Arkansas #2

Neil, Andrew, Eric, Anna, Michael, Jessica, Laura, Becky, Sue, Christine, Monica, David, Sarah, Julie, Alysha, Anna
Monica, Sue, Jessica, Neil, Becky
Anna & Julie playing Rock, Paper, Scissors
Laura, Jessica and Anna

Arkansas: Some Lovely People! #1

Monica and fish!
Anna (my namesake!) and Julie
Andrew Chicken
Julie and her mom, Christine

Wow, what a great time at the family reunion we had! I know this may sound like an oxymoron, but really, it is true!
Some of these people I was meeting for the first time ever; some I hadn’t seen for quite a while…their ages vary, but they are all really, really nice! And they are part of my family! How cool is that!

Finally updates looming!

Let me tell you, David and I have been to heck and back these past few weeks…well, actually, we’ve only been to Arkansas and back, and have been reinventing our livelihoods in between the narrow gaps allotted for breathing when time permits…but it amounts to the same thing, really.
Our daughter is visting us here in Hawaii right now, along with her fiance-to-be; yes, there are pictures, yes there is news, so lemme get some sleep and I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow when I’ve got the pictures all synched up and the synapses all firing in some semblance of a linear fashion.
Cheers!

What It Is

Hello, it’s quite a few weeks later and I’m getting down to it, figuring out What It Is. I admit to having swiped this phrase from my absolute favorite cartoon artist, Lynda Barry: (www.marlysmagazine.com)
but really, when you’ve ripped around the country and plopped yourself down in the middle of freaking paradise, you do get some time to think. I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in Hawaii? I must admit, it’s like living in the middle of a postcard; plenty of visual stuff all about the place to distract one from thinking about What It Is. But eventually, one does get around to it.
And I’m not talking about work, though that is important in terms of food, housing and all that. I am talking about what happens when you’ve driven the car home from work, cooked and eaten your dinner, and you are staring at your husband across the table trying to figure out between you what exactly It Is All About. Specifically, what it is. And while we’re at it, what is the driving force?
I think a lot of people would say that fear is the driving force that moves us all. I disagree. I think that desire is the most powerful force. (Don’t worry, there will be a lengthy dissertation about that one later.)
What got me here to Hawaii? Fear of having no place else to go?
No.
Desire got me here. Desire and talking about it endlessly for about four years.
What gets me out of bed in the morning to go to work?
Desire to go out into the world. Believe me, if that desire isn’t there, every moment of every day is excruciatingly painful.
Yes, desire to go out into the world and look around.
There’s a whole bunch of other stuff that just doesn’t matter to me anymore. Being smacked in the face with the question in the middle of paradise with no real clue about What It Is was very, very difficult for this eternal philosopher. Paradise will not help one out with this one. I see the evidence in the faces of the people who come to me at the health food store and ask questions about herbal remedies. They came here thinking that paradise would be It. Instead, they found themselves alone with themselves for the first times in their lives, and most of them have not recovered from the shock. One’s geographical location will not fix anything.
No, I think it’s Where You’re At is What It Is. All the other crap is just decoration.
Man, I can’t wait to read Lynda’s new book!
And Lynda, if you ever read this: thank you SO MUCH for the Inspiration Marlys. It’s working!

Hawaii Pictures

our neighborhood beach


cows in the side yard
gecko in our house

Giant Travelogue Installment #9

Puna Rd., Pahoa, with Mauna Loa in distance
Anna at Pohoiki
Our front yard is now a noni grove!

As I say, having travelled so much, and so far, in so short a space of time, we were a bit breathless. We spent a lot of time those first days driving around, seeing our new environment. We saw the Hamakua Coast, drove up to Volcanoes National Park, went to the beach, started meeting interesting people, and through a new friend of ours started hearing about something called The Secret…

By and by we obtained transportation of our own (the Sport Brick) and lodgings of our own, and jobs (www.siriuscoffeeconnection.com and www.islandnaturals.com)

all in the space of a few short weeks, easily, without realizing that others here have found just those basic things rather difficult to maneuver into reality. Only after Sue and Bruce had sent us a copy of the movie (“The Secret”) and a few books connected with it did we realize that we have been powerful creators of our own lives all along, and that there was a more precise method to it all-thank heavens! As I say, we were a bit breathless, and are presently relishing the idea that our main job now is to feel good, and everything else we want and need will follow. I would like to add here that if feeling good sounds easy to you, then you are one up on the rest of us; it was very difficult at first, but it’s getting easier day by day. Being surrounded by Hawaii as we are at present is a good sort of default defense for us; it has taken something quite unusual like being surrounded by Hawaii to drag us permanently away from our previously close-held miseries that were always lurking in the backgrounds of our minds…

