Stowaway

Someone snuck back with me on my return to Maui. I had spent a week in Minnesota visiting family and then two days in Portland before packing up some more of my storage space and flying back home, to Maui.

My bags were heavy. I had weighed them several times before getting to the airport to make sure they were under the allotted 50 pounds. They made the cut, barely. I had them jam packed with clothes, books, camping accoutrements and other "precious" personal items. Oh, the things we carry.

I checked the bags at the airport in Portland and then 8 hours later the bags and I found ourselves in the Kahului terminal. I waited for them as they made their rounds about the carousel. As I hoisted them off the rotating belt I noticed that they had become heavier during their travels. "What did I put in here?" I thought. "What have I brought back with me that has such weight?"

This morning I figured it out. It was 4 am when she woke me up. It was quiet except for the rain and the subtle Maui wind bouncing off the walls of our compound. Her presence started as a whisper in the dark room and then grew louder as I began to take notice.

I don't know how she made it into my luggage without me noticing. She must have squeezed in between my sleeping bag and my favorite Jane Austen novel. Or maybe she had wrapped herself around that painting of Summer Rain or slipped into the pockets of the jeans I could not live without. Whatever way she managed it I will never know. Somehow she made it over the vast infinity of ocean and now she was in my room. There she was, my little stowaway. Myself.

Myself sat on the edge of the bed and had me tossing and turning, trying to ignore her. It took about an hour before I actually validated her presence and confronted her. "What are you doing here?" I asked. "I thought I left you on the mainland." She just sat there and smiled at me.

I tried to reason with her. "I have a new life now. I am a new person. I am different. I don't need you and all your baggage around crowding in on my new experiences."
She was not moved.
I began to get angry with her. "Why did you have to come? You always mess everything up with all your past memories and your worries and your fears. Get out of here. I am trying to sleep for crying out loud."
She continued to smile, waiting for me to move through the necessary steps towards acceptance. I attempted bargaining; "Ok, fine. You can hang out here for a little bit but then you better get back on a flight to PDX. Or at least go hide in the closet so I don't have to look at you."
I finally gave up and became a little depressed. I came all this way, I thought. I have worked so hard to restart my life here only to find that somehow I brought my old self along for the ride.

I got out of bed and made myself a cup of coffee. I sat outside to watch the sun light up the banana trees. The wind grew stronger against my face and I closed my eyes. I felt my bare feet on the dirty ground and listened as the traffic on the street became louder.

They have a saying on Maui that "Two's are Hard." For those of us who move over from the mainland the "two's" are the developmental levels that you move through. Kind of like a real life Super Mario Game. Each Level is marked in intervals of "two's". After two weeks on Maui you get a little antsy thinking about all you have left behind. Two months is the next milestone. This is when you start to realize the reality of living so far away from everyone and everything you know. Two years is the next hurdle which I have heard is when most people cash in their chips and go back to wherever they came from. I am at the second level. The vacation is over. The reality is setting in. This is where I live.

I think I making my way through level two. This is my reality. Life on Maui. It means sunny days that heat up your core, oceans that rock you to sleep, and Kodak moments every weekend. But this reality comes at a price. It means no walks with my dad every week. It means no more burgers and beers with my brothers on Wednesday nights. It means no more coffee in the morning with my step mom and no more nights of Chardonnay drinking with my mom. It means that I can not be there with my sister as she tries on wedding dresses. It means being absent from all the life that happens in those in-between moments and there is no suitcase big enough in which I could pack up those truly precious things.

There is a cost to living in paradise than can never be balanced or justified. For those who choose to make this their home they must come to terms with this reality and I think that's the message Myself was bringing home.

"We really live here?" Myself asked. "We really live so far away?"
"Yes," I replied. "I guess its official, now that you are here. This is where we live."
"Wow," she said in wonder. "Thanks for bringing me along for the adventure."
"Did I have a choice?"
"Not really. I would have snuck over one way or another," she smirked, "but I thought coming over in your baggage was a good metaphor."

