The Way to Start a Day

The other day I was picking out children's books for my sister-in-law who is due in January. These books were used and ragged, but there were many classics - Goodnight Moon, On the Day you Were Born, Eric Carle bookes, etc. I happened across one which is now my new favorite children's book: The Way to Start A Day. The book is a basically about greeting the sun each morning - actually singing a song to celebrate the sun. It talks about how several ancient societies welcomed the sun each morning, always turning their faces towards the sun and singing a little song (that might be some poetic license taken by the author, but still cool).

So, I got Raph out of bed this morning at 5:30 and we went to the shoreline to greet the sun. In near dark, we drove past the house we're considering buying and headed on to the shore. Everytime I've gone to watch a sunrise, I get anxiety that I am going to miss it. The sky starts lighting up, and I think, "I'm missing it. I'm missing it." But we get there and sure enough we haven't missed it and we can greet the sun! Today wasn't a spectacular sunrise, but it didn't matter. To watch the light crawl up the coastline and lie down is pretty great. And Raph laughed at me, but I made him sing a little song.

ready for renewal

At the moment, my roomates are gushing about the details of Snakes on a Plane. They claim it's worth the hype. My mind is more taken with the undulations of sound coming from my mini. I so rarely get to listen to music anymore. Though I deserve it today. My mind is overtaxed, my body uncomfortable from a lack of movement. I yearn to run and swim, but it's dark and I'm lazy. The only realistic option is a walk, and it is so dark out here I wouldn't be able to tell if there were any of those super-creepy centipedes about to crawl onto my leg and send me into a state of agony. Here come the centipede nightmares again.

Tomorrow I go home - all 5,000 miles away. Travel is so much about renewal. Remembering what you return to. Putting things into perspective. This travel involves a wedding, a union, but also a reunion with friends I haven't seen in years. There are quabbles about dress colors, and responsibilities, but I know these things will melt away when we share the same space (as opposed to cyber space where the gripes grow like the Hawaiian ferns that climb the fence outside). These people know a slice of me unknown to others. We shared a time, an era, forever gone, except in our memories.

I have often described the bride, my friend evan, as the most nostalgic person I know. She is a sucker for the emotional moments, seeing the beauty in the mundane and simple. She was the friend who would skip any class to have a margarita at 2:00 in the afternoon. we would sit around for hours on end listening to music, drawing, making mini-books (her favorite past time). Her achilles heel, wanting everyone to be happy, never letting anyone down. The conflicts, sparse like Ohia trees on the backside of Kilauea volcano, were misunderstandings, Evan's goodwill spread too thin, too many promises to keep, and someone let down. Could always have been worse, but the infrequence made them seem important.

Evan and I don't correspond often, one of those friends with whom this isn't necessary. When we see eachother, we sit and make art, and no time has passed, and no time can pass. We stand at the gate with mini-books and drawings in hand, holding back Kal, time, whose devilish force threatens us. I miss her.

My new favorite beach: Ice Pond

Not called Ice Pond for nothing - this small little bay is chilly from groundwater which is flowing into the ocean. But the water is a gorgeous turquoise color, the bottom is sandy, the waves are present but not knocking you over. The perfect swimming hole. And to top it off, I dove in and looked around underwater and there was a good sized turtle two feet away from me. Actually scared me for a second, before I realized what it was and was able to appreciate fully the awe of a moment like that. Today was a good day. I'll have to get a picture of this place.

The power of Language II

A student called me a fucking cunt about 20 times today. (Am I allowed to publish that? I guess I'll find out if not?) Why did he call me that? I touched his arm to ask him to leave after he called another student of mine a "fucking faggot." I didn't know that student before today. He isn't a student I have in class, which is generally the kind of student I have trouble with. You see, I really can't seem to turn the other way when I don't like something. I don't like kids making out at school or doing drugs or swearing unnecessarily. And I'm not going to turn the other way. There were kids smoking pot in front of the gym the other day and I told another teaching, since I didn't know the kids. He just shrugged and said, "that's not unusual for that group."

What kind of world is it that as adults, we allow this. How can we teach children to function in our society if we allow them to do these things - to call unknown people fucking cunts, to full on make out in the courtyard, to smoke drugs in public areas. Screw grammar and math. How about societal functioning? Citizenship?

Power of Language

Raph and I got married in April. April Fool's Day to be exact. His brother got married 18 months earlier, and his cousin (our roommate) about five years ago. My brother got married about 8 months before we did. We also have a lot of married friends and I've watched all of these couples and their interactions carefully.

