Hanalei

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee,
Little Jackie paper loved that rascal puff,
And brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff. oh

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee,
Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee.

Together they would travel on a boat with billowed sail
Jackie kept a lookout perched on puffs gigantic tail,
Noble kings and princes would bow whenever they came,
Pirate ships would lower their flag when puff roared out his name. oh!

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee,
Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee.

A dragon lives forever but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys.
One grey night it happened, Jackie paper came no more
And puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar.

His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain,
Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane.
Without his life-long friend, puff could not be brave,
So puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave. oh!

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee,
Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee.

Sometimes I get a glimpse of that first look, that first impression, that drunken sensory buzz that one gets when they land on Kauai for the first time. It isn’t everyday - but for a sure hit, all I need to do is go to Hanalei. Hanalei (Hanah Lee as folk singers in the 60’s named it) is an emerald cresent with a wreath of verdant spiked mountains. There is no place more gorgeous, and a whiff of the wonder of it all is both stunning and humbling. My children will truley be warped in life - they have no idea what the reality is for where most people live. This ripe, tropical Eden is what they know as home and it is my fault their view of any other place is tainted by the saturated colored backdrop they have grown up with. Last summer I took them to hike in Yosemite for a week and then a few days in my beloved San Francisco. Luna and Sol had never seen extreme poverty before and homeless people in the streets. They cried and cried while I tried to point out interesting places in the city prompting  the memory of my first days in the city, my rubber neck and big eyes, abosorbing it all, shaken by the large scope a city incompases, but also the homeless people- and I remembered that fresh abrasion, that rub, it was not OK but I had to live with it, step over it to get to work, and not look into the eyes of poverty but stay focused to stay on task, to survive. I cannot explain homelessness to myself and learned I could not explain it to my children last summer, but cried with them as I drove, secretely - because after having living there for over 11 years- poverty had become part of the landscape - and it didn’t hit my radar anymore.
Such is life when things become to familiar, like the sun light on a bay and the tan backs of my children dissappearing into it’s glitter on their surfboards to join a distant school of dolphin like children playing in the waves while I lounge on the stern of our boat moored for the summer. I pray for that pause, that reboot button - that turns on that which means we are alive, and present to appreciate and see with new eyes. I appreciate the fact my children help me see things again - less jaded - more clearly. Thank you God for Hanalei.

December

Yesterday my son woke up and as he set his 7 year old body down at the kitchen bar waiting for his egg sandwich to cook he announced "I snored last night". Hmm I thought, "Exactly how do you know that you snored?" Sol, my son got a serious look on his face and then said thoughtfully "cause when I woke up I could smell that snore smell".    Eh hmm, just for the record Luis and I do not snore.

A Different World

I was talking to one of my very best friends Larry today. He is lying in a hospital bed in San Francisco being studied in an Aids Study. He is not HIV positive but he is a negative test subject side-by-side with a positive test subject, and thus - 5 days of IV drips and no Cocktails to see how they both react to the same medication. As he was laying there bored out of his gourd in a tempterature controlled room, while record highs were being enjoyed outside in beautiful San Francisco, I went on about my day, and described the paddle-out for Andy Irons and the beautiful weather,  . . . my new painting I am working on. "Well you just live in a different world don't you?" he finally mused.
"I guess I do!", I replied, "I am sure it seems that way as you lay there in your hospital gown, while Richard (Larry's partner of 34 years) abandons you to  drive his friend a priest from San Francisco down to Puerto Vallarta, and I am here in babbling about paintings and art and  . . . gee,  I guess I'll shut up now".
I must mention, Larry was my husband in another life. In the 90's, Bank of America picked us out of their Creative Services department and thrust us from mere obscure work acquaintances into micro-fame by doing a photo shoot with the two of us as their poster family for their United Way campaign. In one part of the poster (before Bank of America's charitable giving swooped in and saved us from further misery) we are this couple living out of our car with a screaming baby (which I borrowed from a friend) - looking dazed and angry in an edgy black and white photo. The "after" picture of us in glaring color, has us looking like lobotomized zombies who just returned from an Amway convention, cleaned up and sparkling with a happy baby on our laps. Oddly, the whole experience was very bonding for Larry and I and we have been the  closest of friends ever since. It was amazing how many people back then congratulated us on getting our lives together, never for a moment thinking a United Way campaign could ever have staged models, let alone the impossibility of Larry and I ever spawning a child together. A picture does tell a thousand words - but especially in the age of PhotoShop - how many of those words are true?


Last thoughts for Andy Irons, with  some gorgeous pictures of the service  (you can click them to view them larger)

this photo was taken under water looking up at all of the flowers and leis dropped by everyone and also by a helicopter. Below are photos of Andy's brother holding up Andy's board. Scroll down

 but this video is as beautiful as can be. If you don't know what a "paddleout" is - this says it all.

