Wordless Wednesday

One Week on the Big Island

Not long enough, but quite wonderful...

Coconut Island- immediately after they landed in Hilo

Akaka Falls on a very warm morning

Jams at Mr. Ed's in Honomu

Hakalau- This bridge was originally the train trestle.

Mango daiquiris with our own mango purée 

Early morning on the Kona side-as seen from the chartered fishing boat we were on

Another sunrise shot on the boat

The first Ono/Wahoo he caught-about 20 pounds

His second catch-A 48 pound Ono!

The deck hand swiftly cut up our 70 or so pounds of fish

It was both adventurous and relaxing...

Besides catching it, he made the best sashimi ever-so incredibly fresh

He also dipped some in rice flour and fried it in coconut oil-my most favorite cooking oil

Daughter had to have a visit to Ken's House of Pancakes, of course.

Then a great walk at Carlsmith Beach Park, just past Richardson's.

It was gorgeous out there.

Another fine feast prepared entirely by our sweet guests.

Ready for grilling...

Ono in teriyaki marinade

Saying goodbye is so hard...

But they had a great visit.

Water Hyacinth

Just began to bloom in our pond. Perfectly timed, as my older daughter arrives for a visit tomorrow. 

Her visit is perfectly timed as well. These past few months have been lovely in ways I have never known. That said,  I miss my son and daughters and need to feel that sweet, safe familial bond again. 

Realizations and conclusions about extended family these last four months since my mainland trip have leveled me some. Amazing how different people and situations look with the blinders off.

When one lives a life of mostly-solitude, it's fascinating what bubbles up. Spooky, even. Even so, I am a very fortunate menopausal old broad, to have the luxury of just being. Especially these days.

1,095 Days On

Three years ago today, we left the golden state, the state in which we both were born and bred, for our new home on the Big Island.

The desire to do so began in earnest in 2006, when we stayed with Glen's father and step mother in Papaikou, north of Hilo. Prior to that, I fell for this big rock when I spent a month with friends in Puna. That was 1984. A group of folks I knew at Lake Tahoe had relocated and I was eager to check it out.  While here, both Kilauea and Mauna Loa erupting at the same time. That was pretty cool. 

When Glen first found this place on the interwebs in 2010, I knew there would be no going back. He was a man possessed, and I believed in his dream. Even when it looked like we might not pull it off, he remained calm and patient. We invested damn near everything we had to buy this place. Leaving us less "leftover" than we had hoped, but also freeing us from a gigantic mortgage payment. (Ours is about $530.00 a month.) Which is crazy, since I was paying twice that for rent more than 20 years ago. 

We have saved many thousands of dollars in electric and water bills, since we are off-grid. Plentiful power and abundant, clean water. Never an issue or problem with our solar or catchment in 3 years. Our overhead is minimal, when compared to our former life in California.

I spend most days barefoot-all day. I wander these almost-4 acres, planting, weeding, cutting, pruning. There are never-ending tasks, so boredom is not an option. Glen has found some truly optimal employment opportunities in the last few months. So much so that he could work 7 days a week, were he so inclined. I won't lie-I am loving this lady of leisure stuff. I worked most of my life, both at paid jobs and then there were those 30 years of parenting, some of them as a single mother. This is new territory. My time is mine-time for reading, writing, working on projects, and I'm even learning the fine art of napping. I still take a shift subbing at the library, whenever I am asked. My caretaking job was a nice thing, but that wrapped up last summer, when the client got considerably better, which was the obvious goal. (She has Lyme disease.) Still, I am not scrambling to find something else, nor am I pressured or the least bit guilt-ridden about  it. 

I miss my kids and a few close friends, but I could not live in California again. It's sad, but at least I got to appreciate it while it was more affordable and much less populated. I think I can safely say that my kids won't last there too much longer. None of them work in tech or own start-ups, and they are being squeezed out by those who do. This makes for a hamster-in-a-wheel existence. Whenever they're ready, this is their home too.

Tonight, we celebrate our perseverance and three years in this beautiful place. And we'll toast the guy who helped make it possible, Glen's father. He would most certainly be proud of what we have done here so far.

