Memory, Storm, and Song

A L O H A!!

click on photos to enlarge your creative virility Waikiki Skies Welcome You

"Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today."

Mark Twain

Hawaiian Hall - Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum

"Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds

on the heel that has crushed it."

Mark Twain

Hawaiian Hall - Interior

"The very ink with which history is written

is merely fluid prejudice."

Mark Twain

Traditional "Little Grass Shack"

Pili Hale (Pili-Grass House)

(Note the guarding spirals surrounding it.)

"Whether they live in an igloo or a grass shack or a mud hut, people around the world all want the same thing:

a better house."
Jack Handey

I still remember my first night in Hawaii.

I had given my winter coat to the friend who drove me to Newark Airport, said goodbye forever to my past, and endured a 12 hour non-stop flight.

The air at Honolulu Int'l Airport smelled sweet as we stepped into it for the first time. It is always sweet, but especially when returning from somewhere far away.

The first time: it is a revelation. Especially to an immigrant.

That first lei I received was fragrant and invisible.

Riding along the darkened freeway (H-1) I could see the fascinating building in the second picture.

"I wanna check that out."

Newbie Newcomer Malihini (me) said.

Little did I know then what an important roll Hawaiian people and culture would come to play in my life. And I had never heard of the Bishop Museum, the world headquarters for Polynesian studies.

This institution is responsible for much of what has been saved; both artifacts and information.

Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop bequeathed her royal fortune to the Kamehameha Schools in order to help her people thrive in a modern world.

Her Beloved husband, Charles Reed Bishop, had come here from Boston as a young man of vision. He was very handsome, impressed everyone in our Honolulu (including the royals) and started our first real bank, Bishops Bank which is today our First Hawaiian Bank. Honolulu's main street through the downtown business district is Bishop Street and well deserved.

When Pauahi was a child princess, her home was consumed by fire (ahi) but the flames mysteriously died before touching the girl. Hence her name: Pau (finished) Ahi.

When she passed, Charles Reed used considerable funds to construct and endow this seminal cultural institution in his wife's name.

This weekend, Hawaii Hall re-opened after extensive refurbishment.

The Pili Hale, which was the last such structures in the islands was dismantled from it's Kauai site around 1909 and brought to the museum where generations of scholars and school children have cherished it.

It has now been re-woven of fresh pili grass on it's original wooden framework, in part by high school students from the Hawaiian Academy of Farrington High School (where I facilitated an after-school group for a couple of amazing years). Farrington is a hard knocks school in an urban (for Honolulu) setting with a large number of immigrants (Samoan, Micronesian, Filipino, et al). It meant a lot to these kids to touch their own cultural greatness, and to contribute to a society that often sees only gangs and poverty when it thinks of them at all.

On that first night in the taxi I didn't know what a powerful role this magical place would ultimately play in my life. I was "fresh off the jet" with only fantasies, hopes and dreams about Hawaii.

After telling me: "That's the Bishop Museum," the taxi driver also told me that rain is a blessing in Hawaii. A light rain was cleansing us as we drove through the late Honolulu night.

It took some time on the neighbor island first, but I ended up irresistibly drawn back to this great town. I drove my own Honolulu night taxi for a while, and even wrote my little novel "Aloha Where You Like Go?" about it.

That driver was right. Rain in Hawaii IS a blessing. I was baptized into a whole other life here.

I hope Hurricane Felicia is a mere (!) tropical storm before coming into our waters on Monday night, or that she fizzles to a tropical depression or even less.

Too much tropic fire-hose rain is too like a full immersion baptism into an angry nature religion!

Below you will find yet another little video gem: Bruddah Iz (Israel Kamakawio`ole) singing a classic!

Warm Aloha my Friends!

Cloudia

My Hawaii

Aloha!

Welcome to Saturday in

W A I K I K I

click on photos to magically enter them

A Beautiful, Unsuspecting Beach Day.

See the girls taking a surfing lesson?

"Surfing expresses ... a pure yearning for visceral, physical contact with the natural world."
MATT WARSHAW

Innocent Looking Sky with Fluffy, Naive Clouds

"Any artist should be grateful for a naive grace

which puts him beyond the need to reason elaborately."

Saul Bellow

"Cynicism is full of naive disappointments."

Mason Cooley

Thursday was the anniversary of the Hiroshima nuclear bombing.

