I'm BACK, Baby!

A L O H A, Friends!

Welcome Back to Waikiki

click on photos for the full treatment

I am back from my journey to a strange place. . .

"When the baby looks around him

It's such a sight to see

He shares a simple secret

With the wise man

He's a stranger in a strange land

Just a stranger in a strange land

Tell me why

He's a stranger in a strange land

Just a stranger in a strange land - "

Things are starting to look like they normally do again. . .

"- How many miles will it take

To see the sun

And how many years until it's done

Kiss my confusion away in the night

Lay by my side when the morning comes -"

Now I can get back to important explorations

of the world around me. . .

"-Do you recognize the bells of truth

When you hear them ring

Won't you stop and listen

To the children sing

Won't you come on and sing it children

He's a stranger in a strange land

Just a stranger in a strange land."

Leon Russell, Stranger in a Strange Land (Lyrics)

First, I want to thank all of you who left supportive remarks for me on my previous (colonoscopy) post. I also want to thank those who left witty comments!

The prep was not THAT bad.

When my blood sugar does down I feel draggy and susceptible to "moods." But a little strained miso soup, ginger ale, and chilled green tea, make for a cleansing day and kept me going.

Drinking the 16 gallons (less?) of colyte was merely a commitment to DO it.

It wasn't till I was at the medical center that I began to get nervous - which is good, because I used to be nervous ALL the time, EVERYWHERE!

Why do you think I've become such a well being expert?

I had the choice of spiralling around in anxiety, or discovering and entering the Comfort Spiral. . .

The positivity that you find at this blog was hard earned, and requires respect and upkeep on my part. Which is not to say that it is fragile (far from it - hooray!) just that it takes a daily commitment which is far from difficult.

The motto of Kaiser / Hawaii Region is: "Caring for Hawaii's People Like Family" and most everyone you meet there is excellent at their task, and very human & warm.

Jim Morrison of the DOORS sang: "People are strange when you're a stranger."

When I felt estranged from others, everyday brought examples of their strangeness. Since I have begun to see the innocence in others and in myself, I have found good people everywhere I go. Marianne Williamson says there is no thought so insignificant that it does not have effect in our world. Since I have discovered the beauty in others (and in myself) and stopped living in constant judgement of them (and myself) I have felt more at home in the world and among others than ever before. People really can feel it when we are surrendered and trusting. My new health motto has become:

"Rejoice & Rejuvenate."

Sure beats the tar out of:

"Worry & Complain."

I knew that the team would either give me a clean bill of health, or remove a potential problem and thus save my health and life years in advance of any symptoms.

So I was grateful to receive this screening!

The Doc removed a few small polyps (future problems) said that it all looked good, and told me to repeat the test in . . . . 10 years! I'll be eligible for Medicare then. . .

One reason that I am sharing all of this is because a blogger I follow (was it you, Sandee?) recently posted about her colonoscopy (timely!) and made me feel much better about the whole thing. (Thanks!)

Another BLOGGING Miracle!

So it is in that spirit that I urge all my friends here who are lucky enough to have health coverage (or who can afford this screening) to strongly consider getting it done.

In honesty, I must tell you that I felt really out of it afterwards, and that I'm just beginning to feel like myself again (the test was Monday - I even missed posting yesterday which is rare for (big mouth) me ;-]

So today I'm babying myself with great self-indulgence. My favorite husband (who I usually leave out of this blog-thing) has been a trooper throughout, even taking yesterday off to stay home and annoy, er, distract and care for me!

Having seen my Dad fight a losing battle with cancer back in the Spring makes everyday seem precious!

