Do you still remember me? Would you pick up if I called? Am I even in your new phone? Are you still subscribed? Does this thing even work? Do you still check? Do you still care? Do I still have things to say? Am I still living by the code? Is there a reason for my absence? Is there a reason for my return? If I came back just for a day, would you resent me when I left again? How can I remember? How could I forget? Can I ever make it up to you? Would I even dare to? Should I even want that? Where have I been? Where haven’t I been? What haven’t I been up to? Would you understand? Do I expect you to? Will you try? Has trying ever been enough?

Today I was out on the boat with my good friend Voni. We decided to go to the sandbar since the weather was nice and we wanted to do some relaxing and snorkeling. I tend not to go to the parts of the Sandbar where all the other boats go, since silence is solitudes favorite mistress after all. There was only one other boat within ear shot, the same one that I’d seen at the same spot last week. A powered catamaran with an eclectic group of tourists on board.

As we dropped anchor, they were preparing to leave. Unlike the last time I’d seen the boat leave, the captain decided today to break out his guitar and sing a song or two for his passengers on deck.  He put on a descent act and between the two songs made note to his passengers that there were four couples on board celebrating their honeymoon. Two couples had made the voyage from as far as Japan, and the other two I assume were mainland Americans.

On an otherwise unremarkable (at least to me in my current life) Thursday, I had casually decided to spend the sunny hours of the day doing what I do often, hanging out on the boat with a friend at the sandbar. Today, on that single catamaran alone, eight people had chosen this activity as one of the few things they would do on what most couples assume will be the best week of their lives. Their best week of their lives were spent doing what I do on an average Thursday? Can this be real?

I obviously spent some time thinking over this conundrum of epic proportions and decided to vocalize it to Voni. She had heard the captains speech about the honeymooners, but hadn’t thought about the situation quite like I had. We didn’t talk much about it at the time, but I’m sure in the days to come we will. I did happen to mention that I felt I had done nothing to deserve this, and she made some remark about how I was ‘blessed’ (a term I love to despise). My only retort was something to the effect that we should all revel in the random chaos that led me, in this universe, to be there at the sandbar with her at that moment, for us a Thursday and for others less than one hundred feet away their honeymoon.

Life isn’t fair. I get that. I’m fortunate/lucky/blessed/victim-of-chance/whatever-you-fate-loving-star-reading-cosmic-circumstance-tea-leaf-reading lunatics want to call it. I get that too. I can’t appreciate my situation in this life because I can’t remember all my previous lives where I endlessly dedicated myself to bettering the world, karmic amnesia. Sure, I can even get that too. I’ll accept it all (or none of it, but this isn’t where my current dilemma lies). It’s where do I go from here?

I don’t mean geographically. The sandbar is great, it’s beautiful. I’m in Hawaii after all (but it’s Oahu, it’s not Kauai or Maui), so forgetting the beauty that immediately surrounds you at all times would be a trying task for anyone but the blind. I know there are more beautiful places on this earth, I’ve been there. If I wanted to live there, I would. I don’t mean that any honeymoons I may have will have to be ‘better’ or ‘more’ than a visit to the beloved sandbar of Kaneohe bay.  Maybe it’s the romantic in me, but a week on the couch with the one you love can be just as rewarding (“Tell me that after you’ve been married for X number of years” you say. HAR HAR, “I’m sorry you decided to spend forever with someone who you didn’t feel that way about, everyone makes mistakes, I’m sorry you made that mistake. Yes I know a divorce attorney” I say. I digress).

What I mean is, if I decided to have goals/dreams (and for those of you who don’t know, I don’t), what could I possibly expect them to be? I live in paradise. I have a roof over my head. I have the only job I’ve ever wanted. I have every material possession I want (and I want less of what I have). I used to think I didn’t want to have goals/dreams because they limited people and a side-effect was a disconnection with life as it was passing (keep your eyes on the prize, and you forget your supposed to be enjoying the experience). Nowadays I’m more inclined to think that if I actually fabricated goals/dreams for myself they’d border on absurdity.

I know I’ve burned through twice my allotted quota of proverbial metaphors, but if you’ll permit me this final attempt I’ll be able to end this post confident that at least one of them will make sense. I’m not sure the last time I’ve had this much trouble articulating my thoughts on paper or out loud, unfortunately this isn’t a rarity lately (maybe I’m getting old). We are in uncharted waters, with no nautical navigation charts, no GPS or depth-finders here. We march to the beat of a different drum, and we don’t know what to do when our drummer quits? Different drum drummers are hard to come by. They don’t frequent craigslist or myspace (remember, they drum the beats on a different drum). If we are so lucky that we find a stand-in, what happens if we don’t like their beat? What happens if we can’t figure out how to march to it? Or worse, what happens if we figure it out just fine, but we aren’t sure about where we are marching to?