The Shinto shrine above hosted a little league team from Japan, as well as other Japanese visitors and local residents, for the ringing of a "Peace Bell" gifted from the people of Hiroshima to her sister city of Honolulu. The bell has a long, resonant tone that seems to linger. . .

Well, hurricane Felicia seems to be weakening in the cooler waters she is crossing to approach our islands. Due to favorable Trade Wind conditions, hurricanes rarely strike Hawaii - but they DO strike.

Spetember 11th is the anniversary of Hurricane Iniki that seemed headed directly for Waikiki, but then spun off and struck the isle of Kauai causing much damage and trauma to the land, people, infrastructure, and economy of the "Garden Isle."

We had moved ourselves and all our worldly goods onto the boat a few short days before Iniki - just my luck - and so had an exciting time as the sky grew biblical and the wind made howling, shrieking sounds that I will never forget (and never care to hear again).

Fish swam in flooded streets, sea water surged over the harbor moles, and the palms waved frantically sideways, bowing in abject submission before wind-as-conqueror. Kitty hid below decks, and we fool humans stood by with sharp knives to cut away our lines if the floating dock broke free.

I had an image in my mind of our boat laying on it's side, in the middle of a road, a mile inland with all of my possessions strewn everywhere.

That was close enough for me.

So it is with much relief that I peruse the weather radar (meteorology was my college lab science) and see the predicted weakening of this dangerous category 4 hurricane as it continues to approach our neighborhood of the Pacific.

(Newsflash: it is now a cat 3)

Though it promises to be a tropical storm or depression as it comes ashore on the Big Island (Hawaii) on Sunday, it is still expected to bring torrential rains throughout the isles - including here on Oahu. Flood preparations are underway, and prudent home owners are stocking up on necessities. It is very pleasant to think of my boat/home merely raising with the tide - less so to reflect on the homeless local families who reside in tents on the beach.

Yes, there are homeless Hawaiians in Hawaii.

Monday and Tuesday should be exciting days of wind and rain - but no hurricane.

"Whew!"

If you continue below, you will find a video of one of my favorite songs, always guaranteed to make me cry as it celebrates places and things dear to my heart.

I hope it brings a tear to your dear eye as well!

A L O H A! Cloudia

Shadow Play

Aloha!

So Glad You've Come Today ;-)

click on photos to enlarge your sense of pleasure

I Love the 3 Dimensional Effect

in the Little Row of White Clouds.

"I've always been passionate about geometry and the study of three-dimensional forms."

Erno Rubik

Pink Shadow

“When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.”
Henry David Thoreau

“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.”
Carl Sandburg

Memorial to Hawaii's WWI Dead:

The "Natatorium."

“Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.





“Men are the dreams of a shadow.”
Pindar

.<+>.

I used to tread water

in the North Atlantic.

Tough wavelets slapped me

upside the face.

Briny fingers

cork screwing my sinuses

with sting;

And I gagged

vainly trying to keep my nose above water

olive green,

concealing monsters,

and cold.

*

Today I float on my back

'neath a softly scented

azure Summer sky,

lazily alert to delight and

resting a cold libation

on the breast bone beneath

my swells;

I float in joy,

and gratitude.

Same ocean - different me

more like most myself,

it seems,

I have abandoned struggle

for abandon.

Place Your Last Line Here.

A L O H A! Cloudia

Kitty Jumps Ship

Aloha!

Another Beautiful Day in Waikiki

click on photos to enlarge!Sit and Watch the Sun Go Down

"Well I hope you understand I just had to go back to the island. . . (Chorus:)

And watch the sun go down (sit and watch the sun go down)

Hear the sea roll in (listen to the sea roll in)

But I'll be thinking of you (yes, and I'll be thinking of you)

And how it might have been (thinking how it might have been)

Hear the night birds cry (listen to the night birds cry)

Watch the sunset die (sit and watch the sunset die)

Well I hope you understand I just had to go back to the island. . . "

Leon Russel

Why look; it's Old Spiral Nose!

Who's this?

"An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth."

Bonnie Friedman

It's the Worlds GREATEST Jumper!!





Here are some videos of Bon Dancing here in Hawaii:

Bon Dancing

Arrigato Aloha!

Welcome to MultiCultural Hawaii

click on photos to enlarge

Summer Time is Bon Dancing Time in Hawaii. . .