So thanks to each and every one of you who share this blog-y life with me. Our friend Sepiru Chris of Cuneiform Scratchings (see my blog roll) sent me a cool postcard from Hong Kong. His cat companion, Pommes, also mailed a delectable "double-fish" seal to Miss Kitty who enjoys having it over her treat-spot. I'm resting in bed and reading Walking Man's book of verse: "Stink." (See my blog roll for his worthy blog also)

And I've noticed a lot of positive, under-reported news stories lately too. Many of the bailed out banks and financials are PAYING BACK bail-out funds and the Fed Gov't (you and me) is even showing a profit! Big Money Authorities (OK, I forgot the source) stated that the Federal Gov't "saved the financial system from disaster." (Even though we all know that it requires more balancing & fairness to us little guys)

And General Jones said this week that the Obama administration has made us all demonstrably SAFER in the world!

I look forward to getting around to visit all of YOU very soon, though I'm still feel a bit tentative, and I feel a televised, late-season WNBA game coming on ;-]

I love you guys - thanks for EVERYTHING!

Warm Aloha, Cloudia

Monday Monday

A L O H A!

Here is a Hawaiian Sky Just for YOU

click on photos for ahhhh-gasm

"You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain;

I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care.

As the peach-blossom flows down stream

and is gone into the unknown,

I have a world apart that is not among men."

Li Bai

"You find a flower half-buried in leaves,

And in your eye its very fate resides.

Loving beauty, you caress the bloom;

Soon enough, you'll sweep petals from the floor.
Terrible to love the lovely so,

To count your own years, to say "I'm old,"

To see a flower half-buried in leaves

And come face to face with what you are."
Han Shan

Translated by Peter Stambler

"No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl.

All little girls should be told they are pretty, even if they aren't."
Marilyn Monroe

“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us.

To live is to be slowly born.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery



“The difference between what the most and the least learned people know

is inexpressibly trivial in relation to that which is unknown.”
Albert Einstein

>-+-<

Today, I am at the medical center having a colonoscopy.

This post is like those slides the TV stations used to show:

Please Forgive The Inconvenience.

Until our normal programming is continued.

Blogging is not about gem-like posts

so perfect and boring,

it is about being real.

Can't get real-er than a colonoscopy!

Your well-wishes are understood

but no less appreciated,

and no less desired.

Yes, you may leave smirky, jokey comments

at my expense.

I'll be too busy stuffing my face when I read them

to care!

So enjoy the day,

and especially the fact that it is not YOUR

colonoscopy!

Glad to be of service!

A L O H A HA HA HA!

Cloudia :-0

Day of Rest

A L O H A!

Welcome to a Quiet Sunday Here in Hawaii

click on photos to ahhhhh!

A Nice Day to Rest at Home

“Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave,

and grow old wanting to get back to”
John Ed Pearce

The Animals Were There

“A smile is a window on your face to show your heart is at home.”

Unknown

“His Labor is a Chant -- his Idleness -- a Tune -- oh, for a Bee's experience of Clovers, and of Noon!”
Emily Dickinson

“Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day.”
Dalai Lama

The sabbath has been smudged by too many fingers.

Our manufacturer recommends

a rest,

a fallow day.

But it's been turned into just another obligation,

a chore, a union rule.

Just as the magical MANNA

nourished for just one day,

the Here & Now

is fresh every moment.

We try to plan it,

to fit it all in

which means we live wrapped

in illusions.

Attempt to stay in the present

and the ego will rebel

in ten thousand ways.

But your sweet

original

soul

will thank you,

and flourish,

as you spend time

and attention with it.

When you just

sit & be

you learn how deep

the river really is.

You begin to intuit

how much of life's richness

passes by unnoticed.

Dare to believe

that it is easy,

that you are surrounded by

love.

Then you will understand

how steady

and deep

the current runs.

That it's

riding us home

without fail.

A L O H A! Cloudia

Manoa Chinese Cemetery

Aloha & Nihau!

Welcome to Misty Manoa Valley

Here on Oahu

To forget one's ancestor's is to be a brook without a source, a tree without root.”
Chinese Proverb

Stories

"There were many such stories

he understood how important

they were

A life without stories

would be

no life at all

And stories bound us

did they not

one to another

the living to the dead

people to animals

people to the land."

