how lovely it is to be your guest

So this is a picture of our current dwelling, although I am always afraid to call it our home, because while we do live here, we're not the owners, we're merely caretakers, biding our time in an uncertain market as we wait to see what happens next. The house has everything we could have hoped for and more. Everything, that is, except for a two-year-lease. Instead, we are on a month-to-month, trying to to be grateful for each day and to not fret about the uncertain future.

One of the most beautiful things about this home is that it has separate guest quarters, or an Ohana. We dream of one day building a church with guest quarters so that folks from the mainland can come here and be refreshed. God is so kind, letting us live here for a time and sending a steady stream of guests so that we can begin to experience some of the realities of our dream before we take the plunge.

But the tenuousness of this home forces me to think about home in a whole new way. This is the place where we lay our heads and read stories to our kids, where we fight and make up, where we sweep and sit quietly before the icons, where I sit now with my laptop and try to make sense of things while a lentil-squash stew simmers in the crock pot. It is the place we have been given for a season, but it is not ours with a period. It is ours, with a comma, for now, as we wait and watch and hope.

Tomorrow, folks from the Mission will gather here for the Akathist of Thanksgiving, a beautiful hymn written by a Russian priest just before he died in a prison camp. One of my favorite lines is:

O Lord, how lovely it is to be Thy guest. Breeze full of scents; mountains reaching to the skies; waters like boundless mirrors, reflecting the sun's golden rays and the scudding clouds. All nature murmurs mysteriously, breathing the depth of tenderness. Birds and beasts of the forest bear the imprint of Thy love. Blessed art thou, mother earth, in thy fleeting loveliness, which wakens our yearning for happiness that will last for ever, in the land where, amid beauty that grows not old, the cry rings out: Alleluia!

We have been in Hawaii for almost a year now, and we're yet to lose the sense of being mysteriously hosted. We have been cared for in all sorts of ways that I could not have anticipated. But the deal with the house is not unlike the deal we've had to make with Hawaii and life generally. We are guests, for a time, and we do not know how long that time will be.

In the mornings, I love to open the front door and watch the sun rise over Hualalai, Hawaii's third most active volcano. There is no lava flowing now, but it is expected to erupt sometime within the next hundred years. I have heard that Hawaii is also the tsunami capital of the world, and we do have hundreds of earthquakes a week, although most are undetectable. We live on the newest land in the world, and it is, in fact, still being formed.




The lack of stability here, the fearful possibilities, and the otherworldly beauty, force a continual awakening in me. One of the newest members of our mission is also one of the oldest, pushing ninety. After his wife died this summer, he packed up and moved out here on his own. When people questioned why he would move to Hawaii so near the end of of his life, he told them that Hawaii is a wonderful place "to practice for paradise."

So as we approach Thanksgiving, I am grateful for this home that isn't really ours, but has been entrusted to us for a time, and for this island where it is so lovely to be a guest, and such a natural place to practice for life in the next.






















Glory to Thee, bringing from the depth of the earth an endless variety of colours, tastes and scents
Glory to Thee for the warmth and tenderness of the world of nature
Glory to Thee for the numberless creatures around us
Glory to Thee for the depths of Thy wisdom, the whole world a living sign of it
Glory to Thee; on my knees, I kiss the traces of Thine unseen hand
Glory to Thee, enlightening us with the clearness of eternal life
Glory to Thee for the hope of the unutterable, imperishable beauty of immortality
Glory to Thee, O God, from age to age.

homesick

Photo borrowed from Amber's flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/ambery/

So I know I need to blog again, but I've been struggling over what to write, especially because this has been a lonely month. I keep resisting the temptation to put "Jenny is lonely" for my facebook status update. I mean, how pathetic is that? But if I'm to revisit this blog, I might as well lay all my cards on the table at the outset.

October was unusual, because in a short span of time I was able to travel back to New York with my two kids and hold my godson Ike as he was baptized, visit with my mentor from seminary, and stay with my children's great-grandfather, Warren. Because we lived in New York for three years and because Anna was born there, It an was emotionally intense time.

I can't describe what it was like to hold Amber's son Ike in my arms, to gaze on the Hudson from Warren's windows, to watch the train rumble in from the City, and to drive through the autumn leaves to visit my seminary mentor with Amber. I hate to say it, but I was even kind of pleased when she got lost on the way home, except for that it was my fault, our gas tank was nearly empty and I was a little worried she wasn't going to like me anymore. Still, in my hearts of hearts, I wished we could stay lost as long as possible, because as soon as we got back to Warren's apartment, we'd have to say goodbye.

Every experience in New York was tinged with sadness. Seven years ago, from that same window overlooking the Hudson, I watched the billowing smoke rise from the Twin Towers and realized that I could never really feel safe again. In that same apartment with the gorgeous view, we began to lose John's spunky grandmother Sally as Alzheimer's took hold. All this to say, I don't want to go back and relive it all, and yet I can't help but ache for the experiences that I will never have again: Sally and Warren holding Anna the morning she was born--four generations piled into that hospital room in White Plains, or later, when Anna was a newborn and I was trying to figure out how to be a mom, the reassuring presence of Amber folding her laundry beside me, so casual, as if the mundane would always be available for us to share.


After I got back to Kona, six house guests arrived: more close friends from seminary Fr. John and Jenny Hainsworth, their three kids and our friend Heather. It is unfortunate Fr. John and Jenny stole our names and then escaped over the Canadian border, and also that they also serve an Orthodox parish on an island, but we have chosen to forgive them. My husband and Fr. John were ordained two days apart. My husband stood up with Fr. John as a deacon, and issued a most tenuous "Axios?" after Fr. Paul poked his head out of the royal doors and cued him, "Axios!"