Are You Kind?

This was posted this a few days ago, then put into my drafts while I played around with it a bit more. 

I found myself feeling that old, familiar guilt about being honest, Plus, it's nothing but someone else's dirty laundry to those who are unfamiliar personally with me or my strange little world.  I took it down and decided to sit with it for a few days. Very glad I did, because it only reinforced so much of what bugs me. I felt guilty because I always feel guilty, and I'm so over it. Nothing else has crippled me more emotionally in my lifetime. Perhaps one day I will understand what happened and when, but it doesn't matter. I now reject it in the name of self-preservation!

Some of my extended family may read here on occasion. Also, long-time friends from various phases of my life. This has 

often been a factor in what gets said. We all have our own versions of life's stories, and some may find fault with my particular version.  I mean no harm to anyone--- I just want to write. And that means just writing, free of the self-editing that occurs because I don't want to upset people I care for. What if I'm upset? Can't I just write what I want?

It can't all be pretty pictures and blah blah blah. That ain't me, babe. 

A very long time ago, my mother told me that I worried far too much over what other people thought. She never taught me how to stop it, either. She wasn't much of a builder-upper. Parents were different, then.

So, there is my disclaimer. My preface to the post below and any other posts that may contain my personal views, opinions, or stories. I just can't be worried anymore, about the unsolicited opinions of people who are thousands of miles away from me-literally and figuratively. 

I have found great peace these last few years. One reason is obvious-Hawaii, duh! There are other reasons and the biggest one is I am learning (at long last) to let go. It's not been simple-I was born an idealist/optimist, and for most of my years have always held out for that "positive" outcome. From my friends, family, and even the government. Ha! 

After more than five decades of often-disappointing outcomes, I've learned to lower the bar. Or remove it completely.

I find myself feeling more and more free of sorrow over disappointing outcomes. Because I've invested little or none of my own agenda in things that will inevitably underwhelm.

Then, when outcomes are positive and uplifting, I am genuinely happy and thankful. This has done wonders for my heart and mind. 

What a fool I was, entrusting those who had no intention of being honest, true, or ultimately kind. They who took so much of my energy and replaced it with their pain. expecting me to carry it for them. It wore me out. I didn't know how to fend them off, then. 

Some recent realizations have snapped me out of my comfy naivety. First I had to recognize some harsh truths, then grieve the loss of things that only existed in my ever-hopeful heart. And finally, leave it behind, replaced with self respect and love of those who understand what unconditional, non-judgmental love is.

You really only need a small number of people in your world, if they are good ones. I just don't have it in me to waste any more time on the shallowness or mean-spirited behavior of people who claim to like or love me. And blood ties do not necessarily ensure positive outcomes- a lesson I was slow to learn. (My children are always the exception.) 

When my father was in his last weeks of  life, an old friend gave me some advice that has (sadly) been spot-on. She told me not to be surprised at how *fucking weird" people would behave at the end of his life or in the wake of his passing. It's almost like his death was the green light. To marginalize and disrespect me in ways they could not while he was still in my corner. He was my champion, despite the fact that I never came close to achieving what he may have expected or hoped for. He loved me. I know it so deeply and purely. The rest of them? Not really sure.

And it's okay! It hurts to wake up to truths I've carefully avoided. But life is short and shorter all the time. So I choose love. And kind people. Or... my happy solitude.

Some would say I drew the short match when it comes to families. The firstborn child in a mercifully short marriage and an ugly, sad divorce by the time I was 7. Followed by minimal contact with my father for the next 5 years, Motherless at 24 (while pregnant with my first child) and always the lesser-than. The upside is my great fortune when it comes to a few real friends. I am rich in that regard. Plus, my children/our family provide everything I longed for but never knew. 

"We carry our parents in our skin and bones, like it or not, and struggling to remember them-correctly or not-is still an act of love."  Janet Zandy

Wordless Wednesday

My father on the Petaluma River/Spring 1971

Love and ...?