A short while ago I wrote a post about a stranger that I welcomed to stay with me when she had nowhere else to stay and found herself in some trying times. This stranger turned out to be an amazing person. She has since left us to pursue her dreams wherever they lead her, and for now they have led her to Portland, Oregon. I received a letter from her today which I’d like to share with you.

It’s not everyday that I get to feel how I felt today reading this letter.  It’s not everyday that I get to feel and know that an action I took to help someone would inadvertently help another person just a few months later in the same way. I can only hope that this Israeli adventurer soon finds herself in a situation where she can repay the gesture to someone else.  Pay it forward. We miss you JoMarie.

As I read books I fold the top corners of any pages that contain words that move me.  Usually it’s something profound, or a line that resonates with what is going on in my life.  Sometimes it’s only relevant in the moment. Like a line about a strangers outstanding beauty, which I read while at the beach and a stranger with outstanding beauty happens to walk by.  Sometimes it is relevant to larger life questions/ethical-decisions/pursuits. Sometimes it’s just clever word-play.

Once I have finished the book, I go back through the dog-eared pages and read them again. I decided that I wouldn’t capture the quotations that I liked as I was reading so that my reading wasn’t interrupted and so that there was some form of quality-assurance. I find that I am unable to identify the quote on about half the dog-eared pages that I originally thought warranted the dog-earring. The ones that survive the QA process make it into a Google Spreadsheet document that I’ve been keeping.  It documents the book, author, copyright date, chapter, page and of course the quotation itself. Every now and then (usually when I go to add a quotation to the document), I like to read through all the quotations that have made the cut. More importantly, all the quotations that have made an impact.

I love learning new things, and reading helps me to do that. I love reading that others have shared my feelings or thoughts before me (and have been clever enough to juice their mind grapes into written word). I love hearing stories about long ago, the future, and even the present. But mostly, I love being moved. I love music for those few songs that move me, and I love reading for those few lines (sometimes there are only one or two in a book) that move me. So naturally, I enjoy a collection of those lines, in a single Google Document. A spread-sheeted validation of my emotions, of my belonging, of my existence.

I often wonder while reading the quotes I have chosen to capture whether or not someone else would have chosen the same ones. By reading the lines from a book that moved me the most, could that give others insight into who I am and how to better emotionally invest in me, or at least how I invest emotionally in the world around me? I’m not sure. Maybe one day I’ll enjoy finding out. Until then, I’d like to leave you with a quote that I recently read. I won’t tell you who said it, or where it’s from, because the words themselves are significant enough to me without any greater context (other than my own life).

“Woman, you have lived! Did you think you could get through life with only scratches? That is not living. It’s hiding.”

I’d bet that if I imbibed alcohol, scotch would be my pick of poison.  Alas, I am not (yet) a gambler, or (yet) consumer of alcohol. But everyone has a vice (as they should), and polar bears and I happen to share the same beverage of choice: Coca-Cola.  It’s not something I keep on hand around the house, because I can’t.  Not for lack of trying.  If there is coke to be found in the house, I will consume it. This makes keeping it around the house an impossible task (even for someone whose restraint is as finely-tuned as my own).

Recently however another fluid has been filling the hole in my heart, and it was least expected (is this how it always works?).  Many years ago, when I was a younger and more active version of my current self, I used to try drinking Gatorade and Powerade but they would usually result in headaches.  Too sweet, too many electrolytes, who knows?  I swore them off for a decade.  Flash-forward to several months ago. I found myself half-way up a mountain and out of water, so I was left with no other option but to hydrate with the Gatorade that Aimee had brought with her.  This was my first mistake.  Like Jesus and his AA, Gatorade is designed to prey on the weak.  Not only is it intended to hydrate you when you are in dire straights, but it is designed to do it so well that it replaces your urge to drink the fundamental element of life: water.

Several months later, and I am sitting here with neon yellow fluid surging through my body.  In a glass, on the rocks, with a splash. I get lost somewhere between the Lemon and Lime. And it feels so good.

10 days ago I accompanied Aimee and Kellen to a weekly drum circle that occurs on the beach in the town that I live in.  Kellen had been the previous few weeks, and I had been busy on Thursday’s since returning from my summer travels, so I was excited to finally get to experience it.  I won’t spend many words describing the drum circle, as it was a drum circle, and I feel like that is self-explanatory.  The drumming was great. The company was great. The weather was great. A great time was had.

While there, I met a chef who had just finished her second day of work at the nicest restaurant in my town.  It should be said that my town is small but saturated with people, and considering it’s size, it has many food establishments. Over 100 food establishments for a town of 30,000 in 6.5 square miles. That’s quite a bit, especially compared to the last small town I lived in which had around 15 food establishments for a town of 10,000 people. She had had a good second day, all things considered, no complaints.  She had been on the island for just over a month. She had been camping on the beaches of Oahu for most of the time she’d been here. She was a chef at the nicest restaurant in one of the nicest towns on the island and she was homeless.