Anyway, while they were here it was like a continual feast. We had wonderful meals, all ten of us, consumed copious amounts of coffee, and assembled at the fire pit every night after the kids were tucked in to talk story and drink wine. One night we saw a series of shooting stars, although I saw more than the others and called them bimbos, which they all seemed to appreciate.

Of course when they were here, everything seemed oddly hilarious. I'm still chuckling over their final trademark departure when Fr. John said, "Goodbye beautiful house, of course it is only beautiful because of the people who live in it," while Jenny barfed into an imaginary barf bag.

All these October encounters caused this odd emotional response in me. I hope somebody else has experienced this, because maybe they can help me understand it a little. Basically, I long for every place I have lived, every person I have come to love in each place, all at the same time. Does this happen to everyone who moves a lot? Is this some kind of scattered personality disorder?

Tonight, watching Barack Obama's acceptance speech in Grant Park, I missed Hyde Park, the neighborhood where we both lived for all those years. I wish I could have heard all the honking horns as he left his home for the park, I wish I could have watched history unfold there as all of my old neighbors undoubtedly did. Just to express the depth of my wistfulness, I actually felt a little sad for Barack that he will have to leave that unique neighborhood to take up residence at the White House. I say this because I know what it is like to leave, and how you can never have it back, no matter where you live.

I really miss living in a building from 1894, the high ceilings, the yard, the neighbors, especially Joan and Marji, Ser and Dina. I miss the seasons: the crunch of leaves under my feet, waking in the middle of the night to glimpse the first snow of the season. I even missed the steamy summers, because they helped me thaw out from the winters. And of course, I missed a lot of opportunities I didn't seize, such as a chance to trick-or-treat with Obama's family last Halloween.

Hawaii has been better than I could have hoped for in almost every way. I love the community we serve. I love walking on our windy mountain road, smelling the coffee trees and the gauva, waking to the sound of roosters and cattle and birdsong. But all this beauty doesn't make me miss people less. I think, perhaps, the openness required to experience it all only intensifies the ache, and reminds me how far I have to go to make a home here.

Perhaps, on some level, I am grieving. Almost one year into this adventure, I am finally counting the cost, looking up at the lopsided moon (we are so close to the equator here that we don't see a crescent, but a smile) and realizing how far away I am from all that I have known and from many of the people I love most.

In a new place--even a year into it--there is always the sense that you have to prove yourself. People don't know your history yet, so they watch and wait. I'm sure this is especially the case for clergy families. One of the biggest difficulties for me, silly as it sounds, is that I make a lot of jokes that people don't get--they don't even seem to realize that I'm trying to be funny. I really miss the fluidity of old friends who are always ready to receive a joke.

This ache seems to leave me with a few options: I can update my facebook status 12 times a day and check my email at least twice that, or perhaps I can begin to be present in a deeper way to the people right around me, to start to know them and to let them know me.

Anyway, the roosters are crowing, a good clue that I've been up too late already. Tomorrow my new friend Viviana will be here to help me weed. She tells me that weeding is therapeutic, that only the Japanese on this island get it right. Maybe all that weeding will help me as I struggle to put down my own roots, right here, in this volcanic soil.

tears and transfiguration

Last Wednesday morning, as I woke to the pale sun coming up over the mountains, I realized that more than 3,000 miles away, Caroline Kennedy was being buried by the people at St. Nicholas Parish in Portland. How fitting, it seemed, that Caroline's funeral would fall on the feast of the Transfiguration.

Caroline was a magnificent planner in all regards. She wore elegant hats to the services and did not neglect to coordinate them with her husband's bow ties. When she and Alex had us for tea, everything was artfully arranged--there were the crustless cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, real tea, pungent and earthy, poured from a fine tea pot into delicate china glasses that jingled on the saucers. She and Alex were gracious and warm and put us at ease. They were also pillars of the community at St. Nicholas and Caroline's death created a gap that no one else could fill.

It grieved me, that morning, to be so far away and to miss her funeral. But during those first moments of the day, when I was lingering at the edge of sleep, as I lifted my head from the pillow and saw the green mountains against the pink sky, I didn't feel so far away. I felt like I was "there" for just a few moments, an experience that is both sweet and odd and seems to occur more often around funerals.

It was also Anna's first day of first grade, which seemed another genius stroke of planning. What better day for her to start "real school"? Because it was the feast of Transfiguration, I didn't just have to remember Anna's medical forms, vaccination records, emergency supply kit--complete with flashlight, non-perishables and a family photo and note--as well as her backpack filled with her sharp new pencils, unused erasers, squeaky clean tennis shoes, socks and lunch and snacks, but, also, just as I was headed out the door with Anna and her heavy backpack, we stopped to gather our fruit into a basket: mangoes, papayas and limes.

As I drove up the winding road to the school, a teacher was waiting for me. She leaned in my window. "How are you this morning?" she said, smiling at me despite the cars behind me. She showed me where to park. Then Anna and Natalie and I walked up the hill, where the assistant principal greeted us, followed by another teacher, with a camera. "Would you like me to take a picture?" she asked.

I was glad that the teacher wanted to take a photo because Anna was not very cooperative with my attempts to capture her on film. In fact, she seemed downright embarrassed by my camera, which caught me off guard. Just a few weeks back, it I was was still pretty much the center of her universe, but that morning, I was a liability. She was ready for this and she wanted to face it on her own, without the cumbersome distractions of the mama paparazzi.

Her school is a small charter with an emphasis on project-based learning. The classrooms, which were designed and built by the teachers and parents are like small houses, dotting a lush field surrounded by Hawaiian gardens that the kids tend. Anna's room as a huge lanai for stories and cubbies, just ten feet from a gate where cows graze and moo. She's also a stone's throw from a "butterfly house" teeming with tropical flowers.

