 |
| Halloween madness, Kokee recentering, Nick's place |
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Friday, September 04, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Two years on Kauai, plowing our way through paradise
By Nathan Eagle
The sweat, which had long since flooded my bandana, slid behind my sunglasses and rolled off my nose as we pressed on through the jungle.
I took a long pull from the nipple, which is what we comically call the end of the tube to the hydration pack, and looked up the rooty staircase carved in the ironwoods, hau bush and painted eucalyptus. Another mile to the top.
Hanalei-Okolehao Trail, named after the alcohol once distilled from the ti roots grown in the area (literally, okole = butt; hao = iron; which also seemed an appropriate reference to the muscle burn in my hind quarters), winds up a ridge 1,000 feet on the North Shore. As we paused for another sip of water, Shelly and I scoped the view of the famous Hanalei Bay to the west, the towering Namolokama Mountain ahead to the south, Waioli valley, taro fields, sprawling pastures and Kilauea Point several miles away to the east.
We’re told the view from the end of the trail, a small grassy plateau fringed with long-leafed ti plants, encompasses 20 percent of the island. The clear summer skies and absence of vog let us take it all in.
After scrambling back down in half the time, we capped off our weekend with some surfing at “Pine Trees” and a picnic on the beach.
It was the first time we’d done the hike. The previous weekend we chalked up another first when we took our kayak down a narrow river from the mouth of the ocean at Nawiliwili Harbor to Menehune Fish Pond where we coasted around drinking Coronas and watching the fish jump.
Two years on Kauai. Still finding new things to do. Still not tired of what we’ve done.
Since moving here Memorial Day 2007, we’ve made lifestyle changes and gone on adventures, made new friends and anxiously hosted old ones, made unexpected career moves and found ways to have fun while working, gone green and lost loved ones, read old authors and watched new flicks, seen new sights and consumed old drinks, tasted new cuisine and acquired more stuff, self-reflected and reflected ourselves.
Our first home on Kauai was a studio on Hauaala Road a couple hundred steps to the shoreline. We moved up the road a few months later after I talked my brother into leaving the Eagle nest in Ohio. The three of us shared a condo on Kawaihau for a month before landing the place we’d been waiting for on Lani.
Our current upstairs home overlooks our first place, as well as the ocean to the east, Anahola Mountains to the north and Mount Waialeale, the wettest spot on Earth, to the west.
We traded a bike ride to the beach for a daily view of the sea from our bedroom window, kitchen table and wrap-around lanai. While we sometimes reminisce about cooking on our hot plate at our first place, I relish the kitchen here to pursue a favorite pastime. Plus, with three bedrooms and a quieter neighborhood we now have some space to sprawl.
Looking back over the past nine years since leaving Robin Hood Lane, I’ve moved some 16 times counting several rooms in Oxford, Valencia, Greenville, the road and here.
Over the past year and a half at our current digs, we’ve picked fruit from our mango tree, flowers from our plumeria and spices from our garden. After planting the beans, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, basil, thyme, oregano, cat grass, cat nip, and flowers of all sorts about a month ago in a wide variety of containers on the porch, we await our first real harvest.
Mornings continue to kick off with a healthy watering of the plants, a couple cups of tea and coffee and a feast of bacon and eggs. This week we replaced the turkey bacon with organic pancetta we bought from a farmer in Wailua. He’ll be our meat hook-up for the foreseeable future as we endeavor to buy more local grub. Assuming the lamb, grass-fed from a South Shore farm, is as solid as the prosciutto, we’ll be back for more. Fry that up with some vegetables from the Sunshine Markets and we’re set.
Sunny, the other love of Shelly’s life, has taken a liking to the scraps. She was cute as a kitten when Nick first got her for Shelly’s birthday in January, but the cat’s obsession with drinking out of the toilet and scaling our screen doors has me concerned. As long as she keeps eating the geckos and centipedes though, we’ll keep her around – unlike our former feline, Sophie, who got on our nerves so much she had to take a trip to Princeville where she “escaped.”
Neither cat has showed promise, as I had hoped, in eating the bazillion wild chickens that root around in our yard and wake us at all hours. That said, I did nail one near our compost last week with a single BB shot out the bedroom window. Not the first time I hit one, of course, (it used to be a hobby till the neighbors started yelling) but it was the first time I shot one that dropped dead on the spot. Before, they just made a bunch of racket and fluttered away. The kill, naturally, created a fun chore the next day in the form of a covert mob-style body dump.
