Curtain Down

The day I arrived back in New York City, the angels were singing. Petey arrived from United Cargo in one piece, a friend greeted us with hugs and a hand made lei, and the baggage control lady let me get my bags from the “hold” without the necessary ID. Meanwhile,  H was already at my new apartment stocking it with essentials: toilet paper, gluten-free cookies, sparkling water, flowers, wine, and a wine opener. That night, I dined on an Upper West Side rooftop with friends and family. The evening was warm with humidity at a comfortable low. All was good.

On the second day, New York kicked my ass. Actually, it was Brooklyn doing the proverbial kicking. H graciously accompanied me on my quest to Ikea to furnish my new apartment, but we didn’t get on the ferry heading to Red Hook until after 5 p.m. We should have known better. In fact, we do know better. Still, the lull of the ferry, the breeze, and the views of downtown Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty soothed us, and I was convinced we’d be in and out in two hours. Then, the ferry hit a wave (who knew we had waves) just as I was taking a picture and my new Oakley sunglasses flew into the East River. "Yup, they're in the water!" yelled a helpful passenger. I sighed. That was the beginning of the end. Flash forward to losing focus somewhere in Ikea's living room department, a painstakingly long check-out line followed by an even more painstakingly long line for Home Delivery… I couldn’t exactly lug the new headboard home by hand.

By the time we gasped for fresh air outside Ikea's exit doors, we’d missed every ferry back to Manhattan save the last one, the 9 pm. We were tired and hungry enough that H made the executive decision to abort the ferry and grab a car service. Four minutes later we were in stand still traffic, still in Brooklyn, due to Obama’s arrival into the city. Again, we aborted plans and GPSed our way to a local restaurant. Where there were no tables available. And a wait list.  Our eyes were weary. Our throats dry. Our stomachs empty. The hostess was in no hurry to seat us. I decided New York was testing me. 

When we finally placed our orders sometime around 10 pm, we proceeded to entertain ourselves with a hangman game, the phrases reflecting our roller coaster moods and ranging from 'Welcome Back' and 'Best Sister Ever' to 'I Don’t Like You' and 'Smart Ass'. Once food had arrived and the color had returned to our faces, H pondered how we had ended up trapped in Brooklyn at 11pm on a Wednesday night. In the end, H decided we should not have stepped foot on that ferry so late in the day. “We overreached,” she determined. “That’s it. We overreached.” Post dinner, we dug deep and hoofed it to the nearest subway station to take the train home. Or three trains to be exact.

But here’s the thing about New York that many non-New Yorkers don’t know. There is aloha here. It may have a gruff exterior and it may swear a blue streak at you and it may snag you in traffic, but there’s love nonetheless.

As I ran toward my second train on the commute lugging the Ikea bag full of sheets and 500 votive candles, the doors on the train cars were open. I suddenly forgot if this was the train I needed. “Does this stop at Columbus Circle?” I yelled to a young man standing the door. “Don’t know,” he muttered back as the doors started to close. But someone in the car yelled out that it did. This young guy, leaning against the wall playing with his smart phone nonchalantly, stuck out his foot, propped open the car doors and kindly called me inside with a smile.

That, in New York, is aloha.

And so, here I am, back again. It’s true that I’ve been here before. And yet, I haven’t. Some things are the same, of course. The other night, I sat on the floor of my mostly unfurnished apartment drinking beer and chatting with three dear friends. And the other night, as H and I optimistically headed downtown on that 1 train on our supposedly quick shopping trip, we sat side by side reading a New Yorker article together. That is what I’ve missed. That, and really good Indian. Delivered. And yet, of course, I've never been Here before. Who has?

Back in June, I walked into that party in Maui and...well, let's just flashback. He was the first person I saw in the small gathering.  I introduced myself. Offered my hand. He told me his name. Took my hand.  And then, we fell in love, an easy, kind love full of laughter and ease. A love now titled My Very Very Long Distance Relationship. 

Life. Funny, isn't it? 

As H mentioned in her last post, Heffalumps’ original guiding question was “How did we get here?” So, here we both are. Looking forward and asking, “Where are we going now? And, what then?” With that, On Heffalumps And Other Detours takes a final bow.

As they say in Hawaii, a hui hou. Until we meet again.

Foldin' Time

One summer, many years ago, my sister and I worked together at a seaside motel. I trust the term has evolved into something more gender-neutral, but at the time, the position posted in our town paper’s classified section was that of “chambermaid.” It paid more per hour than our previous summer jobs, and we were seeking a short term means of earning as much cash as possible for our ultimate goal: two weeks in Europe.