Andy Irons Memorial - Kauai - 11/14/2010 | Surf Video | broadbandsports.com

Paddle out

The service for Andy Irons, a champion surfer raised here on Kauai is happening today. He died two weeks ago alone in a Texas hotel room from a drug overdose that was complicated with Dengue Fever illness he was self medicating.  My husband left early to go up and get a spot in the “paddle out” which is the Hawaiian version of a memorial service. Normally ashes are strewn into the surf which that person loved, while family and friends circle on their boards in solemn ceremony – and then try to catch a "big one" into the shore to honor the departed. Today there are 15 foot swells in Hanalei, thousands of people that didn't know Andy, like my husband and some that did, like my friend Linda and her sons who have surfed with him. Andy, held a Keiki surf contest every year for the kids on Kauai - to give back to the community that raised him up to world class surfing status. His  end was sad and tragic as are all endings that are a result of substance abuse and the not always successful struggle to over-come it. As with all professional athletes, those at the top of surfing are at risk to the temptations of success, the parties, the access to what ever can destroy character, and life. He was a short-lived hero and I am sorry he is gone.

YouTube - In loving memory of Andy Irons

This is a picture of the paddle out they had in Puerto Rico the day after he died. Andy Irons had to leave a contest there early due to his illness. He was too sick to fly back to Kauai and complete the last leg of his filght home, which is why he was in the Texas hotel.

Questions questions!

My son Sol is off to Mahalepu beach for a birthday party for some fellow 7 year olds, the Hendrickson twins. He made breakfast in bed for his sick sister this morning. Last night he said, “I love you Luna, Goodnight” as he headed off to bed. Where does his sweet little heart come from? “A re-accounting of the day he was born was made this morning on the trip up the hill to Luna’s school for her group picture with her singing group, “The Sunshine Express”. Her head was warm, and she had the obvious signs of a bad cold – but these Saturday AM practices are somewhat mandatory, and today was picture day for all the publicity photos. So there she was in the back row – looking less that wonderful, bravely smiling – waiting for the last flash so she could exit the bleachers and duck out.

So on our way up there, Sol wanted to hear again about the day he was born and the usual questions. “Did you want another kid?” “Did you want both of us?” “What did I look like?” “Which house did we live in?” “Did you cry when the other babies died inside your tummy?” “Were you excited when we were born? Were you happy? . . . .

My daughter asks the same questions, or has. The accounting, the value assessments, the order of things biological, the prayers, the things that eventually formed our family – and them, my little people, my children.

My daughter Luna likes to climb high in the Banyan tree in our back yard and belt out self-crafted tunes that are a mix of Sarah Brightman and Ethel Merman. The tree seems to camouflage her normal shyness and the songs get louder as the usual hour-long concert ticks by. She is 10 years old now and just became qualified to wear deodorant about two months ago. She stopped wearing skirts and dresses a year ago because they are a hindrance for climbing trees, and running after the chickens. Climbing down from the tree, Luna opens her plastic tub labeled “chicken accessories” and selects from an assortment of fabric and trim remnants with a few gemstones – to indulge the only girly interest she has in fashion – dressing chickens. We are supplied with spontaneous fashion shows when inspiration hits, and megabytes on my computer of images documenting the spring, summer and fall poultry collections that clucked down the runway. Below is Penguin the roosters Halloween costume, he was a stallion. What the picture does not show is the gecko in the saddel "cup" who is riding this amazing steed.

Penguin was just one of the 5 chickens in costume that day.

One day last spring when I came upon her with my little point and shoot camera, I asked her “Luna, what are you dong?” She replied “I am taking pictures of the chickens so I can remember what a wonderful childhood I had”.  The moment distilled in my mind the pile of tossed efforts I had made to insure her “happy childhood”. The dance lessons, art lessons, and the two ponies I bought for she and her brother. I grew up in with horses and assumed by genetic providence my children would also require them. After two years of hay burning lawn ornaments, the ponies were sold. When they were loaded up by their new owner to be driven away – I was the only one in the driveway waving tearfully. The kids were playing with their free chickens they had found, too busy, too happy, to say good-bye.

Oddly Luna was the only Avatar person on our block for Halloween - and I had been worried she'd feel so generic this Halloween.

Nov 10, 2010

Chickens. What has my life come to? Really!

In a former life I would have blogged about a random act of humanitarianism I might have witnessed on Market street, an interesting conversation I had with a old socialite on a park bench in North beach, perhaps a fascinating art show or display at a museum. Maybe a page about the angst of single-to long –girl-in-city syndrome, painful pumps, or how it felt to say “my husband” the first time. I could wistfully wax on about the low moan of the fog horns that gave me a sense of place as I fell asleep at night, or I could go on and on about the struggle to explain homelessness to myself and how I ever managed to walk past a human being hungry on the street, daily.

But that was then, this is now.

I live on Kauai, a green speck in a big blue ocean. The most remote island on earth, except we do have an airport and a steady stream of Aloha clad tourist that sustain us after the demise of the sugar industry. Far removed from anything remotely sophisticated I now muse to my embarrassment – OFTEN- about the latest antics of my children’s chickens.  My children were spawned on Kauai, two feral creatures with sharply honed hunting skills leaving few geckos and lizards on our property untouched by human hands. Catch and release is the sport of choice, though not always releasing them with their tails intact.

At 5:30 in the morning it is apparent why Kauai is such a special place. The cacophony of roosters belt out their territorial “Marco Polo”-game of crowing the day into existence. Similar to the cows in India – they live a charmed life of wandering the beaches and parks for leftover picnic scraps, or dining on dog and cat food left out in neighborhoods, without the threat of becoming a picnic them selves. Their territories are staked out and they stand vigil along the roads, the paths, the jungles even, waiting for opportunity and for feathered challengers while they busily point their tail feathers skyward eating bugs they have carefully kicked out from undergrowth and leaves.

And so it begins.