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Life in Hawaii is defined by outdoor activities if for no other reason than the year round near perfect weather. The sun and air *call* to you, asking if you can come out and play. I can recall going to class at the University of Hawaii Manoa, and being completely distracted by the insistent day just beyond the glass and the siren call of the beach. And it didn’t help when the instructor, wearing shades and swim trucks, informed the class that surf was up and there was a perfect wave out there with his name on it. Later, dudes.

I never got into the world of surfing, choosing instead the solitary life of the long-distance runner, well, maybe not so solitary in a place where it seems *everyone* runs. I remember once doing a training run in the early morning, moving along at what I thought was a good pace, when I hear footsteps coming up fast behind me. I move over expecting to have my wheels blown off by one of the seriously athletic runners in the neighborhood.  Imagine my surprise when this little elderly lady sprints on by me, gray hair tied in a ponytail. She is I guess in her 60’s — maybe older hard to say — and mind you I am in my early 30’s training for the Honolulu Marathon. At first this is disheartening, to be so easily put in one’s place, but upon reflection that was amazingly impressive now that I am her age with a back that makes running impossible.

Back then I was living in a part of Oahu called Hawaii Kai, and worked all the way over on the other side of the Honolulu at Ft Shafter. Two or three times a week I would get dropped off after work in the middle of town, and run the 8 miles home eastbound on Kalanianaole Highway.  I figured I could get my training runs in and simultaneously use my feet for transportation. Given the level of traffic on that highway I could almost make it home as fast as the creeping cars. I realize now that it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to be running for an hour next to a busy road, but too late now, huh?

Anyway, I did end up running my one and only Honolulu Marathon that year, finishing in just over four and a half hours. All these years later I remember being surprised that so many folks came out of their homes and lined the entire 26-mile route, cheering on friends and strangers, running in the sun and wind.

There are some lifeforms that have become so associated with certain locales that it is almost impossible to separate the name from the place. Spanish moss is forever linked to the American south and the Gothic stories and ghostly histories therein. For me the image of Spanish moss hanging from a live oak or cypress trees brings back memories of the brief time I spent in Columbia, South Carolina and Savannah Georgia.

Despite its name it is not a form of moss at all but is actually a flowering plant.  It takes its nutrients directly from the air and rain and needs neither root nor soil.  Thus, Spanish-moss has escaped the bounds of gravity to live in the trees above us, casting withering glances at the earth below, light filtering through its filigree like a delicate, arboreal curtain. Whereas we came down from the trees to find our way among the high grasses of the Serengeti, Spanish-moss has taken the opposite route and found its place high in those same branches; balanced, tenacious, adaptive.

You hear your voice
Rolling in like thunder
The sound returning home
Like that cat you thought lost
Appearing at your door
Looking innocent and bereaved.

You shout to the sky
and it comes back to you
Bouncing off the horizon
Like a distant bell saying
That you exist
And not a static piece
Wearily playing some regal game.

Memory can be like that echo
At once a real thing
Yet also a dream half-remembered
In the misty morning;
Wondering if lessons learned
Settle in for the winter
The second time around.

There is poetry there in the gleaming diamonds of the morning. The water has seemingly appeared overnight and clings to each green leaf, solitary drops reflecting a whole world within.

There is science here too, no less beautiful in a different kind of way. The organization, the cause, the effect. It is not magic or a miracle, yet it remains magical and miraculous, the way all the parts play their role every time the curtain goes up and the lights come on.

And what of memory?  Each of us can look back on a time when the morning dew connected us to life and time and all that. When I was six my mother would chase me across the grass in a game we would play now and then. A lifetime later I still run and hope she catches me, and one day perhaps she will.

If the dew were aware of itself and us and all these gifts, I wonder if it would be filled with a sense of pride. I think no, ego and vanity are the coin of our realm and no other. Instead I believe the morning dew simply smiles and waits for the warming sun, content in the knowledge of being part of the poetry, the science and the memories; to be out there on the emerald fields watching the world come and go.  Pride enough in that.

Because my father grew up in Connecticut and my mom’s family is from Rhode Island, I have retained a certain genetic connection to the food of New England. I can remember my mom using the hand grinder to press out potatoes and corned beef to make corned beef hash. And sometimes Pop would use the same hand grinder and make potato cakes to be fried on the griddle. The hand grinder was the all-purpose kitchen utensil, sort of like our microwave today without, you know, electricity.

But there was this one combination of foods that was my favorite. Boston baked beans, cut up hot dogs and brown bread. And when I say “brown bread” I mean the kind that came in a can, made with molasses and cut with string ties. Getting your bread from a can might sound strange to folks who live on planet Earth, but it made perfect sense to us with our tentacles and leathery wings.

The B&M company still makes the baked beans and the brown bread so there is an opportunity to recreate childhood memories, often a
good thing to do.

