jumpingfish

We were eating hamburgers and fish-and-chips, sitting on the porch of Bongo Ben’s enjoying the air of our first evening on the Kona Coast.

A guy was playing the guitar and singing on a small stage at the far end of the porch. No, that’s not right. We were at the back, and he and a table of woman celebrating perhaps the birthday of their grandmotherly mom were at the front.

He sang a mix of old pop tunes (think Margaritaville) and Hawaiian songs. The Hawaiian songs were really good. He clearly had his heart in them. But the pop songs were, well, pop songs.

Each time he’d sing one, the porch began to feel a little bit like an bowling alley lounge. I want to say that his pop songs felt a bit like a show to retirees in Branson, but that unwarranted quip would offend, and frankly, I’ve never seen a show in Branson (although we drove thru once), so I wouldn’t know what I was talking about if I said that, so I won’t say it.

Now admittedly this was a Monday night. So I’ll give him points for his tenacity in standing up on that porch in the cool air of a Monday evening with very few people in the audience. And I’ll give him points for his Hawaiian songs, which he mercifully mixed in with the pop songs. And I’ll give him points for the genuine smile he maintained thru it all. 

A hard way to make a living.

No, wait. I’ve got the sequence of events messed up. And I’ve only just started talking about our arrival the Kona coast. Ernnh. 

So back up…

Of course, we flew from Kaua‘i to Hawai‘i. This time, our seats were on the island side of the plane, and we had a view of the distant volcanos as we came in for a landing at Kona. Although truth be told, my eyes were on the water and the beach,

and I didn’t see the shields rising into the clouds until we looked thru our photographs later.

And when we had landed, the plane didn’t taxi up to the terminal but rather stopped on the tarmac well away from the building.

How retro this felt. I remember years ago walking out on the tarmac to board PanAm 727s. There was something integrative about being close to the ground, something that made you feel part of aircraft operations as you climbed the steps up to the side of the fuselage.

This was like that, although the plane was a 717.

They opened the cabin door, and we stepped down the stairs to the tarmac, I with my backpack and Moleskine notebook, Trudy with her backpack and camera. (Frankly, without the notebook and camera, many of these stories would have fled our recall by now, we are grateful for them both.)

And there we were standing in some kind of no man’s land between jet and terminal.

After some dilly-dallying by me looking back at the airplane trying to absorb this retro moment, most of the passengers had made their way into the terminal building, and the fair and industrious Trudy was waiting patiently for me to join her, which I did presently, as an airport employee began waving me away from the plane toward the door in the side of the building.

It has been more than a month since we returned from the islands and blue water and rain in the mountains and waves breaking on the beach. Yet I’ve only told a part of the story.

I hear groaning.

I understand if your life has moved on and this story is moving far too slowly. I understand if you’ve got other things to do. My feelings won’t be hurt if you need to get up and go. Still, I have a few more things to say. So with apologies in advance, let’s pick up where we left off…

After those several days in Kapa‘a, we flew from Kaua‘i to The Big Island, where the guy at the rental car agency convinced us to upgrade to a Jeep. As it happened, it was an upgrade we didn’t regret… but I’m getting ahead of myself. 

There’s a tree growing outside in a pot from an acorn that I planted a year and a half ago. A Chinquapin Oak that took it’s own time sprouting but is now growing nicely thanks to the rains we’ve had and the water from the rain barrel that’s filled in for the rains we haven’t had. 

It’s pushing out spring green leaves and reaching for the sky although it’s less than two feet tall.

There’s a tree growing outside a cottage a thousand miles away from here. A Chinquapin Oak that I spotted last summer at the margins of the woods, that my aunt tagged for transplanting in the fall, that my cousin dug up and moved as the days got shorter and the air got crisp.

It’s pushing out spring green leaves and reaching for the sky although it’s less than two feet tall.

A little tree here. A little tree there. Pretty soon you’re talking big trees—if you’ve got the right definition of “soon”.

image credit: smeary artwork by David based on a clear photo by Burt

“Nice dog,” he said. “Boy or girl?”

Izzy was sitting in my lap. I was sitting in a folding chair in the middle of creek. The seat of the chair was in the water. A bright sun was shining, which was good for Izzy who was drying off from her fourth or fifth swim across the creek.

Yes, Barton Creek is flowing. We’ve a few rains this spring, and although the creek has dried up a few times already, it was flowing from the rain early last week.

The man had just waded into the water from the far bank where he had been climbing Seismic Wall. This is one of several popular spots for climbing in Austin. The canyon wall shoots straight into the sky just a few feet beyond the creek’s edge. There are always climbers here.

And this guy was a climber. He had just scaled the cliff, planting a rope onto bolts and chains for other climbers not as adept as he. It was like watching Spiderman, his limbs splayed out grabbing the slightest toe- and finger-hold as he scrambled 50 feet into the air making it look easy. At the top, he almost succeeded in getting over the flat shelf that juts out ten feet.

“A girl,” I said. “Her name is Izzy.”

He nodded. “I should have known. Otherwise he’d have to be mighty confident of his masculinity with a pink leash like that.”

I chuckled and thought of the day we bought it.

The man sat down in the water to watch the other climbers. Behind us, some kids skipped stones downstream. Izzy sat quietly watched them. 

The sun came out from behind a cloud, and the cool water of the creek flowed across my legs.