More kava, please?

Fairly new to surfing in Hawaii, I learned quickly that first, one must get along, then one can play along. Surfing spots can be somewhat territorial, and in my grommet year, I must have been chased away from all of the great south shore spots: Bowls, Rock Piles, Queens, Canoes, Concessions, Straight Outs, Tennis Courts. Hooking up with Kimo and, over the months, gaining a little more well schooled style, has slowly payed off. I still get da stink eye from a few local guys from time to time, but I am no longer being chased out. Persistence has paid off and I've been befriended by a few of the local surfers. While surfing is the driving force, the gathering after the surf session is wholly just as enjoyable.

I used to see these 3 HUGE guys SUPing in the same spot if I made it there by the late afternoon, However, I've missed them lately. To my surprise today they were gathered in the grassy area near where I was hauling in. We starting chatting a bit; They are Samoan; Amosa, Toma and Kalepo. By anyone's standards, these are big 'ol boys, hanging out on da beach, late afternoon, sipping on kava. Kava? To the uninitiated, this a foul-tasting tea. Kava is derived from a pepper tree found in most pacific isles. The Samoans explained, in the past, the root was chewed by boys until it become a mass of mush and saliva, then squeezed through coconut fiber, mixed with water and consumed in one go from a coconut shell. "That's the best way to prepare kava, it's very strong that way, but now the root is ground to a pulp, squeezed through a sock and mixed with water." I am actually okay with not knowing how it is made.

Kava is an intoxicant, usually used as a social lubricant. In younger days of innocent discovery,there were many intoxicants with which to explore. By the time I entered my 30s, however, I had lost contact with friends that would call and ask if I would want to get high and spend the afternoon watching The Wall, again?

The first time I tried kava was a quick trip to Hilo, after a meeting, on the way back to the airport. I had a large glass, served at a small convenience store, with ice. At that time I was told that kava was like an iced coffee, but it may make your lips numb. The taste is pure wretchedness, it is not pleasant. "How wuch wava is too wuch wava?'' I asked, after half a glass. "Wat wady walks wunny". The effect wore off soon, we were on our way back to the airport, somewhat queasy and no longer less than mildly euphoric. I had no idea, as you will discover, that I developed an unfortunate disrespect for its power. Apparently the stuff I had was watered-down swill. Hawaii is not known for producing reputable kava. The good stuff comes from Fiji, Vanuatu, and Tonga although it does not export well. Kava is a digestif in most of the central Pacific islands, saved for gatherings after dinner, passed around in a coconut shell amongst the guests. To true kavaheads, it is best when taken around dusk and into the early evening hours, and one would not be considered rude to wonder off and enjoy the kava on his or her own.

"Take your bowl and find something pleasing to look at".
"Why?"
"Gaze upon the horizon of the Ala Moana south shore, the Pacific ocean, the breakers you've just surfed, it is poetic. Put that image in your mind and down the kava all at once"
"I might throw up"
"Leave that part out of your poetic image"

I downed the 'high tide' (e.g. The big gulp size. The 'Low tide' is a small coconut shell). The sky was streaked with hues of blue and evaporating cumulus clouds, the shades of blue as the pacific expanded in front of me, shades changing as the water shimmered over the coral , then the deeper water of the breakers and well to the horizon.. We spoke idly of work, life in Samoa, Samoan-converted-Mormons playing American college football. I felt injected with a pleasant calmness and contentment with the world, although I think I remember wondering if it was the kava, or just the company, on the south shore beaches of Oahu. Amosa, turned to me: the boyish-faced Polynesian must've weighed in at 300 pound, and simply said "The pacific". It was not a statement, not an opener for further conversation. Just a word describing the present and it hung between us for quite some, until my witty response "yep". Alas, as the conversation faded, I had an unwavering sense that I was heading for departure time. I had lost the urge to speak as did the others, as a sense of mutism wavered in the air. I felt myself becoming as one with all the others. I think a few others had joined the communal sun set ritual. 4 of us or 10, I can't remember but it all seemed the same. I heard Amosa "hmm" and I must have pondered this for quite some time. We breathed the air of the south shore, the ocean, the sand dust: 'Like sands in the hour glass, so are the days of our lives', 'like the ocean in the hourglass..how'd the water get into the hourglass?'

Sitting there with my brothers, the stars and the moon making their first appearance for the evening over the fading shimmering pacific as the sun was setting, I retained a spot of reality, needing to get home. Leg, head, body, too heavy.... to... lift. I am blissfully paralyzed, and resolve to remain recumbent upon the the sands of the hour glass, the sands of time, the sands of the ages for now, and dream.

