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We (ok, I) have long been fascinated with extremes. The biggest, smallest, fastest, rarest, highest – if the word ends in “est” I’m there. You can imagine my juvenile glee when I saw my very first capybara at the Honolulu Zoo. A rodent the size of a medium sized dog, the capybara positively *lumbers* its way across the savannah. Rodents should dart or scurry, not lumber. I mean this thing looks like it has *hooves* for feet. My research says the largest capybara captured weighed in at just over 200 pounds, which means either my earlier “medium sized dog” comparison was laughably inadequate, or capybara molecules are composed entirely of lead. I have also not ruled out the possibility that the capybara is an alien lifeform, but even then I’ll bet it’s the biggest rodent on Mars.

The word of the day is “Ruckus”. It is a word you don’t see in print that often, and so it is lodged deep down in the word part of the brain; The Fissure of Letters. It also sounds a little feisty and hints at self-reference. Don’t tease the ruckus and be sure to lock the gate behind you.

We call it our moon because it circles our planet, yet the notion of ownership is at once both misplaced and hopeful. Our species has visited and will walk its dusty surface once again, but for now it remains a source of wonder and pride. We can surely feel it there above us and from its presence derive a sense of our place; here and now and far away. We write poems of love and longing, pen songs of the past and future and mark our calendars against its phases. The tides themselves dance to her circadian song. Seeing an amber moon large and low in the evening sky allows us to dream in that way we do when something new appears, something outside the common geometry of our days. Look at me she says, out there beyond the sky.

The Earth rings like a bell when a major earthquake strikes.  The night sky is turned to sudden day by an electromagnetic storm.  Entire solar systems are but dots on some galactic arm whirling through the cosmos.  The big stuff commands our attention no doubt, but small things can wrought big change as well, much like a trickle of water can, given enough time, create a canyon deep and wide.  I have always looked at insect metamorphosis as one of those small things that show us how things work. It is a masterpiece of evolution, if you believe in evolution; and if you don’t then it is merely a masterpiece. That a caterpillar can seal itself inside a cocoon and emerge transformed into a wholly different being is a completely unexpected and remarkable outcome. We can watch a frog grow from a tadpole but that conversion takes place in plain sight so to speak, and while it remains amazing it is at least understandable. The caterpillar locks itself away, and like an insect version of Harry Houdini appears later changed utterly as if by magic. And this is not some cheap parlor trick done with ropes, pulleys and mirrors, but actual transformation — as if Houdini, placed shackled in his sealed box, were to spring forth as a ring-tailed lemur, the man forever replaced. In the world of insects this conversion is quite common and likely evolved as a highly practical survival strategy. Metamorphosis places the young and adult versions of the same creature into different worlds, worlds that do not compete with one another. Imagine the amazingly complex interplay of events necessary to create this process over the eons.  Some might be tempted to point to a higher being and say this proves the existence of God. But I find the science and the subsequent search for truth far more compelling than the guiding hand of a supreme being.  But that’s just me.

It looks erratic this flight
Translucent wings trace the air
Destination a red dot
On a random map;
Gestures lost in cuneiform antiquity.

Mere observation fails
To reveal her obscurity
Beckoning in hidden frequencies
Amid the grace of Nature’s waltz;
Whirling gestures mark
A grand and timeless dance
Begun before we knew;
The start of all we see
Among the urgent flowers
And their dusty magic.

They come and go tirelessly
And give and take and give,
Each fitting like a puzzle piece;
A kaleidoscope of intricacies
Which we do not own but borrow, 
Out there in the secret world
Where all is made.

I am waiting for Spring, for the sun to warm the earth and melt the snow. I take out my baseball glove from the closet, nestled down there among the winter boots. It has been waiting patiently, pensive and oiled, holding a baseball in the pocket and tied with a rubber band. This bit of tradition may or may not make me a better fielder, but it is one of the rites of spring that we dare not defy. Baseball demands it of us.