Some Buddhist temple somewhere on the Islands is hosting their annual event most every night of the season. This ancient Japanese custom invites the ancestors to come join us in the dance under the lanterns & moonlit sky.

I wanted to hear the traditional music and experience it all for the first time (!) so we drove into Manoa Valley (Behind Waikiki) last Saturday night. A tower (above) is constructed for the musicians, and everyone dances around it. Gay lanterns and finger food make it anything but a solemn experience. I knew that here in Hawaii everyone is welcome to dance; But still I was glad to see that we didn't stand out in the large varied & happy crowd. It was more like a fair than a ceremony. We saw the mayor dancing in a kimono (He's a tall ethnic Samoan but had the moves down ;-). Neighbors of every age and ethnicity danced in kimono and street clothes. Some just watched and swayed. Everyone was smiling and EATING. My kind of crowd!

Though there was drumming (including some amazing TAIKO drumming) the music was mostly recorded. This musician had time to look down and enjoy the pleasure of the crowd. Everyone may not have been local Japanese, or a member of the temple, but being there meant that we were all Hawaii people sharing one of the special things that make us so unique.

Many of the dance moves were thousands of years old. I thought I recognized hoeing and other gestures. "Towel Dances" perhaps recall the joy of the FURO bath. Then, a Line Dance was announced, and everyone danced to the country classic "Elvira" in perfect Texas Two-Step!!

Only in Hawaii!!

Some say that the ancestors actually dance with us, that they are sometimes momentarily glimpsed across the happy crowds. When you are a kid, ancestors are ancient history, possibly including a grandparent you knew, but they are all old. As you pile up the Summers, there probably are more and more of your friends and family who have gone to join the ancestors. There is some comfort, and more than a tint of immortality, in dancing with them. Maybe they will catch our eye momentarily in the frenzy. Maybe it's just some resemblance or living memory that we see in the colored light - maybe not. . .

As we left the temple and walked up the gravel driveway, we said good night to the special duty police officers outside.

The night was quiet and perfect as we walked past big old houses and a few unfortunate Mc Mansions lining one of Honolulu's oldest and stateliest residential streets. The fairy music from the temple wafted sweetly in the scented air.

Suddenly a very old Local-Japanese man with white hair and an old fashioned Aloha Shirt was walking the same direction with us. We greeted him. He seemed friendly but in his own thoughts. We exchanged a few aloha words and walked along the quiet, empty street.

When we neared my parked car I offered to drive him home. He just walked on and said that he didn't have far to go, just a "few cars down" and thanked us. I said that I would watch him safely up his driveway but lost sight of him beyond the streetlight.

Perhaps this local man was once a Manoa resident, many many years ago, and on this one night every year he walks her beloved Summer sidewalks again, enjoying his memories. I hadn't see him at the dance. . . perhaps he'll walk Oahu Avenue again next year, when the moon is high, and ancient music echoes from the dance at the temple. . . . I wish him well on his walk. . .

PS: Driving past the President's Punahou School at the mouth of the valley I could see the Night Blooming Cereus glowing on the old rock wall.

Barry Obama's Birth: Let's Get Real

Aloha & Welcome Back To Waikiki!

click on photos if you dare ;-)

I Dreamt that I went Shopping with Daryl

(on the M104, see my blog roll ;-)

"This is the do-it-yourself church.

The only savior in this philosophy is God in you."

Reverend Ike

"Pride, like humility, is destroyed by one's insistence that he possesses it."

Kenneth B. Clark

"Weeds are flowers too - once you get to know them."

A.A. Milne

I'm writing this less than a mile from where young Barry Obama lived and walked to school every day.

Hawaii is a small place. People know each other. Congressman Neal Abercrombie was a grad school friend of Obama senior.

Barry went to school with a friend of ours who remembers him as a "total nerd."

Both of our local papers included Barry's birth in their "Vital Statistics Columns in August of 1961.

He was born at Kapiolani Hospital.

Our State Health Director stated that she has seen "Original Vital Records" that prove these facts.

The President was born in Honolulu

August 4th 1961.

Go to the Hawaii State Library and read those newspapers on microfilm if you wish.

Hauoli La Hanau, Mr. President!

Happy Birthday with Aloha-

Turtle Town

Aloha!

Welcome Aboard

click on photos to enter them An old scene re-enacted off Waikiki

"The Brain

is wider than the Sky

For put them side by side

The one the other will contain

With ease and

You

beside —

"I don't need hands to bless you."