Needless to say she’s been staying in my ample-sized house since that night, on some nights accompanied by her friend/travel-companion/co-chef as well.  Why did 1 minimalist man with 1 dog buy a 4 bedroom/2 bathroom house last September? Because if you have room, you will find things to fill it. If you have an aversion to ’stuff’ then you are left to fill it with little else but people.  A year ago I lived alone, 1 of 1 (and Maxine), in an attempt to distance myself from everyone and much of what I knew. Today I find myself 1 of 5 (and Maxine), full of great food and exhausted from good times and the energy of great people. I’ve got so much to give.

There is no after-life where I will be rewarded by good deeds in the here-and-now. There is no tax benefit to allowing dream-chasing transients to live with you under your roof. There is no call from a long-dead prophet that I feel the need to answer (or even consider). There is however the guilt of knowing that you didn’t do something when you could. There is that nagging voice that whispers to you in the middle of your sleepless nights that the terrible world in which you live could be so much less terrible if everyone put their words into action. There is the truth that you get what you put out. Be generous in ways you can, put out your heart, and you just might get one back.  If not, coconut curry risotto with sauteed tofu/eggplant/sweet potatoes/asparagus is a close second.

One Of Many Karma Meals

It’s the way I see everything I need, it’s the way to be. Higher and higher and higher.

On the eve of the weekend that most of this country will be celebrating the nations independence, I find myself gearing up to head back west (although not in a covered wagon).  I’ll have been gone from May 20th to July 7th, not as long as my excursion last summer, but long enough.  I’ve visited many of my good friends and family as well as many of the places on the mainland that I love. I had a fantastic time every step of the way (and I thank you all for that), but I’m ready to head back and figure out what it all has meant to me.

I’m not sure if it’s the distance at which all my friends now reside from me, or that I’m getting older and softer (don’t people usually get harder as they get older and more steadfast in their ways? Wouldn’t be the first time that I progress against the grain), or a combination of several factors, but there really isn’t anything better than being surrounded by those you love (well maybe the only thing better than that is if you are eating at the same time). Wow that was a long sentence.  You stop writing for a few weeks and you forget your manners. Shit.  Not only did I manage to see more of you this time around but everything was an upgrade.  More friends, more destinations, longer road trips, longer music festivals, less rigid planning, more food, more fun, more smiles, more laughter, more comfort, more happiness, more going with the flow, and more independence.

The year is only (already?!) half over, I’m going to canoe 18 miles this weekend, go camping, barbecue, and then fly home where one of my best friends will be moving into my home with me for a year or so.  Since flights are getting cheaper, I’ll be sure to have even more visitors stopping by for good times in Hawaii, and I’ll be making more frequent trips to places that warrant further marination and exploration, LA being at the top of the list (a story for another day). Sure I should be saving, my money and my miles. Sure I should be focusing, on my work and furthering my career.  Sure I shouldn’t need to adventure so much, since I live in Hawaii and everyday is a vacation.  But I just can’t help myself. It’s the way I see everything I need, it’s the way to be. Higher and higher and higher.

Maybe in time we could see how the world began.

In an attempt to spend less time thinking about more immediate aspects of my life (introspection can mean progress, but sometimes I push it to the point of monotonous self-destruction, a broken record of broken me), I’ve been putting my brain to use on some larger reflections. One of these larger reflections happens to be our universe.  Um, what?

I was listening to this What Made Milwaukee Famous song ‘And The Grief Goes On…” and the first line (which you already should have read above) is ‘Maybe in time we could see how the world began.”  It’s only the first-line in the song, but since I had so many spare brain-cycles lying around I started to harp on it. It’s becoming more and more unlikely with each passing day that we’ll get to see how the world began.  I know you silly holy scripture types think you already know because a group of teenagers got drunk together on a beach a couple thousand years ago and wrote a storybook about giant turtles dragging the planets here on their backs, or a bored bearded man who had all the power beyond imagination that took seven days to make it all (if I had all the power in the universes to make universes it would have only taken me six days), or whatever is popular to believe this millennium in your geographic location.

But back in the real world, we are running out of time to figure it out. I’m no astrophysicist or historian, but I know (or think I know) that the universe is expanding, all the time.  If you don’t understand this (at least the concept of this), it’s because your brain stopped expanding a long time ago, and you were convinced that being narrow-minded would be beneficial in life, and that makes me feel great sorrow for you.  But back on topic,  the technological advancements of the world that enable scientists to look out into the far reaches of our universe are getting better and better all the time, which is exciting because we learn new things all the time.  Sure it means planets become un-planets, and we have to change what we think we know about the universe. (Remember when people thought the Earth was at the center? HAHA.  Remember when people thought there were lots of Gods and Goddesses that spoke Greek hanging out in the clouds watching us all and playing chess with us and making the weather change?  HAHA.  Remember when people thought there was only ONE god? HAHA, what’s that? Oh we aren’t over that yet? Maybe next century. Here’s to hoping.)

