I Remember the Stars

I remember the stars. As a kid growing up in West Marin (before there was light pollution), and later in West Sonoma County, I spent many nights just gazing up at the stars. By the time I grew up, it was almost impossible to escape the pollution from city lights. Who among us has really seen the stars in all their glory with no light pollution at all? It's truly amazing. Rare times at Sonora Pass, the Galapagos, or high in the Andes during the early 1980s, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa—unfathomable myriad stars that took my breath away. Who among us ?

2/11/14

Basking in the sea

Vito says you can’t bask in the sea. Shiva says But you can bask in the sun, but I am thinking of floating in a warm sea, basking, floating, with no destination in mind. Surely the creatures of the sea can bask? What about the basking shark? I have seen turtles basking on the surface of the sea, with no destination. They were more than just floating, they were basking. Once, during the total eclipse, I sea turtle startled me and I nearly drowned with excitement as he swim beneath me. He was huge, like a sled or a boogie board and all morning I followed him around that bay as the sun in the moon wrestled in the sky between light and dark. It was a free time where all bets were off even in the natural world. We were out of time as tide and wind were in stasis. I followed that turtle ballet until I was so far out to sea, all alone. But when the sun returned as Maui the sun god pulled the moon's face from the sun's…. But not before I saw the diamond ring and the penumbra. Meanwhile a couple exchanged wedding vows and let their leis loose in the sea. Puuonuaohonaunau, the place of refuge. That turtle pulled me far out to see like a siren. That day I had no fear of drowning though drowning was at hand.

2/24//2006 Writers' Group

Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii journal, 7/2/91

Maui Park Motel is old school, quite nice, huge rooms with full kitchen. Windy but clear, the West Maui mountains are shrouded in fog, as ever. Lahaina was a shock, it is now a fast-paced pick-up town, what Waikiki used to be like. It’s very commercial. At 8 AM people are already at the pool drinking. I miss the old laid-back Lahaina.

Yesterday’s flight from Kona was rough, and when I saw Kealakekua Bay from the air, I burst into tears. At this point, Oleg is boarding a plane to Moscow. I tried to call him last night but he was out. We had talked a few days before and had said our goodbyes. I had trouble hanging up. The reason why I said I’d call again was to lessen the sorrow of parting. He says he knows that we will meet again, under what circumstances, or where, he’s not certain.

His cousin Vlad wanted to know all about me. And I said oh no, what did you tell him? Oleg replied, well, I didn’t tell him you were penguin. I am sad that he’s leaving, but there was no space in my life for him. I was ready for it to be over. I’m sure I will miss him lots when I return home to an empty house.

Meanwhile I was distracted by other things including Eddie, who is so obviously the wrong man no matter how much I am attracted to him. And also I’m tired of that married men syndrome—not that he’s married, but he is preoccupied. I was surprised the attraction was still even there even after five years, was it all in my head? What was I attracted to? Classic codependency symptoms? At least I recognized it for what it was this time around. Also, the fact that he’s smoked dope for 20 years is a bit scary. Not to mention the drinking.

Last night I dreamed I was in high school. My neighbors were there. Alastair Ingram was playing on the sax. Piles and piles of dope everywhere, was it a cleaning school? I snitched a bud to give to George and Alastair but there was no need because more and more of it was available.

The night before, I dreamt a scorpion had stung me in my right palm. I was looking for someone to take the stinger out but no one would do it. Time was a wasting and the poison with soon take affect and I need an antidote. When no one was available I had to ride it out. I knew I wouldn’t die but the joy...

Telephone ringing. I kept thinking about Oleg, and when it rang, sure enough it was Oleg on the other end of the line. I had the day wrong. He leaves tomorrow. He said, I wish you well in your life, happiness, etc. I realized that he had never once thanked me for hosting him, perhaps it never dawned upon him. Different culture?

Natasha, Vlad’s wife said, please come to New York to visit. Vlad’s mother, Inna said hello—another family member. I remember looking at Oleg at Inna’s house in Cherkassy, thinking he was like my husband. This was long before we were lovers and that intuition was correct though I didn’t know it at the time. 

The whole time Oleg was staying with me, he was saying, in my country we don’t do this we don’t do that. And now that he’s in New York he hears himself saying in California we don’t do this, we don’t do that. He’s afraid that when he returns home he’ll say in the States we don’t do this or that, and everybody will hate it. I said you probably will. Ad nauseam.

10 AM. I’ve been up for hours and I’m annoyed when Marilyn, who’s been up an hour, she needs an additional 45 minutes to get ready. Me, I barely even brush my hair, let alone worry about makeup or clothing. I am all about experiencing life as it is. I don’t care how I look. True, she sat outside giving me privacy when I talked to Oleg, but we have so little time here, and I want to get on the road, so to speak.

Down at the pool, I swim a couple of laps, soak in the hot tub to cool off, pardon the paradox, or is it oxymoron? A man enters the spa wearing a cap, nice legs, toned body but I don’t even want to make eye contact. I don’t know how old he is, and I imagine variations of Meeting Mr. Right, especially after hanging up the phone with Oleg who wishes me well and happiness, and luck in finding the right man.

This all makes me so sad because the right man doesn’t exist. We are all imperfect beings. Most are willing to accept those flaws, and adjust—only I can’t seem to find that niche and I am lonely for love. Probably the best thing about our relationship was the sex, not the loving.

I was surprised to note how much my second cousin Eddie and John Simon were alike. I just remembered another dream I had told John Simon something about the hot tub. I can’t remember the dream. But the real man in the hot tub just did a strange twisting dance to remove something from his shoe. His ass is too tan for him to be a tourist. He’s very tight like Jim Byrd, another emotional violence waiting to be born.

As I approach my 40th decade, I am quicker to sum up the body types, comparing them to past boyfriends, mistakes I wanted to set right, but say that would be to deny all the good, the new nihilism. I tend to lump all the pain into one category that equals mistake.

Serial monogamy is a more clinical term. But I’m getting tired of all this yet another lover syndrome, new tricks and quirks to get used to, it gets so old quickly. At this point I prefer an on again off again relationship with the same man so I wouldn’t have to keep learning the new quirks. Perhaps I’m jaded but I’m envious of those who have working relationships.

It wasn’t quite there with Oleg, too many problems in the way. We could overcome some of them, perhaps. But then his children remain insufferably with that viper of a wife, Nadia, and for their sake he’ll have to go back home to live with it. The hell. Because there is nothing else he can do.

We only have so many options we are capable of comprehending. His viewpoint is much smaller than mine, his worldview, as well, though he is a quick study. As I keep saying, I have mixed feelings about his leaving. I don’t want to experience the sorrow or grief, I’m not even sure it’s there.