My pick-up truck is good for such dirty deeds. I would’ve had a hard time being inconspicuous with a dead hen strapped to the back of my motorcycle, my pride and joy.
Riding the truck has become such a bore after buying my black 2005 Honda Shadow 600. I bought the cycle for the gas savings (getting 60-70 miles per gallon), but it has turned the daily 26-mile roundtrip commute to work into a stress-relieving thrill ride as I learn to open up the throttle more on the turns.
That said, it’s carried quite a weight since my Uncle Bob Forth died in May. He and my Aunt Helen were long-time Honda Goldwing riders. My last conversation with my uncle at Christmas 2008 centered on motorcycling.
I was saving up for a Honda motorcycle at the time and he told me about his trips to Alaska packing his wife on his cycle. He casually mentioned having just logged another 100,000 miles on his current bike.
I have 2,100 miles under my belt now. After being scared shitless the first 100 miles, which was filled with stalls and near-spills, it’s nice to straddle the bike without getting the fear.
I waited for about a year to get a Honda Rebel 250, more of a beginner bike, but about the time I tired of waiting for the shipment to come in I encountered an incredible deal on a like-new Shadow that showed up for sale next door to my office in Lihue.
My aunt and uncle sent e-mails saying I had chosen wisely. Aside from my first spin around the stadium parking lot the day I bought the bike (that marking my third-ever time riding a motorcycle), I haven’t ridden without my helmet or jacket. Friends liken the thrill of riding without protective gear to having sex without a condom, so I better just not even try it or I could end up trying to justify the added risk because it feels so much better.
Before my hours changed at work when I got the big promotion, I had been taking the bus whenever possible to cut gas costs and save the environment. But since the public transportation stops at 7, I locked in on the motorcycle alternative.
Walking into work carrying a black helmet, wearing big black leather motorcycle boots with my black riding jacket slung over my shoulder sure prompts different stares than stepping out of my Ford Ranger with my Italian loafers and laptop case in hand as had been my usual.
Pulling up anywhere on the cycle, for that matter, garners odd looks you can’t help but eat up. Maybe it’s part of that one-percenter mentality. Cruising into the parking lot outside the bar, breaking up a conversation with the noise of the engine you can’t help but rev -- it’s priceless.
I intend to indefinitely carry on the family motorcycling tradition that Uncle Bob single-handedly upheld for decades.
But the truck sure comes in handy when we want to go take the stand-up paddleboard to Wailua or the longboard to Kealia or the kayak to the fern grotto. Not quite sure how I’d manage to strap a 10’6” board to the side of the bike, though I could ask Shelly to carry it over her head while she tries not to fall off the passenger seat?
Buying my first surfboard didn’t quite get the adrenaline pumping like my first motorcycle, but it was equally momentous. Oddly, it didn’t happen for over a year on the island despite scouting the North Shore swap meets a few times.
This likely hinged on the fact that I know nothing about surfing, what makes a board good or, more importantly, if I’m getting ripped off. Fortunately, my editor offered me his hand-shaped board for cheap since he left the island for a reporter job in Cambodia.
I get complements on the board out in the lineup waiting for the next set to roll in, so it must be decent since the locals here can surf like no other. Proud to say I once caught the same wave as Bethany Hamilton, but I still wipe out more often than not.
The learning comes in spurts since we have so many hobbies out here. Even the increasingly popular stand-up paddleboarding, while still surfing, is totally different when it comes to catching a wave. Despite the spills, I remain determined to make it as natural as bodyboarding became in the first year here.
Timing, on the water and in general, is the trick. Work, now more than ever, soaks up a ton of it. Fortunately, more often than not, I love what I do for a living.
Whether I’m helping a farmer muscle his way through the maze the county calls its permitting process by putting some public pressure on the decision-makers, or exposing the inner power struggle at the legislative level recently, there’s never a dull moment.
While I’ve shifted from writing most of the front-page pieces to calling the shots on content and managing the team, the change from reporter to editor has been a healthy move.
Shelly and I have gotten a kick out of how much our work advancements have been in sync. We both started at the bottom and rose to the top in our respective jobs in about a year and a half, almost in step to the day. Now we have employees and people call us boss and our bosses refer to us as managers. It’s been a fun ride.