Landing on the tarmac is a good thing and sure beats an open field. Standing on the tarmac can be a bit daunting, with this great expanse of hard surface stretching off in all directions. I mean you can head off in any direction and it’s all too uniform to matter.  The word tarmac sounds hard and flat, one of those words that points to itself and says “see?” A cheeky little word and a bit too full of itself in my opinion, but a valuable little soldier nonetheless.

 

We recently made the move to simplify our connected world. Many years ago we used our telephone lines to send and receive data, converting the analog signals to digital computer dots through something called a modem. The modem would connect to other modems and negotiate their conversation through a screechy grinding sound not found in nature.

We began at 1200 “baud” – or bits per second – and advanced over time to 9600 baud and we were happy in our baudy realm. Computers evolved and became phones and tablets, data exploded and became googlefied, leading to the need for faster and faster networks in a kind of leapfrogging race with no end.  And we followed along, moving from telephone modem to cable modem.

Last week I had a field service team from a large telecommunications company come by the house and connect us to the larger world with a single fiber optic line and new kind of converter which converts light in fiber to digital data on the copper wiring in our house. He tested the signal strength coming into the house and uttered the words I have longed to hear. “You have good light”, he said.

We are now tethered to the wider world by this slender optical thread anchoring our virtual lives. It is pretty amazing stuff, an outcome of science and engineering made real before our eyes. Instead of 9600 bits per second the fiber sends and receives at one BILLION bits per second or 100,000 times faster. Finally, we have good light — and if there is screeching it is happening at a frequency beyond our senses.

Perhaps the angels can hear it and are wondering what we are up to now.

I guess growing up back in the 50’s meant that we were somehow immune to all the things out there that would do us harm. We would drink from the water hose and sometimes even an underground spring if it seemed clear and wasn’t surrounded by mounds of dead animals. We would eat Spam and Scrapple and other meat-like products containing unknown ingredients. Hey, fry those guys up and no one’s the wiser.

But one of my favorite sandwiches was something called deviled ham, always on white bread. I am reasonably certain that deviled ham contained some ham, but after that I am at a loss.  Onion, pepper, salt, jasmine, mustard and caraway seeds are all possibilities, but at this point does it matter?  Judging from the small size of the Underwood Deviled Ham cans, I have wondered in retrospect if deviled ham was not intended to be a MEAL but a light fare prior to dining; an hors d’oeuvre or perhaps a condiment. We kids consuming piles of Wonder Bread deviled ham sandwiches might have been akin to eating an entire 12 ounce jar of shrimp cocktail, or loading up on those yummy ketchup muffins.

In any case (upper, lower, court…I could go on) I can still imagine the taste of deviled ham sandwiches lo these many years later, a testament to their unusual wonderfulness.

Natural things can have a kind of balance that is evident in motion and color and shape. Clouds racing across the sky, a stand of white birch trees glowing amongst the green, an orange moon hung like an ornament on the horizon. Humble river stones have their own presence, and if you are lucky enough to find one and feel its heft and smoothness, the balance is impossible to ignore. The stone gives up its sharp edges and hard lines to the water, and in payment is given a shape designed to fit the hand that holds it.

In the process of smoothing, the stone somehow manages to assume new and softer colors, where the striations of centuries are revealed as pastel shades of gray and blue and brown and tan. We witness the patience of physics remaking the world, ancient and true.

A few months back I was coming home, late enough in the summer to still have some light.  This was also well before the maddening ritual of “daylight savings time” compels us to dance our shifty-eyed dance around the Great Ferret under a gibbous moon to celebrate the coming of the winter equinox. OK we don’t do that last bit but at least then it would be consistent and probably make a cool movie – and by “cool” I mean straight to video under the title “Finicky Fred Ferret Finally Finds Food” to be mistakenly purchased by some parents as a children’s classic, which sadly it would not be.

Anyway, there I am coming home, driving past the land fill when I see a sight I am certain I have not seen before. There in the sky above me are dozens of black winged vultures, swirling in a great spiral no more than 200 feet off the ground. Let me take a moment here and note that the phrase “black winged vultures” contains a level of redundancy not seen since the pyramidal-shaped pyramids were constructed by plucky bands of Egyptian pyramid builders. Vultures *without* wings would be fearsome terrestrial predators lurching unevenly toward you, chopsticks clutched menacingly in cruel talons, their intentions quite clear.

OK, now where was I? Oh yes the massive black winged spiral of DEATH. It is not uncommon to see a vulture or two by the side of the road doing that thing vultures do. But this huge flock? herd? school? of vultures made no sense. I mean what were they going after, a fallen brontosaurus? I know that vultures will roost together for protection in numbers, but this massing in the sky was new to me, a sight I will not soon forget.