Alexander McCall Smith

“One generation plants the trees, and another gets the shade”
Chinese Proverb

"A child's life is like a piece of paper on which every passerby leaves a mark."

Chinese Proverb

“Pleasure for one hour, a bottle of wine. Pleasure for one year a marriage;

but pleasure for a lifetime, a garden.”
Chinese Proverb

“He who seeks vengeance must dig two graves:

one for his enemy and one for himself”
Chinese Proverb

"The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water,

but to walk on the earth."

Chinese Proverb

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

Elwyn Brooks White

"Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't."

Richard Bach

Manoa Chinese Cemetery is the largest Chinese cemetery in Hawai'i, and her oldest.

In 1852, a Chinese immigrant named Lum Ching hiked Manoa Valley with a friend all the way to Akaka Peak at the back. There they turned to enjoy the beautiful view to Waikiki and the sea below. Lum was a practicioner of the traditional astronomy/geology-based discipline called "kuni yee hok" (Feng Shui). Performing calculations using his mirror and compass, he exclaimed to his friend, "We are at an extraordinary spot. It is the pulse of the watchful dragon of the valley. People from all directions will come from across the seas and gather here to pay homage. Birds, too, will come to sing and roost. It is a haven suitable for the living as well as the dead. The Chinese people must buy this area and keep it as sacred ground."

On May 11, 1889, a petition was filed for a perpetual Charter of Incorporation under the name of Lin Yee Chung. On June 7, 1889, the organization was granted its charter by the Kingdom of Hawaii's Minister of Interior. Lin Yee Chung means "We are buried together here with pride."

Honolulu's United Chinese Society was formed in 1884. One of the organization's main purposes was to be the management of the cemetery.

One especially touching section of the cemetery is located near its entrance. All the graves here belong to children ranging in age from new-born to six years old. Chinese people bury their infants and young children close together so that their spirits may play together in perpetuity. Some folks claim to hear the voices of the children here at night, and even leave candy for them.

I had only a stick of gum, but left it atop the red stone, after taking the picture above.

Today, the cemetery encompasses thirty-four acres of Manoa Valley. It's one of my favorite places on the island. Generations of our neighbors rest here, including Honolulu Police Department veteran, Chang Apana, who was the real life inspiration for detective Charlie Chan.

Thanks for visiting today.

A L O H A! Cloudia

References:
Bouslog, C., Chung, K. and the Manoa Valley Residents. (1998). Manoa, The Story of a Valley. Honolulu: Mutual Publishing.

Thom, W. C. (1985). The Story of Manoa Chinese Cemetery with a Discussion of Ancestor Worship. Honolulu: Lin Yee Chung Association.

Condos, Candy. The Dragon's Pulse. Student Paper, Kapiolani Community College. Honolulu

(Instructor: Carl Hefner, Ph.D. Anthropology 200)

Passing Scene

A L O H A!

Welcome to Friday!

click on photos

" If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."

John Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan 20, 1961

"And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan 20, 1961

"The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die."

Ted Kennedy, Democratic National Convention, August 1980.

"My brother need not be idealised or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it"

Ted Kennedy, eulogy for brother Robert Kennedy, June 1968.

“This disaster reminds us that we are all part of the American family and we have a responsibility to help members of that family when they are in need,”
Ted Kennedy

“I think about my brothers every day,”
Ted Kennedy



"Trials never end, of course. Unhappiness and misfortune are bound to occur as long as people live, but there is a feeling now, that wasn't there before, and isn't just on the surface of things, but penetrates all the way through, that says: we've won this. Things are going to get better now.

You can sort of tell these things."

Robert M. Pirsig,

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

PSSST! Change is afoot;

Pass it on

with

A L O H A, Cloudia

Towers

A L O H A!

C I A O!