I’m pretty certain we’re each the youngest to achieve such a rank in the history of our companies (she at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and I at The Garden Island). Pretty crazy. But we busted our asses from day one, seized opportunities when presented and stepped up when there were voids that needed filled.
It’s some of the stuff that’s more loosely connected to work that really makes me feel older though, like her company flying her to Oahu for regular business meetings or putting her up in a resort on the Big Island to mind one of their stores there. For me, it’s elementary principals and Rotarians seeking me out to read to first-graders or give a talk about green energy, and high school seniors asking me to be their mentor for a school project.
The office is a perk. I still find myself, when I’m the last to leave after putting the paper to bed for the night, spinning in my big chair and scoping the Ralph Steadman poster I hung of my hero Hunter S. Thompson, the original painting my parents gave me on their trip here this summer of Secret Beach on the North Shore by a local artist, and the numerous pictures I’ve taped to the dark wood paneling.
But after climbing to the top so quickly, I can’t help but wonder where we’ll go from here. I’m content putting it on cruise control for now though. I look forward to seeing what I might be able to accomplish from my current seat holding the reins. I’ve already added a couple new local columnists, implemented a plan to write a weekly editorial where the paper takes stands on hot issues, revamped our Web site and recruited a team of freelancers to help us plug the gaps.
The high profile interviews, like the ones with Barack Obama’s sister Maya Soetoro-Ng or Sen. Edward Kennedy, haven’t gone to my head. I stay humble. Shelly too, despite Ben Stiller and Pierce Brosnan’s family coming to her store.
It’s nice to be in a place where job security isn’t much of a concern, as it is for so many other people around the world, especially given the tough economic times right now. But, as with so many other things in my life, this just sort of came with the path I chose.
Although we each make 50 to 100 percent more than we did when we started, we’re far from loaded. We pinch pennies and sacrifice a lot to save enough to buy a fun toy or go on a trip to another island.
Fortunately, most of what we love to do is free. All the active lifestyle stuff from hiking and swimming to biking and surfing have one-time start-up costs, if anything. As long as those passions continue to grow as they currently are, we’ll be set.
There’s still more waterfalls to find, beaches to strolls, cliffs to jump off of into the sea, rope swings to flip from and miles of trails through green valleys and red canyons. Maybe even some scuba diving when Nick gets his dive master certificate, which is why he left our home on Lani Road and moved to the Westside where the boat tours depart.
We helped him land on his feet and it’s been great to see him take the challenging leap to fly solo for the first time.
Needless to say, we’re proud of where we are and what we’ve done. This naturally makes us anxious to share it with those closest to us.
It took a few months of living here, but the visitors gradually started trickling in. Each stay has been distinct.
After getting off to a rough start -- Nick’s old flame was our first guest and she left before her scheduled departure -- we’ve had some great times with friends and family here.
Miraj’s visit was perhaps the most classic. After hanging with him a couple days at his friend’s place on Oahu and then here a couple days, I said goodbye at the airport only to have him call soon thereafter to see if it was OK if he canceled his return flight and extended his stay another week. Priceless.
Nagy’s visit yielded the greatest misadventure. Our kayak trip down Na Pali Coast to Kalalau Valley was key. Dolphins and sea caves and rainbows en route. But when we awoke the next morning on a remote beach to a pounding 10-foot surf that had crept in overnight, we were forced to abandon our trusty orange vessel, salvage what we could and hike the trail 13 miles back to where the road ends on the North Shore. From there, with no cell phone reception, we had to hitchhike home. More details on that will be coming soon in another column.
Abby, along with Miguel and his friend Nick, reminded us why rolling here solo can be so sweet. The flexibility in the schedule, only having to do what you want to do on any given day. An awesome visit.
That said, sharing this place with loved ones is pretty amazing too, obviously. Leighanna and Mike, Doug and Megan, Nathan and Kaede, Aunt Diana and Uncle Larry, Mom and Dad can all attest to this.
Having more visitors on the horizon always gives us something to look forward to too. Huk looks like he’s up next in August. It will doubtless be a blast. I’ll have someone to turn over big rocks with to look for critters underneath.
It’s not hard to miss Smokie’s rapping, Miro’s ranting, Huk’s joking, Nathan’s story-telling, Steve’s bad-assing, Heather’s adventuring, Andy’s free-spiriting. Yet, despite being time zones away, it’s awesome how well we friends stay connected.