Maui Feet

Beware the feet of Maui. I have never seen such a mess of cuts, sores, scaling skin, flaking flesh and devastatingly dirty tootsies in my life. I thought Africa was bad what with the worms that grew under your toe nails but this is even worse. Everyday there is a new catastrophe. Maybe you hit your foot into coral or the fin of your surfboard cut a chick out of your ankle. You may even have the unfortunate experience of running into some Vana (Sea Urchin) with spikey black pokes that gouge into your skin and the only thing you can do is pee on it for some relief.

That is the worst of it. There are more day to day difficulties that the foot must face. For one, the feet are rarely shod. I mean, not wearing shoes is almost an art form here. I know that on the weekends I try my hardest to wear shoes the least amount of time possible. On barefoot hikes the souls of your feet burn on the hot rocks and get sacrificed to the bamboo covered ground. You yearn to find a deep dark puddle to let the them rest in. This ends up in some pretty dirty dogs by Monday morning.


During the week when I am wearing "Shoes", if you can call them that, it's not much better. The flip flops, sandals, slippers, provide me easy in and out access (you always have to take yours shoes off before you enter a home) but not much protection from rocks and dirt and bugs.

Though my feet may complain I have to say I love this shoe-free life. I love seeing the old tootsies jumping from one hot burning rock to another. I love the feel of the cold tile at the Safeway Store. I love feeling the moss under foot as I try to climb up a ledge. And what I love most is the monthly pedicure in town complete with massage and nail art. Behind their friendly Tahitian faces the look of horror as they raise my battered souls into the light is priceless.


I would be embarrassed if I wasn't so proud. What amazing things our feet are.

The Kuau Compound

My postal address may say I live in Paia (Pie-e-ah) but my physical location is actually Kuau (Koo-ow). I live "ocean-side" Kuau which does not necessarily mean there is an ocean outside my bedroom as I previously day dreamed. It means that from my house, if I stand on my toes, I can see the ocean. It also means that there are no roosters. For some reason the chickens do not cross the road here in Kuau and have left us in peace.

Someone told me that Kuau means cemetery which would make sense since there is several within walking distance. This fact does not deflect my love for my little home town. Kuau is full of wonder and beauty. It contains two of my fave beaches within walking distance and has a market that is no more that ten steps from my home and has the best Spam Musubi (Spam, rice, seaweed= deliciousness) and other necessities (beer, wine, York peppermint patties).
But the Kuau mart and the beaches are not the main reason why I love Kuau. I love Kuau because of the compound that I live in. Our compound is comprised of three homes connected by a yard and patio which contains the barbecue, and a table and a constantly shifting cast of characters. People come and go quickly here in the Kuau compound and familial bonds are formed fast.

Included but not limited to the cast are as follows:

Chuck "Chuckles" is our resident care taker and inspires us to new gardening feats. He is almost the father of the compound and has grown used to ordering us around. This does not bother us as it is good natured and encourages us to take care of our budding plants. Chuckles also has unique talents in the kitchen. Thai Food Tuesday's is quite possibly the best day of the week besides Aloha Friday. On Tuesday evenings you can find my roommate Ann and I creeping around the compound looking for any handouts of Chuck's culinary delights. I now have insane cravings for Hawaiian Peppers followed my coconut soup and sticky rice. Out of this world I tell you!

Living with Chuckles is Matt who is the most mysterious character. He mainly keeps to himself but has impressed us with his uncanny Rubix Cube skills. I have not decided if Matt is a highly evolved creature on the brink of Buddha status or a man plotting to take over the world. Time will only tell.

Across the way is Kyle and his girlfriend Emily. Kyle likes to play with the community cat, Nina, who ends up attacking him and leaving him scarred. Kyle always has something interesting going on in his life (a few broken ribs, a new tattoo, a fight with the roommate) and will pop over and fill us in on the drama which provides much needed entertainment as we do not have cable.