We had planned the trip with friends, and we were leaving in the middle of the summer. We reasoned that we could work up to the day of our departure with absolutely no intention of returning to the polyester uniforms and the icky surprises that greeted us on every shift in one room or another. Imagine our shock when my father vehemently opposed the plan to quit. We would be shirking our responsibilities halfway through a busy tourist season, he argued; it would be unfair to our employer to leave her shorthanded. He insisted that we see the job through to its Labor Day conclusion, and indeed, we celebrated our traipse across London and Paris all the more for the knowledge that August would be spent cleaning rooms.

One does not abandon one’s responsibilities.

Or does one?

Perhaps, had my father lived longer, he would have had the chance to expound upon his principles of duty and accountability. Maybe we would have had the conversation where he urged me instead to recognize when it is time to leave.

This past June, I survived my company’s lay-offs. I wish I had not. In fact, the department for which I had worked the past eight years was promptly dismantled. Within days of my boss’ early retirement, I sat in a meeting with the two people deciding my fate. I was informed that I would be removed from my office. The projects with which I had been involved were to be reassigned to other departments, outsourced, or canceled altogether. When I voiced my concerns that I was being demoted, the reply was, “Well, you are.” As I sat at my new cubicle, I was mistaken for an intern. My new supervisor asked me whether my lunch break would last thirty minutes or one hour. I gave my notice the next day.

Pulling the plug on that chapter of my life has afforded me the opportunity to see the ripple effect this change has created in and around me. In more ways than one, it is time to move on.

My sister and I began this blog with the purpose of asking “How did we get here?” but this question concerns me less than it used to. The more pressing question these days seems to be “Where are we going?”

In July 2004, I returned to New York after adventuring overseas for a year. I was unemployed and without a plan. That same summer, my sister moved back to New York after her year living in Hawaii. She was going back to her old teaching job.

In a few weeks’ time, my sister will be once again moving back to New York from Hawaii to return to her old teaching job and I am once again unemployed.

We know this time around will be so, very different. And I, for one, am eager to pose in our next blog, the next big question: “And what then?”

Beginning. Again.

 

I don’t know how to begin this piece because I don’t yet know where I am in this story. The beginnings and endings have become blurred. Perhaps, I will begin here simply for the sake of starting somewhere.

May 29^th, 2007. Late evening, the lazy summer sun just beginning to set. Ali and I met for drinks and dinner in our city neighborhood. I remember where we ate. I remember where we sat. I remember that I was seriously contemplating moving back to Maui to give that life a try. The details of our lingering conversation remain fuzzy, but I do know that by the time we said goodbye on the corner of 104^th, Ali heading into her building on the north side of the street and me into mine on the south, the night was deep and I had decided to move off my urban island. The next morning, she dropped off an 8 ½ by 11 piece of paper on which she had typed a quote by Goethe. I came across it the other day in an old journal.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (& creation) there is one elementary truth – the ignorance of which kills countless ideas of splendid plans - that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too…

Yesterday morning, a young, Hawaiian woman ground a bag of coffee for me at a local coffee shop. She had a tattoo, big, bold, swooping across and around her neck. I couldn’t quite make it out as it wrapped around. Couldn’t see the beginning or the ending – both were hidden, veiled by her long, thick, deep hair. So I asked. She told me it was the name of a wind that blows on the Big Island carrying the scent of a certain flower.

Today I live in a land of many winds.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way…

In the dawn hours of a Wednesday morning this April, I awoke to an email offering me a job back in New York City. I would spend the year with 7 and 8 year olds, exploring the Hudson River. We would build and play and investigate and question and learn and grow. Again, I would mentor new teachers. Again, I would create. I would be near H and O and friends and afternoons spent wandering through my favorite narrow West Village streets or a new exhibit at Moma. My decision was clear. I was ready to go. I called the movers for quotes. I booked a ticket back to the city to apartment hunt. I found a realtor; she started sending me listings. The New Yorker arrived in my mailbox and there, on the cover, was a drawing of a dog, a spitting image of Petey, chilling on his city stoop. It’s a sign, I thought.

Meanwhile, the island became brighter somehow. Every rainbow, every cane field sweeping yellows and greens, every grey cloud afternoon, and the ocean shifting from slate to deep green to the clearest of pale blues. I wanted to be here now so I could be there soon.  For years, I had been asking for clarity and here it was. This is what it felt like.

The school year came to an end on June first. There were hugs, leis, good wishes and then I drove down the mountain. Ready. On second night of June, I went to a new friend’s home for a small get together. Dessert. Wine. He was the first person I saw in the small gathering.  I introduced myself. Offered my hand. He told me his name. Took my hand.