"The Brain is deeper than the sea

For hold them

Blue to Blue

The one the other will absorb

As Sponges

Buckets

do —

Mom & Boy going to da zoo.

The Brain is just the weight of God

For

Heft them

Pound for Pound

And they will differ

if they do

As Syllable from Sound "
Emily Dickinson

Portholes are tiny things really, so when I leave this keyboard, straighten out my back, and go out on deck, the Waikiki skies are like the sudden rush of a strange and wonderful intoxication. Look! I'm in Hawaii!

So it felt special as usual when I left my desk and got in my kayak to paddle through the gathering dusk again last evening.

I like the way that droplets of water dripping from my raised paddle ruffle the calm, if swelling surface inside the harbor. I paddle past moored boats, twigs and flotsam; the occasional branch gliding like a baby sea dragon. Passing the Hawaii Yacht Club I could see friends having a Friday Pau Hana (after work/happy hour) libation as the retiree band set up. Across the channel, the Family Festival occupied Magic Island with turning amusements, scented smoke of carnival cooking, and the sounds of the world's greatest municipal band: The Royal Hawaiian Band (which played for royalty and dignitaries in an earlier rendition of our Hawaii). They were playing pop stuff, big band, and the channel hosted pleasure boats to-ing & fro-ing. I like when outrigger canoes paddled by 8 or so strapping guys go by. I can smell their healthy manhood and a tinge of sizzle passes across the water level. Suddenly I am in Hawaii of times immemorial. . .

The outriggers paddled by wahine (women) inspire me in a different way, but inspire me nevertheless. I can hear the steersman calling for a change. "Hup" Did you hear that?

I was just enjoying the present.

Magically I understood again how special it was to see a sea turtle on my first paddle in over a year. That was weeks ago. Suddenly I knew that since I had "registered" the specialness of the occurrence, I was now free to see turtles as a daily commonplace.

Out beyond the last jumbled rock jetty where the fishermen play, is a stretch of shallow protected water. The wave breaks and surfers are still further out, and it is too shallow for boats, so it is a special, Caribbean-y space for kayakers, stand-up paddlers, and one-person outrigger canoes.

Out there, I put my double ended paddle across my knees and turned to look at the mountains of Oahu wreathed with weather, clouds and light behind me. I saluted Diamond Head at the other end of Waikiki wreathed in sunset technicolor clouds and legends.

Just me alone with the sky, the sea and the sound of my own heart beating - or is that the surf pounding?

I liked resting on the churning bosoms of mama ocean as they heaved and gently rocked me this way and that. This is where I saw that welcome back turtle feeding in the early evening shallows.

Suddenly I knew that they were there.

I watched each capricious little wavelet that raised it's hand. I was looking for turtle heads to break the surface and take a breath. To experience flowing lava is not merely to see it, but to smell the sulfur and to feel the heat. Seeing sea turtles is not just seeing them, not even their brown sentient eye gazing across the wavelets at you. No, experiencing turtles fully is to have them surface near by enough to hear their ancient breath of fresh air.

Then you know that someone else is near, making that sound older than Chant & Hula in these islands.

There they were, lazing near the surface, floating in the currents as I was. Bobbing for food, and raising their heads to breathe and look around. Carefully I prevented the paddle from drumming against the kayak. I just floated and looked.

Then stealthily I paddled closer. Close enough to see dark shapes gliding just beneath the surface.

"I love you. I honor you. I appreciate you." I thought loudly as I enjoyed the ocean evening cathedral with my fellow congregants. Western clouds and Waianae mountains glowed like instructive and beautiful stained glass. The sea and land poured brackish incense into the nave that steepled my little boat-pew.

Sailboats, powerboats, paddlers and surfers played beyond the reef. But the turtles and I were alone in a sepulcher of solitude. Time stopped pre-historically.

Then one swam right by and under me at arms length. I could see the patent leather patterns on her dear head, and the graceful flip of her flippers (more graceful than my paddle). I breathlessly admired the jade of her shell and vaguely Asian olive brown eyes. I could swear she looked right at me.

This is turtle city; and I can come out here every day!

Isn't life wondrous....when you allow yourself to drift into the Comfort Spiral?

I'm glad that Y O U came along with me today.

Mind your step as you clamber back on solid land......

Oh, and "Ding" sends you her turtle love.

A L O H A ! Cloudia