Why was I crying when I left Kona, was because I crying for all the star-crossed lovers I’ve met along the way and those who cannot escape even themselves. Kealakekua Bay eases into the land. Eddie took us out to where Captain Cook met his unfortunate demise. Eddie says he was probably eaten on Napoopoo Beach, the Sandwich Islands indeed. With poi. Snorkeling at the Captain Cook monument was fantastic.

In my hotel room is the rendition of Cook’s voyage with the Kealakekua Bay enlarged. So many constant reminders of Eddie on the Big Island. Some quirk of fate, larger than family, has thrown us together. He is a puere, his mother says, a boy in a man’s body, the eternal Peter Pan syndrome. I am no Wendy, and I seem to have a fatal attraction to them. But then again, I too am childlike. I will probably never return to visit him, we are Pau, so this trip was about saying goodbye to something that never was, that never could be.

Nina asks, what have I done wrong as a parent? I’ve read about toxic parents—we gave him love, perhaps too much love. But she is overbearingly opinionated, a strong Italian Catholic woman, not unlike John Oliver Simon’s mother. John considers me an ex-wife, though we were never married. 

Oleg considers himself my husband, but he is already married. Something in me, perhaps the Catholic, can’t escape the dilemma of multiple mates, yet if you look at most cultures, affairs continued in spite of the marriages. Even in Polynesia where love is freely given.

I’m becoming ka’aina, having returned again and again to these islands. More love flows through me like the tides. I have no attachment to it. Eb and flow. To each his own. If Ed and his absentee older girlfriend Kim are happy, who am I to say anything? I can’t fix the world. I don’t mind talking about it to his mother Nina, but she is a venomous lady when riled, and on some level I know anything I say could become a weapon in her hands. So, I am careful and keep schtum. She is a lawyer after all.

On the way to the volcano, Hawaii Journal, 7/13/91,

I never got a chance to write about the other day—on the way to the volcano, I got to explore South Point, the southernmost place in the United States. after a disturbingly long drive down the side of the volcano with myriad switchbacks, I reached land’s end. Black sand beach, an ancient Hawaiian settlement, a heiau, a blowhole, and a tunnel through lava cliffs to another underground tunnel that leads to the sea.

Two boys swam through it, but I didn’t as I was too scared, and I was utterly alone. A haole among the aina. The racial tension was palpable. I don’t stay long and continue on my way up to Volcano where I ran into poet Garrett Hongo who works in the bookstore gift shop, and we spent the afternoon talking of poetry.

I watched the frothy waves sing the new black sand into being at Kaimu Black Sand Beach in Kalapana. In 1990, when the volcano erupted, it covered the beach in lava and ash. Amazing to see erosion in action.

At the lava fields, we saw where the lava flows into the sea and the sides of Kilauea glowed red like embers from a forest fire. You could actually see the red glow of the caldera against the skyline at night. But the best of all, were the lava tubes, smooth pahoehoe that traveled underground and spilled into the sea.

A molten river of rock. Explosions of steam and lava better than fireworks and everyone oohed and awed as each spectacular flow lit the night sky. Grandmothers and babies witnessing the creation of new land along with the rest of us. We traveled one and a half miles over newly minted lava flows.

Today as I snorkeled in Ke’ea Bay, I had a new understanding of the formation of the land because I had seen it in the making. Like with the eclipse, there was no possible way to prepare oneself for the experience. You had to be there. 

At the Waikaloa Hilton, a fantasyland resort along the lines of Disney World, replete with trams, boats, random false lagoons pools, hot tubs, both hot and cold waterfalls, dolphins…you name it. Everything was way over the top. I hated every moment of it.

At the bar of Dona Tahiti’s restaurant, after a leisurely boat cruise, I eat pistachios. Opulence, extravagance, any latinate word will do—it is certainly gorgeous but I’m beginning to feel a little crazy. A blonde waitress from Moscow seats the couple next to me. She is prikrasnaya. I am thinking between languages.

Journal entry, 7/12/91 another postcard from O

Journal entry, 7/12/91 I get another postcard from Oleg, he’s getting the publicity and the attention he craves, the importance of man, with a capital M. And no females need apply. I enjoy his wit, perhaps I can enjoy more later. The break was necessary. I am not missing the relationship as much as I thought I would. 

I’m troubled by E. I see so much wrong, and I can’t save myself, let alone, the others. I’m not in the revival ministry of broken hearts and codependency. What I need is a healthy relationship, no 40-year-old puere stuck at age 16, though brilliant, addictive, and not self-motivated, drifting through life. It’s so intense an experience to  really see and to not be fully cognizant is an oxymoron. He reminds me of an admixture of past boyfriends—so achingly familiar and dead wrong. I know why he lets K sleep in, it’s his only solitude. She is incredibly gracious, has all the hostess motions down pat, but it’s a carefully reconstructed world. Nina says she was an abused child and it fits. Developmentally, it’s as if she was arrested at the level of an adolescent child. 

Codependency requires that each partner maintain the net of illusion for the other. The ultimate addiction. Persuasive, and evasive, it requires a tremendous amount of upkeep to maintain the illusion.

I am troubled by a dream, I’m with Oleg and we’re in a tall building, perhaps a school, and what seems to be admiring students surrounding us. It’s a reception of sorts. Igor Zabudski is there, perhaps in New York and he wants to thank me personally for getting him the Mac. I know nothing about it, and I don’t want to meet him. I don’t very much like him, but Oleg shoves me into a room and Igor is literally shaking my hand, thanking me for all that I’ve done. Wet, clammy hands. Not until I’m awake, do I realize he was standing, no longer bound to his wheelchair. A dream miracle.

I remember another image about a young blonde girl in red. We interact but I don’t know the context, and I can’t remember the details. I wake up too early, and can’t get back to sleep. The volcano is beckoning. 

On the eve of the eclipse, I fell asleep too early. Marilyn was sitting on the edge of the bed, and I swear a presence, tall and green, came through the door. oh great, what ghost is this? I screamed, having no clue or warning. Maybe it was the food or stress. I’d had a lousy dinner at Hugo’s and was terribly annoyed with Marilyn for hurrying me through the city of refuge so she could prepare for a night on the town with Eddie and Kim—which was moved up from 5 PM to 4 PM, so I only got 30 minutes snorkel time in before she wanted to go home. 

We were going to go downtown and shop too, but she managed to fritter away 2 1/2 hours getting ready, and for what? Too many times I’ve been waiting for her while she meticulously groom herself, and we don’t accomplish what we set out to do—due to a lack of time. I get frustrated but that’s not the answer. 

As Luis Kong said, we need to set limits, in this case time, just like with Oleg, and adhere to them. Otherwise I become equally codependent. Slowly I’m learning, my friends, my family my loved ones, are my teachers. I feel I have a heightened understanding of those processes I’ve been blind to all my life. Whether or not I can progress is the real issue as recognition is only half the battle of self-awareness. Or should I articulate, self-actualization. 