If someone else were telling me this part of the story, I’d be hesitant. Skeptical. Perhaps even write it off. Even I am tempted to do so.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin. Boldness has genius, power, and magic

in it. Begin it now…

For Steph.

With love, Ali.

In the fitful, sleepless early morning hours of May 30, 2007.

Two movies play in my head. Two versions of my life that co-exist in parallel times. In one, I am walking up the stone sidewalk along Riverside Park towards school, fall leaves twisting and twirling down to the hard ground below my feet, coffee thermos in hand. Music streams from a window. The yeasty, warm smell of bagels draws me across Broadway. I breathe and my breath is visible, a cool cloud.

In the other, the setting is less clear. The cast is changing. Auditions are still underway. Perhaps the path below my feet is paved. Perhaps it is sandy. Perhaps there is a honeysweet breeze flitting past. Perhaps it is another detour. Perhaps not.

“Hallo!” said Piglet, ‘what are you doing?’

“Hunting,” said Pooh.

“Hunting what?”

“Tracking something,” said Winnie-the-Pooh very mysteriously.

“Tracking what?’ said Piglet coming closer.

“That’s just what I ask myself. I ask myself, What?”

“What do you think you’ll answer?”

“I shall have to wait until I catch up with it.”

Fred

O and I went out for dinner last night. I wanted to do something special to mark the occasion that I was not unemployed.

In April, a company-wide email announced a “reduction in workforce” that would be completed before the end of the fiscal year, June 30. Dozens of qualifying employees were offered early retirement packages. My boss was one of them; he took it.

Nine years ago, I was temping at an office that didn’t need me. I sat for hours a day minding the desk of a woman never in town, whose phone rarely rang. After several days of being paid to appreciate the close-up view of the Chrysler building across the street from where I sat, I called my agency and told them I would go stir crazy if I held this gig much longer. Soon enough, I was walking into an interview with the best boss I’ve ever had.

His office was filled from floor to ceiling with memorabilia of his life in music. Framed photos lined every shelf and all the walls. As I sat down in front of him, he said without looking up from my resume, “It’s between you and one other person, and I’m leaning towards you.” He asked me where I’d grown up. When I mentioned Rome, his eyes lit up. When was I there, he asked. As it happened, while I had been going to pre-school in my pint-sized burgundy blazer and gray skirt uniform, he had been hosting a radio show from the station he owned a few miles away. In 1976, he had been the host of the July 4th bicentennial celebration for ex-pats at the American School of Rome. My family had been there. I sat before this man whose life’s path had intersected with mine almost thirty years earlier. And here we were, again.

I got the job.

It was supposed to be a temporary assignment but three months later, I accepted a permanent position. I told myself it was for the salary, the health insurance. Just until my acting career got off the ground, I said. My boss wanted to promote me. I resisted, for fear of additional responsibility. We argued about it. At one point, he yelled, “let me give you more money!!!” to which I yelled back, “I don’t want it!!!” I got the promotion and the raise that came with it. I quit acting. He put me through a Professional Skills Certification course. I got married. Despite his having had heart surgery five days prior, his was the first face I saw as we approached the venue. He was waiting at the entrance, his camera ready.

The man who became a father figure, my mentor and a friend was now leaving, and suddenly the job I never meant to have was now the job I needed.

I found out on June 28 that my name was not on the list for the chopping block.
The next day, I walked with my boss as he headed out of the office. Bereft of the company ID no longer affixed to his shirt pocket, he stepped into the elevator, rolling his suitcase filled with the last personal contents of his desk drawers.

Our paths have crossed twice already. If it happens once more, I’ll be the luckier for it.

Daddy: A Memory

It was summer. I was seventeen. I had managed to snag my first job – the late afternoon to closing shift at a local Dunkin Donuts. I proudly donned my yellow, orange and brown donut tree dress and headed off to the neon lit rectangle on the edge of town. Our customers were primarily day-trippers leaving the Rhode Island beaches, stopping on the way out to Providence and Boston and places beyond for their ‘large, light, sweet’ and boxes full of crullers. I only remember one regular. Willy. He was a small man with greased back, wavy hair. While I managed the counter and drive-through window, he’d sit on a stool and talk with me, a naïve teenager still new to America. I didn't mind working on my own in the afternoons, but when the last steaks of sunset retreated into the  empty night, the space was too quiet. After closing, I'd lock the doors, croon along to Journey, and close down the shop. My last job was to throw out the uneaten doughnuts, dragging the garbage bags out and heaving them into the dumpster at the back of the parking lot.