I actually slept for 45 minutes, and made a quick decent back to earth. When I got home, Laila looked at me inquisitively, with a slight turn of the sternocleidomastoid. I think the effects lingered on until the next morning. I was not hung-over but had a wary sense of a feeling that I traveled a very long distance over many, many years to finally arrive in my apartment.

When is the next high tide?

You people should get off the bus! Would you like a beer?

Riding The Bus, occasionally awarded one of America's best public transportation systems, is a continual exercise in patience and tolerance, for most folks, that is. Late buses, crowded buses, broken down buses. Don't forget about the passengers: Bus passengers who don't have access to bathing, passengers who are openly philosophical, passengers who are pleasantly friendly, passengers who are quiet and content. I once heard a homeless looking guy seemingly spewing quotes from what I gathered was Eric Cartman from South Park: "Fxxkin'Hippies.They're everywhere. They wanna save the earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad" I sometimes end up sitting close to all but the quiet and content.

I needed to pick up my car from the repair shop. Although it is dying a slow death, I was actually going to take it from the 'hospital' and bring it to a funeral home. In any event, the auto repair shop is in a location where I could either take the 42A or the 20. Of course the first to arrive was the number 20. I was actually hoping for the 42A because it is a 'double jointed' bus, and I like sitting in the jointed, accordion part. I slipped the $2.25 into the binnacle and took an aisle-facing seat in the rear of the bus. As the bus meandered left and right through downtown picking up and letting off passengers, an ill-kempt guy took the front-facing seat next to me. After a few moments I heard him say something, but not making any eye contact, thought he was on a cell phone. Next stop, a nervous, figity guy sat next to me, the bus was getting crowded. I heard the the local dude ask me where I was from, and when I told him 'Punchbowl' he kindly told me I was going the wrong direction on the bus. We chatted a bit about my car, and the trip to the auto repair shop. "The 42A gets you closer" he said. Meanwhile, recall that the number 20 stops at the airport and there did happen to be increasing numbers of island visitors, clutching baggage.. We were making slow, but decent progress through the outskirts of downtown, but whenever the bus stopped, the haole-looking dude blurted out "Shit" Mostly under his breath, but those of us in the back of the bus could hear this very well.
"God damned fuckin bus" Eventually he detailed his discontent. "Fuckin tourists" he muttered. " you all should just go somewhere else, get off the [fucking] bus!". Eventually my first neighbor, a local guy, asked me if I wanted a beer, and approximated to me an unopened can of Primo. How cool, man. I did not see any other beers that he may have had and I was truly humbled as I thought this dude, albeit drunken and not having any idea about the anti-tourist sitting next to me, offered me his last beer. That's respect, brother. Seeing that it was his last beer I declined, although the thought of drinking beer in the back of the bus was appealing. Anyway my stop was next. The drunk slapped me a low five, and gave me a shaka (respected again).

I'm getting off this fuckin' bus and I'm gonna have a beer

I ride the bus, I floss my teeth, I trim my beard, my pants fall down

I am not unfamiliar with riding on crowded public transportation: San Antonio's VIA no.551, 'Are those Ruben's Tamales?', NYC's A train where riders are not afraid of chemical warfare, the Antwerp tram where you must exit only the rear of the car. The Bus in Oahu is really not much different. Most times I catch the no. 20 which winds its way from Pearl Harbor to Waikiki, of which the Honolulu airport is a popular stop. With practice, standing on a crowded bus laden with island visitors and heavy luggage, intermixed with warehouse workers and homeless folks becomes less intimidating. It can get so crowded that the only place to stand is behind the forbidden yellow line. I've been banged by luggage, backpacks, suitcases, elbows, small Chinese women carrying sacks of live sea crabs and spiny lobsters, and a whole gamut of other items while riding The Bus. It is the one place in Hawaii to stand up close with the less fortunate homeless persons. I am empathetic towards society's outcasts, but riding The Bus provides a strange combination of being unpleasant yet entertaining. Many of the homeless whom with I've come into contact smell. Fortunately the bus riders seem not to have the weeks-earned smell of urine and whatnot. The recirculated air confines of the bus prohibit standing upwind.