There’s much I don’t like about others; it must be something I dislike within myself as well. With John, I came apart, and when I put myself back together., I kept some of the old pieces, but they didn’t fit well into the new puzzle and I didn’t know what to keep, or what to discard. It was almost as if I got dressed in the dark with no regard to the order of clothing, or direction. 

Today my nightgown is on inside out. I put it on in the dark. It is equally functional either way, it is still a nightgown, but inside out, it suggests a lack of social awareness or control. Exteriors, how others view us. I feel out of sorts, so much controls us. Reined in. When boundaries are crossed, threatened, or removed, we are out of control, and that is a dangerous sensation of course, and it also suggested artificial control that doesn’t emanate from within the core. A shaky foundation, a false structure, something to be examined closely.

Journal entry, 7/11/91 Kihei Beach

7/11/91 Kihei Beach requires a quick plunge and though I am beyond tired, my breath is taken away by the beauty and the depth of the water. I am still irate with both Kim and Marilyn, as their daily ablutions preparing for an event sometimes takes longer than the event itself. Such vanity. whereas I just want to get on with it, I don’t care how I look.  I stop in at Ed and Nina’s at Toad Hall and vent my frustration. I am disturbed by the relationship, it seems unhealthy, but illusion is powerful magic—as long as it sustains them they will continue to thrive, and I hope they do. I have no desire to offer advice, or rescue anyone, though his mother would dearly love it. I have been gone all day. They will all think that I have drowned.

Hawaii Journal, 7/11/91, total eclipse of the sun

7/11/91, total eclipse of the sun. I actually saw the solar flare of the sun’s corona with the naked eye, red verging on magenta. And I could see the surface of the moon. Totality lasted four minutes but it felt both timeless, and only one second long before the diamond ring burst forth. On the beach a couple was getting married.

We sat within the sea wall arms of the place of refuge and offered our very consciousness to the sun and moon. But we didn’t see the moon’s shadow descend, due to the light cloud cover. We were lucky, as the coast was socked in with fog earlier in the morning. It actually parted just as the eclipse began. It was as if we had made a bargain with the gods of weather.

Everything was bathed under a strange glowing light similar to candlelight. No sooner had the birds chattered and sung their songs to make the sun rise, they had to prepare again for the descent of darkness. As soon as they did that, they had to sing their morning song once again to make the sun rise. It seems they were confused as to which song to sing, and when. It was a very busy morning for the birds.  

I swam in the pool with my massive night-blooming cereus blossom, the size of my face, wearing a plumeria lei, visor and shades, I must have been a sight. I swam with the sleeping fish, mostly yellow tang, and manini, as the eclipse descended. 

The city of refuge was a perfect place to view the eclipse, there was a scattering of people. As totality descended you could hear everyone gasp, let go their breath, and a spontaneous cheer erupted as the diamond ring broke free. You could actually see the edge of the moon, the silhouette of the mountains and the craters. No metaphor about it. Nothing could prepare us for the actual experience, nothing.

Photographs don’t even come close to capturing it. It’s utterly magical, a strange glow, an umbra, followed by the penumbra. The air had gotten noticeably colder, and the wind stopped blowing, and the sea grew calm. Then the wind reversed directions, and the sea rose. Never have I seen such obvious cause and effect, such sheer power, the forces of gravity at work. You could actually see the direction of the solar wind radiating out from the corona. 

I think we had clearer weather here than at the main viewing place, which was packed as a penguin rookery. The couple getting married embraced, a group hug followed. It seemed that the sun took forever to come out from behind the moon. 

We stood on the pahoehoe, or female, or ropey lava with our backs to the sea, it was mirror-calm, a glassine pond, without a ripple. I didn’t need a snorkel to see the fish. There was a timelessness to the event, we felt bound to each other and wedded to time itself—suspended animation. No problem in understanding why primitive folks freaked out when there was an eclipse. It was a sublime event, a real harmonic convergence.

We went home, had toast with Cabernet Sauvignon jelly, and mimosas made from Eddie’s own tangelos and Napa Mumm champagne. We watched the televised event again. Eddie had pre-recorded it, but the cameras did not capture even half of what we witnessed or experience. However, it was wonderful to be able to replay the clips on the TV. They showed shots from the Maunakea Observatory. 

And to think we had clearer skies than the designated eclipse viewing spots on the northern Kona Coast. It’s a somehow fitting that we watched in the very place, Honaunau Bay, where Captain Cook met his untimely end in the Sandwich Islands (hold the Mayo). If only he had made it to this side of the bay, to the city of refuge, the Aili’i would have had to given him refuge, and he would’ve lived to tell the tale, instead of becoming the main course. Instead, he wound up in someone’s stew pot. 

I gave my night-blooming cereus blossoms, dream-white with lemon yellow stamens, so like ostrich feathers quivering at the site slightest breeze—as a gift to the sea.

Later on in the afternoon, I came back to snorkel in this same pool, there are two perfectly round lava pools here, the one I’m sitting in front of now, is a reflecting pool, higher than the sea. We sat between the two pools, a spot Ed had picked out. Those 6 AM scouting parties paid off, we had the best seats in the house. 

I also snorkeled in Honaunau Bay, entering it from the lava flow in front of the heiau. It was as magnificent as I had remembered, the most outrageous coral gardens on earth. I saw myriad unicorn fish, and a lot of fish I have never seen before. I braved swimming outside of the reef and was startled to see a strange creature in the canyon in front of me. I swam with the sea turtles for nearly a half an hour. They led me out to sea.

A couple I had met earlier, played tag with this creature, he said he tried to hitch a ride but the turtle’s shell was slippery. We swam out around the point where the bay drops off 30 feet and we found an even larger spotted turtle.

Unicorn fish, orange and black and blue and white scribbled file fish, an orange trumpet fish, surgeonfish, Moorish idols, threadfin and long-nosed butterflyfish, ornate wrasses, several types of parrotfish, Achilles’ tang, sargent majors, blue jacks, anglerfish, purple surgeons, Picassofish, or humuhumu triggerfish, angelfish, damselfish... I spotted at least 50 species and some that I can’t even find in my fish books and I’m not including the gobies, the lizard fish, the tetras, the neons, and all the other aquatic fish we’re familiar with. mudskippers, a turkey fish, I forgot about the grunts, the coris, and the blennies and sculpins.

The Hawaiian kids that I swim with earlier, thrashed about in the lava pool, once a sacred fishing pond of the royalty. A boy takes off his snorkel and turns it into a conch horn. The sound reverberates up the mountains. My day is now complete. I leave my lei at the heiau altar. Yesterday’s ti leaf and coral intact. There are many more leis, offerings to the older gods as well as to the gods of science. 

It’s beginning to rain as it does each afternoon. And I am thankful to be alive on such a day as this.