My father didn’t like it. I called the manager and asked to be  put on the late shift with a co-worker. But no, if I wanted the job it was me and me alone. So I stayed. From then on, every night that I worked that shift, my father would show up just as I was closing. My tall, strong father, most comfortable in a shirt and tie, or slacks and polo – not once in my life did I see him wear a pair of jeans – my father, the spy, who made phone calls from train stations in northern Europe, my father who would leave for work in his trench coat and hat, briefcase in grip, my father the ultimate host, poised behind his bar, telling stories, pouring drinks, his thick fingers dipping into the orange, plastic bowl of salty peanuts, his deep, explosive laugh bouncing off the walls. We worked in silence, side by side. As I mopped the floors, he wiped dried icing off the display case shelves with a damp towel.  And then he’d help me haul the day’s unsold donuts out back.

With the store shut and locked, we headed home together, my car following his. Or perhaps, his car followed mine. Perhaps we drove side by side down the four-lane Route 1 through Westerly, passing JC Penny,  McDonald’s, the movie theatre, the Chinese restaurant and down towards the river, turning onto quiet, tree lined Elm Street. Number 9. Home.

(Below, After Westerly, written in 2006. Dedicated to my father.)

After Westerly

Elm Street, number 9.

The door, a new family green.

Someone else's car

parked in the drive.

The memory of my mother

perches inside on a kitchen stool,

Peter Jennings talking news,

a cocktail on the counter,

dinner on the stove.

My sister and I bounce

down carpeted stairs

to set the table,

light the candles,

pour the milk.

Upstairs, my father

pecks at the typewriter,

a green mug full of coffee cold

standing guard.

At dinner, he builds boats

out of orange rinds and toothpicks,

and sails them across the table.

Most evenings, he walks Riley,

their respite

from a house full of women.

He wears the navy blue trench coat

that I now wear,

so boxy

I can barely reach the bottom of the pockets.

After Westerly;

I think that maybe if I stand outside,

he’ll do so again, passing by

the thirty-four year old me

he’s never seen.

In the city, a photo hangs on my fridge

of my parents laughing at the end of a party,

their arms flung high,

my mother shoeless

in black stocking feet.

On Skin, and the More and Less of it.

Today was my routine six month appointment with my dermatologist. Thanks to my remarkably thorough Northern European heritage on both sides, and a hardy dose of melanoma in my family history, neither I nor my dermatologist take these meetings lightly. I cannot leave a dermatology office without a divot of skin removed. Consequently, my body now looks like the landscape of a golf course practice tee.
It started at an age when I was too young to appreciate that the mole removed from somewhere in the vicinity of my undeveloped breasts would, as my pediatrician phrased it, “not distract from the bikini” I would one day wear. These inspections continued through college, when I would come home over school break and submit to the smattering of mole removals from foot, finger, lower back. Once I became an adult with my own insurance, I approached the task of finding the right skin remover with due diligence: the office was close to mine. I could squeeze in a visit over my lunch hour.
One should not underestimate the emotional duress of undergoing a full-body scrutiny for the first time. Where there is skin, there could be skin cancer. In short, lots of nakedness is involved, and I’m the only one playing this game. The day came when I donned my birthday suit in front of Dr. Kim. We upheld all statutes of professional decorum, enduring the breast-lifting to look beneath, and the – yes, I’ll say it – cheek-spreading, to, ahem, cover all bases.
Then I moved away for a while.
When I returned to New York, by pure coincidence, my new job was in the same neighborhood and offered the same insurance. I scheduled a follow-up. In the exam room, I sat with nothing on but a flimsy paper dress tied shut with a plastic string serving as a meager nod towards dignity. I comforted myself that at least he’d seen it all before. In walked Dr. Kim.
Only.
It wasn’t the Dr. Kim who had seen my most private nooks and crannies a year earlier. It was, by sheer dumb luck, a different Dr. Kim who just happened to succeed the other Dr. Kim.
What’re the odds, I ask?
The amusement factor got me through the new once-over (so unfair), and then that asshole got married and moved to New Jersey. Next! His successor sang the praises of cosmetic enhancements. Her successor is who I saw today.
I’ve gotten over the whole naked thing. It could be that this is my fifth doctor. It could be that I’m getting too old for modesty. These days I show up, I strip to my skivvies, and she sees more of me than I do.
My laissez-faire attitude does not extend to my age. Today, I asked her about my skin care options for my aging forehead, stressing that I was going to be 39 this year. My doctor, who is as white as I am – and I make this point because there are some ethnicities for whom aging seems magically elusive – chuckled, and said, “I’m sorry to laugh, but I’m 62.”
This woman doesn’t look a day over 45. The secret of her success?
“Sunscreen.”
I understand that the Evil Rays will age me before my time. I already am that freak who will spend a day at the beach wearing a sun hat and SPF 50 while sitting under an umbrella. But this woman either has the best sunscreen known to man, or there’s a painting getting older in an attic somewhere. Regardless, my faith in all things Shade has been renewed.
I may be dragged to 39 kicking and screaming, but I’ll get there pale as a ghost and with one less wrinkle on my face. And one more divot on my body.

