Rainy Afternoon by the Sea

Just checking in to share some photos of my afternoon by the seashore. It was just a little bit rainy, with a cool sea breeze and turquoise water. The rain is no reason to stay away from the beach... it's just that much more beautiful...

Cane Spider

No one told me about the cane spiders before I moved to Hawaii. That's one of the things you learn after you get here. Not that I've never seen spiders before, but these spiders are different. Think jumping anorexic tarantulas. Yes, the cane spider can jump fairly long distances, like from the wall onto your face. Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, and considering that a cane spider has never harmed me more than just plain scared me, I really can't complain much. I just don't appreciate trespassers with hairy legs. 

This one is the third cane spider we've had in about a week. (which is really unusual, I should add) 

Walking on Water

Today I went down to the sea. A flurry of frustration was trapped in my head, and the atmosphere was almost electric with stagnation. I had to go. Down to where the land tumbles apart into sea-dark stones. Down to where the water breaks white and the air tastes like the salted pages of Treasure Island. Down to the sea.

Soft gray clouds were rolling down with me, surging silently over the palm trees, trailing off like an unfinished sentence into the horizon with closed fists of unwept rain. We are alike, the rainclouds and I.

I found myself stuck on the shore, but further still, down on the very surface of the sea, were a group of men, surfing the ridges of the deep, calling it play, this feat of walking on water. They have feet that can float. 

Moments like these, I wish I could paint with something more than words. Though it might take me decades, I would search the world for pigments like those I see in this sulking steel-like surge. The heart and soul of blue, of turquoise, of ocean. 

Cats and Chickens

To continue the thought from my previous post, I would like to show you this picture:

Note the relaxed group of dirty chickens waiting for some misled civilian to throw them some more Lucky Charms. Also note the crouching feral cat to the left.

Conclusion: the surplus wild chicken population is greatly due to the stupidity of the wild cats.

"Wild" Animals of Hawaii

Gone are the days of black bears and mountain lions. No more do I need to be afraid of rattle snakes or coyotes. I live in Hawaii now, not Colorado, and the wild animals here are a bit on the milder side...

Take for instance, the wild chicken:

 

Here, the wild chickens are looked on (by locals, at least) as dirty, diseased road hazards. Some people use bumper stickers to notch off how many they've managed to hit with the grill of their car. Tourists, on the other hand, seem to enjoy these beings of pestilence, taking millions of photos of them to show their friends at home. Personally, I find this behavior yet another example of the strange idiosyncrasies belonging to the race known as tourists. 

The other day, this rooster was posing for me, for no apparent reason. I didn't have any food to give him, and still he stood there glaring at me. I found myself noticing the uniqueness of a chicken eye and wondering why I had never noticed it before. In fact, I even found myself studying the different colors of feathers that this rooster had. And to make matters worse, I almost thought that chickens perhaps weren't as ugly and dirty as all that. But fear not, I stopped myself in time, remembering that these very same chickens love to crow at three in the morning, and realized that what seem to be beautiful feathers are really just a disguise to hide the roadkill beneath.

Not all wild animals are as detrimental to society as the chickens though. The geckos that we have in abundance are really rather cute and harmless. Some people find them annoying (because of the mess they tend to leave on windowsills and baseboards after an insect feast), but I don't mind them wandering around my house with their sticky feet and Australian accents. 

This gecko was stuck contentedly on the ceiling over my bed one night, and do what I might to persuade him to find a more agreeable hideout, he firmly held his position. After a while, I lost him through his camouflage techniques, but eventually something (a tendency to narcolepsy perhaps) caused him to lose his grip, and he fell on my comforter. Thankfully, one of the resident knights caught him before he found his way to my pillow. 

Harboring

Another heart-filling weekend is over and I sit here on a Monday night listening to the closer-coming thunder and wondering why I haven't accomplished as much as I wanted to today. And here comes the rain like a curtain of chorded darkness. What could be looked on as a wet gloom, feels more like a cleansing flood and I am at rest. As I am at a harbor, with the sea-swept horizon up by my ears and the salt on my toes. Parched sails are set against the sapphire and emerald of the afternoon. 

Sleep wasn't much on the agenda last week, one of the sillier reasons being that I stayed up late Thursday night to watch Will and Kate get married in front of the entire world. It was a gorgeous wedding... I loved the trees lining Westminster Abbey, and the ocean of hats, and the music of bells and choirs filling the vaulted cathedral. 

It has been a time of learning how to trust God. I can't quite see the path in front of me, but I know that I need to keep journeying on. I have the feeling that I'm in a protective harbor, and I know that there's a world of waves and stormy seas out there. I know this because some of the waves make it over the barrier sometimes. But still I am safe from harm. And still the day may come when my sailboat arrives to take me home.