Here is Anna beside her cubby, on that first day:


The moment Anna stepped into the classroom, she was focused on the teacher, eager to see what would happen next. She didn't even glance back as I stood in the doorway with the other moms, which was a good thing, because tears were streaming down my cheeks and I couldn't do a thing about it.

Fortunately my cell phone rang. It was John, who was already at the church but had run out of wine. So I was pulled back to the feast, with all its concrete, earthy details. I rushed home for the wine and corkscrew, and then headed back up the mountain to the church.

Just a few of us were at that service, and Natalie was terribly out of sorts after seeing her sister off to school, so I was a little distracted. But by some grace I did get to hear the sermon and it was a good one. John said that Transfiguration is the day that the Glory of God shone through Christ, but only to the extent that the disciples could bear it. He said that God is so kind that way, just showing us a little bit of himself at a time so we won't fall down dead from his fierce glory. But, he said, this day is also a challenge to open ourselves a bit more, to carve out a more space each day so that we can increase our capacity to bear and reflect this light.

And then, he sprinkled holy water on our little baskets of fruit, the humble offerings of a fledgling community, picked from the imperfect trees on a small island in the middle of a vast ocean, barely visible on most globes. He reminded us that this custom comes from agricultural societies, where the farmers had been nurturing seeds for months, praying and laboring for a good crop. This was the day that the hope bore visible fruit that everyone could see and celebrate. And this year, for us, it was the day that our own first fruit started first grade, and also the day that our old friend, Caroline Kennedy was laid in the ground to await her own transfiguration.

fear of death

Natalie, at 19 months is determined to swim on her own. She fights my hold on her, kicks, flails her arms, and she imagines that she will swim just like Anna. And yet the moment I let go, she sinks. I watch her body slip just below the surface of the water, and then I grab her, and she comes up sputtering, elated, ready to try again, wriggling out of my hold.

After an hour of this, I was exhausted. I brought the kids up to the house and cooked some alphabet pasta. Then we cut open a mango and munched on some berries and yogurt. Both the kids were water weary and I knew we needed an early bedtime, but then John called from the gallery he was working at and asked if I wanted to go out to eat with some friends.

I told him no, I wasn't hungry and the kids needed an early bedtime. He told me that he was very hungry and I promised to make him some Indian food when he got home. By Indian food, I meant a package of Amy's Natural Palak Paneer. Because I buy these at Costco and he'd already had a few this week, he was none too eager for my offering.

The battery on my phone had died, so our "chat" took place on Gmail, and that last I heard from him, he had said, "I'm coming home soon." If you were to sit him down he would tell another version of the story in which he said he would be home at seven. But I digress.

Our conversation took place at 5:39. He was about 15 minutes up the mountain, so I had no reason to believe he'd be home any later than 6. But 6 came and went and he still wasn't here. I contemplated how windy and perilous those roads are. I loaded the dishwasher, folded laundry, wiped down the table and crawled around on the rug picking up small plastic beads from Anna's most recent project. It was 6:45 and John still wasn't there. I tried to remain calm, but this just didn't make sense.

I called his phone, and got a message. That fit well with my growing theory that he'd been a wreck. Of course he couldn't pick up the phone if he was unconscious. It was now seven. I decided I might as well go out on the lanai and eat his Indian food. I watched the sun set over the ocean, listened to the birds calling to each other from the palm trees and thought of how much more enjoyable the sunset would be if he was with me.

Where was he? I thought perhaps it was time to call the police, but I would have to wait for Anna to fall asleep, as she would surely be alarmed by the questions I would ask. I wondered where I should bury him--Hawaii seemed fitting, as he is blossoming here. And yet, if he were to die, why would I stay? My purpose here is tied to him. I guess I'd be wiser to box him up and ship him back to Minnesota, where we could tend the grave. It occurred to me that I would also have to update my Facebook profile, from "married" to "widow."

And then I thought of how sad it would be to tell the folks at the mission, who have waited so long for a priest, that their priest was no more. In particular I thought of an elderly woman who told me on Sunday that she is relieved that John will be able to do her husband's funeral, when the day comes. What would I tell her?

Now on the bright side of things, we could just put this whole Ph.D. business behind us. What a headache that has been! And yet, I don't want to give up any part of this life of ours, I want to be right where I am living this life, with this man--and where, or where is he?

Finally Anna called out, "Dad's here." John came up the stairs. Relief turned to rage. "Where were you?" He countered that he said he'd be home at seven, that I had said that I wasn't planning on a family meal. "But I said I would cook Indian Food for you," I said. "But I didn't want another meal out of box," he said.

Now I was seething. "The last thing I expected, when you returned from the grave, was that you would insult my cooking!"

"Next time I come back from the dead," he said, "I'll try to accentuate the positive."

And then, I heard a soft knocking at the door. I looked out the window and saw a plumeria lei hung over the rail. I opened the door, and there was our houseguest, a cave dweller from Maui. Our squabble would have to wait.

"What's with the lei?" I said. "Well, I wasn't sure you would want it, so I left it outside," he said.

"I would love a lei," I said, bringing it into our home and placing it before the icons, a fragile circle of flowers around the lampada, catching the light and holding it there.

goodbye Hyde Park

As I write, I'm surrounded by half-packed boxes of books and the chaos of our dismantled home. Where there were photos, there are only empty nails. Friends come through the house, sizing up our furniture to see what will fit in their home. Freda has been adopted out, half-used medicines left in a plastic bag outside my neighbor's door. Each time a friend comes to take something else off our hands, I am both relieved and grieved--I want all that we have to be used and loved, and yet it feels so strange that it won't be used by us. As friends struggle out the door with our sofa and bookshelves I want to call after them, "We're not dead yet."

