On Shifting and Sloughing and Rowing

What’s that thing? I said.

O, that’s an oar, he said,

in case we hit a calm stretch & we decide

we need more excitement

-Brian Andres, from his collection Mostly True

A gecko’s been hanging out in my kitchen lately. He seems partial to the area nearest the coffeemaker. I don’t blame him. He appears to be molting, in the process of sloughing off his old skin for new. Most of his body seems to have already shed. His tail is still in process.

I’ve been surrounded by a lot of endings of late. 2011 - the year - for one. Dear friends’ relationships have recently closed chapters, or epilogues, or sequels. H, in her most recent Heffalump musings, commemorated the 20-year anniversary last Monday of our father’s death by wanting, once and for all, to bid farewell to the longings for what ­could have been; she’s building a beautiful cupboard in her mind for all the colorful, good memories and all that longing, too. I asked her if I could build one in my mind, as well. She said of course. So I will.

The winds here on Maui, though they have not ended, have changed. Kona winds are blowing from the south meaning that everything around me is blowing in a different direction. Palm fronds wave this way, not that. Bushes and shrubs stretch this way, not that. The grasses, too, sway in reverse. It’s discombobulating, yet inspiriting to have my surroundings shift.

Some evenings at twilight, Petey and I walk the nearby beach. Usually the planes take-off above my head appearing suddenly from behind the trees with a roar before heading steeply up into the clouds. But these days, they land toward this side of the island instead. I can see them coming, at first just a pinprick of light; then a beam growing wider as the silhouette looms close until, loudly, they swoop down over this wild, narrow strip of sand. Even sound has changed with the wind, amplifying the jets, the traffic, the rain.

But before the winds shifted and sound was magnified, all was quiet. My mind, my heart, my home.

The week between Christmas and New Year’s, I flew to California to see a man, the same man of this summer’s and fall's playing and being and loving. I thought we might be beginning a new chapter. And I suppose we did, just not together.

As I flew back across hours of the Pacific, as I walked back into my home in Maui and stood in the kitchen waiting for…something…there was only silence.

In the silence, I charged forth. I chopped bright orange carrots into rounds and grated frozen ginger for a soup. I swam, carried my yoga mat back into class, went paddling and visited with the turtles. All around me, the Kindergartners dyed macaroni and strung patterned necklaces. They oohed and ahhed in delight as our caterpillars grew and ate and pooped (OOOH! AAAHH!) on the milkweed plants. My friend’s baby turned one and there was cake and mingling and chatting at the party. Even as the pundits hashed and thrashed about on the news, there was somehow quiet all around me. Quiet and space.

Two weeks into my charging forth, my wheels fell off – as a dear friend calls it - and I collapsed into bed for days with fever, flu, cold. I gave in until I felt better.

Me and the geicko. Side by side. Watching the wind. Sitting in the quiet. Adjusting. Molting.

Oar in hand, just in case.

You may not be able to control the winds of change, but you certainly can adjust the sails.

-Lani & Pomei Weigert, TedXMaui 2012 presenters