It has not always been easy being 5,000 miles away from home. Deaths in the family are harder, if that’s possible. Shelly’s had to fly home for the great loss of two grandparents, Jack Miller and Mary Funk. And I had to grapple with being unable to fly home for the passing of Uncle Bob.
But life carries on and this becomes a part of who we are. This is how we live and it’s an ever-evolving process. We cling to the things we’ve found that we like with one hand and reach out with other in search of the unknown life experiences that await us.
We also let go. We change our habits. When something’s not working, whether for us or for the greater good, change is necessary.
TV was sucking the life out of us back in Ohio so we haven’t had one since we’ve been here. Throwing away food scraps that could be composted, cans that could be redeemed or paper that could be recycled didn’t make sense when the world is not ours to trash. So we changed our lifestyles.
But not everything. I admit I’ll dabble in the occasional mai tai complete with umbrella, but the regular is still whisky and pale ale.
Similarly, I continue to reach for new authors, such as Yann Martel (Life of Pi was a good read), Matt Taibbi (his columns are spot on), Benazir Bhutto (Reconciliation is mind-opening), Prashad (Karma of Brown Folk offers priceless insight), Monica Drake’s Clown Girl delivered, Burroughs’ Naked Lunch was an overdue read, and Saul Bellow’s Ravelstein made me long to recreate such a time. But I still cling to old favorites like HST, Salinger, T.C. Boyle, Palahniuk and McCarthy.
Aside from finding new reads, there have been plenty of other firsts and new things we’ve learned. We owned a pool table, sold a pool table; spearfished; snorkeled with sea turtles, fish of many kinds, sharks and rays; we now leave our slippahs (what the locals call sandals) at the front door; we know what it’s like to be discriminated against for being white (haoles); bought my first mower and weed whacker; we know you fill the tub with water to flush the toilet to prepare for a hurricane knocking out the water supply; more devout atheist than ever; more concerned about government spending than ever; got excited about a new bed set and new knives; Six Feet Under, Dexter, Weeds and Lost on DVD can numb your mind in a good way, like the way Family Guy and ATHF do; and a bunch of other junk.
The anxiety can be unbearable. But this is my life and I’m trying to live it. So we hike on.
The sweat, which had long since flooded my bandana, slid behind my sunglasses and rolled off my nose as we pressed on through the jungle.
I took a long pull from the nipple, which is what we comically call the end of the tube to the hydration pack, and looked up the rooty staircase carved in the ironwoods, hau bush and painted eucalyptus. Another mile to the top.
Hanalei-Okolehao Trail, named after the alcohol once distilled from the ti roots grown in the area (literally, okole = butt; hao = iron; which also seemed an appropriate reference to the muscle burn in my hind quarters), winds up a ridge 1,000 feet on the North Shore. As we paused for another sip of water, Shelly and I scoped the view of the famous Hanalei Bay to the west, the towering Namolokama Mountain ahead to the south, Waioli valley, taro fields, sprawling pastures and Kilauea Point several miles away to the east.
We’re told the view from the end of the trail, a small grassy plateau fringed with long-leafed ti plants, encompasses 20 percent of the island. The clear summer skies and absence of vog let us take it all in.
After scrambling back down in half the time, we capped off our weekend with some surfing at “Pine Trees” and a picnic on the beach.
It was the first time we’d done the hike. The previous weekend we chalked up another first when we took our kayak down a narrow river from the mouth of the ocean at Nawiliwili Harbor to Menehune Fish Pond where we coasted around drinking Coronas and watching the fish jump.
Two years on Kauai. Still finding new things to do. Still not tired of what we’ve done.
Since moving here Memorial Day 2007, we’ve made lifestyle changes and gone on adventures, made new friends and anxiously hosted old ones, made unexpected career moves and found ways to have fun while working, gone green and lost loved ones, read old authors and watched new flicks, seen new sights and consumed old drinks, tasted new cuisine and acquired more stuff, self-reflected and reflected ourselves.
Our first home on Kauai was a studio on Hauaala Road a couple hundred steps to the shoreline. We moved up the road a few months later after I talked my brother into leaving the Eagle nest in Ohio. The three of us shared a condo on Kawaihau for a month before landing the place we’d been waiting for on Lani.