Taking Off.

Ten years ago this summer, I landed on Maui for the very first time. It was late and dark and I couldn't see a thing, but the air was gentle, warm, sweet.

My dear friend, Katie, and I rented the ubiquitous tourist Sebring, and drove off into the inky night, convertible top down. I had no sense of the island or lay of the land; I didn't know we were driving across the flat of Central Maui, or that our route to Lahaina was carved into the hills of the West Maui mountains. All I knew was that the sky was saturated with bright stars, the salty ocean was nearby, and it felt heavenly. I woke early the next morning from a jet-lag heavy sleep and stepped out onto the beach. Behind me, bright, green mountains stretched toward the blue sky, a light morning drizzle lending to their sparkle. In front of me, volcanic islands rose from the sea.

Yesterday, I came across a photo of that very first morning. I’m in a yellow bikini, arms raised exuberantly at the wonder surrounding me. I remember thinking that I'd had no idea this beauty existed. And, I thought, I need to be here.

So I moved here. Twice.

The first time I moved was for ten months, a delicious break from what hurt. During those delirious, free-spirited months, I steeped myself in life on a tropical island. And I lived in three different places. My first six months were spent in a clean, simple vacation rental in the lush countryside of Haiku. My view reminded me of the picture on the back of the old Cornflakes box; vast meadows, golden sun, birds in the sky. I then moved down the coast into the small neighborhood of Kuau, makai side. I lived in a tiny pale, yellow cottage where the kitchen sink doubled as the bathroom sink, and the mildew-speckled refrigerator stood outside. A black and white coral beach was a stone's throw away. When the owner decided to move back into the space, I found yet another temporary home. My final stop was a light and breeze-filled apartment atop a garage, a short, plumeria scented, bike-ride to a mile-long sandy beach. And to get to my Volleyball 101 class, I biked along the airport’s runways.

Without realizing it, with each new home, I had moved closer and closer to the airport. Six weeks later I was back in Manhattan.

This time, I’ve lived in Maui for five years. Again I’ve had three different homes. This last one, my lovely studio in Spreklesville, happens to have again landed me right beside the airport. And soon I will be taking off for New York City, a one-way ticket in hand.

People have asked me why I'd leave the beauty of this island, the perfect weather, the warm year-round sun for the grit of the city, the unpleasant smells, the horrible summer humidity. Fair questions. I wonder about those things, as well. I am not tired of the beauty, the sun, the sea, the full moon over Haleakala, the jungles full of ginger and waterfalls. No, I am not.  I can list the reasons for my move if pushed to do so. I can appeal to my, and perhaps your, logical side. But in the end, there is just a knowing that it is time to go back… for now.

From the beach by my house, I see the planes as they take off. And from the path where I run, I can see them land. I often stop and wait for the plane to touch down. I watch it take the traditional landing route, heading away from me as it crosses the island to make a giant u-turn over the south side. It glides back towards me into the head winds, easing its way down gradually until it touches the ground, roaring its arrival.

Each time, I wonder if there is someone on the plane landing for the first time. Looking out the window. Excited. Wondering what it will be like. And each time, I whisper a welcome and I wonder if - no, hope - they will experience even a little of the magic that I have.

Distance is Relative

When I met O., I was living on the Upper East Side. He lived in the East Village. Our apartments were 76 blocks from one another. By car that translates to less than 3 miles, but in terms of (fastest) public transportation, that amounted to a 5 minute walk + a bus + train + transfer + another 5 minute walk = 45 minute commute. By Manhattan neighborhood math, this is considered not close. By Manhattan standards, we had a long distance relationship.

Dating O entailed planning ahead, packing bags for the weekend, lugging around the next day’s wrinkled work clothes, gym clothes, and any other foreseen necessities. I often complained that I felt like a beast of burden. When my lease was up for renewal, O asked me to move in with him. I’m pretty certain it was largely motivated by the welcome idea that we wouldn’t have to have yet another conversation about whose turn it was to do the bag-toting.