My butterfly-fish drawings are 24x36”

• ON ACHIEVING TOTALITY

Journal entry, 7/9/91, City of Refuge, Big Island

7/9/91, Big Island At least I am consistent as to when I wake up. 7:30 AM and my biorhythm is kicking me out of bed and to the curb. Meanwhile, Marilyn snores deeply. I like the stillness of the house. Yesterday we stopped up by to see Ed and Nina’s Victorian house that they built from scratch, called Toad Hall, a monstrosity that has them asking why did I build this house? Ed loves it. He says the only way he can stay retired is to be here in Hawaii working on the house. He was a labor lawyer. The good fight.

Soon it will be the seventh hour of the 11th day of the seventh month, the belief in the promise of sanctuary: pu’uhonua. And a total eclipse of the sun. Big juju.

In the City of Refuge, I find promise of sanctuary. Oleg writes that Texas is like the southern Ukraine and how he misses me. Yesterday the air was gray with volcanic ash. Returning to the sanctuary, I am reminded again of what I thought I wanted so desperately was like volcanic ash. How I desperately plunged into the sea in order to overcome the vestiges of another man—was it five years ago? Was it Geoff ? How they all break my heart, but this time it’s not my heart that’s broken, oddly enough. Just the residual flotsam and jetsam of another relationship ended. Can you ever separate the two?

In Pu’uohounua a honaunau, the City, or rather Place of Refuge, you were not even allowed to cast your shadow on the outer wall if you were a commoner. I’ve done much more than that, I’ve swum pass the mouth of the tiny harbor where the kapu God warns of eminent death to all who approach. Kumulipo, the creation chant at the altar of the high chief. I leave a coral rock wrapped up in a ti leaf.  This place, keone’ele, is called the Royal Landing. The ki’i god marks the channel of Honaunau Bay.

It is said the heiao still holds the bones of 23 chiefs. Mana is spiritual power. And lele is a raised platform. People came here to be absorbed by the kahuna pule. In the game of Konane, a Hawaiian cross between checkers and chess, the object of the game is to make the last move. Sort of like getting the last word in edgewise during a heated argument. Yesterday, the volcano was active.

Kapu breakers included those who escaped the fury of battle. The fragrant pandanus, the screwpine, the walking tree, neither palm nor pine, stands tall on its roots, the tree of life, the nui coconut’s leaves clatter, a staccato, and the ohia, the first tree to grow on new lava, greet us. Both ends of the wall reach for the sea, it is both a barrier and a link, separating the royalty from the commoners. 

But it joined people together in the belief that there was hope for life in that place set apart by the wall, the pu’uhonua, But the heiao, not the wall, gave sanctuary. Mana, or spiritual power was thought to have remained in the bones of chiefs. But King Kamehameha II abolished the old religion in 1811. Still, people believe. Offerings of poi, rice, fish, leis.

Instinctively I entered the sanctuary from the south, from the seawall and approached the correct heiao where the sanctuary is given, wrapping a ti leaf around the coral rock and offering it to the right altar—because it felt right. I feel like I’ve passed the test. 

Hours later, when I read the guidebook, I discovered that I had done everything in the right sequence. I didn’t think of it, it just happened that way. Am I a noncombatant in a time of battle, a defeated warrior or a kapu breaker? 

I’ve been here twice now, given a second chance at life. What secret laws have I broken now? Seeking a new life here? What have I done? And I offended the guards, will the lava flow? Will the tidal waves ravage the coast, will the sun fall from the sky? When I leave this place, will all be forgiven?

Journal entry, 7/8/91 at cousin Eddie’s compound, Big Island

7/8/91 My cousin Eddie’s parents arrived from Orange County, and we all went out to dinner at the Terrace in Kona. I found out that they took a Russian language correspondence course in the 1950s—during the height of the red scare. Pretty amazing. Not everybody supported McCarthy. Ranger tells me that there is a Russian fort in the Hawaiian islands, just like in Sonoma County.

I tell them the story how my best friend Stephanie‘s mother who spoke Russian as a child, worked for the UN as a translator, and was blacklisted during the McCarthy era for speaking Russian. Probably one reason why I was fascinated by Russia and wound up going there to see it for myself. Of course my aunt Jane, Big Ed’s cousin is rabidly anti-communist.

Ed, Senior, my second cousin Eddie’s father, is also known as Ranger. I never did get the story why he was named after the Lone Ranger, plays swing jazz oboe with an Elderholstel group. But I prefer it to Big Ed, his other moniker. But he is a big rangey cool drink of water.

Big Ed picked up the dinner tab saying, it’s nice to have family here. Having been raised by the same family (my grandmother, his aunt), was taught to always order the cheapest thing on the menu and so I did. Luckily I love mahi-mahi and it was so good at $9.75, the other meals range from $15-$22 looked great, but I am suspicious of shellfish in the tropics. It seems odd order to order cold-water species in the tropics.

I woke up early with the dawn. Easy to do in the tropics. I took a long 2 1/2 hour nap yesterday afternoon, I could’ve slept in longer, but the temptation of a quiet house, my notebook, and defining the beauty of the morning in a tropical garden proved to be too tempting. I do need quality alone time. And I keep thinking of London, his thousand words a day, his short stories are not long, only 3000 words. Something I must do, or surely I will regret it.

Writing is not a joy, but I necessity. Too long I’ve been under the dominion, or is it a distraction of others, nine months of Oleg, and now Maryilyn. It’s no one‘s fault, I just can’t seem to sit down and write if I’m distracted.

I’m sitting outside on mossy concrete watching an enormous land snail slide across lava rocks. He has an elegant spiral streamlined back as if he were aerodynamically sound, but the mollusk crawls, well, at a snail’s pace.

The mango tree is ringed with fallen fruit, a crashing of leaves small clouds of fruit flies rising up to greet a new addition to their already veritable kingdom. There are more varieties of fruit flies in Hawaii than anywhere else in the world. The Hawaiian version of Galapagos finches but not so interesting to watch.

On Eddie’s photo wall, two postcards from me from the Galapagos where I write how much it reminds me of Hawaii. The temptation to re-read them is too great, so much has happened to me since I sent those cards three summers ago. How was I to know that John and I would break up so painfully? It’s been almost 6 years now since I have known John—three years in, and three years out.

I feel torn, seeing Eddie with Kim. Obviously they stuck it out after all. He and I share a similar attitude towards life, but he’s able to maintain a relationship, while I clearly, cannot. Certainly, I was unhappy with Oleg in my space, unhappy with many things in the relationship which spanned two years and included two countries. 

Nine months of living together in my small cabin helps to explain the probable outcome. Would it have been any easier if we’d had more money, and a larger living space? I suspect the living conditions merely exacerbated what was inevitable. In contrast, having two living spaces with John merely prolonged the inevitable—damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

But did I come all the way to Hawaii to obsess about a man when I could just as well have done it at home?