So that is where this travelogue ends, having brought all of us up-to-date; but the travelogue is never-ending with us. There is more, and will be more, for me to share with you, because this life is an endless journey. Plus, we’ve got a few tricks up our sleeves that haven’t happened yet, though they are being planned and dreamed into existence right this very minute. This is by no means the end of the road.

Please continue to read along, and if you haven’t done so already, click that banner in the right-hand corner of your screen!

And know this: we personally are not followers. That we have found a group of someone elses who have quantified what we know already, in a form that is easily understandable to anyone, should tell you that this information is very important. Do you remember what I said about making plans to unmake them (Giant Travelogue #1)? Well, it makes sense to me now; and if one doesn’t get out of one’s own way once one has decided and intended to do something, this is what happens! Yes, yes…we got there in the end.

Giant Travelogue Installment #8

Hawaiian Yurt Interior!
Yurt!
Isle Of You
Cheetoh in our yurt doorway

Astounding flower near our yurt driveway

As I said, we were very near to stepping off of the continent, and all it took to do that, ultimately, in the end, was a couple of plane tickets and a ride to the airport. Sean dropped us off at Jacksonville, we flew through to L.A., where we spent an abbreviated night with our baggage in a room near the airport; we got off the plane in Hilo after switching planes in Honolulu (not recommended without a taxi or enough time). It was October 3, 2006. But Kelly and Norm came to collect us in Hilo, and we spent the next few days slack-jawed, not even taking pictures, hardly thinking, just looking, driving our rental car all over the place, just in a state of wonderment, just being…they put us up in one of their yurts, and even lent us a cat.

We spent a few weeks with them at their hideaway www.isleofyou-hawaii.com

and then figured we would stay on the Big Island for a while, and so started to make plans…

Giant Travelogue Pictorial Florida Supplement #5 plus Commentary

Blue Heron-my special ornithomantic bird.
Palmetto shapes

We spent the summer in contemplation, in transformation, and in deep thought generally. I spent a lot of time writing and agonizing. Outside work was not forthcoming. During the days we worked at the park, picking up trash, servicing the facilities, and dreaming. At night, we went down to the beach and walked and walked, and looked up at the stars, and talked, and dreamed some more.
One day when we were driving the gator down to the beach bathrooms, we started talking again of Hawaii. This subject had been brought up several times over the past four years or so, but we had always round-filed it, as it seemed impossible to reach. Now, having broken our bonds that held us so fast to the desert, there was absolutely no good reason why we shouldn’t try to at least go there. What would it take, besides a plane ticket?
“Wanna go to Hawaii?” I asked David. “Okay,” he replied.
The next day, as we were browsing the secondhand store for shirts for him, David found a dreadfully perfect button-up; faded, with compass roses, co-ordinates and a map of Hawaii strewn all about it. It fit him, and we bought it for two dollars. During the coming week, we made a couple phonecalls to our travel agent, and the deal was done. We would head for Hawaii at the end of the summer…but not before some serious visiting with Monica, and not before doing some heavy-duty parenting, fussing, gifting and rearranging so that we could take off knowing that everything and everyone had been provided for to the best of our abilities. And Monica said she would come to wherever it was that we ended up, the following May. What a kid!
So we made plans, made contacts and lodging plans in Hawaii. We ditched or gave away almost everything we owned; stripped it down to whatever we could fit into two backpacks, and gave Monica the rest, including the Pod. It was liberating. It might have been terrifying if we had stopped to think about it, but this was no time for thought, it was time for action.
In the end, all it took was a plane ticket.

Giant Travelogue Pictorial Florida Supplement #4

Sean cooking David’s birthday dinner
Extreme Camp Cooking!
David’s birthday cake
Sean dishes it out…join him next time for Extreme Berry Picking!

Giant Travelogue Pictorial Florida Supplement #3

Frog in the soda machine
education at the beach
palmettos
David & I spent our anniversary here (August)