SUN

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"Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied." Pearl Buck



"The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery." Bacon






"I am a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him down." Lincoln






This is the face of Hawaii

Thank you for visiting today!!

The Half full moon

Is my silver doubloon

The setting sun my gold

So I am young

And I am rich

And shall be

Till I'm old.

A L O H A! Cloudia

Club NOT a Gang

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"Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.

Eric Hoffer

"The follies which a man regrets most in his life are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity." Helen Rowland

"The learned man knows that he is ignorant." Victor Hugo

Above is the "patch" of my old motorcycle club, Na Wahine O Mana, Women of Power (Spiritual Energy) that a few of us founded here in Honolulu in the late 1980's.

The winged wahine/woman is holding the island of Oahu aloft. The "Bottom Rocker," Aloha State, (our domain) must be unique to each MC, Motorcycle Club, and it is through negotiation with the existing clubs that a group is permitted exclusive use of such a "turf."

There was potential masculinist trouble and raised eyebrows over the display of "MC" by a group of women. But we were tough women: taxi driver (me) federal police officer (Sandy) postal worker ("Elvis") airline flight mechanic (Cheryl) and the toughest of all: Marci, the dental hygienist.

Marci and I had been hanging around the garage with our guy-pal "Rat" of the Devil's Breed MC (readers of my novel might recognize a tall, intelligent, good looking motorcycle guy with an animal nickname). We worked on our bikes, broke all the rules, and learned the inside lore of the MC culture back to the post WWII Hells Angels made up of veteran fighter pilots. Rat was no poseur. Us gals were young and somewhat reckless, so we were ready to fly the "MC" and not be anybodies lady's auxiliary.

Over the Waipahu Formica table the presidents of the guy clubs said: "You're good to go as far as that is concerned, but you're not an "MC."

"See those things outside?" Marcie asked. "Those are motorcycles. We ride them everyday; we fix them; we stick together. We are a Motorcycle Club."

And we had the patches made.

The first few times we "flew" them we were ready to brawl if necessary. But we were received with respect at roadside dives, and charity runs alike. No one knew what to make of us. Gay? (My husband enjoyed that!) They were only half right, but that's no never mind. . .

One time, a club was having a big party at their clubhouse. We allowed one of their guys to ride up front beside our president and show us the way. We roared over the pineapple fields onto the H-1 at highly illegal speeds, just inches apart in perfect two-by-two formation. The only headgear? Baseball caps.

When we got to the party and cut the motors (cars have engines and drivers; motorcycles have motors & riders) he turned to us with a wind-dazzled expression and asked: "Where did you all learn to ride like that?!"

"Like what?" I asked him.

"FAST!"

No one ever bothered us. We earned the respect.

Marci might argue the point, but the winged wahine was my idea; the club name too. I enjoyed being vice president and letting her play lioness.

I also wrote the "official" Club poem:

Na Wahine O Mana

Objects of light

Riding at night

Windward side below the Pali

Mistress moon, come join her rally

Wahine riders free brave and kind

Together in one pack

Together of one mind.

R.I.P. Sistah Cheryl

A L O H A! Cloudia

Friday Feel Good

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"He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh."
Anonymous

"Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly."
M. F. K. Fisher

Public Servant

"I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again." William Penn

"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one." Oscar Wilde

Glad to see you! Come on in . . .

Our old friend Sharon Black, who we met at Christmas time providing a gigantic outdoor feast for the homeless (link to December blog post: "Gilding the Pill" is http://comfortspiral.blogspot.com/2008/12/gilding-pill.html )

has been recognized with the President's Volunteer Service Award for more than 20 years of direct service to Honolulu's neediest.

She started out pulling the food around Chinatown in her son's little red wagon, and her Great Danes always accompany her because "They make people smile" she says.

Every Saturday, hundreds of hungry people join them for the feast.

A L O H A! Cloudia

Friends Like These

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"The place in which I'll fit will not exist until I make it."
James Baldwin




"Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion."
Hegel





"The heart that loves is forever young." Greek Proverb

Here in Waikiki, the green forested Ko`olau Mountains are a vision at the end of long, high-rise & palm tree bracketed streets.

Tough kitty!

"You looking at me?!"

My best gal pal was wondering what to do.

Her formerly good friend, someone she had been close to, had listened to, and had encouraged through many emotional storms & alarms, had married a possessive Pete. My pal was jettisoned without even a 'thank you.'