This year marked our 14th Valentines Day as a couple.  We have never gotten too caught up in the pressure to go overboard on that holiday.  Or any other, really.  There have been cards and flowers, occasionally.  Or a nice meal, or bottle of wine. We both agree that showing one's love and affection shouldn't be limited to one day per year.  Last Friday, I got up early with him, like always.  We quietly sipped our coffee and watched the sun appear. I made him breakfast and he was off to work until the early evening.  

He arrived home, sweaty and tired.  But smiling.  I complained that he didn't text me for a  grocery list and he said he was sorry, but he had stuff on his mind.  I asked him what sort of stuff... He then grinned, opened his arms, and  asked me to marry him.  "Of course!"  was my obvious answer.

After 15 years of cohabitation and most every life-hurdle one can imagine, it's official.  I'm giddy-moreso than expected.  Because he asked, I guess.  My first wedding was in 1981.  I was four months pregnant with my son.  We were hippies, living in the hills near Pescadero.  My mother was dying.  There was no proposal-we just did what we thought was expected of us.  It was a fun wedding. Country style, at tiny Pescadero Community Church.  

The reception was held at the church hall and my friends and I made all of the food, including a freshly-butchered turkey from my friend Christine's flock. Our friend Jim made a beautiful wedding cake, topped with marzipan skeletons.  It was a nice, eclectic mix of family and friends.  We didn't have the money for a fancy honeymoon, but we did manage a weekend in Big Sur, one of my favorite places on earth.  My mother died seven days after the wedding and Aaron was born in April.  Daughter Madeline came along a few years later, as did the demise of our marriage.  Blame it on our ages and the drift that too often occurs when people marry in their early twenties.  In retrospect, I was impatient and unrealistic about my expectations of him and our relationship.Our union lasted about six years. We have been divorced for more than 25 years. We are friends to this day.

My second marriage was also of the shotgun variety.  This relationship was volatile from the start.  Red flags waved in my face, ignored.  I must have felt the need to punish myself, and that's what I did.  I got pregnant just as my youngest child was starting kindergarten.  My then-partner promised to love and care for my two existing kids like he did his own child, and sent a letter to my father, proclaiming just that.  He didn't follow through on that proclamation. He terrorized and abused my two older kids on a regular basis.  I was then attending college classes in the evenings, attempting to improve my job skills.  I eventually dropped out when he announced that he couldn't cope with the childcare workload.  Things finally fell apart completely in 1998.  I drove him to the train station in Riverbank and he took up residence on his parents couch for several years. I've written about this fatal mistake of mine here before...  It wasn't until a few years after our split that I learned about his daily abuse of my children-especially my son.  When confronted, he admitted to all of it.  With no explanation.  As if any explanation would have excused it.  That marriage lasted about seven years.  We are not friends.  I work on forgiving myself and him every day of my life.  A total mistake, except that it brought me Quinn.  She makes all that ugly stuff worthwhile.  Our wedding took place on a bluff in La Selva Beach.  The wedding party consisted of my three kids. Quinn was eight months old and in my arms.  We couldn't afford a honeymoon, either.  But my friend's family owned the Seacliff Inn in Aptos, and she booked us a suite for the night as her gift.  Our baby girl accompanied us.  (She was breast fed-and spoiled!)  I would likely not have married him, but his father made a big (Catholic) fuss about it. We have now been divorced for almost 10 years-it took me 6 years to get him to sign the divorce paperwork.

 

In my current relationship, there has been no rush to marry.  We were not interested in having babies together, and instead focused on raising the kids we had.  He was thrust into his role as stepdad, and we went about the work of life.  There were heartbreaks and disappointments aplenty.  And two daughters to guide through adolescence.  We came close to falling apart way more than once.  The girls grew up and moved out.  Our fathers both died within a few years of each other.  We left our home state for this new frontier, and we ride out the challenges that come with such an endeavor.  We saw our  future here. Together.  We spoke of making it official, and I knew it might occur at some point. But this time, I wanted that proposal I had not yet experienced.

So... even though it was an inevitability,  he managed to totally surprise me. Especially proposing on Valentines Day, a day we have both laughed off as a Hallmark holiday.  I look forward to the rest of life's journey with him by my side.  As he says, this love is "road tested!"