Sometimes I feel like it’s so American to stumble blindly through life, only after the fact, do I come to the conclusion that after piecing together pieces of a puzzle, the a-ha that follows. But I’m suspicious of the puzzle itself. What if it’s a structure I’ve invented in order to give meaning to something? Chaos is a random type of order. 

JournalI need to be careful of those too-ordered hedges in the garden but aesthetics always calls for improving upon what is sculpted by nature. Sometimes things grow wild and out-of-control on the leeward side of a tree. The dogs are barking, they are Hawaiian poi dog strays that Kim has been feeding on the beach. She is an enigma to me. Eddie, I feel I know without knowing him, because he is very much like me and we are twin-cousins, born a year and a day apart.

But I am even suspicious of that model. Always question the current model of the universe. It is only as big or small as our concept of it, whether it be a dragon swallowing the sun, or moonshadow. Keeping alive the mystery is also a part of the writer’s job. Unfortunately swatting mosquitoes is too. Kim is up. I need to find another place to write. Am I ready to to chat. No. A gecko chuckles, sarcastic little bugger. Mynah bird squabble in the mango trees, the heavy odor of papayas,

My ankles and thighs itch until I’m driven indoors. The desire for solitude won’t overcome the blood lust of mosquitoes.

It’s funny how location triggers associations, memory inexorable intertwined with surroundings. We bring with us the sum total of our lives. We can’t escape who we are, what we remember—we are like those snails carrying with us the house of memory on our backs, streamlined shells capable of withstanding hurricanes, or great speed, but we never quite get up to speed, or expose ourselves to the elements in order to truly test the arrowdynamic design of our psyches.

The odor of tuberose and orchid stumbles into the verandah with the heavy ease of tropical air. I can’t stop looking at the gardens, so many textures and designs, I don’t know whether to paint or write. But I don’t have any paints. So that solves that. Words it is then.

Marilyn’s awake, I’ve moved to the front porch. And I have a new set of cats for an audience. There are eight, each with their own personality and special habitats. They are small strays watching us with real interest. There is an intelligence behind their animals stare— like that of lemurs and squirrel monkeys.

Eddie comes in with armloads of papayas—mostly green ones. He said, if you let them ripen completely on the tree they’re not so sweet. Same with bananas—some green improves the flavor. Maybe it’s something to do with stored sugars—a reversal of corn which is sweetest after you pick it. Those carbohydrates, can you trust them?

Hawaii Journal, 7/7/91 Big Island, Hawaii, eclipse madness

7/7/91 I’ve been in Hawaii a week and I have no real writing to speak up. On the Big Island, at my cousin Ed’s place, I feel at home at last. I fall asleep for a few-hour nap after lunch. Island salmon grilled in the yard. Divine. Maybe it was the rum punch at noon.

Later, we went down the hill to Kona and sat in a bar overlooking the bay, the open air is redolent with moisture, an incoming storm. Rain, and eclipse countdown. I try not to get too excited, it might be overcast. I admire ripe mangoes against green miniature suns, and listen to the Japanese doves cooing, their quiet call has become a signature backdrop sound of the islands.

At Ed’s place in Napoopoo, we are miles above the sea. It’s been five years since I’ve been to Ed’s place, and everything seems so familiar, as if I had never left. The geckos chirping, trying to lay their eggs on the ceiling again. We can’t explain the properties of gravity to them. Little eggshells on the coffee table. I read that Jack London wrote 1000 words a day. How did he ever do it here? I’m positively narcoleptic.

Evidence of eclipse frenzy everywhere. From Tshirts to designer cookies. The camera crews arrive on our same flight, looking as disoriented as us. Do you to a late airport shuttle pick up, we barely caught our flights at all. All Aloha air flights were booked solid and they added 60% more flights said my cousin Ed, landing and taking off every 10 minutes. It’s a zoo here. The buzz in the air is palpable. Eclipse madness.

Polynesian paralysis! Oahu, Kauai’i, Hawai’i, Journal, 8/4 -12/84

July 31 

(see Letter to Jim Byrd: Mid-Ocean, Enroute to Oahu) Well, there's land out there— Must be getting close. Mauna Kea. Through the clouds, the low flat tongues of Molokai's shore. 

Oahu: The water is so warm, I had forgotten the sheer joy of it all. Welcome to Hawaii. I'd forgotten about the slow pace here. In spite of 9 million tourists, Waikiki is still manages to be friendly. Waikiki is like Disneyland, or LA shrunk into a dream.

I'm in a room crammed with first-time haoles and not so haole visitors. Very difficult to think. Heavy. Pacalolo means I no can remembah, with an H. So much for intellect. Wish I could leave. Hanamua Bay is waiting, and all those fish....

It is so beautiful here, how can anyone possibly make plans for anything?

August 4

Waikiki, Oahu. Coconut palms grow along the shore, the green nut extracts clear water from the saline sea. We punch a hole in the coconut with a screwdriver. 

The Vietnamese man told me how he gave a local a ride back from Hanamua Bay. Passing the coco palms, he reminisced of the foods he ate in Vietnam. He said: I've been here 10 years. Not the same. The native Hawaiian ran up the coco palm and picked me ten coconuts. It took me four trips to get them all back to my hotel room, he said. 

Seeing me on the lanai above, he offered me a drink, placing the straw in the hole. We sip the faintly perfumed water tasting of traces of salt. There is a drought in Oahu, he said, tourists flush water into the bay while residents take turns watering their lawns. Coco palms grow along the shores of Waikiki, making their own water slowly, slowly.

After the canoe regatta, the women winners say, as the coach falls asleep at the Jolly Roger restaurant at the Coconut Plantation. Our coach goin' down. How you do, Miss Chang? Shaka. Hang in there brah. I not forgettin' notin'. He standed up against the door thing.

August 5

In the hotel I am meeting no one but the shopkeepers and I swap tales of homeland and of journey. Traveling alone, feeling safe, no need to worry.

At the zoo fence, a watercolor artist and I discussed left-handedness and right brain theories. We are defining the role of discipline and art. I came here to write. So far it's all been rubbish. But I'm collecting so much data I feel viscerally ill after each day. 

Polynesian paralysis has taken ahold, slowly it comes when you sleep, and it stealthily slips in like an errant lover into your waiting arms. I keep losing my camera, my keys, my wallet, camera bag, and I am nonplussed. I'm not losing them, I keep misplacing them and then can't remember where I've put them. 

Small kids clamber over and say hi hi hi. We smile, the best of friends. Kathy's nephew Mike and I putter around Hanamua Bay on a raft, we're sharing a snorkel. It's if they were all my children and we are all friends. I discovered how easy it is to be 10 years old again. 

There is something about the Hawaiian tongue that takes hold like a religion. I want to chant Napali, Napali, Napali. I find place names, searching for a place in within me. Lihue, mahi-mahi, Hanalei, pakalolo, talk-talk pigeon. Soon not long you talk like natives. Sentence structure and grammar are as cumbersome as a wool sweater in the tropics. No slack key here. Dakine. English as we know it becomes obsolete. I am convinced the tropics put you into permanent right brain mode. 