Our current upstairs home overlooks our first place, as well as the ocean to the east, Anahola Mountains to the north and Mount Waialeale, the wettest spot on Earth, to the west.
We traded a bike ride to the beach for a daily view of the sea from our bedroom window, kitchen table and wrap-around lanai. While we sometimes reminisce about cooking on our hot plate at our first place, I relish the kitchen here to pursue a favorite pastime. Plus, with three bedrooms and a quieter neighborhood we now have some space to sprawl.
Looking back over the past nine years since leaving Robin Hood Lane, I’ve moved some 16 times counting several rooms in Oxford, Valencia, Greenville, the road and here.
Over the past year and a half at our current digs, we’ve picked fruit from our mango tree, flowers from our plumeria and spices from our garden. After planting the beans, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, basil, thyme, oregano, cat grass, cat nip, and flowers of all sorts about a month ago in a wide variety of containers on the porch, we await our first real harvest.
Mornings continue to kick off with a healthy watering of the plants, a couple cups of tea and coffee and a feast of bacon and eggs. This week we replaced the turkey bacon with organic pancetta we bought from a farmer in Wailua. He’ll be our meat hook-up for the foreseeable future as we endeavor to buy more local grub. Assuming the lamb, grass-fed from a South Shore farm, is as solid as the prosciutto, we’ll be back for more. Fry that up with some vegetables from the Sunshine Markets and we’re set.
Sunny, the other love of Shelly’s life, has taken a liking to the scraps. She was cute as a kitten when Nick first got her for Shelly’s birthday in January, but the cat’s obsession with drinking out of the toilet and scaling our screen doors has me concerned. As long as she keeps eating the geckos and centipedes though, we’ll keep her around – unlike our former feline, Sophie, who got on our nerves so much she had to take a trip to Princeville where she “escaped.”
Neither cat has showed promise, as I had hoped, in eating the bazillion wild chickens that root around in our yard and wake us at all hours. That said, I did nail one near our compost last week with a single BB shot out the bedroom window. Not the first time I hit one, of course, (it used to be a hobby till the neighbors started yelling) but it was the first time I shot one that dropped dead on the spot. Before, they just made a bunch of racket and fluttered away. The kill, naturally, created a fun chore the next day in the form of a covert mob-style body dump.
My pick-up truck is good for such dirty deeds. I would’ve had a hard time being inconspicuous with a dead hen strapped to the back of my motorcycle, my pride and joy.
Riding the truck has become such a bore after buying my black 2005 Honda Shadow 600. I bought the cycle for the gas savings (getting 60-70 miles per gallon), but it has turned the daily 26-mile roundtrip commute to work into a stress-relieving thrill ride as I learn to open up the throttle more on the turns.
That said, it’s carried quite a weight since my Uncle Bob Forth died in May. He and my Aunt Helen were long-time Honda Goldwing riders. My last conversation with my uncle at Christmas 2008 centered on motorcycling.
I was saving up for a Honda motorcycle at the time and he told me about his trips to Alaska packing his wife on his cycle. He casually mentioned having just logged another 100,000 miles on his current bike.
I have 2,100 miles under my belt now. After being scared shitless the first 100 miles, which was filled with stalls and near-spills, it’s nice to straddle the bike without getting the fear.
I waited for about a year to get a Honda Rebel 250, more of a beginner bike, but about the time I tired of waiting for the shipment to come in I encountered an incredible deal on a like-new Shadow that showed up for sale next door to my office in Lihue.
My aunt and uncle sent e-mails saying I had chosen wisely. Aside from my first spin around the stadium parking lot the day I bought the bike (that marking my third-ever time riding a motorcycle), I haven’t ridden without my helmet or jacket. Friends liken the thrill of riding without protective gear to having sex without a condom, so I better just not even try it or I could end up trying to justify the added risk because it feels so much better.
Before my hours changed at work when I got the big promotion, I had been taking the bus whenever possible to cut gas costs and save the environment. But since the public transportation stops at 7, I locked in on the motorcycle alternative.
Walking into work carrying a black helmet, wearing big black leather motorcycle boots with my black riding jacket slung over my shoulder sure prompts different stares than stepping out of my Ford Ranger with my Italian loafers and laptop case in hand as had been my usual.
Pulling up anywhere on the cycle, for that matter, garners odd looks you can’t help but eat up. Maybe it’s part of that one-percenter mentality. Cruising into the parking lot outside the bar, breaking up a conversation with the noise of the engine you can’t help but rev -- it’s priceless.