Opening Day and all things are possible!  The players take a field of green grass under an incandescent blue sky.  All around the air hums with the uniquely busy sounds of baseball.  I am playing center field this day when my buddy Parker comes up to bat. He is clearly the best player on the opposing team and a dangerous hitter. He swings and I see the ball rising toward me and I know he has crushed one. I turn and race back into deep right center. After what seems like an eternity the ball arcs down and I am there with my well-oiled mitt. On the way back to the dugout I pass Parker on the infield. He says, “nice catch”. While hard times surely wait in the unknowable future, on this day all is right in the world.  It don’t get no better than that.

Some feel the game of baseball, with its long pauses and elaborate strategies is too slow for the modern psyche; so hard, impatient and driven by the clock.  Baseball seems a game lifted wholesale from those old black and white film reels, played by men gone gray in the flickering light. But when you put on that glove and take the field, you glimpse a simpler time and share a moment across generations.

Nice catch.

Over the years I have become wary of certain foods, number one among them the lowly clam. And no, do not attempt to confuse the issue with a discussion of oysters which, as far as I concerned arrived on planet Earth at roughly the same time as clams, both fleeing justice at the hands and tentacles of Glup, high wizard of the Martian warrior clan.

Some early earthlings popped open the shell of one of these alien intruders and ATE the
insides, likely making that horrendous slurping noise which today we call The Most Horrible Sound In All The World. The Martians fled in terror.  Thanks a LOT Glub; perhaps we’ll send you avocados or goat cheese and see how you like THEM apples. Please ignore the tortured metaphors.

But inside a bowl of New England Clam Chowdah the spineless mollusk undergoes an amazing transformation — from guck to glorious. I do not question such things but merely accept this universal gift from the Glubster, who is clearly one wicked smaht Martian.

In Hawaii it is customary to take off one’s shoes before entering the home. It is a sign of respect and most likely a tradition carried over from Japan during the years of early immigration. It is not uncommon to see rows of rubber slippers by the front door of homes in Hawaii.

I used to buy the cheapest kind of “rubbah slippah” available, usually the 99 cent specials.  These might last several years during which time the rubber would become deeply imprinted with the shape of the bottom of my foot. You received added karma from the Hawaiian gods by sporting nut brown feet with slipper tan lines. If God had intended us to wear shoes, I am sure these worn slippers came close to divine podiatry, stigmata included.

I am nothing if not a creature of habit, so once in a while I would violate dress code and wear slippers to the office in Honolulu. Of course I always kept a pair of actual shoes and socks in my lower desk drawer should the boss call. I wonder if my career subsequently suffered from such behavior, but the trade-off may have been worth it.

One of my professors in graduate school used to make his own slippers from old pieces of truck tire he would find on the side of the road. I still think of him now and then, the ultimate recycling man, a hero in Michelin feet.

Off the southern tip of South Korea lies the island of Jeju-Do.  It is a favorite tourist destination in Northern Asia and in my view one of those “undiscovered” places, so says Mr Paradox.  Once I watched women divers bringing up sea urchins in small buoyed net bags and place them on the rocks. These divers are the haenyo and have carried on this tradition for generations. They really dive for all types of shellfish, but on this day it was mostly spiny black sea urchins.  I watch in queasy fascination as they cracked open the hard shell, scooped out the insides (uni), dipped it into hot sauce and ate them then and there. Those with more sophisticated palates  than mine will understand that eating these puppies raw is the ONLY way to eat uni.  What does raw uni taste like?  Call me a coward, but I have no idea.

We have all noticed it on warm still days. The wind begins to pick up and the sky darkens in the distance. I imagine the plants and animals of the earth sense it long before we do, receptors feeling the pressure change as a whisper in secret code; a language we lost long ago. The rolling brown fields patiently ready themselves and await the thunder, the lightning and the soaking rain, accepting this bargain in stoic anticipation. The trees bend and dance, intoning their ancient hymns and accepting their role as keepers of life on Earth.

As a youth in Hawaii I used to run marathons, and whilst training I would often get caught outside in the weather, miles from home. There is something primal in that, a way to be part of the world sometimes forbidden by our cloistered civilization.. We are sixty percent water and our blood races with an inner sea, yet we avoid the rain as if pushed by invisible forces on opposite poles.

But when I was out there running —  tired and hot — and the rains came down hard and cool and clear, I would sometimes shout in pure joy at the roiling sky; arms upraised in solitary celebration, alive within the storm.

I am here, I am here. We are here.