O has lived in Manhattan all his life, most of which time has been spent below 14th Street. Whenever our conversations veers towards the notion that we one day move to a larger apartment, what we are really talking about is whether the rental rates will force us to leave Manhattan for a land far away and across a river. To Brooklyn, for instance.

This weekend, we found ourselves trying to get to Red Hook for dinner with friends – 8 miles from home. Train stations were under construction, an electrical “situation” was forcing re-routes on multiple lines. We hailed a cab. The driver wouldn’t go to Red Hook. We hailed another cab, and then spent an eternity in bumper to bumper traffic trying to get to the Brooklyn Bridge. We watched the taxi meter tick away while we made progress at the rate of an inch a minute. Our frustrations amplified as the time that we were due at our destination came and went and we hadn’t even left Manhattan.

In the middle of this, I thought of my sister in Maui and her proclaimed woes of traffic in her little North Shore town. I thought of her decision to move back to New York.

I thought of how I can’t wait to have her back here. I daydreamed: We will meet in Central Park for a run; we will window-shop in Soho; we will sip afternoon cocktails in a cozy French bistro on a lazy Sunday; we will get stuck on a train platform due to “an earlier incident,” and we will miss the start of our foreign movie at Lincoln Plaza.

I thought of these things as O and the driver volleyed directions back and forth to one another, each getting more heated with yet another wrong turn.

My sister has been living 5000 miles away from me for five years. I want her to be glad she came back. I’ll start by not making her travel to Brooklyn. At least not for a while.

April: Remembering Rwanda

It’s April in Maui. The sun is hotter, the ocean is warmer, and the whales have begun to head back to their summer homes.

In Rwanda, April is a month of mourning.

One of the first questions I am often asked when someone hears I visited two summers ago is if I felt safe. If I felt scared.

Eighteen years ago this April in Rwanda, the killings began. In the short span of one hundred days, eight hundred thousand men, women and children were killed, many by machetes. It’s hard to wrap the mind around. Before my visit, I began to read about the genocide. I wanted to understand a little of the history of this place where I was headed. I brought the books with me.

Rwanda means land of a thousand hills, and the hills ripple in the distance like a vast ocean of green. Every day for the better part of three weeks, I walked a dirt path with my colleagues. Along the way from the orphanage where we were staying to the school where we were working, the green hills dazzled as we took in our surroundings: thatched houses, children in threadbare clothes, women drumming, people carrying water, leaves, branches on their heads, sorghum piled high outside homes, laundry drying on the tips of shrubs.

As we kicked dry, red dirt up behind us, the villagers in this small, rural town would call out, Mwaramutse! Good morning! When we passed back through, they'd call out, Mwiriwe! Good afternoon! We greeted them in return, and were rewarded by smiles and laughter. Others watched us silently.

Sometimes as I walked alone in my thoughts, the only noise would be that of the women hacking away at stalks of maize with their machetes.

800,000 people. Neighbors killed neighbors. Family killed family.

Most days, our thoughts and talk revolved around daily life. Our work, the teachers and the children, our meals of boiled potatoes and tough meat, our daily habit of buying Coca Cola in glass bottles from the bare walled room of a house that doubled as a shop. In the evenings, the teenagers at the orphanage played Jenga with us and listened to 50 cent.

One night, we stopped at a gas station on our way back from a trip to the city. The electricity was out and the gas station’s shop was lit by candles. In the dark, we picked out snacks from almost empty shelves - British cookies and chocolate. Later we learned that the cost of our nighttime snack was equivalent to that of the vice principle’s monthly salary at the school. Our van continued on. As we wound round the country road towards the orphanage, someone pointed to a mine. That’s where the dead townspeople were thrown, someone said.

I stopped reading about Rwanda’s genocide when I was there. I was too immersed in the experience itself to be able to process the history. Also, I’d had a couple of bad dreams. So, instead, I read Julia Child’s My Life in France. Under the mosquito netting and by the light of a bare bulb, I read about fish fried in butter, bottles of wine, apple tarts.

Now and then, a few of those I met in Rwanda email me or find me on Facebook. They tell me about their studies, their friends. One young, women with whom I’ve stayed in touch gifted me big, brown, woven earrings when I left. She is beautiful, but also kind, one of those people whose hope and goodness seems to radiate out from within. Her Facebook pictures show her dressed up, laughing and dancing with her friends. She is in love with a young man who is away studying in New York. They see each other once a year when he returns home. She works in an office to help pay for her university studies. Her father was murdered in the genocide when she was four. He was drowned in the river.

