jumpingfish

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.

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.

“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.

So why is it? Why is it that pieces like Take Five are so compelling?

4/4 time. 3/4 time. That’s fine, but it just goes around and around and in some sense sounds like an infinite loop around just a tiny bit of something.

But 5/4 and 7/4, well now we’re talking. Looping still, of course. But each iteration holds a tiny universe. A world full of complexities and maybe unexpected syncopations. And can you even count along?

So there’s Brubeck’s Take Five in 5/4. And there’s Jethro Tull’s Living in the Past in 5/4. And of course, there’s Pink Floyd’s Money in 7/4.

So much happens in each measure.

That’s why, isn’t it?

1. Noticing the Music

There was music in the grocery store.

How great is that, live music at the grocery store?

We walk in thru the sliding doors, and as the smell of the produce surrounds us, there’s guitar music coming from the lobby where a guy is sitting on a stool playing and singing while people sit at tables eating and listening.

I know. The prices are high. Still, the food is good. There are many organic choices. … And now there’s music.

2. Scowling at the Music

We wandered around, starting in the produce section, working our way thru the meats and cheese, getting some eggs and soup. And then we were back in meats again. 

I was picking out some hot, cooked chicken to eat for dinner (because we had met after work, and I was fading fast) when I noticed the music again. It was coming from the other side of the store. It was loud.

The guy was belting it out at the top of his lungs. And it was really bad.

3. Dining with the Music

After we checked out, we pushed the cart up to a table just beyond the cash registers, and we sat down to eat.

The guy was still there howling into the microphone. There were very few people left at the tables listening to him. The music had been deteriorating steadily, and it frankly wasn’t pleasant sitting there. I chose a table as far from him as we could get.

“Do you want to sit outside?” asked the Fair and Industrious Trudy as she put her wallet back into her purse.

It was cold outside, and I was really hungry by now.

“No,” I said as I bit into a drumstick.

4. Stopping the Music

And now the songs turned raunchy. Not only was he too loud. Not only was he out of tune. But now he was singing some song about sex.

The manager walked up and quietly whispered something to him. They spoke for a few minutes, and then she walked away.

“Well that’s fine,” he said into the microphone. “We won’t sing about SEX. We don’t talk about SEX. Anything but SEX.”

The manager came back and quietly whispered a few more things to him. She still had a pleasant look on her face, but it was pretty obvious by now that things we going majorly downhill.

Mark mumbled some words into the microphone as he shuffled thru his sheet music looking for a different song.

“Here’s something,” he said. “It’s about a grocery store!”

This time, the song was about blood, warm blood flowing out of her head. Each time he got to the word “blood”, he belted it out as loudly as he possibly could.

The manager returned. I heard her quietly say, “Ok, we’re done.”

And that was the end of the music.