Right brain is capable of simple language structure and expletives aren't difficult to dredge up. Listen to the language of the tropics, an excellent reason for Polynesian paralysis. Right brain is inhabiting the timeless creative mode, full of concepts. Left brain is the administrator in Hawaii, and even administrators get a little slack key sometimes. Shaka brah! Hang loose.

August 6 

I spend days in paradise waiting to write something inspiring, earth shattering, nothing comes out. What words can compete with this truly soft caress of the ocean air and the warm blue water breathing on long reaches to the coral sand?

Honopu Trail: Passion fruit, small wild fuchsias, I eat strange red berries, similar to huckleberries, and their flavor reminds me of blackberries. It is so dense, so much undergrowth, I keep my arms and camera above my head. My feet follow a path I can't see. I notice how similar the land is—yet, different. Volcanic soil, blood-red, caked like adobe, yet slippery and porous. The trail I'm on is more than poorly maintained, it hasn't been maintained in years. So many down trees, walking is difficult. More like crawling.

August 7
I feel like I'm coming home to Kauai'i, a place where I’ve never been. Every major movie with those lush tropical scenes was filmed here. Bali Hai rises above us. It's truly what the song says it only rains in the mornings and evenings.

Hanalei: I take the Island Voyager up the Na Pali Coast, and see frigatebirds, tropicbirds, egrets, lava tubes, and caves, we breathe the warm ocean breath from the inside of a sea cave. I swim with sea turtles, barracuda, porpoises, and large schools of mannini.

The water is much cooler than Hanamua Bay. I am transfixed by iridescent seaweed, sea cucumbers, white and pink coral tinged with lavenders and blues. The ride back home was rough. All those following waves. We went inside to see crater, open to the sky—like the wall the Chichén Itzá. Lava tubes sleeping with waterfall to the ocean.

North of Hanalei, there are one-lane bridges, lush vegetation, philodendron, water hyacinth—all in lavender hues. This looks like the South Pacific. I wear a crocheted open work rayon blouse from Bali, with two large hibiscus strategically placed, at the center of those flowers is an offering of life. Women wear hibiscus as large as their faces, behind their ears, and nothing seems out of place. Color has a way of getting tamed on the islands. In Waimea, an orange truck was almost invisible against the red earth.

A father instructs his son to find a yellow fruit, it's ripe, he says, Suck on it but don't eat the seeds. Potentially poisonous fruit as the poison is usually in the seeds, not the flesh. You have to really want passionfruit, it's like pomegranate, only it's orange, and not as juicy—you have to want it passionately.

Over Maui: In this place where land is at a premium, the military is still using Kahoʻolawe, the smallest of the Hawaiian Islands, for target practice, Its tallest point, 1,483 ft, reaches out for help. Kaho'olawe is part of Maui Nui —the original island of Hawaii. The Target Island, Its red lands bleed into the sea, she is curled up, fetus-like, hemorrhaging, as if in pain.

Oahu: at this point I have the instructions for evacuation memorized. It is always good to know all possible escape routes. Crash landing sleep little choice. 

Over Pearl Harbor Quonset huts covered with trees, strange arches, caves where men lived during the war. This flight makes two stops. I'm making the most of it. In high-altitudes, liquor works quicker. The DC-9 gets to a Oahu too fast and we get merry belting our beers down in five minutes flat. Someday I will see all the islands.

See:
August 8 At the coffee plantation, Hawaii journal
August 8 Kona Lagoon, Hawaii journal
August 9 Ke'ie Beach, Hawaii Journal

August 9-10
Big Island. Mauna Loa's curtain of fire. Pele migrated from Nihoa to Halemao'oma'u, in the Kīlauea cauldera. Pele brought offerings of fruit, leis, fish and pigs. As I stand in front of the seismograph, I watch four earthquakes, and two volcanic tremors being recorded within three minutes. It's a seismic calligraphy dance.

Forbidden fruit: While drinking Kirin beer and eating mahimahi sashimi, I think of him, and the fire we both are. Is it balanced, or would we consume each other in our hunger. 

See prose notes Kamapua'a and Pele on Kilauea, which becomes the poem, NOT THINGS THEMSELVES.

August 10

Saturday I spent the day snorkeling. Ed took me to keep a beach Ke'ei beach onto the place of refuge like the edge of a caldera, an exquisite reef, steep mountains of coral, and fish of every description. I swam over 20-foot cliffs without fear and over the blueness of the caldera, such peace. I hope it will stay with me during those times when life gets rough.

August 11 see Letters to Pele, Hawaii journal, Volcano

August 12 

Captain Cook. From the kitchen window I can make out the palm trees of the place of refuge, Pu'uhonua O Honaunau. They say that those who broke kapu, could flee to the city, and seek asylum, but they had to run 5 miles barefoot over ropey lava, while stones were thrown at them. If they made it to the place of refuge, they were safe, but when they did, what did the stones have to say?

Kona, Captain Cook. My cousin Eddie quotes from T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland, while we pick coffee berries in the rain. And he talks about asylum, a place where we all have lived at one time or another. The fragrant coffee blossoms are like gardenias. Ed says they're related.

August 13

After spending five days with Ed, I am content with my visit. It seems that we never get tired of each other, it's as if I've known him all my life. This is one friendship I cherish. So easy, the meals, the boasts, complaints, secrets, and the laughter we shared at everything under the sun. He is as flippant as I am. I will be sad to go. But go, I must. Time to catch the inter-island shuttle to connect to the Red Eye out of Honolulu.

Oakland airport: it's now 5 AM Hawaiian time. Two guys play frisbee in the Oakland terminal arrival lane. I am so sleepy and eager to get home. This time the timing seems right, although I am saddened by the thought of leaving Ed, and I do love the Big Island. Aloha, mahalo nui.

added 9/17, revised

Hawaii journal, Letters to Pele, Volcano

At Volcano House, on Kilauea crater, people are returning chunks of lava called Pele's tears. It is kapu to remove rocks from the Big Island. Pele is a jealous goddess.

Testimonials:

May 24, 1983: a man bought the international truck from the Park Service but began to have bad luck. The windshield wipers kept falling off, and the turn signal would quit for no apparent reason. While changing the shocks he found Pele's tears on the suspension bars. He returned the rocks and said the truck works fine now.

August 30 1983: a man returned his shoes to the island. He said, I feel foolish doing this but after 30 separate incidents of bad luck I am returning a box of Peles' tears that I stole from the goddess. And the shoes too. (He's taking no chances). Please absolve my sins by returning these to the water.

A man from Santa Rosa says: My conscience tells me the horrible rains in California may be related to Pele. She finally discovered that I stole all those tears. These are all the tears I took, honest. Please ask Pele to stop the rain in Northern California. Too many tears.