I was afraid only once. It was night and my roommate, another teacher, and I were awoken by a flurry of voices outside our room. It sounded like a crowd gathering. She and I peered through the window shade at the shadows racing by. We crouched beneath the window and wondered what to do. And though I didn’t say it, I thought it: I’m in a country where the people killed masses of their own not so long ago.

The crowd dissipated. In the morning, we learned it had been a crowd of our own students having a welcome back party for a friend.

It’s April in Maui, and I find myself thinking of those I met two summers ago. I think of their past, their survival, and their incredible ability to live life in the present.

This past week, I was stand up paddling on a serendipitous Tuesday morning. A pod of dolphins played nearby and two swam right in front of me, their backs rising side by side from the water. At the same time, a family of humpbacks rose to the surface. My friends and I paddled quietly alongside the whales for a quarter of an hour.

Every morning

the world

is created.

- Mary Oliver, from Morning Poem

Tomorrow, you should've been here today

I studied theatre in college, but I minored in the art of procrastination. The best soul-searching letters could only be written in the wee hours before a paper was due. What better time to clean my side of the dorm room but before an exam? The little matters that were of no consequence to me all week now became the focus of my attention. It was imperative that I correct all of them before I could possibly consider the notion of beginning to study.

I understand how this happens as a young adult. We are evolving into fully-fledged selves, still exploring priorities, time management and self-discipline. But now? I’m too old for this shit. Just get it done, I tell myself. And still it sits.

This would bother me less if the object of my delay was not something I actually want to do. Take writing a blog entry, for instance. One might not guess this, based on how infrequently I post, but I’m doing this for fun. I want to contribute to it on a regular basis. In fact, I often talk to my sister about increasing the number of posts per month. The result: I haven’t posted in two months.

At work, I often force myself to create false deadlines in order to complete some inane piece of business I dread. That’s work, though, not life. This, as I type, is happening for no reason other than because I choose it. In which case, what took me so long to get around to it?

Today I am hunkering down in the heart of the procrastination beast and I want to throw stones at it. Take that!

Except.

I know why I put things off. You know why I put things off. Things feel insurmountable. I don’t know where to begin. I am afraid the end result will be a disappointment. All that work will have been for nothing. Yada yada yada.

Oh, who’s there? Fear of failure? Ah, hello there, old chum. I’ve been waiting for you. Jump in, we’re going for a ride. Destination: the next thing on my Want-To-Do list. On the way there, I’ll tell you about this idea I’ve had for a children’s story...

Taking it Bird by Bird...and Wall by Wall

My brother, who was ten at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day…he sat immobilized by the hugeness of the task at hand.

Then my father put his arm around my brother’s shoulder and said,

“Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

- excerpted from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird:

Some Instructions on Writing and Life

When H and I first lived together as adults, it was in a small two-bedroom on 104th Street on the dodgy side of Broadway. H had found the place while I was still on my personal leave from Life and immersed in the sun and natural beauty of Maui. Anticipating my rough transition from tropical paradise to urban grit, she found us a place with a balcony. It was a tar-covered balcony in the corner of the building's “courtyard”, which if you know anything about New York real estate usually translates into “elevator shaft.” We looked out on the sooty backsides of the buildings around us.

To soften the stark white walls of the apartment, I painted them. H’s bedroom was done in a Tuscan yellow, my bedroom had one green wall that I had meant to be a soothing bamboo green but turned out to be more of an alarming, bright lime, and the far wall in the shared living space was a cappuccino brown. In less than a year, we had found a brighter, bigger place to live on the prettier side of Broadway, and I was faced with the task of painting over all those walls.

I quickly unraveled. At the thought of all there was to do, I collapsed onto the couch with an outcry of the To Do List that ended with, “AND I have to repaint all the walls!” Repainting the walls became – and remains to this day - our euphemism for anything and everything that feels too big of an obstacle.

Bird by bird, H reminded me. I took it wall by wall.

Healing a bruised heart takes time. As much as I don’t want it to, it does. I thought I had found someone to love, but he wasn’t ready or available or (insert other reason here) to love me back in the same way. And so, this winter, I’ve been healing. And figuring out what's next.

And trying to write.

And eating kale. Lots of kale.

Apparently, to add insult to the injury of a bruised heart, I’m aging. This was most recently confirmed when my doctor informed me I was borderline for bone density loss. Also, according my recent mammogram, my breasts are shrinking. (Is this because I haven’t had children yet? My breasts no longer serve their purpose? Good grief!) And the skin above my kneecaps looks older. I can’t tell you exactly how, but it does.