And yet this does feel so like dying. But the death now creates a way to the new life to come. It is as inescapable as the meal-less flight and the luggage and the juggling of children and shoes and laptops at the airport security checkpoints. None of this is pleasant, yet all of it is leading toward something good.

Being back in Hyde Park has been more emotional than I expected. When I was in Kona, I could barely feel anything for this place that we'd lived for five years. I could scarcely convince myself that a place so different actually existed. When Chicago friends would send photos of the snow-covered fire escapes I would look out my own window at the blue Pacific and waving palm trees and try to remember what it was like to nest in for the winter, the hum of the radiators, sipping coffee in the glider before my icons as the snow fell outside, the windows rattling against the howling wind.

It is strange being here in all sorts of ways I could not have anticipated. First comes the realization of what we had here, as I walk with my kids and bump into friends at every turn. Dare I generalize and say that most everyone is Hyde Park is interesting? A friend here shows me her husband's office, his photos of Mars and the blue light of a nuclear reaction. She gestures casually at the blue photo, saying, "If you're familiar with Nuclear Physics, you'll know what that is."

And it was, ultimately, the engaging conversations and friendships here that kept us afloat through the challenges of the early part of John's Ph.D. program. It was a gift, also, to mother my children in this context, and coming back I realize that so many of my early memories of Anna only become available as I meander along the sidewalk here.

Yesterday Anna begged to ride her scooter to the botany pond on the University of Chicago campus. There, so many memories surfaced. We came here for a summer when I was pregnant with her, and then moved here when she was less than a year. I can see her tottering down these streets here, stopping to examine every discarded bottle top and candy wrapper, forcing me to see the world in a whole new way.

When my friend Ser was here the other week, she said something that expressed some of what I felt on my bittersweet return to Hyde Park. She said, "It was here that we were birthed into motherhood." Hyde Park was a place of so many beginnings for me, as a mom, as a writer, as the wife of a new priest. Some of it was so painful, so far from what I expected or imagined, and yet now I see clearly--it was all gift, all of it.

And the other day, at Bonjour bakery, while munching on a chocolate-covered strawberry, Anna lost her second tooth. None of this seemed accidental, especially as I contemplate all the pieces of her childhood spent here. How right that she lost her first in Kona, her second in Hyde Park.

There will always be a little bit of the child Anna in both places. So on our last night together in Hyde Park John and I snuck out and buried that second tooth in the back yard. As we buried it we thanked God for all that had come to pass in this place and asked for all good things for our neighbors and for our years ahead in Kona, and we thanked God for this tooth, and for our beginnings as parents which will always be buried here.

that was then . . . this is now

One of Anna's best friends from Chicago came to visit. Anna and Haru haven't seen each other since they were three, but they've known each other since before they could walk. Although both are intense in their own way, they got on beautifully, as they did when they were tiny.

Haru still talks about the day they went sledding and laughed so hard that he began to cry, and both reminisce about the strange event that marked Haru's departure from Chicago--a huge rainbow over Midway airport, something I had never seen before and have never seen since.

When we met Haru and his parents at the airport, I was shocked by how old and lean he had become, by his changed voice and the way he expressed himself, casually mentioning his ex-girlfriends, for example. Anna and Haru refused to look at each other for the first five minutes at the luggage claim, but then, in the back of our rented minivan, they started to exchange suspicious glances. Anna broke the ice when she showed Haru the Praying Mantus she'd brought in her bug box.

From that point forward, the two were giggling and playing as if three years had not elapsed since their last encounter. They shared a bed in the loft both nights, and the first night, after they'd slipped under the blanket I asked Haru if he sleeps with a stuffed animal. "I collect them, but I don't usually sleep with them." he said, "But, I could use one tonight," he said.

"They still relate like an old married couple," Nobu (Haru's mom) said. And they did, each tolerant of (most) of the other's foibles, each thinking the other person's jokes were hilarious, and also scheming together against the rest of the world, in this case, against us grown-ups.

When we hiked to the lava tube, they even managed to share a hiking stick, at least until Haru was able to convince Anna that there are some things you just can't share. To be fair, there was one blow-up over a cocoa bean pod and Anna's attempt to appropriate it from Haru, but otherwise, they were like two peas in a pod.

We took Haru, Nobu and Alexi to see the flowing lava. When we finally arrived at the viewing area after our perilous walk over the lava fields, Anna glanced into the view finder on her camera, and then I heard a loud sigh. "My batteries are all used up," she said, her voice rising to a teary whine. "I need new batteries. Now." I looked around at the black lava on all sides, the streams of red flowing into the ocean and said, as calmly as I could, "You know, they don't actually sell batteries here."

But there was no stopping Anna's trajectory. She wanted photos and she wanted them badly. I tried to focus on the red rivers flowing into the ocean, the furious waves lapping the lava up, the sparks and shifting light and bright lava ridges. But Anna relentlessly tugged at my leg. "I need batteries," she reminded me. Haru unzipped his camera case, "Anna, you could use my extra ones," he said, handing his to her. And sure enough he had two extras, exactly the right size, which we slipped into Anna's camera, one more disaster averted.

But then Haru started getting agitated as he gazed through his camera. "How do you take a picture of lava?" he said. "All I can see are red dots. Just red dots." I wanted to take the two kids and shake them by the shoulders and say, "Have you ever considered just LOOKING at it? When did you two become the lava paparatizi?" But no matter. As I tried to focus on the site before me, Haru's frustration continued to mount as he rotated the camera for a better view. Finally, he sighed, "I'll just have to take them with my mind."