I intend to indefinitely carry on the family motorcycling tradition that Uncle Bob single-handedly upheld for decades.
But the truck sure comes in handy when we want to go take the stand-up paddleboard to Wailua or the longboard to Kealia or the kayak to the fern grotto. Not quite sure how I’d manage to strap a 10’6” board to the side of the bike, though I could ask Shelly to carry it over her head while she tries not to fall off the passenger seat?
Buying my first surfboard didn’t quite get the adrenaline pumping like my first motorcycle, but it was equally momentous. Oddly, it didn’t happen for over a year on the island despite scouting the North Shore swap meets a few times.
This likely hinged on the fact that I know nothing about surfing, what makes a board good or, more importantly, if I’m getting ripped off. Fortunately, my editor offered me his hand-shaped board for cheap since he left the island for a reporter job in Cambodia.
I get complements on the board out in the lineup waiting for the next set to roll in, so it must be decent since the locals here can surf like no other. Proud to say I once caught the same wave as Bethany Hamilton, but I still wipe out more often than not.
The learning comes in spurts since we have so many hobbies out here. Even the increasingly popular stand-up paddleboarding, while still surfing, is totally different when it comes to catching a wave. Despite the spills, I remain determined to make it as natural as bodyboarding became in the first year here.
Timing, on the water and in general, is the trick. Work, now more than ever, soaks up a ton of it. Fortunately, more often than not, I love what I do for a living.
Whether I’m helping a farmer muscle his way through the maze the county calls its permitting process by putting some public pressure on the decision-makers, or exposing the inner power struggle at the legislative level recently, there’s never a dull moment.
While I’ve shifted from writing most of the front-page pieces to calling the shots on content and managing the team, the change from reporter to editor has been a healthy move.
Shelly and I have gotten a kick out of how much our work advancements have been in sync. We both started at the bottom and rose to the top in our respective jobs in about a year and a half, almost in step to the day. Now we have employees and people call us boss and our bosses refer to us as managers. It’s been a fun ride.
I’m pretty certain we’re each the youngest to achieve such a rank in the history of our companies (she at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and I at The Garden Island). Pretty crazy. But we busted our asses from day one, seized opportunities when presented and stepped up when there were voids that needed filled.
It’s some of the stuff that’s more loosely connected to work that really makes me feel older though, like her company flying her to Oahu for regular business meetings or putting her up in a resort on the Big Island to mind one of their stores there. For me, it’s elementary principals and Rotarians seeking me out to read to first-graders or give a talk about green energy, and high school seniors asking me to be their mentor for a school project.
The office is a perk. I still find myself, when I’m the last to leave after putting the paper to bed for the night, spinning in my big chair and scoping the Ralph Steadman poster I hung of my hero Hunter S. Thompson, the original painting my parents gave me on their trip here this summer of Secret Beach on the North Shore by a local artist, and the numerous pictures I’ve taped to the dark wood paneling.
But after climbing to the top so quickly, I can’t help but wonder where we’ll go from here. I’m content putting it on cruise control for now though. I look forward to seeing what I might be able to accomplish from my current seat holding the reins. I’ve already added a couple new local columnists, implemented a plan to write a weekly editorial where the paper takes stands on hot issues, revamped our Web site and recruited a team of freelancers to help us plug the gaps.
The high profile interviews, like the ones with Barack Obama’s sister Maya Soetoro-Ng or Sen. Edward Kennedy, haven’t gone to my head. I stay humble. Shelly too, despite Ben Stiller and Pierce Brosnan’s family coming to her store.
It’s nice to be in a place where job security isn’t much of a concern, as it is for so many other people around the world, especially given the tough economic times right now. But, as with so many other things in my life, this just sort of came with the path I chose.
Although we each make 50 to 100 percent more than we did when we started, we’re far from loaded. We pinch pennies and sacrifice a lot to save enough to buy a fun toy or go on a trip to another island.
Fortunately, most of what we love to do is free. All the active lifestyle stuff from hiking and swimming to biking and surfing have one-time start-up costs, if anything. As long as those passions continue to grow as they currently are, we’ll be set.
