Walking On the Right

Sometimes at dawn the new day calls so entreatingly that to deny the urge to go listen more closely is impossible.  I answered the call and went out for a very early walk.  I took in the day while mulling over recent conversations with friends, the fleeting thoughts of world news, all the while looking at changes in the neighborhood but not really seeing them.

Eventually, I felt a quiet change from walking automatically while still thinking and not noticing much to noticing quite a lot and walking more calmly.  In other words, the walk integrated my whole self eventually:  Body, mind and spirit.  I wouldn't go so far as to say it was walking meditation; I've done that before.  But, I did at least notice the shift from unawareness to integrated awareness and creative observing.

It felt like I woke up all over again.

Much of what I do involves automatic behavior, based on habits and old patterns developed over years.  Sometimes when I'm driving I'll realize I hadn't really been thinking about driving and that the car seemed to have driven itself.  My mind was fixed on some problem or past situation that I was reliving, and whatever I'd passed on the way I'd never even noticed.  It's not a very satisfying feeling, and it can even feel unnerving, being so distracted by worries and mundane details of the day.

That's the way my morning walk started out on this particular day.  But, little things were capturing my attention and holding it briefly, long enough to make my feet slow and my eyes linger and even take a photograph.  At some point, perhaps after 10 or 12 minutes, my looking became more deliberate and the present time finally required all my attention.  It was that mind shift I've written about before - when interest and creativity are more available because the mind shifts its function to a different neural area that allows for creative thinking and functioning.

At that moment, I was present but relaxed, and I could notice things without analyzing them.  I could now see flowers as form and color instead of a five-lobed subspecies of the pea family or something.  One is not better than the other; it's just a shift in brain function that is manifested as "creative, right-brained thinking."

So, my pace slowed a bit, I let my feet and eyes determine my destinations along the way, and I got more into photographing.  Logical thinking in which I had been reviewing work from the night before gradually faded away and I "forgot about it."  Which is to say, my mind let it go and let me imagine possibilities and see objects in new interesting ways.

So, on this walk I left thinking on the left and came back home thinking on the right.  Perhaps that's the call of the wild - at least to me.  Set aside tasks and lists and let the juices flow to see what might become of your imagination.

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.