Monday, You Are Mine

My dearest Monday, I have three words for you: Kiss My Grits. I refuse you the power to become just another weekly cliche. Outside, the world is glowing and alive, and you, Monday, are a day just like any other. Full of possibilities and breathable air and birds singing. I read somewhere that if "Monday" were a French word, it would literally translate "My Day". Monday, you are mine. 

Besides, I've already had an entire pot of English breakfast tea this morning. I can't tell you how happy I was to discover a grocery story on the island that actually sells loose-leaf Twinings. Very Happy.

Have you seen the moon lately? The Harvest Moon. I heard it is the smallest full moon of the year.

You all know how I adore autumn. In return for all the lovely blogs that share the long-lost fall beauty with me, I thought I'd share some shots of the vibrant green hillsides that surround me here.

Get the picture? I live in the definition of green. Actually, I don't live in that exact spot. These were taken up in the "mountains". We went hiking in the rain, which is better than it sounds. The sun would shine for a few minutes, then clouds would cover up all the blue, letting the rain fall in showers. We met a couple of Canadians on the trail, and one of them said something I've thought ever since I moved here - It's like the produce section of the grocery store; the rain comes every once in a while to freshen everything up. We only hiked a mile in, before we were craving hot chocolate. On our way back, we were reminded to scrub our boots, to rid them of weed seeds. Number One: we weren't wearing boots, and Number Two: scrub them with what? And don't forget, horses can track seeds too. 

After the trail (and a hot chocolate run at Starbucks), we went to this place where all the driftwood in the ocean seems to collect:

We also saw this pretty awesome petroglyph made by the ancient Hawaiians:

But the best part of this "almost roadtrip" was the Discovery of the Lighthouse. For quite sometime, I've seen a lonely lighthouse in the distance, not knowing how to get there. There are no signs, no apparent roads. But thanks to the kindness and patience of a good friend of mine who remembered, we finally found it. We had to get out of the car, cross a golf course, and follow an abandoned trail, but we found it. 

Looking back from the lighthouse, we saw the afternoon sun pushing through the rain clouds, gilding the grandfathered sea. It was a beautiful day. Like today is going to be.

And Monday morning is over, just like that. 

A Monotonous Beauty

It is a beautiful evening. Mondays are given a bad reputation, but when the sun sinks away and the day is heaving a tired sigh of final rest.... then I can find peace. The clouds blush peach and cream and periwinkle, their reflections in the vast and silent sea giving it the aspect of village-sized pink polka-dots. The forested hillsides which never see winter are filled with the symphonic cacophony of hundreds of roosting birds, chatting up on the day's flight adventures. I watch as a flock of green parrots rush headlong with the wind to join their companions. The birds might be winding down, but the mosquitoes are just waking up, hungry as ever. In one wedge of cloud above me hovers the whisper of a rainbow. It vanishes ounce by ounce back into shapeless vapor.

I feel my worries and concerns grow smaller before this greatness, this world that goes on and on unhindered. 

"Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? ... So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." ~ Matthew 6:26,27,34

What if every minute of the day were like this: golden, peaceful, quiet? What if the sun always sat just on the horizon, shedding across the verdant fields the last rays of warmth? What if?

I suppose the day's work would never get done. We would be tempted to sit and watch all day, resting as if for eternity. And we would be lost in a monotonous beauty.

Surviving Hawaii

Happy Monday, everyone! It's been a mildly Mediocre Monday for me (as opposed to Miserable, Manic, or Magical), what with getting my head out of the weekend and into the tasks of the week ahead. But I have been getting things done. I worked in some studying this morning with my pedagogy texts and was able to practice Chopin and Debussy to my heart's content as well. This afternoon I've been working on a project which I will reveal after I show you this...

Looks a bit crazy, doesn't it? It's actually only about 10 or 15 feet, but I jumped off (didn't dive like the boys in the picture)! ...to my own dismay... It was fun though, and I'm trying to be a bit more adventurous. One doesn't always get the chance to live in Hawaii where cliff-jumping opportunities abound. 

Other adventures on my list of late: 

sat through 3 hours of an all-boys Halo party

survived an attack of the cockroaches

walked into a library without my library card (*gasp*)

cooked pasta with white wine sauce

refrained from ice cream

played a game of Battleship

made multitudes of music

Extremely exciting, I know. 

But I love my life <3

OK, so back to my project. You may or may not be familiar with my HubPages site, but HubPages has been hosting a special contest this summer. It's called "Share and Share a Like", and seeing that the whole point of the contest is social networking and writing articles that people want to share online, I thought I might as well share this one with you. In the process of putting my hub together, I found myself outside in my snowboarding jacket, to the confusion of the neighbors...

 My hub is called "How to Survive a Vacation in Hawaii". I was inspired by my dad who always tells visitors the Worst Case Scenario about activities around the island. I always think it's funny, so I thought it would be fun to write from the perspective of a worry wart. So please check it out, and if you like it, share it on Twitter and Facebook! 

Monday

On a walk earlier today, I, like the faulty conversationalist that I am, remarked to someone that it was warm out (this is Hawaii... is it ever not warm out?). But it has been extra warm out lately, feels like. It's late afternoon and the heat sits around like it's on vacation. And the air is yellow. And the ocean looks at me with taunting wide-eyes from across the distance that I can't cross today, because today is Monday and that means I have life to deal with. (Life, by the way, includes among other things, shipping out eBay packages before breakfast, washing out the smoothie-blender no one cleaned yesterday, starting a new article, and spending 46 seconds on the phone ordering pizza.) But now the sun is dipping down beneath the palm trees, giving the air a chance to recuperate. So I'm waiting for my pizza and wondering why I'm being so pointless at the moment... oh yeah, now I remember.