Tue, 1 Jan 2013, 08:32 PM (-06:00)
A place of black volcanic rock. Stark against the blue ocean. Black walls of ancient temples at the southern end of Honaunau Bay. Pu‘uhonua O Honaunau National Park. (Say that three times fast!)
This was our main destination for the day. And we timed it well without knowing it, because just after we got there, Kalehua, a park ranger was scheduled to give an afternoon talk. He’s been a ranger there for 25 years, but he says he wishes he started earlier.
Kalehua told us about the place. About the migration of Polynesian people to Hawaii centuries ago. About the four gods, Ku, Lono, Kane and Kaneloa. He told us about kapu (tabu) that governed Hawaiian society. About death to anyone who broke it. To anyone who looked at a chief. To anyone whose shadow fell on royal lands. He told us how the kapu were absolute.
“No misdemeanors,” he said, “only death.”
And he told us how this place… And at this point, he’d stop and say, “Quick!” and point to someone in the audience. “What is the name of this place?” awarding a braided ti-leaf for a correct answer.
Pu‘uhonua O Honaunau
He told us how this place was a temple of refuge, a place of forgiveness for anyone who broke the kapu. Forgiveness, that is, if they could reach the sacred grounds by swimming across the bay and clambering up the sharp rocks on the shore before their executioners could catch them.
Today, a long wall and several platforms mark the place. The water of the bay still laps on its rocky shores. And sea turtles take refuge in the shallow tidal pools.
But the chiefs and their kapus are gone.
Tue, 1 Jan 2013, 12:51 AM (-06:00)
Highway 11 on the Kona coast is extremely narrow there. The mountain rises up on the one side and drops off steeply on the other side of the two-lane road. Yet just beyond The Coffee Shack there was a narrow pull-off on the narrow shoulder where two cares were parked. Evidently this was the overflow lot.
“Pull over here,” Trudy said, pointing to a space in front of the second car — a narrow triangular space barely long enough and barely wide enough for a car to fit. Perhaps she thought her husband would just whip their rental Jeep over and pull into that tiny spot. Or maybe she thought he’d back into it.
Right.
His first day of driving that Jeep, and he was going to parallel park along the edge of a precipice 1400 feet up the summit of a volcano with a vertical drop awaiting any tire that strays just a bit to far?
He passed the spot and found a place further down where he could pull off the road on the other side, the mountain side, of the road. And they walked the quarter mile or so back to The Coffee Shack and ate sandwiches and drank Kona coffee as the gazed out the windows down the steep slopes of the mountain out toward the ocean.
Mon, 31 Dec 2012, 06:32 PM (-06:00)
Blue sky. White clouds roll by. Cool breeze blowing off the ocean. Deep blue waters. White waves breaking on black rocks. And oh my gosh, would you believe it? There goes a Hawaiian catamaran under sail. Two yellow hulls kicking up whitecaps. A brown-orange sail full with the wind of the deep blue sea.
Why are you writing about that?
I don’t want you to do anything.
I mean, come on. I know that last spring you had a vacation there and all that. But puffy clouds and breezy breezes and a boat sailing by. Really, what’s the point?
No point. I’m just writing about it, because it was cool. We were out there with the breeze from the ocean in our face. The sky and water were shimmering in these hues of blue I never thought I’d need to describe. And as we’re standing there, this catamaran sails by with the white froth of its wake trailing behind it, with the triangular sail full of the wind. Do what you want with these words, man. You don’t even need to read them, but I tell you, the blue of the sky and the deep blue of the ocean and the bright yellow of the two catamaran hulls was something to behold.
Sheesh. Next thing you know, you’ll be uploading a silly sketch.
That’s a fine idea.
Sorry I mentioned it. And FWI, the sail isn’t brown-orange.
Whatever.
Sun, 30 Dec 2012, 01:46 PM (-06:00)
And so how does it work with these … verandahs, these big Hawaiian porches, these lanais? These open patios with great flat ceilings to shelter you from the rain or bright sun but otherwise open to the elements. I’m not even sure what you call these places, and I certainly don’t know how they work.
What happens during a storm? Do they take all the furniture away? Do they nail it down? All the tables and chairs and comfortable couches. Do they throw tarps over it to keep it dry?
Or does the rain just mostly fall straight from the sky, leaving everything under these roofs dry? That would explain why the ceilings extend so far out. But seriously, does the wind not blow when the rain falls? And what about the front desks and the paper on the counters and their computers and telephones and things? What happens to them?
It was like this at the airports in Honolulu and Lihue and Kona. It was like this at The Islander in Kapaʻa. And it’s like that here. I just don’t understand it. And it’s so wonderful.
(Part of the ongoing telling of our Spring 2011 trip to Hawaiʻi.)
Sun, 30 Dec 2012, 10:24 AM (-06:00)
It’s been eight months since we went to Hawaiʻi. But the story isn’t completely told. I still have scribbled notes in this Moleskine. So forgive me, but it’s winter and, well, I’ve got these notes, so I’d like to pick up where we left off, on the Big Island…
We’re in the hotel room. The surf is washing up on the beach outside our window. I just took a hot shower, and oh how wonderful it is to no longer be sore from our hikes in Kauaʻi. The fair and industrious Trudy is trying to figure out why a picture she posted to Facebook didn’t appear.