There’s still more waterfalls to find, beaches to strolls, cliffs to jump off of into the sea, rope swings to flip from and miles of trails through green valleys and red canyons. Maybe even some scuba diving when Nick gets his dive master certificate, which is why he left our home on Lani Road and moved to the Westside where the boat tours depart.
We helped him land on his feet and it’s been great to see him take the challenging leap to fly solo for the first time.
Needless to say, we’re proud of where we are and what we’ve done. This naturally makes us anxious to share it with those closest to us.
It took a few months of living here, but the visitors gradually started trickling in. Each stay has been distinct.
After getting off to a rough start -- Nick’s old flame was our first guest and she left before her scheduled departure -- we’ve had some great times with friends and family here.
Miraj’s visit was perhaps the most classic. After hanging with him a couple days at his friend’s place on Oahu and then here a couple days, I said goodbye at the airport only to have him call soon thereafter to see if it was OK if he canceled his return flight and extended his stay another week. Priceless.
Nagy’s visit yielded the greatest misadventure. Our kayak trip down Na Pali Coast to Kalalau Valley was key. Dolphins and sea caves and rainbows en route. But when we awoke the next morning on a remote beach to a pounding 10-foot surf that had crept in overnight, we were forced to abandon our trusty orange vessel, salvage what we could and hike the trail 13 miles back to where the road ends on the North Shore. From there, with no cell phone reception, we had to hitchhike home. More details on that will be coming soon in another column.
Abby, along with Miguel and his friend Nick, reminded us why rolling here solo can be so sweet. The flexibility in the schedule, only having to do what you want to do on any given day. An awesome visit.
That said, sharing this place with loved ones is pretty amazing too, obviously. Leighanna and Mike, Doug and Megan, Nathan and Kaede, Aunt Diana and Uncle Larry, Mom and Dad can all attest to this.
Having more visitors on the horizon always gives us something to look forward to too. Huk looks like he’s up next in August. It will doubtless be a blast. I’ll have someone to turn over big rocks with to look for critters underneath.
It’s not hard to miss Smokie’s rapping, Miro’s ranting, Huk’s joking, Nathan’s story-telling, Steve’s bad-assing, Heather’s adventuring, Andy’s free-spiriting. Yet, despite being time zones away, it’s awesome how well we friends stay connected.
It has not always been easy being 5,000 miles away from home. Deaths in the family are harder, if that’s possible. Shelly’s had to fly home for the great loss of two grandparents, Jack Miller and Mary Funk. And I had to grapple with being unable to fly home for the passing of Uncle Bob.
But life carries on and this becomes a part of who we are. This is how we live and it’s an ever-evolving process. We cling to the things we’ve found that we like with one hand and reach out with other in search of the unknown life experiences that await us.
We also let go. We change our habits. When something’s not working, whether for us or for the greater good, change is necessary.
TV was sucking the life out of us back in Ohio so we haven’t had one since we’ve been here. Throwing away food scraps that could be composted, cans that could be redeemed or paper that could be recycled didn’t make sense when the world is not ours to trash. So we changed our lifestyles.
But not everything. I admit I’ll dabble in the occasional mai tai complete with umbrella, but the regular is still whisky and pale ale.
Similarly, I continue to reach for new authors, such as Yann Martel (Life of Pi was a good read), Matt Taibbi (his columns are spot on), Benazir Bhutto (Reconciliation is mind-opening), Prashad (Karma of Brown Folk offers priceless insight), Monica Drake’s Clown Girl delivered, Burroughs’ Naked Lunch was an overdue read, and Saul Bellow’s Ravelstein made me long to recreate such a time. But I still cling to old favorites like HST, Salinger, T.C. Boyle, Palahniuk and McCarthy.
Aside from finding new reads, there have been plenty of other firsts and new things we’ve learned. We owned a pool table, sold a pool table; spearfished; snorkeled with sea turtles, fish of many kinds, sharks and rays; we now leave our slippahs (what the locals call sandals) at the front door; we know what it’s like to be discriminated against for being white (haoles); bought my first mower and weed whacker; we know you fill the tub with water to flush the toilet to prepare for a hurricane knocking out the water supply; more devout atheist than ever; more concerned about government spending than ever; got excited about a new bed set and new knives; Six Feet Under, Dexter, Weeds and Lost on DVD can numb your mind in a good way, like the way Family Guy and ATHF do; and a bunch of other junk.
The anxiety can be unbearable. But this is my life and I’m trying to live it. So we hike on.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
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