waves are roaring.  Some parts of the shore are piled up with shredded heaps of kelp ripped up during the last storm.  It lies in acrid mounds, rotting and decaying, washing back into the surf in shreds and bits.

Shore birds unable to dodge and lift above breakers are broken themselves.  Cracked shells and legs of sand crabs, anemones and mollusks have been scattered by both waves and other stronger birds.  Constantly, the smacking whump of wave after wave continues, beating hard against slowly eroding granite rocks.  As if forming a zone of indecision,  loose boulders roll from the earth to the water and back again, and you can hear the crackling boom as they are pushed by tons of water.

The potent and primal admixture of cool misty air, rough dark rocks and tumbling waves reduces all things to a struggle between life and death, a drama that continues from dark to light and dark again, ceaselessly.

I Am This Because I Am Not That

I went to the farmer's market and noticed three little children amidst the browsing large adults.  Juxtaposition of the tall and short people, old and young created a visual dynamic.  Contrasted sizes and abilities between the babies and adults described each to the other.

The children are charming to us because they are not adults.  We know adultness because babies are babies.  They can't be anything else.

A dog is a dog.  Perhaps when we watch the dog, we learn more about ourselves, we define humanness because there are dogs.  They can only be dogs.

Snow is snow.  Perhaps when we take time to feel snow and not impose our human qualities on it, simply letting it be snow and learning how snow is not human, we learn more about being human.  The whole entire physical natural world teaches us things about our own nature because it is not human.

We walk on two feet.  When we watch another creature who walks on four or six or eight feet, we define our humanness.  If the world were comprised of only human beings, we would much the worse for it.  We would not know that Usain Bolt is fast as a gazelle or that a baby is as soft as a rabbit.  We define things that are because of the things they aren't.  Black is not white, but both look more beautiful because of the other.  The difference between them helps to define both of them.

The babies and children I saw today were cute and funny and small because they were not adults, not dogs, not pumpkins or any other of the things in the world around them.  The difference was wonderful.

Gabriel The New: So Far So Good

His Newness, Gabriel, my grandnephew, has reached the tender age of 12 weeks, a very healthy boy.

I visited the little one two days ago when his mother and I could intersect our schedules for a half hour.  She is doing very well, regaining fitness and taking a place alongside mothers her age who have infants his age.

What can you say about babies?  Mothers have lots to say.  So do dads, of course, and they notice every subtle shift in mood or wobbling movement.  Their every hiccup or yawn is delightful and adorable.  With skin is so soft you second guess the sensitivity of your fingertips, you wonder if you have actually touched them.  

Gabriel sat as I held him on my lap and wobbled vigorously, and when I stood him up before me, his little legs made repeated pogo hops up and down, bouncing automatically, like a marionette.  Being only 12 weeks old, very little is willful about him.  His body is spasmodic and uncoordinated, and yet he is very strong.  He is adored, appropriately so, by all who see him, and his parents are doing everything you hope parents will do to support the growth and development of their child.  Everyone kisses him, talks to him, wants him to hold.

Yesterday, two days after I visited Gabriel, I encountered a young man who had, by all accounts, never been given any fraction of the love and gentle guidance that His Newness has been showered.  The young man I met, not much past his teens, had been given street drugs when he was in first grade and had begun "partying" with his parents when he was in middle school.  He was hooked on heroin at the age of 16 or so.  As I looked at him, I saw Gabriel, all wobbly and helpless but absolutely developing confidence and curiosity about his safe and secure world, even now.

I wonder if there is a bigger crime than ruining your own child's development, distorting their neural activity and undermining them socially and emotionally from the outset of their lives.  I don't know.  All crimes are monstrous, certainly.  Good parenting is crucial, something I naively hope we all understand.

I am even perhaps naive in believing that parents who try to raise their child well are what is needed to get that child to adulthood without mishap.  Values and beliefs guide the child, good or bad, weak or strong.  If a baby like Gabriel, who is soaking up every little sound, every nuance of every word, gleaning information at all times from his home and family, is in a pretty consistent steady place, he has a better chance of understanding how to be an effective adult.

His Newness is at the funny stage of being easily distracted now from nursing.  He leaves off and looks all around the room, at the people with him and what he does not notice would barely fill a thimble.  His mom and dad have to be just as aware, interpreting and teaching him, guiding, setting limits to keep him safe.  They are, and he is thriving.

I didn't tell them about the drug addicted 20-something young man I'd encountered whose life is so marginal right now.  The stronger and more positive their love and joy can be, the better they will weather storms ahead.  Besides, holding Gabriel, all cute and wriggly and warm, was a good balm for me, too.  I'll be going back for more very soon.

What Matters

Now that Halloween is in the rear-view mirror, the long slow slide to Christmas has begun.  I'm thinking it's going to be okay if I keep on keeping it simple.

First of all, let me explain one thing.  I think of the year in terms of being on a big looping circle, like a roller coaster.  It begins an uphill swing starting on the winter solstice and reaches its apex at the summer solstice.  After that, as the days get gradually shorter and shorter we descend, so to speak, toward the winter solstice once again.  Upswing, then downswing.  It's my visual, and I'm sticking with it.

Here in California, the big circle idea is overlain with the peculiar and unique weather pattern of the California coast, where summer is cold, late autumn is warm and dry and winter generally very mild.  Late winter and early spring both throw storms around and we get wet.

Today, like yesterday is warm, bright and, well, pretty.  It feels very pleasant.  It doesn't feel like Christmas is coming.  Instead, Easter should be coming.  It's that pretty.  But, Christmas really is coming and friends are talking about changes.  No one is talking about giving big gifts or going shopping.  They're talking about making gifts, being outside where the biggest gift waits for them every day.  No one is taking life for granted.  Maybe it's the election, but the feeling is we've skimmed by a tough spot and need to hang on to what's important.  Most of all, friends are looking at each other with appreciation.  Just because we show up day after day.  It's not a bad thing, this thing called love.  

Life is pretty tough sometimes, and it's complicated.  Showing up for a friend, plain and simple, is what Christmas might be about this year.  Giving of oneself, expressing gratitude.  They're free to give and priceless to receive.