But back to the issue of bone density loss. According to my doctor, I am not too far-gone; in fact, I can reverse the loss if I commit to eating dark greens and partake in weight bearing exercises. So I’ve been eating kale. And trying to get into handstand. And running.

Now, when people first meet me they often assume a few things. First, that I’m a vegetarian and a healthy eater. Second, that having taken yoga classes for many years translates into being a seasoned yogi who can get into a variety of poses with little trouble. And finally, that I'm a runner. I know this because new acquaintances will say, “You’re a vegetarian, aren’t you?” “You seem very healthy.” Etcetera.

It’s oh-for-three on all fronts.

Am I healthy? Healthy enough. But I’m no poster child for healthy. If you take a peak into my grocery basket, you are sure to find a box of chocolate wafers or fruit gummies or a bag of chips hidden beneath the yogurt and bananas and ubiquitous box of frozen turkey meatballs. A good friend said to me not so long ago, "You eat like a bachelor." Enough said.

Vegetarian? You should have seen the pile of ribs I ordered a few weeks ago. I asked the waiter if he recommended them. He nodded enthusiastically but warned, “That’s a big plate of meat.” And the man sitting beside me at the bar nodded in agreement, “It’s a Big Plate of Meat.” They doubted my meat-eating ability. I showed them.

As for running, I’m currently in training to run a 5K. A lot of people laugh when they hear that and scoff at the idea that a 5K needs to be trained for at all. But my brain automically translates "5K" into "marathon." And when my body hears that I’m about to run a marathon, it slowly unravels and screams, “I can’t do this! I need to eat more greens! I need to strengthen my bones. AND I have to repaint the walls!” See how it works?

I downloaded the From Couch to 5K pod cast a few weeks ago and have been running to it. Coach Laura is British and pep talks me along the way. “You might be feeling tired right now,” she counsels as my legs begin to feel like lead, “but you’ve only got 60 seconds left. Don’t give up. You’ve done this before and you can do it again.” The British accent helps.

Run by run, buddy. Run by run.

Two of my friends are also running with this program and sharing in the agony. The other day, one of my friends and I passed one another mid-run; we attempted to high-five in support, but we were apparently too tired and our high five was a near miss, a sad, soft slap of the pinkies. We mustered enough energy to chuckle and ran off slowly in opposite directions.

Last Saturday, the three of us ran our first 5K together. None of us had finished our 9-week training program, but we went for it anyway. It may only have been 3.2 miles but afterwards I felt as though I could do anything.

Do a handstand. Paint a wall. Post a blog entry. Love again.

In celebration, I baked some kale.

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

Spring Cleaning

I was on the phone with my sister a few days ago. The topic of our blog came up, and S joked wryly that we didn’t have to think too hard about the subject of our next entries. Today is the 20th anniversary of our father’s death, you see. But I rankled at her suggestion that of course we would be marking two decades of his absence. In fact, I thought, hadn’t we said plenty already about our loss? How much more was there to write about his early and sudden disappearance from our lives? We have already acknowledged how quickly our worldview changed, and how at the same time we also, unfairly, lost our mother to her grief. Our blog posts have been studded regularly with childhood memories, nostalgia for what was and ruminations of what might have been.
“I don’t want to write about it,” I said to her, warming up to my indignation, “I’m tired of it. I’m tired of wondering how different my life would have been if he hadn’t died. I’m tired of being sad at every milestone that he, once again, isn’t around for. I’m tired of spending my energy wondering about all the things we don’t and never will know about him. I don’t want to spend any more time stuck in the past.”
Quietly, my sister replied, “Maybe that’s what you should write about.”
Avoidance comes naturally to me. Maybe I’ll just play websudoku instead of writing, I think to myself. As I type this, I am cringing with discomfort. Which is how I know I have something I should probably try to express.
I want to move on.
I will never be able to say goodbye to my father. I don’t expect to move forward without taking note of what he might have thought. But I want to find a comfortable nook in my brain where I can place the feelings of sadness and loss that will never go away. I am ready to give them a space where they don’t have to rattle around and catch me off-guard.
Let me build a little cupboard in my head. No, I need to be more specific. I am picturing an antique Swedish cabinet with glass doors. It will be so pretty I will want to look at it regularly, but it will keep everything contained so things aren’t loose to roam, unwelcome. When a thought or memory pops into my head, I can put it on a shelf and shut the door. There, I’ll say, this is your home now. The funny bits and humorous pieces will live side by side with the shards of wishes and preserved regrets. It will make an amazing and beautiful assortment, worthy of the man my father was.
Maybe then, with his corner in my head newly tidied, I’ll feel freed up to look around me with a fresh, unburdened perspective and ask,”Now what?”