On the way back to the car, Haru held Anna's hand. And then he turned to me. "Gosh, Anna has changed so much," he said. He studied her in the gathering darkness. "Her hair is much longer, and her voice is different. And she's . . . taller." I glanced over at Anna who shook her head slowly, taking care to swing her long locks, clearly pleased that her old buddy had noticed. "Haru, you've changed much more than I have," she said, smiling shyly back at him.

so it flows

My mom said it best, "For Natalie," she said, "Life is a bowl of cherries." Natalie continues to explore life with great eagerness and enthusiasm, if not grace. These days, every time I turn around she has climbed onto the kitchen table, and is standing there with a marker in one hand and paper in the other. She can now "draw" for long stretches and I take great comfort in the fact that she relishes at least one quiet activity.

Last week we went to see the lava flowing. Natalie was on my back, and Anna and Hayden and Amy and I had to carefully walk over cool, crusty jagged lava for about 100 yards. It was a harrowing walk, as lava is made of 50% silica and it really, really hurts when you fall. We arrived at dusk, so we had to trust our flashlights and follow a makeshift trail of orange dashes to get to the ocean.

Once there, we watched a river of orange pour into the water, hitting with great force and hissing. The lava was constantly changing and swirling in unexpected ways. It had already consumed a subdivision and forest before we got here, and it was contently munching on the road when we arrived.

As we walked back to the car we looked back and there was a curving trail of white flashlights as others made their perilous way over the lava to get to the viewing area. It struck me that these onlookers looked like they were in a paschal procession, headed toward the lava, toward a glimpse of creation.

On the way home we listened to one of my favorite CDs, a Hawaiian singer named IZ. Before one of his songs he talked about how he doesn't really fear for his own death because "In Hawaii, we live in both worlds, we live on both sides." And watching that river of red flowing into the sea against the inky, smoke filled sky, I think I had a feel for what he meant.

Life here does feel fragile, precious, perilous. The earth is literally shifting and recreating itself beneath our feet. There are small tremors every night, which I never feel, but I accept the reality that nothing is quite as stable as I imagined, that creation and destruction come together sometimes, and that even the dark, gloomy lava breaks down into fertile soil over time, that what appears as death ultimately disintegrates into life, lush and surprising and fragrant. This is not a bad thing to see and feel beneath my feet, not bad at all, as we head into lent, on this perilous journey through death to life.

errands

Photo by Amber--I'm with Natalie, my fearless traveling companion, on a black sand beach. You can't see it in the photo, but there is huge sea turtle lounging on the sand just behind me.

I keep going back to an article in The Sun Magazine (December, 2007)by Heather Sellers, reflecting on her writing mentor, English professor Jerry Stern, who used to send her out on "errands," such as picking up a visiting writer from the airport or a book at the library. According to Jerry, these mundane tasks were an opportunity for awakening if you pay attention.

"He sent me on errands, and when I returned, he wanted to know, he needed to know: 'What did you notice? What was interesting?' He taught me that all writers are essentially travel writers. The trip hadn't really taken place until you'd found a story in it and told it. Only after shaping the trip into a narrative could you honestly say 'I'm back.'"

I love the idea of "errands" especially here in my new context, where I feel that thousands of stones remain unturned. And how I relish the project of turning them!

Heather Sellers also has some wonderful words about teaching and writing and living, which made me think of my friend Rachel, an amazing teacher in her own right.

"This is what we forget as teachers: how close the poor student often is to doing good work, and how great the distance feels to her between who she is and who she could be. We forget how painful it is to be between selves; how all of us, always, are between selves, and it is in that desolate gap that everything true and useful is happening."

What a hopeful idea. And I think it is hope, ultimately, that Jerry Stern offered his students. He offered them a reason to keep going deeper into the experience, with heart and eyes wide open. And it was this idea, especially, that helped Heather Sellers survive her first major depression:

"Burrow into what's interesting--in you, and in everyone else. Every moment on the planet has juice to yield. Everything is interesting if you truly want to know about it. Staying awake to that was the key to staying alive."

the healing island

Photo by Amber

I got a Valentine's Day pedicure: my nails are deep red with a rhinestone heart. Perhaps you're cringing at this description, as I certainly would if I was back on the mainland, but celebratory toes seem to make sense in this context, as do those crazy Hawaiian shirts, sea turtle decals, and hair clips adorned with plastic plumeria.

At the nail salon, I saw television coverage of the school shootings outside of Chicago. My heart broke as I heard the students talk about what they saw and experienced, and then, on the bottom of the screen I saw an additional news update. Did you know that there is a bus-sized satellite that has fallen out of orbit and is on a crash course with the earth? The U.S. is planning to shoot it down, apparently, because it also happens to be full of toxic chemicals.

So I was watching this school shooting with horror, and contemplating the likelihood that the satellite will land in the Pacific and cause a tsunami on the Kona coast, as a kind Korean woman gingerly applied rhinestones to my big toe. She said, "Be careful of these rhinestones. Sometimes they fall off."

I just nodded at her at the strangeness of it all, the impossibility of worrying about rhinestones, all things considered. And then on the way home, we saw two whales in the ocean. I have not seen whales since the day Amber and Charles married. So there seemed to me something cosmic in this as well. If nothing else it was a chance to reawaken to wonder despite all the horrors of our world.

We watched the whales with Anna and Natalie, and I thought about the school shootings and I wondered if I'd spent enough time that day kicking around with my kids, playing with them in the way they crave, awake to their fleeting beauty.

That night we dined with Fr. John's close friends who live two hours away on the other side of the island, but just happened to have chosen the same restaurant as we did, Sushi Shino, and planned to dine at the same time. So we sipped warm saki out of tiny ceramic cups and shared large platters of sushi and wondered why, if the U.S. is planning to take this renegade satellite out, they haven't gotten around to it yet?

