Thinking

I've been busy. Thinking. I decided awhile ago to write a novel, a novella, better yet short stories. It would be a modest collection, Twain-ian in ambition, Keilloresque in its lyricism. In the distant shadows of Mitch Albom it would be the topic of morning TV news shows, and graduate seminars. Women's' book clubs would speak in hushed, reverent tones of my prolific writing style. No doubt, there would be occasional magazine interviews. My name would be mentioned amongst discussions of Chekhov and Vonnegut.

In order to nurture the creative state of mind, I would need to read more: Hemingway, Faulkner and Grizzard. Late evening reflections would try to convince me that I was procrastinating.

My computer is turned on, a blank windows doc is open. The cursor blinks. I look out the window, gaze at the ocean, notice the plummaria trees, walk to the fridge, What's that? Just toss it out. I return to the computer, and the cursor still blinks. This may or may not be writer's block.

Gabriel Garcia Marques took months to come up with his first sentence after which came the sweet pouring forth of a writer's vision. Would an outline be helpful? Maybe, if one is creatively impaired: Ginsberg and Kerouac probably never used outlines. Writing can be an edgy lifestyle.

I went back to the blinking cursor, and the hours pass before my first sentence. Hours, days and weeks go on, and I read and rewrote the sentence, altered it again. I erased it.

The cursor blinks

Hawiian Blue

My first wanderings on Oahu were primarily kept to an area between my apartment (hale) and Ala Moana beach park. An easy walk from the ewa side of Punchbowl crater through downtown Honolulu and eventually arriving at Ala Moana beach. Occasional deviations from this well trodden path led to Chinatown for a quick dash in and out of one of the few dozen markets. On the beach, even amongst the sparse crowd of mostly locals, nature offers such an alluring scene of an idyllic paradise that one's first thought is to never return to the previous life on the mainland. Sitting on the beach, or resting in a hammock on Magic Island staring out to the sea, the shades of blue are too easy to take in. The azure tide laps at the sandy shore, and as one gazes towards infinity it will eventually occur that possibly the essence of life is derived from the color blue: liquid blue, pale blue, sky blue, shades of blue separated first by the breakers that cascade on the nearby reef, and then by the horizon. After my car arrived I discovered that each beach is even more enticing. It is quite possible to spend hours doing nothing but to look out at the ocean, interspersed with occasional times of floating in water slightly cooler than the tropical air and stealing glances at the wall of coconut trees leaning over the shoreline which offer a shady respite.
There is also a shade of blue which seems best noticed at sunset, especially when there is a full moon. This I think is impossible to replicate. Photographs, paintings, videos cannot capture this. Luckily it is repeated daily, and this is probably why most Hawaiian homes have a lanai.

Blue is a part of the spirit of Aloha. Without the hues of blue, Aloha would be a little less ubiquitous.