So we learn and unlearn and the instruments improve and we can see further back, but all the while the universe is still expanding, and exponentially at that.  So there comes a point, where the rate of expansion will be greater than the rate of growth in the technologies that allow us to peer out into the past. I’m sure there is a fancy name for that point in time, but I’ll just call it ‘a sad day’.  See, I love truths.  I love learning, I love knowledge, and I love knowing/learning truths.  I love mysteries because the process of uncovering truths turns me on.  I love that tomorrow people sprinkled all over this planet will come up with new ideas about how things are and how things came to be, and they will be improvements upon (or departures from) what we thought we knew yesterday about how things are and how things came to be.  I love knowing what I know to be true today will be far from what I know to be true a few years from now and that the growth of my understanding of myself over that time will also be a growth of my understanding of the worlds around me.

It saddens me that one day, the best telescope at the greatest observatory won’t be able to see as far as it used to, because the rate of expansion of the known universe will be ever so slightly faster then the rate of production of that new telescope and observatory.  But maybe we’ll figure it all out before then? (That’s a joke and if you don’t get it, re-read the end of the last paragraph twice and stick some rusty scissors in your eyes please).

I’m going to Coney Island have myself a dog
And reminisce why I still hate it here
It’s all these people with their cotton candy eyes
It’s so sweet, now put the train in gear

But I can’t let this go I’m on my way
You can only hold my diamond ring
But I’ll go crawling back to the city I love
Cause it’s already taken everything

Once you’ve lived here, you can never leave.  Sure you can move and reside elsewhere for the remainder of your days (and become a hoer), but a piece of you never gets around to leaving.  When you come back, the piece of you that you left behind finds you in the first few moments, and helps you to remember how much you love and hate it here.  It is the city that fails to fall on the spectrum that all other cities/places fall on.  It’s where a weekend can consist of seeing several people you don’t want to see from your high school days, falling asleep at 5:00AM, stepping in dog shit with your bare feet, and calling 911  at 4:15AM in the morning, and after all that, you  can still consider it a great weekend.

It’s a place where the only constants are the randomness and change that consume the people that walk it’s streets and fill it’s buildings. It’s a place where drinks cost so much that they give away free pizza’s with each purchase.  It’s a place where drivers honk their horns at the cars in front of them before the light has even changed back to green from red.

I won’t pretend that the changes that have taken place in this city over the last year aren’t mirrored somewhat within myself.  I won’t pretend that I haven’t knocked down some old parts of me and put up some newer (and maybe uglier ones).  I won’t pretend that I only come here to see the people I love to spend time with. I won’t pretend that I love it here anymore than I actually do, but I’ll go crawling back to the city I love, cause it’s already taken everything.

Some nights ago I was sitting on the roof of my parents apartment building down in Waikiki, on Mother’s day.  Dad was at the grill, grilling up the Chicken Satay skewers that I had prepared the day before and the vegetables that he prepared just before coming up to the roof (clearly I would have no part in preparing vegetables). I was sitting at the table, enjoying the sunset with mom, Grandpa and Carol.  Grandpa and I were talking about my upcoming travels, and he asked me why he had not seen any blogs of mine recently.

My grandfather doesn’t have a computer, so usually my father prints out any posts I write that he thinks my grandfather will particularly enjoy.  Clearly there have been none of those recently.  So he asked me if I’d be blogging on the road for the next two months.  I told him I wasn’t sure, but that I could promise five posts before I left. I only wrote one.  I have failed him so.  At his age, I’m sure he is used to broken promises (I know at only about a quarter of his years into my life I certainly am). That does not make it easier, so hopefully I can make it up to him somehow.

I’m pretty sure my grandfathers inquiry was intended to encourage me to write some posts so that he could look forward to reading some tales of my adventures.  I’m not sure the adventures I plan on getting into are the adventures that my grandfather would enjoy reading about though.  This excursion on the mainland isn’t so much about indulging my inner Odysseus, but more about reminding myself that there is a world out here.  That there are people out here. That despite my great efforts to remove myself from the bulk of this world, I still love much of it. That despite my great efforts to remove myself from much of the people in it, I still love many of them. That despite how logic-bound I am at times, how much of my life appears to be governed by to-do lists and calculated risks, despite how borg-inspired the title of this post is (yes I did catch the new Star Trek flick today), that I am in fact human after all.