Another person writes that the kids are returning Pele's lava. They are tired of all the bad luck.

November, 1983: Jeff Williamson returned pahoehoe and said he lost an airline ticket, he went broke, and a trees fell through his house, etc. He also sent back pine incense to be burnt to make amends at the crater.

Another writes: Nothing bad happened with these rocks but my family is full of hicktown idiots who will believe anything.

Here's a testimonial for your files. I was in Denver in a monstrous snowstorm that ruined my family reunion, and another one the week before. Well, enough is enough. We are returning to Pele all of her rocks, and all of the pieces of coral we took as well in the first case. Please tell her to release us from her terrible spell.

One woman said that the curse were true and she wants her wedding ring back. She said: My love life is terrible. Could you relay my sincere regrets to the goddess for me? Being a goddess, she knows who I am. PS I took pieces from the younger Pele.

Another said: please return these rocks. I'm a believer.

1969: Seattle: I took six trips to Hawaii and I have had numerous injuries: broken elbows, torn knee, sprained toes, punctured eardrum, you name it. So I'm returning these rocks.

Please return to Madame Pele. I picked them up in 1937 while serving in the U.S. Army. Now, maybe my luck will change.

!971: Not that my life has been so bad but there have been difficult times. So nothing seems to been quite right since my wife left, job is poor, I'm thinking it's Pele.

1978: Dear People, I deliberately took the enclosed rock of lava from the volcano knowing the legend of the goddess Pele, not being a person who believes in bad luck. I thought maybe that was just superstition. Five years later, and 10 car accidents, two unsuccessful business ventures, and twice brokenhearted, I admit there might be something to it. Enclosed is a rock of lava, please return it to where it belongs. Thanks in advance.

Halemao'oma'u is Pele's home. As I stand in front of the seismograph, I watch four earthquakes, and two volcanic tremors being recorded within three minutes. It's a seismic calligraphy dance.

This morning I asked Ed if he wanted anything from the crater. He said, Nothing, thanks. Just don't bring back any lava.

8/11
added 9/17, revised

Hawaii Journal, Kamapua'a and Pele on Kilauea

The edge of the Kilauea crater demarks a fine line between fire and air. The lovers, Kamapua'a , the hog child, the pig god, the fertility god of agriculture and plenitude, and Tūtū Pele, the goddess of fire, lightning, wind and volcanoes and violence, each struggled for the upper handhold and the battle of fire, forest and rain began. He took the form of ferns. Then a kukui tree. She made the land. And the rains fell to nourish him. Sweet enemies.

On Kilauea, the great southwestern rift runs all the way to the sea. When the fissure opens, a curtain of fire wraps and rises skyward mixing with air. It is her house that surrounds his body. The sea cools it. This story is as real as the orchids blooming in the mist.

2. There are many places of refuge. Entire lives whirl by as we search for something we're not quite sure of. And it's always right here in front of us the whole time. An indistinct entity in the fog, like a knife to whetstone. This language we speak in a fine slurry of saliva and stone, it sharpens our wits as we mound words and eat blood-red raspberries. Succulent juice trickles down our chins and we are always hungry because we are running across the plateau to the lips of the crater for no real reason other than because it is there. This is the way of things.

8/9



E Pele E
koahwi oa na lo lili kolnaina
E Pele E

Your jealousy, your rage is pacified. Pele sends lava tears and buries the forest in smoke. To bury this love and it emerges anew with each passing rain. I brought you back no lava, but I did walk on new land. Last May's pahoehoe and a'a spewn out by Pele, supports my weight.

Hold, that it be taken out on enchantment made of light, that it may shoot sparks in doing its work.

Keanakolu, the place of three caves, the cave of the adz. The cave of the lion. An old heiau. Then a settler's cave. Someone who jumped ship?

Mauna Loa, the Long Mountain comes out of the clouds, she places the sun on her summit. She has the right to do so. There are rainbows forming over the black lava. They say the rainbow is a lei, a token of her love, to remember their love. The rainbow is a true arc because it is infinite, like with love. It is something we'll believe in forever because it is what keeps us alive. We need something to believe in. It is as vital as the air we breathe.

8/11/84

added 9/17

minor changes

Kilauea crater rim, Hawaii journal

On the thermal updraft I steam my face, hot rain rises off the crater. The life of a poet is never dull. My work takes me to exotic places. Right now I'm straddling a steam vent, my poncho is a tent. From the rain and the sauna, my poncho is a trap. Steam vents warm the backs of my legs, they are wet—as I write this, while standing on the edge of Kilauea, home of Pele. I should stand naked under this tarp.

On the rim of Kīlauea, the steaming bluff a kanekolea, a crying plover sings a plaintive note. Kamapua'a, a diety of clouds, rainforests, and numerous other body forms, is said to have stood on this cliff while offering his love to Pele, the woman of fire. She insulted him in the battle of fire, forest, and rain began.

Kamapua'a took a fern body, and became a fern forest surrounding Kīlauea and this is why Pele's home, the pit craters on the floor of Kīlauea are called Halemuamu'a (a house surrounded by ama'umu'u fern). The red eye of Halemaʻumaʻu , the crater lava lake, is asleep.

It's like the edge of the crater is a fine line between fire and air, Kamapua'a and Pele still battle. Kīlauea it is her house it surrounds his body. This is as real as the orchids growing on the rim.

There are many places of refuge and we stand beside ourselves searching for something we're not quite sure of and it's always right here in front of us indistinct in the fog. The home of our senses—like a knife to whetstone, a fine slurry of saliva and stone sharpens us.

We mount words in our mouth like ripened raspberries, like blood. Love needs an edge to keep it interesting. Succulent juice trickles down our chins and we are always hungry no matter how many answers there are because that form of reality takes me running across the lip of the crater for no real reason other than because it is there.

8/10, or 11
added 9/17, revised

PU'UHONUA O HONAUNAU

Today I walked in the city of refuge
where only royalty was allowed to live,
the commoner was stoned to death
for even casting a shadow in this place.
I look behind me, in the muted sun
I cast no shadow in the city of refuge.
I place my hand on the lava wall
and find the silence of the grave.

A mongoose sits on the wall
watches with golden eyes.
Workers are dressing the stones.
Ohia is the first tree to grow
on the newly made land.
Carla and Marilyn make tapa cloth
from mulberry bark, paint them
with a lost geometric language.
Ron and Tony dress ohia wood
for a totem they are carving of the god
who oversees the offerings of food
to feed the other gods.
I am hungry for words.

8/9
Pu'uhonua o Honaunau, the place of refuge
added, rev. 9/17

Hawaii Journal, Ke'ie Beach

Eating mangoes on Ke'ie Beach, 

this ropy lava, dull black pahoehoe 

with concentric swirls 

iridescent rainbow sheen

where it pooled and cracked 

like tree fingers.