We go to the (free!) breakfast downstairs at the breakfast buffet. The reviews dissed this spread!? It entirely meets with our approval (om nom nom).
Now we’re back in the hotel room again. We’re supposed to be gathering our snorkel gear and heading out, but Trudy walks straight over to her computer.
“Whatcha doin’, Trudy?”
She brings up Facebook.
“Oh oh,” she says. “Steve can’t see the photos. I need to change some settings…”
I go to brush my teeth. When I come back out, Trudy proclaims, “Linda likes my photos!”
It’s only been ten seconds since she changed her Facebook settings, and people are liking her photos. She has a proud smile on her face.
Wed, 26 Dec 2012, 10:29 PM (-06:00)
1.
So with the winter solstice passed, a cold wind has come down from the north. The mid-70s of last week are gone. The faucets are wrapped and the spinach beds covered.
The lizards and beetles and snakes and other creatures of the earth are hidden in their warm places, maybe under the logs in the back or under the brush pile in the corner or maybe under that scrappy pile of logs and brush out front that in the summer is hidden by Salvia and Sage but is about to be revealed up and down the street as the greenery freezes and falls to the ground and the scrap is laid bare for everyone to see.
2.
The cold, grey clouds broke this evening just as the sun went down. And for a moment the chill of the wind around us went away. The sky lit up orange-red in the west, and wisps of cloud overhead burst alive in electric pink against a pastel blue.
“Wow,” I said. “Just look at that.”
Even the woman in the Pearle Vision store walked to the window to admire it.
3.
The sky.
It has been two months now since a single drop of rain fell from the sky. This should be our rainy time. Yet our two brand new 200 gallon cisterns stand empty on the side of the house.
It is cold tonite, and the air is bitter outside. But the real fright is the blistering dry summer that lies before us.
Still, for now … winter.
Mon, 24 Dec 2012, 01:38 PM (-06:00)
So I’m standing out there. Standing in the yard. In the warm sun. Walking around. Looking at the hidden places back there. I’m standing next to Izzy who has let drop her Bison bone and is trotting to the fence to find the Texas walnut that I just tossed in the leaves.
I’m standing there, and this tiny white butterfly alights on a tuft of grass at my feet. It has intricate markings on its wings, but I can’t quite see them. I walk a bit nearer to see, but with my first step the butterfly flutters off.
At first I think I startled it, but it couldn’t have cared less about me. The butterfly was on a mission. It took to the air and flew straight across the yard to the sunny spot in the corner where the fair and industrious Trudy’s native salvias still bloom.
Ten yards.
From that spot on the grass where is landed at my feet, that tiny butterfly with the markings on its wings spotted the purple blossoms ten yards away. And it flew a beeline directly to them.
Wed, 19 Dec 2012, 09:18 PM (-06:00)
“I just want you to know,” said the fair and industrious Trudy. “I just want you to know that I have done absolutely nothing productive tonite except comfort our poor sick puppy and take them both for a walk.”
She might have added “and make sausage and reheat yesterday’s squash and broccoli from the farm and cook some kale. But she didn’t add that. Instead, she looked up at the ceiling with a smile on her face as she listed the vaious non-productive things she’d done tonite.
“And,” she said as she took a step towards me. “And now I am getting a book and taking some allergy medicine and getting under the covers and going to bed.”
“That is my report,” she said.
She walked over to my chair, gave me a kiss and said goodnight.
Wed, 19 Dec 2012, 08:47 PM (-06:00)
“That’s a lot of laps,” he said.
He was talking about my story about the pond and the things I saw as I ran around four times. He was supporting his brother, trying to encourage him. He’s been trying for so long, and all his brother has to offer as evidence is four laps around a little pond.
“No,” I wanted to say. “Those four laps were not a lot.”
Not so long ago, just a few years or maybe a bit more, I worked near this pond where I was running yesterday. The building was just down the street from where I work now, as a matter of fact. And back then, a friend and I would sometimes run around the pond after work and marvel at the stones on the path in the woods and gawk at the ducks. We would run five or six laps at great speed, sometimes tripping on the rocks, sometimes stopping early because we were winded, sometimes heading down the dike following a winding path into the woods that went who knows where.
Now those laps were a lot of laps.
Of course I love my brother, and his words of encouragement were sunshine on my heart. But let’s be honest: yesterday’s laps were not a lot. Those four times past the old Indian men walking and sitting on the bench were not a lot. The four times over the little wooden footbridge. The four times past the playscape with the toddlers screaming with glee. No, those laps were not a lot.
But they were something. And that something was something enough.
Tue, 18 Dec 2012, 09:23 PM (-06:00)
On the first lap, I looked to my left across the pond. The silhouettes of Oak and Juniper on the other side and the pink glow of late sunset were mirrored in the still water.
On the second lap, the pink glow was diminishing, and three ducks were swimming in the middle of the pond, sending out ripples in radiating circles around them.
On the third lap, there were turtle heads sticking out of the water, and there was a big splash of a jumping fish.
On the forth lap, the dim light of evening was descending, and I picked my way deliberately along the trail as I ran thru the deepening dusk in the woods.
There was no fifth lap.