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?