We drive down to Keei Beach Rd, in Kealakekua, lava walls, white sands, and a sea grotto and channel protected by a reef. Ed says it's the local's beach. It's perfection. It's also the site of the Battle of Moku'ohai, King Kamehameha's first battle to gain control of the Big Island of Hawaii, across from where Captain Cook was eaten.

Of all the fish I see, only three or four are on my fish chart which has over hundred fish on it. I keep forgetting what day it is. I make a pact to write lots while I am here. Uncensored writing perhaps to draw from later. Matrix.

Why is it when after I've eaten half of a fruit, 

I discover the other half of the worm?

I've spent two nights on the Big Island. I not only haven't written much but the two days I scheduled to drive madly around the island were spent in Kona, of all places. 

Yesterday was spent getting to know someone, making up for a lost time that was never lost. It's strange to travel 2400 miles to find a cousin, a second cousin, so like me, but my male counterpart. 

We're exactly a year and a day apart. Our minds track the same patterns. We're accused of the same habits by our friends. We are Sagittarians, walking encyclopedias, trying everything in sight.  

Is it the stars or is it genetic that makes us so similar? Ed says coincidental comparisons are for nonbelievers. We are truly similar—at least from an artistic background, and the aesthetic and psychic realm as well. Our philosophies ring true. 

It seems I'm always the oddball out, the one with too much useless knowledge, or the one with too much squandered talent and creativity, or the one going nine ways at once. It's both a blessing and a curse to have a runaway mind. 

And here's someone else just like me. I always attributed it to the Reilly side of the family. No, Ed and I are way too much alike. We are spawned from the same pond. So it's from my grandmother's Walsh side, this zaniness. 

Many mammals, especially rodents recognize kin. Animals sharing the same DNA seem to have an affinity for one another and will protect kin closest to them first. Can we recognize kin instinctively, intuitively? 

I am staying with a man whom I literally don't know, haven't ever even talk to except at weddings, family gatherings, or funerals where we had made no deep connections. I don't remember him, other than having a vague memory of playing with him on a white carpet underneath a piano. We were less than five years old. Where were we? In LA, at his parents' place?

I made a phone call to my stranger cousin out of the blue form my hotel room. I was so scared—what did I fear?  I had wakened him. He was hung over, from the night before. But he said Come on up for coffee. I had a rental car and drove up Napoopoo road to the coffee plantation.

And we toured the coffee plantation, and shared meals, we couldn't stop talking the whole day. His lips telling me my stories, reiterating my thoughts. I begin to feel like a parrot saying yes yes yes. It's almost as if we were twins. 

Because his rising sign is Virgo, and mine is Gemini, the two cornerstones seem to balance. The Virgin and the twins. Less than 24 hours have passed, and I can't measure time by years, nor minutes. There is no shrapnel shaped time. Time is soft, fluid like bursa. 

We bent elbows and knees and pay homage to the burial bones on an island far from home. Coming back home to this place where I've never been. 

8/9/19
added 9/17, revised

At the coffee plantation, Hawaii journal

Later, at the coffee plantation, geckos chuckle, and make small fists as they lift their hands from the hot surfaces. A Hawaiian hawk circles overhead. We talk about getting closer to the center of the core. The papayas below the kitchen are like multi-breasted Greek goddesses, hanging heavy on the trees. We will eat them with lime juice and apple bananas.

I am sleeping on the slopes of Mauna Loa, this great joyous weight—aina. These islands were called the Sandalwood Islands— ʻiliahi. The sacred fragrant wood was a source of wealth in the islands, traded for rum and weapons, until there were no more trees.

Ed points out the trees. I learn that the Australian macadamia nut, named after the Scottish-Australian chemist, John MacAdam, as was macadam, is also called the Queensland nut. The kukiu tree, first to colonize the lava fields, is the candlenut tree, a bringer of light. The koa tree, is Hawaiian mahogany. And the kamanu tree (punnai nut) is mentioned in the ancient Hawaiian chants.

The mountain apple, or roseapple, a kind of myrtle related to guava (Syzygium malaccense), ohi'aloke, or ohi'a 'ai, is the golden fruit of immortality. Buddha was said to sit beneath that tree. Not the banyan. The mountain apple, the first fruit tree of Hawaii, is sweet, crisp, pear-like, with overtones of bayberries. Will Staple and I once made a mountain apple pie on Maui. A sacred wood, used for carvings and canoes.

The jacaranda from Brazil, sometimes called the fern tree, its blossoms form vast lavender carpets in the undergrowth. Wild philodendron snakes up trees like a massive serpent. The coffee trees, with their red "cherry," and gardena-like blossoms are so beautiful and fragrant. Ed says they're related.

A mango tree looks like it's always ready for Christmas with its rosy fruits bright against dark leaves similar to the magnolia and rubber trees. The sky opens. We press some banana fronds into instant rain capes.

Ed quotes: "Man is like a banana the day it bears fruit—like the banana which dies after it bears its one bunch of bananas, man dies after his work is done," I've no idea said that. He doesn't elaborate. It's bad luck to dream of bananas. Later I find out that it's an old Hawaiian saying. Bananas, the fruit of the gods, sometimes used in place of human sacrifice, were kapu, forbidden to women.

A racket in the distance. Kona nightingales are like wild donkeys, says Ed. I make a few quick drawings before the rains come.

Mauna Kea rises up 13,796 feet above sea level, or 32,000 feet from the ocean floor. Ditto that for Mauna Loa. Twinned breasts. In the Waipio Valley, the 1946 tsunami cut 2000 foot cliffs, 4 miles across, out of the Kohola mountains. Escaped papayas float in the inlet like a canoe war party.

added 9/17, revised

Kona Lagoon, Hawaii journal

Kona Lagoon

Kahaluʻu Bay, the royal residence: rock carvings where Chief Kamalalawalu (Kama-lala-walu) the Alii nui of Maui, was killed, and his likeness is carved into the pahoehoe. Makolea's heiau—the women's house. Makolea's beauty was so great it was like a flame. Women who want children still come to her heiau.

Ke-eku or Ku-eku heiao, the place where Chief Kamalalawalu was held prisoner until the proper human sacrifices were made. Chief Kamalalawalu brought his two dogs, a blind black one, Ko-papa-ho, and a white one, Kaua kahu-ekaoka, to his final battle. They both died grieving him, and were deified and proclaimed guardians of the Ke-eku. The white dog guards outside the southwest corner, and the black dog, the northwest corner. The Chief's bones and his dog bones were taken back to Maui.

Ancient sea wall. near the Kapua Noni heiao, a temple to increase fish and food production, it is said the kuʻula, the sacred stones were brought from Maui as monuments to fish.

On the Big Island pahoehoe pours out long ropes from the umbilicus. Mauna Loa, like a spider, is pulling long threads from her belly spinning her black web.

8/8