It seems these kinds of coincidences happen a lot here in Hawaii. I'm always bumping into people I know and being helped by strangers in all sorts of surprising ways. Just the other day I walked a mile on a lava field to the beach, but realized that I couldn't make it all the way back in the blazing sun with Natalie on my back. I started walking and praying for a safe person to stop and offer a ride.

After a few cars passed a big white truck slowed, and the driver called out to me. I turned around and she was waving Natalie's hat, which had fallen off several bends back, but I hadn't noticed. Anyone who would rescue a baby's hat and search for the owner seemed like a safe enough bet.

So I could call these things coincidences or providence or chance, but whatever they are, I find them reassuring, especially as I struggle to get my bearings in this new setting. When I told someone from our church about our Valentine's Day coincidence and how these things seem to happen more often here, He said, "If you asked a Hawaiian priest about that, he would tell you that that is because this island is the newest land in the world, and the spirit of the Creator still hovers close."

Sometimes I think I know just what he means.

another day in paradise

Photo by Amber--I made her take this one shortly after she arrived because I was so tickled by the drive-through serve-yourself lei stand--perfect for moms on the go!

Most of my blog posts read like propaganda for The Big Island. Forgive me. Lately I've been through a rough patch which could help balance some of the more glowing posts.

Sometimes it seems like one "off" moment leads to several more--like you can almost feel the moment of derailment and you just grip your seat (and grit your teeth) for the rest of the ride, knowing that it can only get worse. So it all began last night when I was walking beside the ocean on Kona's main street with Natalie on my back and Anna beside me and somebody yelled out of their car, "Your babies are ugly!"

I was already in a bit of a funk, so the comment only served to further boost my spirits. And then there was the night--Natalie woke at least every two hours. I was like a zombie trying to tend to her, to quiet her, tiptoeing as to not disturb my downstairs neighbors.

In one of the sweet, brief respites from Natalie's cries, I was asleep in my cozy bed, dreaming of weaned offspring, and my cellphone rang. Because it was three a.m. I was alarmed. But there was no human on the other end, just a message to the effect of: "Call the job line, call the job line, city, state, jobs, call, call, call the job line. Thank you!"

So this morning began, as many others have as of late, with me suffering from a severe case of SMOP. That's Sudden Morning Onset Paralysis, for the uninitiated out there. When my SMOP is acute, I can barely move, I'm so tired, I just sit there sulking into my cup of coffee, wondering what went wrong with everything in the universe.

I somehow got Anna ready for school while Natalie emptied the contents of my wallet onto the floor. As I rushed out the door, I scooped up my credit cards and cash and jammed them back into my purse.

After I dropped Anna off, I decided to stop by the Toyota dealership to inquire about the check engine light, which had been steadily on since yesterday, evoking dread every time I turned on the car. They were able to take my car immediately, and asked me to wait for the shuttle to take me to Enterprise. The courtesy shuttle seemed to have vanished, though (No thank you for that). So I decided to hike to Enterprise which was only a few blocks away, but the blocks were long and hot with Natalie in my arms.

I managed to get lost on the short walk, and when someone finally explained to me where to go, I arrived a the bottom of a cliff and could see Enterprise on the top. There was a handy staircase, but it was gated at both the top and bottom (no walking allowed around here!) so I was forced to climb all the way around and follow the curving road up. When I finally got to Enterprise I discovered that my driver's license was gone, and then had visions of Natalie's morning project.

So there I was at Enterprise, having surrendered my own car and unable to rent one. Fortunately my parents were still here (for just a few hours) so my dad came and got me. I was weepy by that point and had already thrown my cellphone at the ground in a temper.

Shortly after I got home, I discovered my driver's license in my wallet (surprise). So my sweet father drove back to get me. He had several packages to post so I offered to take them into the post office. But the packages were heavy and cumbersome and when I got to the doors they both said "PULL." I stared at the doors and thought to myself "Where is that aloha spirit when you need it?" Suddenly a man inside spotted me and rushed to open the doors for me. He said, "Have a blessed day."

So I posted the packages, rented the car, took my family to the airport, picked up Anna from school and then got word that my car was ready. Just as I pulled into Enterprise, I checked the back seat. I saw something small and shimmering in the crack between the seats, ran my hands along it, and discovered a diamond ring with three stones!

So I took my find into Enterprise and they said they'd call the clients who'd rented the car before me. I called my mom to tell her the news and she said, "You really cleaned up!" I was shocked by her suggestion. "Well I didn't keep it," I said.
"I mean, you were cleaning, it's the cleaning part that impressed me," she said. "By the way, I just wanted to tell you that your dad has lost his driver's license."

So anyway, I guess it's genetic. I'm missing the critical gene that keeps track of things like keys and driver's licenses and cell phones. And then tonight, the grand finally to this most unusual day was that Anna lost her first tooth. I took the garbage out and came back to her and her buddy Reese jumping in the kitchen. Anna showed me the tooth--bloody on one end--with pride. And then she wrapped her arms around my waist and leaned into me.

I couldn't believe how perfect that tooth was, how small and sweet and white. And I can't believe that that tooth, which began to form when she was still in my womb-- that tooth I worried and sweat over and urged her to brush--is now waiting in a gold jewelry box beside her bed, waiting for the tooth fairy to claim it, waiting for me to come back in and linger a little longer over my baby, a little less baby with each passing day.

Refuse to Fall Down

"Refuse to fall down. If you cannot refuse to fall down, refuse to stay down. Lift your heart toward heaven like a hungry beggar, ask that it be filled and it will be filled. You may be pushed down. You may be kept from rising. But no one can keep you from lifting your heart toward heaven-only you. It is in the middle of misery that so much becomes clear. The one who says nothing good came of this is not yet listening.”