Nina is the cat who does not like me and therefore I stare at her with mean looks and try to ignore her. Eventually I will crack and try to pet her but she immediately runs away. I hate that cat. But I love her too. It's a love-hate relationship. Mostly the latter at this point.
Emily is Kyle's girlfriend and is one of those girls that is about as nice as you can get. She likes to drink wine and dance and so basically I love her. She is someone you could talk to for hours and feel like you are only getting started. Kyle and Emily are threatening to leave the compound in search of a home off of the Hana Highway (it gets pretty noisy). I have been thwarting their plans by casting spells to deter them from finding any further housing. Not really, but I am thinking about it.

So that is the main cast of folks. In addition to them we have more sideline characters. There is Zack, the scuba instructor who comes for Tuesday night Thai food. He has very blond hair and makes a lot of jokes that I don't understand. I laugh anyways because other people do and maybe it is just a matter of time before they start making sense.

There are also friends who come and go. From the compound we can walk down to Mama's Beach and share some beers and languish in the moonbeams.

Other people rotate in quickly and make lasting impressions on us. Odie, who moved out recently to live in his Holy Van (a van full of holes), left us with a wide variety of books from "The Power of Now" to "Deduct It! (Lower your small business taxes)." Odie is an odd character that almost needs an additional post in order to explain.

Also there was Avery "Avery-son" who made us food and caught us Tako from the sea. He is joining the Navy now and a part of me feels like I am loosing my little brother. I am quite sad about this.

And then of course there are my roommates. I would say that I adore my roommates but it would be an understatement. Ann wakes up every morning with a smile on her face. I don't know how she does it but it makes me so happy. She and I often sit in the compound and stare at our wonderful world until one of us will say "I love my life!" and then the other will say "I love my life too!"

Our other roommate Lindsay is someone we immediately connected with. She is all the things you would want in a friend/roommate plus she is very pretty and kills bugs, to boot. She goes out into the jungle during the week and does things to keep Hawaii beautiful. Her boyfriend Adam also does this, yet often from the sky. Lindsay and Adam return from their week out in the field with stories of plant infestation and helicopter rides. I am insanely jealous of them.

These are the people that make up my little Kuau family. I hope you can get a flavor for why I love the compound and why I put up with the highway noise.

I love waking up in the morning and going out with my coffee to see how the garden is progressing. Kyle will be tickling the cat and getting maimed, Chuck will pop up with a friendly smile and a reminder to water the plants before I go to work and I will watch the sun get higher in the sky and stand on the tip of my toes to see if the ocean is still there.
And it always is.

Learning to Surf: Part II

There are few things that I will wake up at 4:30 in the morning for. Included in these are:

1.) Alien Species landing on my front lawn
2.) Tsunami
3.) Earthquake
4.) To go pee (maybe)

Newly added to the list is surfing. This surprises me. Why would a sane person wake up before the sun to jump into cold water filled with dangerous sharks, coral and stinging jellyfish and then get thrashed about in the water, arms aching from mad paddling?

My only conclusion is that I am not sane. Or there could be more to it.

Surfing in the morning means jumping into the smooth silk ocean before the winds have come up. Sitting on top of my surfboard the sun rises behind the mountains and slowly begins to land itself on my goose flesh skin as I jump on my first wave. As I glide above the water I can look down into the blue sea and watch the coral go skating by underneath me.

Those are great moments. But they are few and far between. It was John Lennon who said "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." I think life is what happens while you're waiting for the next wave.

The act of watching the horizon and sitting in the moment, relaxed but attentive, focused on an ever changing organic mass of thriving energy, is possibly the most healing and connecting thing I can do for myself.

One day I sat there, catching a few waves and then coming back to sit, and I realized I had thought of nothing other than the ocean and the water for the past hour. My mind had gone nearly blank until the thought that I hadn't been thinking popped up.

For those of you who know me well you are well aware that my mind is like a battlefield for analytical warfare where Freud, Jung, and other philosophers engage in a dynamic game of explaining the world and my place in it. These great minds command my attention all day and all night and use so much of my energy trying to make cognitive sense of the world that I often miss out on actually experiencing it.

Surfing is my tool that helps assuage those voices for a brief time. And the satisfaction, the peace and serenity that comes from those in-between-wave moments is better that any extra hour of sleep.

Paddling on...