We found this rock in 1999--at the base of a waterfall that drops onto Secret Beach in Point Reyes, California. It's a favorite, magical spot and this rock reminds me of our time there.

Love and Only Love

Will break it down.          

Not Entirely Wordless Wednesday

Mele Kalikimaka! This is where I long to be... and will be, at about midnight.

At my older daughter's place in the city, where I will reunite with my three kids!

Because the best things in life aren't things. 

9/9/94

Today would have been my Father's 19th

wedding anniversary.  I guess it still is, technically.

He married his true love about eight years after they started dating, both wanting to be sure that they had "staying power."  They were quite the match.

Their wedding ceremony and reception took place at The City Club in San Francisco on a warm autumn evening.  My brother was best man, I was maid of honor.  It was a dressy affair.  There was music and merriment.  

Everyone had a lovely time, of course. My children and then-husband and I stayed in the city that night, at the Hotel Canterbury on Sutter.  Owned by an old friend from Galileo High School.  (RIP, Jon J. Lehr.)

Late that same night, my then-husband left our hotel room in a crazed state, and disappeared into the belly of the beast (The Tenderloin area) until the next morning.  The writing was on the wall, and yet it would be another five years until I escaped my doomed union.  I'm a slow learner.

The photo is another from Stillwater Cove 

on the Jenner coast, where some of my father's ashes were scattered back in June.

Happy Anniversary, dearest dad.  Glad we both found real love in our lifetimes, eventually.

Date Night

The man surprised me with tickets to see Mark Yamanaka play music at the Imiloa Planetarium on the U.H. Campus.  Both of us have wanted to see him live since we first heard him.  Such a voice--especially his falsetto.  So, after preserving five pounds of figs yesterday afternoon, we hit the bright lights of Hilo.

I learned that Hawaiian men began singing in the falsetto style way back in the early 1800's--because women were rarely around to sing those high parts.  

Our favorites of his are the traditional Hawaiian language songs.  I shared a video link of him performing one of his originals below.

The planetarium has these space age comfy chairs you can melt right into, absorb the sounds, and observe the virtual night sky above as it rotates, slowly.  Pretty cool.  Another favorite, Cyril Pahinui is scheduled to play there later this year.

The fig jam project worked out well, and the figs keep coming. In other fruit news, there will be mango jam, chutney, and salsa preserving in my near future.  I do enjoy utilizing what is growing all around us.  It's like some crazy dream. 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=relmfu&v=zioOWYCPFmk#

Sacred Space

Losing the self in a ritual is the prelude to experiencing the sacred in the ordinary.

Manfred Steger

Starting to build a spot to honor my father's passing. Catharsis feels pretty good.

Flashback Friday

Here is the 1990 version of yours truly. I remember disliking this picture, like most all pictures of myself... 22 years later, I realize it looks fine. Except for unacceptable posture and baby weight I never lost. Oh, and my hideous hot pink tights, which I really loved for some reason. Sad, the way in which we women do not recognize our own beauty until it is a fleeting thing. I am far more kind to myself as the years progress. Anyway, I was visiting friends in the hills of Marin . We were getting ready to have dinner to celebrate my 33rd birthday in Olema, and it was to be my first date with the man. Whom I saw for the next few months, until we decided the timing was not quite right. I had 2 young children and lived in Santa Cruz. He lived in Marin County. I never forgot about him, even during my ill-fated second marriage.

Almost a decade later, we tried again and it took. We saw each other again on Mothers Day weekend 1999. Sometimes I'm still disheartened about my less-than-successful marriage record and the damage done during that period. My life with the man these past 14 years has smoothed out lots of those emotional rough spots, for which I am incredibly thankful. I knew so little about real love for most all of my life. Until him.

Living and Dying in 3/4 Time

Some thoughts on Sunday:

How the hell did we end up with 5 cats?
Glad we live in Hawaii and have a large lanai, so they can live outside. Spoiled beasts!

Really, really looking forward to my older daughter's arrival in the near future. She's coming for a whole month... Alone!
Poor thing has been through hell--cleverly disguised as love. Bad love is a rite of passage and she will be stronger and wiser because of the wretched experience.
However, very painful to watch.