Several riders caught my attention on a recent trip. Now, Hawaii is known, not by me and you, to be a great place to reside as a homeless person, I suspect Honolulu has a good deal of 'working homeless' persons. Homelessness is tolerated here. The gentleman flossing his teeth, albeit not a full house of choppers, I overheard was going for an interview at a restaurant. His tee shirt has probably never been washed. I am the opposite: never floss, always wash. The seat in front of me was occupied by a 40'ish year old guy, trimming his 'stache, avec mirror, and general primping, deodorant application and a quick wisp of aftershave (aftertrim). He got off at the airport

Honorable mention: A pleasant elderly homeless man came onto The Bus clutching his pants with one hand, holding his other hand out for spare change, and collecting I might add! His balance was unchallenged when The Bus was stopped, he made a slow path to the back of the bus, gaining coins with one hand, holding up the baggy pants with the other. When a bus moves, however, balance is preserved with at least a 3 point support base: 2 legs, one arm. Sure enough, when the bus took off quite rapidly, he had to choose which hand to use to hold a steady balance. My guess was right when he used the hand holding up the greatly over sized pants to attain standing balance. It is harder to pick up coins, which have rolled way out of your reach, and possibly into someone else's hands. The pants came down as gravity took over. People on The Bus are cool because thay seemed to act as if this always happens. I am the opposite, I keep my pants on and lose my money.

Toys in the Attic

5 philosophical mind games: ( Adapted from J Jones and W Wilson)

1) Zeno's arrow: The flight of an arrow is an apparent example of motion, but at any given moment it is where it is and where it is not, therefore not moving. This must have drove Zeno's friends crazy when he ranted about this

2) Plato's cave: shadows are reality. The search for a perfect car is an idea

3) Buridan's ass: A stumbling block to the act of free will. An ass, placed equidistant from 2 identical bundles of hay, has no bias for choosing one over the other and ends up starving to death. Likewise, a single doctor in Honolulu, placed equidistant between two sumptuous female targets, will be walking home alone.

4) Occam's razor: One thing accounts for everything else that is going wrong. One diagnosis only: you know the rest of the story

and 5) Pascal's wager: In the cosmic game of heads or tails whether God exits, you have everything to gain and nothing to loose by betting on His existence

As days go by and time drifts from one week to the next, I find that I am becoming completely enraptured by the waters of the central Pacific. Oahu always looks good from off shore. The island is idyllic with its clusters of coconut trees rising from the sun streaked water colored every shade of blue, and at times in rougher distant weather, green.

Zack is the boyfriend of one of my neighbors. He is not a normal person. He is from New Zealand, and has taught in nearly every school between Fiji and Hawaii, spending a good deal of time in the obscure atolls of the south Pacific, places I had no idea existed other than the the likes of the Marshall Islands. His world revolves around books and surfing. Zack has been patient enough to tutor me in the world of surfing. I would usually see him loading up his boards in his VW bus, so one day I asked him if he would teach me to surf. Unfortunately this was during a time last week when the swells of the south beaches were up to 3-5 feet. The usual inviting reef-breakers on the south shore tend to be a modest 2-3 feet. Ahead, I could see Zack paddling furiously up the face of a wave that eventually crashed upon me, after which a series of breakers targeted me. Were the surfing demi-gods telling me to paddle back to shore? The waters finally calmed so that I was able to regain composure and paddled myself and my surfboard past the breakers, now in wait for my invitation. "What do I do now" I yelled. "Look for a wave shaped like an A" The first several waves I caught were hand outs. I did nearly nothing besides paddling a little ahead of the mounting surf, the water would gently glide my board up and push me along, eventually the wave would submerge and I would turn around and go at it again. My confidence fools me some times.

There is a moment, shortly after one accepts the imminence of one's demise, when it occurs that you could be elsewhere: that if you simply left the house a little later, or lingered over a mai tai, you would not be here now confronting your mortality. This moment occurred just as I encountered a very large (from my perspective), rare and surprising wave. A wave that was pitching and howling, and it really had no business being where it was-underneath me. My options were not good. The demon wave picked me up and after that, I have only a vague recollection of spinning limbs, a weaponized surf board, and chaotic white water. I wondered if surfing is for me. I generally no longer engage in adrenaline rush activities that carry with them a strong likely hood of life-altering injury.

"That really sucked" I told myself. "You picked the wrong wave" Zack said after surfing the same distance in a state of such languid repose, seemingly mocking my tumble through the water. The paddle to shore was reassuring, though. Soon, I will be back on top of a wave, the next time with better clarity, and hopefully in front of the break. I don't want to get sappy about it, but being on the waves just offshore of a tropical island is about as sublime an experience as one can find on this planet.

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.