Taking a break...

Oh life. It has been getting in the way of late. As in, inhibiting me from blogging or reading blogs. This summer is rather a hectic, busy, traveling one for me, so I hope you don't mind if I take a little break. I'll be back in September with a lot more time and hopefully a lot more to say. So don't forget me; I won't forget you!

These are some pink-and-peach blossoms from a shower tree. They always make me think of brides decked out for their wedding day.

Fruit-loopian Rainfall

Fruit-loopian rain falls - drop by priceless drop - and tastes like the cinders hiding behind my eyes - the burning, burning, and then the singeing hiss of relief. Sidewalks echo beneath a mid-summer sky, which could have been mid-winter if it weren't for this weather. Day-old spiderwebs and day-old memories cling to the lids of the street lamps, the lids of the light. And sky surges as the sea surges, swelling ever down and and ever up. Ukulele strings, quick like hopskotch and insinuating like luck's laughter, perversely shoot rainbows at the unbelieving heavens that glower like a dead dawn.

Here, walking down the center of a street too small for a yellow dashed line and breathing in the coming night as if I'm singing backwards - taking in the song like air - here, I am. Dream on, drunken deluge of days-end. This is your time.

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.

Free Chair

As you can see, someone left a seat at the beach for you....

Step-by-step guide to ward off insanity... Hawaii style

1. Treat yourself to a large iced mocha
2. Remove shoes (if you live in Hawaii, chances are they're already off)
3. Hide your face in a hat
4. Drive down a windy road - hairpin turns required - until you get Somewhere (preferably the sea)
5. Turn up the radio to tear-your-heart-out music
6. Walk down a long beach and sit on a lonely rock
7. Feel the ocean spray on your face (it's just like that sprinkler system at Disney World)
8. (Lovingly dry off F. Scott Fitzgerald who got soaked in the aforementioned ocean spray)
9. Resist the urge to jump in and swim to Christmas Island (you won't make it, and I know this because...)
10. Smile, because whether you are looking at the real sea or the sea of life in front of you, you have been blessed.

 

House of Sea-Glass

I live in a house built of sea-glass and shells, with rain that falls from the ceiling. Sand is brushed into the corners beneath paper-cloud walls, salt lies on table and tongue, sea-dreams fizz around fidgety toes – and we all drink saltwater and are filled. Piano tongues stick out of the mouths of cloistered clams beneath my rainy-holed rock for a footrest. Giants from the locker leap up and linger in the wake of our precious parade of life by the sea. But the day dims, and tangerine is the taste of the sun as it sinks beneath the surge, and the lips of night close round to hide the sparkle of my sea-glass house. It is goodnight and goodbye, for tomorrow the sun will be new, and sea glass only sparkles for a solitary day.

Photo courtesy: Akuppa on Flickr

Hawaiian Monk Seal

Looking like a dead log on the beach...

The Hawaiian Monk Seal loves to swim out of his watery habitat to sleep on the warm sand of a Hawaiian beach. Usually he is surrounded by stakes and ropes, but this one was all by himself on a lonely beach, unbothered by tourists and conservationists alike. His only signs of life were the short stiff breaths coming out of his sandy face. I felt an urge to stroke his smooth back - the bleached gray and algae colors - but I don't have thousands of dollars to pay in fines for touching his endangered skin. So I took his picture and let him dream the day dreams of a seal...