My new employer and I are a great match.
Not one to believe in fate or cosmic occurrences, but it's a pretty cool thing.
Her husband and son are pleased as well, but the connection with her is so refreshing in the working world! We understand each other, and there is no typical bullshit that seems to be part of working with or for women. Women can be truly brutal. It took some time for that to sink in. I was raised by a divorced and fairly bitter mother, so men were demonized to a certain degree. That made me someone who had issues trusting men for much of my adult life. Better now, thanks to my current relationship of almost 14 years! A record for us both. Over the last few years, my trust in women has been somewhat diminished. Especially groups of women. Ouch. So now, when I meet women with kind and open hearts and no agenda, I am thankful. This job reminds me of my work as a postpartum care provider. That was almost 20 years ago, and the children were newborns, not teens. But the concept is the same: helping the family function smoothly by providing practical and emotional support. It can be absolutely exhausting, like most jobs. But it is exhilarating and meaningful, providing service to those in need. Much gratitude.

Next weekend, we will host visitors we've never met. They're a young couple from Santa Cruz. Both attend the university, and one works with a longtime dear friend there. My friend asked if they could visit us for a night or two. The young woman just got off a boat that arrived from Moorea. Part of her course of study! They are WWOOFers, which means they will work on farms in trade for food and lodging. We look forward to meeting them, and have some projects in mind. Never a shortage, with almost 4 acres of land. I've included a link about WWOOFers below...

Lots more crazy gun-related mayhem since I last ranted about it. Beginning to wonder if that is the new normal? Michael Moore made "Bowling for Columbine" in 1999. And what has changed, beyond many more rampages? But wait, we can't be bothered with him, because he is FAT, right? At least our priorities are in order.

"People who see life as anything more than pure entertainment are missing the point. George Carlin

http://www.wwoofusa.org/

Mighty Quinn

San Francisco
December 2012

Some Sentimentality on a Saturday

My funny, funny Father.
I have not felt loss on this level before.
It's alright, though.
I know that's just how it goes and goes and goes.

Just Kids

I was captivated and deeply moved by this book by Patti Smith. An artist I was immediately taken with-- from the first time I heard her debut album, "Horses." This, despite the fact that her music was outside the musical boundaries of my social stratosphere at that time (1975), when it had to be "the San Francisco sound", or Southern rock, pretty much. Something about Patti's darkly poetic style pulled me in. My Lake Tahoe contemporaries didn't get it. How could I call myself a Deadhead? Ah, labels...

"Just Kids" chronicles a magical time. A time of immense creativity, combined with the unbridled freedom to express it. A time that came and went like a white-hot flash. It follows the friendship of two incredibly artistic and misunderstood kids. Robert Mapplethorpe was Patti's first friend in New York City in 1969. They clicked from the start, sensing something remarkable in one another. That love and friendship propelled them both toward eventual success and major recognition.

And the rest is history... Smith writes in the most jaw-droppingly beautiful style. Such a tribute to her friend!

Throughout, I thought of my own wonderful friend and muse, James. When we met in 1979, it was love at first sight. Never physical love, though we shared a bed many times. No, this love was different. We both felt like we had finally met that person who really "got us", after feeling odd and misunderstood for the better part of our twenty-something years.

Through life's various misadventures, our love and mutual respect remains steadfast. Through heartbreak, marriages, parenthood, loss, and more. Some friendships didn't stand the test of time. They crashed and burned or fizzled out quietly. But not us. We made it through.

There have been occasional speed bumps in our friendship over the last 34 years, but it always come back to one undeniable fact. That we need each other in a way that no other friend or partner can ever fulfill. It continues to be a necessary force in our very different lives.

Someday, I will fill a book with our own stories. Some day.

Some Sage Words

We are here to remind each other what it's all about.
Ram Dass

Life is Good

Happy New Year! Not a lot of blogging going on, but lots of living. That is Kea the cat. She adopted us last August. Three days later, a tiny black kitten followed suit. We call her Pele.
After almost nine months in our new island home, we cannot imagine living anywhere else.
Aloha!

Wordless Wednesday

April 12th, 2011