--Clarissa Pinkola Estes

wedding hilights

A mini-photo essay for far-away friends and family:



Bride-to-be selects most unusual breakfast food.











Last minute details: groom, flower girl and gramps collecting petals.








The Dance of Isaiah.










Bride chokes on common cup. Fr. John says (just in case anyone hadn't noticed) "Are you choking? Do you need more wine?" Evoking still more giggles.




Awesome Cake!

wedded to amazement

Yesterday I saw my first whale. I've been watching for one since December, because I've heard they come in close to the shore to give birth this time of year. So for weeks I've been standing out on the lanai, scanning the ocean, waiting.

So yesterday I stepped out on the lanai, and saw a small fountain mid-sea. Because I'd just been to the volcano yesterday, I was a little confused about how to read this and I thought to myself, "How strange--a mid-sea steam vent!" Slowly it dawned on me that it was actually a whale. "Amber, Charles," I said, "Get out here!"

Together, we watched the whale spurt and swim. It was remarkable to finally spot a whale, more remarkable to see it first with Amber and Charles, just a few hours after they'd been wed at the mission here in Kona.

There is so much to say about the experience of wedding Amber and Charles, the inexpressible joy of seeing one of the people I love most in this world enter into a fresh season. I could not resist the happy temptation of telling her at least a few times over the course of the last few days, "I told you so," meaning, I knew all along that she was going to find her way into the life she dreamed of, that her courage and honesty and searching love would not fail her.

And there was something so beautiful about coming to know Charles more deeply. We'd only met him once before, but over the past few days, he became family. This wedding was marked by so many casual graces, such a sense of spontaneity and joy. Amber and Charles didn't sweat any of the small things, they didn't plan much, they stayed focused on what was real--beginning their new life together.

When they arrived, Charles pulled a creased piece of paper out of his pocket. He said, "I was thinking perhaps we could go out for a nice meal after the wedding. Here are a few restaurants that could work."

Keep in mind, this was Wednesday, and they were to be married in four days. I took them directly from the airport to check out a few churches and they selected ours on the spot. I took them up to a cafe in Holualoa, an artsy little mountain town, and they checked out the outdoor tables and menu, "Yes," they said, "This is perfect."

On the eve of their wedding, after we'd visited the sea turtles at the black sand beach, hiked a lava tube and relaxed by the fire at Volcano house, we came home tired.

We snacked on the spiky, lovable fruit rambuton, and pulled lime soaked breadfruit from it's humble green shell and Charles suggested I read Anna's story to everyone. So I read a chapter from a Wind in the Door. Charles was on his laptop on the sofa and Amber fell asleep leaning on his shoulder, and Anna fell asleep leaning on Amber.

And for me, it was just about perfect, all of it. What joy it was to witness the God of hope at work in two lives coming together after many years of struggle. I think of a quote from Mary Oliver, and I think of Amber and Charles and how they perfected the art of the aloha wedding. I, too must stay focused on what is real, to not fritter my life away on details.

When it's over, I want to say: All my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

powered by optimism

The first people you meet in any place can have a dramatic and lasting impression on your overall experience there. Within our first few days, we met a couple, Bruce and Leigh, and their 5-year-old daughter Reese.

Bruce was brought over to the islands by Wal-Mart, as a manager, to help establish new stores. His impression of life here is quite positive, and it was exactly what we needed to hear in our first few days, when we were dazed and confused. I asked him about the things I'd feared for awhile. What about roaches, centipedes, Vog? What about crime, drugs and the public schools?

To each of my fears, he offered some kind of positive antidote. For example, about the roaches, he told me that they do exterminate here, but, should I see one, I could just apply some chemical to my home, leave and voila! No more roaches. About the Vog
(a volcanic smog generated when the lava hits the ocean) we're just too close to the ocean to be bothered by it. Centipedes? You'd have to be out barefoot and careless, or flipping over rocks to get bit. As for crime, he told me, there is almost no gun crime on the island, and his daughter is thriving at the local public school.

Now I believe his impressions are based on real experience, but I also think perceptions help shape experiences. You have to have the eyes to see what is good around you--and an ability to receive every good thing with hands and eyes open wide.

Perhaps you also need a wide view so that you don't fixate (as I sometimes do) on things like roaches, centipedes, or the fact that you currently live amongst ancient Hawaiian burial grounds, in a tsunami evacuation zone and and at the base of a volcano that is expected to erupt at an unknown time. But I digress . . .

Over a year ago, Bruce was hit by a car when he was on his motorcycle. The car smashed him against a stone wall, breaking more than 30 bones and nearly killing him. The doctors were so unsure that he would survive that they didn't set his arm or shoulder. His heart stopped three times.

And Bruce, who was a manager at Wal-Mart and both a father and grandfather, lost most of his memory, his ability to walk and communicate and work. But you should hear him talk about the accident--there's no despair in his voice. In fact, he feels the timing was just about right, if that sort of thing had to happen.

He'd recently sold his home at a profit when the market was good, and he'd put money into savings and moved into a rental. The savings has helped the family to pull through while they await the final settlement.

His wife tells me that they never let him feel sorry for himself--not even for a moment. Now he's walking, talking and swimming. There are gaps in his memory but he accepts that as part of the bargain. He is alive to watch his children and grandchildren grow. It is a fine, fine bargain, considering the alternative.

And he has a job now too, against the wishes of his doctor. He's a cruise ship greeter for the Hard Rock Cafe. When the ships come in, he rises early, goes down to the cafe, cuts up some pineapple and walks down to the docks where he greets the tourists as the come off the ship.