Then, after months of silence my friend recieved a baby notice from that person. A transparent attempt to solicit a gift? My normally very giving friend felt sorely used. To be abandoned after years of "service" was one thing. To be solicited for a contribution just added insult to injury. She wanted to tell this person that it is NOT OK to be so self centered.

Which got me thinking about my "friends" who only phone when they want or need to talk. I support them. I do love them - but. I knew just what my pal was talking about. And this is what I told her:

We have at some point offered these people unconditional support and they have taken us up on it.

No one forced us to do it, we set our own boundaries after all.

We even knew that it wasn't "equal" from very near the start.

To get angry now seems pointless - or worse.

Our attention & support are golden gifts. And we gave of them freely.

This is the true coin of our caring; saying much more about ourselves than about the other person. To abdicate the generous role that we originated and have played only demeans us, somehow. Worse, it is a self inflicted wound. We may honorably fade away - relationships come and go throughout life. But to present a 'bill' for what we have freely given?

"Don't debase your coin with a grievance." I told her. "Send a gift, or move on."

What do YOU think?

A L O H A!

Cloudia

Characters and Plots

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"How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct."
Benjamin Disraeli

"Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects."
Will Rogers

"When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others."
Anais Nin

Youth has a great narrative drive and plot: Get bigger, get freer; find out about life, others and self. Everything's exciting: the "best" or the "worst" EVER!

Adolescence is a love story, a comedy, a drama, a farce. A collage of fears, first times, and aspirations. All seem tailor-made for a story arc, for songs, or movies; not to mention fodder for gossip.

Girl chases guy, or the other way around.

The world must be saved! (Again).

Grownups just don't understand. We'll never be like them!

Then they kiss, and the credits roll.

All this, mind you, takes place in the first thirty or so years.

Then, offstage, distracted by work and by children

-by the negotiations and nuances of marriage -

we tread the mill Monday through Friday,

Fall to Summer vacation, year after year.

Till we look up to realize with surprise that we are not the young stars anymore.

But we're still years (God willing) from the end!

Though the best roles seem to be passing us by, to younger actors.

Our cozy character work fits us like a glove.

Besides: it pays the bills.

A fixation on beauty is common to the young, engendering an involuntary aversion to the blemishes and badges of age.

But fortunately (skeptics will call it self-serving) we see at last the deeper beauties of maturity. The light from within illuminates the merely physical with lovely survior-ness.

The plot lines of maturity are not necessarily dark, it just takes greater skills to write them. Maturity in a writer is not a bad thing. As illusion is stripped away, we find the truffles of satisfaction where we may. Unexpectedly we cherish the homely hearth that once seemed a prison.

A L O H A! Cloudia

Strolling Along

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"Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to."

Oscar Wilde

"Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book."
Edward Gibbon

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."
Mark Twain

The face of comfort.

Every teaching of spirituality is a heroic attempt to share the inexplicable in words.

Traditions and teachings can only point us in the right direction - but unless scripture awakens an answering resonance from within, it will remain only mental.

The mind contorts and con volutes to make itself grand. But wisdom looks on with the quiet pleasure of comprehension. . .

Light, color, bird song are all vibrations. A bed of flowers is a massed choir: harmonies and soloists respirating each in their own voice. . . Stop and listen!

Whales sport off Maui. In neighbor island uplands, fireplaces warm and scent the crispy nights. On the Big Island, lava is flowing into an indignant sea. Typical Hawaii February weather: high clouds, brief showers. . .

What will happen next?

None of us knows.

So keep your eyes half open, like kitty does (above) even as you lay your 20th Century burdens down.

Inventing a better future is fearsome work. So why do we whistle as we stroll through the wreckage?

A L O H A! Cloudia

DoG the Beauty Hunter

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Sun Yat Sen remembers his Honolulu schoolboy days. Nice lei someone brought him!

"Effective leaders know that you have to touch peoples hearts before you can ask them for their hand."

Frederick Douglass

"Fans (and fans of irony) got to meet Dog the Bounty Hunter at the opening of Wolfgang's in Waikiki

"One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few."

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

There is something idescribable:

sunlight gilding the fronds of a palm.

As the palm hulas in the wind

the light dances accross the leaves.

How describe the play of pure light?

Green? Silver?

Silver-green?

Poetic but not true.

Just pure light dancing

with the leaves.

But even in Hawaii

few consciously enjoy them

or contamplate the cloudscapes

where the people of old

saw movies from

Akua. *

*Hawaiian word for the Divine, or God. A L O H A! Cloudia