-2\u00a0 52%\u00a0 21%\u00a0 7mph WNW bar29.58 steady\u00a0 windchill-9<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Crescent of the Winter Moon<\/p>\n
I have passed into that curious liminal state before a longer trip.\u00a0 The threads that hold me here release, one at a time.\u00a0 Newspaper.\u00a0 Mail.\u00a0 Obligations at the Art Institute.\u00a0 Dogs.\u00a0 Obligations I can fulfill that will arise soon after I get back.\u00a0 Notifying the neighbors.\u00a0 The police.\u00a0 Tickets.\u00a0 Reservations.\u00a0 Car rental.\u00a0 Those are done or have a schedule.\u00a0 At some point the attachment to this weather, this season, this place and its changes over the next four weeks will slip their knots and come unmoored.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
There is not only release.\u00a0 There is also memory and anticipation.\u00a0 That first night in Hawai’i, spent, improbably, at the Hawai’i Prince Hotel in Honolulu due to a late arriving flight from the mainland.\u00a0 The curious Japanese appointments in the room.\u00a0 Looking out that first morning to Waikiki beach.\u00a0 The blue stretching away and away while white rollers hit a sandy beach. The palm trees.\u00a0 All so other to a transplanted northerner.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Exercise at 5AM, taking advantage of the cool before day break, walking on the wet beach sand, packed and unyielding.\u00a0 Salt spray, ozone and suntan lotion, coconut oil still redolent from yesterday’s sun worshippers at their ritual obesiance.\u00a0 Passing hotel after hotel, lounges closed, beach chairs chained together, patio cafe chairs turned up on their tables.\u00a0 Onto to the common sidewalk, sweating.\u00a0 The sun rays striking the\u00a0apex of the sky long before light, as if Lady Liberty lifted her crown just behind the ancient volcanoes of Maui.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hikes up Haleakala.\u00a0 One night up there well before sunrise with crescent moon low in the sky, breaking clouds scudding over its face.\u00a0 The cold.<\/p>\n
Dinners at Mama’s Fish House.\u00a0 Ti leaves with rice and banana.\u00a0 Fish caught that day, the fisherman’s name on the menu.\u00a0 The windsurfers in their colorful rigs tempting fate on the\u00a0sharp rocks.<\/p>\n
Two times, both on Kauai, where I’ll spend two weeks this trip.\u00a0 On a trail in the Waimea Canyon State Park.\u00a0 I followed a trail, noticed it thinned out and got narrow, but I felt I could handle it.\u00a0 Then, the rock and sand giving way, my hand grappling with a root, below me a 900 foot drop to a rocky canyon floor.\u00a0\u00a0 It was not the trail.\u00a0 I had missed it.<\/p>\n
The other time, on the Kalalau trail that winds along the Napali Coast.\u00a0 Steep, rugged.\u00a0 Up and down with slick rocks.\u00a0 I explored a bit, going back up one canyon all the way to the wall, where the waterfall dropped from the canyon rim–the same distance I would have fallen–and splashed into a pool of water.\u00a0 On the way back, I’d been on the trail 5 or 6 hours, I sat down, exhausted, drinking.\u00a0 “Are you o.k.?” a kind woman asked, “I thought you might be having a heart attack.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Papaya.\u00a0 The sunrise and the sunset.\u00a0 Gentle winds.\u00a0 A temperature\u00a0which fits\u00a0the human body.\u00a0 More, so many more.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
All these memories begin to wend their way across the ocean, over the mountains and plains to ensare me as I sit here in the middle of the North American Continent waiting for the plane.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
-2\u00a0 52%\u00a0 21%\u00a0 7mph WNW bar29.58 steady\u00a0 windchill-9 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Crescent of the Winter Moon I have passed into that curious liminal state before a longer trip.\u00a0 The threads that hold me here release, one at a time.\u00a0 Newspaper.\u00a0 Mail.\u00a0 Obligations at the Art Institute.\u00a0 Dogs.\u00a0 Obligations I can fulfill that will arise soon after … Continue reading Blue Stretching Away and Away<\/span>