But now Hard Rock Cafe would like to put him into management, which would be way, way, against the wishes of his doctor. And while he does have extensive experience, he's not sure how handy it will be because he keeps drawing a blank about those Wal-Mart years. "But at least," I said, "You can remember that you were a manager. That's something isn't it?"

fear

I'm usually grappling with fear to some extent and am sometimes nearly paralyzed by it. I'm mostly at peace, however, when engaged with present realities, such as loading the dishwasher, writing or rolling my cart through Safeway. For this reason and a few others, I genuinely enjoy most mundane tasks.

But give me a few idle hours and fear sidles up on the couch next to me, and if I'm not focussed on anything in particular, I'm easily sucked into the conversation. Perhaps I'm especially vulnerable now because we're in a transitional time full of unknowns.

It helps that Anna is addicted to the Chronicles of Narnia and we have been reading through the series for a year now. She's memorized entire paragraphs and corrects my pronunciation on names like "Silenus." Anyway, although I would welcome a new book into our reading routine, Narnia helps me more now than it ever did when I was a kid.

We almost always come across something ticklish, comforting or beautiful during our nightly read. Tonight we read a chapter from Prince Caspian, in which Lucy sees Aslan and he asks her to follow him, but her siblings all deny his presence and refuse.

Later on, Susan is full of guilt about her denial, and she doesn't want to face Aslan:

"Then, after an awful pause, the deep voice said, 'Susan.' Susan made no answer but the others thought she was crying. 'You have listened to fears, child,' Aslan said. 'Come let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?'"

Our Diver

So there was another part to the ocean blessing story, and I wanted to tell it but I think I was having a bit of heat stroke last night after too many hours in the sun. My head was pounding so I had to be brief.

Anna has been really struggling with church. Our community is wonderful, but there are no other kids and no church school. She aches for her Chicago friends.

But this weekend as we were driving to church, Fr. John explained to Anna that Paul (a tropical fisherman who scoped out beaches for the service, made the cross and found the beloved chameleon on the road) had called and asked if he knew of any girls between the ages of 4 and 7 who might be willing to dive into the ocean for the cross.

From the backseat, Anna chimed in, "I could do that!"

When we arrived at Vespers, she wanted me to tell everyone that she would be our diver. It was as if she had finally found her place in the mission community.

The night before the dive, she cried out to me in the middle of the night. I ran to her room and she said. "I had a bad dream. Are we safe here?" I reassured her that we were safe, but brought the holy water into her room and gave her a sprinkle as well. And then she said, "Tomorrow, I'm going to dive for the cross."

I'm realizing that we need find ways to make a role for her at the mission, so that she doesn't feel like we're just dragging her along, but that she is as essential to the community as an any adult--which of course, she is.

So the next day, during the many readings beside the ocean, Anna stood and waited for her turn. Finally, when Fr. John threw the cross into the water, she waded out for it. She brought the cross back to her dad, and for the first time, I think she felt that she is beginning to belong.

ocean blessing

So today we blessed the ocean, which my husband thought was a wee bit ambitious--but, he said, "It might be a big ocean, but God is still bigger." While we were praying, a few locals were fishing nearby, and frying the fish right behind us. During the blessing, we watched them tug one fish after another out of the sea. At one point, the fisherman hollered, holding up his fish. Pat turned to me and help up five fingers--mouthing, "That's his fifth one!"

After the prayers as we made our way past the family and they asked about our faith and what we were doing. Fr. John explained that we were blessing the ocean and that we enjoyed watching their incredible catch. "That was 'cause you were praying," the man said, turning to flip his Sunday lunch.

coffee hour

Did I mention yet that coffee hour is a whole lot different out here on the Big Island? First of all, we have a tiny community, so we pot-luck on a few tables in the center of a large room without walls, the breezes washing through, surrounded by banana, papaya and avocado trees, overlooking the ocean.

The Catholic church where we meet is on a windy road through a neighborhood, and many of the locals keep chickens, so all morning long the roosters crow, dogs bark, and cats prowl about the parking lot.

Today's coffee hour featured a special treat--a visit from a very slow moving, dinosaur-like lizard, a Jackson Chameleon. Anna was delighted to hold the creature, which did hiss and open its gigantic mouth, but did not (perhaps could not?) bite. As it became increasingly agitated it began to turn black. Can you imagine being able to change colors when in a temper?

snorkling

Back when I was a kid, I remember the "end of the school year syndrome," which basically meant that it became almost unbearable to drag myself to school--the end of the year was in sight, but oh how slowly those final days would go.

As a parent I seem to be affected by the opposite syndrome--and it has to do with school vacations, which seem to drag on and on, most especially when they are nearly over. This Christmas break has been delightful and trying in turns, and I know that I am about done with it because in a final act of desperation I've locked myself in the bathroom with my laptop so that I can blog.

Ever since I've been in Kona, this blog has been a lifeline. It allows me to process, to connect, to be part of a network of friends which has helped keep me afloat as each day here is filled with new people and experiences.

Thank you, friends, for your comments, which I treasure--and thank you fellow bloggers for putting your life out there and helping me feel less alone--Oh, no, Anna is on to me. She's at the door. "Mama," she asks, "Where are you? And why are you on your computer?"

So that's it for now. And yes, we did go snorkeling. I'd like to do it everyday. It is wondrous to be underwater, among the oblivious fish and coral. One of the larger effects of being on the Big Island is that so much of my daily reality forces perspective, from the surprisingly vast underwater view, to the infinite starry nights, to the lava fields which go on and on and make the sky open up. I'm caught in the paradoxes of nature--how birth and death, creation and destruction seem so tangled together in this place and in my own body.

I came across this quote on a card at Kona Health foods, and it seems to express something of my experience here:

"Wisdom tells me I am nothing.
Love tells me I am everything.
Between the two my life flows."

--Nisargadatta Maharaj