Eh! Click-a on the photos! Venezia

“A well-ordered life is like climbing a tower; the view halfway up is better than the view from the base, and it steadily becomes finer as the horizon expands.”
William Lyon Phelps

“I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;

A palace and a prison on each hand.”
Lord Byron

“This was Venice, the flattering and suspect beauty - this city, half fairy tale and half tourist trap, in whose insalubrious air the arts once rankly and voluptuously blossomed, where composers have been inspired to lulling tones of somniferous eroticism."
Annonymous



Venice was built in a lagoon,

a special place of power,

where culture, history, energy lines,

and geographic paths meet fortuitously.

The Venetians have always loved & celebrated this place.

Her fairy constructions

are their lovely thoughts made visible.

Arriving in Venice, even today,

we see her famous tilting towers.

Their marshy bases love to sink uneven,

seeming to swirl

like slow motion wands

casting spells among the clouds.

What towers have you built

that have danced

and warped

with time?

Would you trade them for

a pyramid?

For a server farm?

A warehouse store?

Would you trade your dear whimsy

for a strait cinder block shelter?

I much prefer

your folly,

reaching

daring

sinking.

I like your tiles

and crenelations;

I love the colors

and texture

of your

thinking.

A L O H A! Cloudia

Floating Out the Back Door

A L O H A!

click on photos to see & smell the sea!" It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument."
William G. McAdoo

"Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible."
Eugene Ionesco

"One day the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful."
Sigmond Freud

"Violence is the diplomacy of the incompetent."
Isaac Asimov

"Today my spirit is going to school while my body stays in bed."
Bill Watterson

" The writer is the engineer of the human soul"
Joseph Stalin

Well, as I sagely predicted, my happy side has bobbed to the top again.

It never ceases to amaze and delight me,

I finally possess a magical talisman or something!

I've confessed my crabby past, and you lovely, bloggy friends came visiting with tasty cupcakes, perfectly ripe fruit, and a crop of rosy comments!

You uplift and you humble me

in a most pleasant fashion.

Being a person among other people (blogger among bloggers?) is really very nice; when those others are like

Y O U !

Having my faithful kayak tied just outside the hatch

(you call it a "door")

just at the top of that companionway (ladder) over there,

two paces from where I write this,

doesn't hurt my prospects for a paradisaical afternoon either.

One minute my eyes are living through this silicon screen,

the next I'm pushing off,

and skimming out into the channel

behind my home-boat.

Water flows (I'm reminded)

like the web, touching every shore,

but it is wet, and fragrant and intimately close

when you glide upon it low,

with a wet bottom.

Normally I enter from the land, down the dock, and into my home via the Port hatch. It's such a delightsome, kid-like whimsy to slip out the other side (Starboard) and traverse a completely different venue.

I'm like the character in a surrealist nursery rhyme, exiting my chimney to float above the town

in the basket of a jolly red balloon.

Wind in the willows, wind in my hair. . . . Deedle DEE!

That's how the singing begins.

My senses open with the skies.

From out here on the water

sky and heart are unobstructed.

Settling into my own physical rhythms,

heart synchronizes with the sway of the waves.

Lungs exalt to be filled and under load once more.

Soon I begin to hear the piano concerto sky.

Sweeping passages of cloud and color

interlace with arpeggios of torn cumulus notes

that glissando into every shade of emotion,

settling, finally

into exultation.

And each passing piece of flotsam,

is a tiki from the sea,

bumping my canoe with it's brusque little blessing,

bobbling away with satisfaction,

in the winged sweep of my wake.

Out here

Floating flowers decorate the grocery bags.

And nets of radiant modulation

cast broad

evolve like a web of tiny ridges

across the bulging tidal surge.

Today

a sneaky, confident little Autumn

is laying her clues everywhere.

These trade winds carry the scent of Northern Cooling

and keep the hurricane

away

to the south.

The Canada Geese of my heart

begin to flutter

and to

Honk.

All this treasure

for the plunder!

I will be bold

as a pirate

and fill my

fairy boots

with black

pearls.

A L O H A! Cloudia