Some of these couples fight a lot, Not like Raph and I fight - they swear, full of meanness. But I've learned that these couples don't mean much of what they say. Its empty, constant fighting. Sometimes it makes me and others uncomfortable, but mostly they seem to think its harmless.

I think it matters. I think it is important how Raph and I talk to eachother. It's has the potential to be a self-fulfilling prophecy...if I tell Raph we are lucky to have eachother, that will be how we genuinely feel about eachother. If on the otherhand I call him an asshole all the time, I think I'd eventually begin to believe that. It's the same deal with my students - expectations. If I expect a lot from them, they will deliver a lot.

My father had a liver transplant when I was in 9th grade. At the time, my mother learned a saying about health problems after a transplant..."you either pay early or par late." My dad paid early; we weren't sure he was going to make it after the original surgery. And he has been relatively healthy thereafter. I don't know if marriage is really the same thing, but it might be.

Maybe you go through struggles early in your relationship and survive them together. And maybe that is necessary. Some of the married couples I know have already faced some pretty big obstacles. And yet, when I'm with them, I'm really not sure that they're going to make. They don't always seems like they have a basic like of eachother. Alot of older people talk about marriage being so tough. It doesn't feel tough, and I guess sometimes that worries me, especially when I consider some of the other married couples I know. Is too easy bad?

The challenge to value set.

There is a very nice house for sale - two bedroom, two bath. A block from the ocean. Right next to a beautiful park lined with palm trees. Nice new kitchen, slate floors, nice enough. Raph wants it. Wants it bad. He's always wanted to live by the ocean. And I like it. Don't get me wrong! I'd love to live in that house. It's just that I'm not sure that I'm totally willing to make the sacrifices to afford a house like that. It isn't that expensive. We can afford it as long as we are both working, but there are sacrifices.

The sacrifices: my dream of building, with my own hands, my own house. My dream of having a negligible mortgage - so that I can travel, and engage in other activities that I am interested in, so that we aren't slaves to our mortgage. My dream of having AND RAISING children. I am really not interested in having children and then allowing someone else to watch them. This house won't allow us to live on one income, unless we were very creative.

And that brings us back to the basic value set...what is important. I sort of feel like living on an island is good enough! We can go to the ocean within 10 minutes whenever we want? Is it necessary to live right next to the ocean, where the threat from tsunamis and hurricanes is much greater? I'm not so sure? I just want a few acres with fruit trees and and trees and room to live and breathe and have kids run around (some day.) I'm just not sure how the cost of the house fits in? We'll see...

The worst bug yet!

So I've lived in Hawaii before. I am familiar with the giant roaches, the even bigger cane spiders (We had friends who after finding and then losing a cane spider in their house, pitched a tent on top of their bed, they were so afraid of the thing.) Last week I even had a gigantic cane toad thrown into my classroom in the middle of class. Talk about disruptions. So yeah, I'm prepared for those little critters. But not the centipede! I've had nights of nothing but nightmares about this guy. Scampering into my bed and stinging/biting me. Unfortunately, I think that the only thing that will cure my fear, is to actually get stung. Maybe it will happen soon so I can resume sleeping.

pahoa, an introduction

Raphael and I moved to the Big Island about a month ago. We own two lots of land in the Puna area (in case you want to check out a map). It is very rural here, rugged, and fairly unregulated by the government - housing may or may not have permits, most roads are privately owned and look like this one on the right (which happens to be the road one of our lots is located on - thats our lot there on the left), many many people use catchment for water and solar for electricity. Many more don't have any utilities at all.

We are both English teachers here (though Raph is trained as a science teacher) and are still getting acclimated to the culture in this area. Our school, Pahoa, has a reputation for being a tough school and many of our coworkers talk to us as though we won't stay, because soooo many teachers have come and gone each year. When other teachers ask me how I'm doing, and I answer "great," they seem fairly shocked. "Really?" They say.

Maybe it is because I taught on Maui before, and so the Hawaii school system isn't totally foreign to me. Maybe it is because I've also worked with inner-city students in Pittsburgh through jobs at the Pittsburgh Children's Museum, and the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild. (Not trying to make it sound like a resume, but both places are pretty awesome and I love to say that I've worked with kids there.) But the truth is, thus far I have nothing negative to say about my students.

They face some pretty incredible challenges. For example, Puna has more kids in foster care than anywhere else in the state. I hear many students talking openly about running away from their foster parents, or being switched around from Auntie's house, to grandma's house, to foster parents. It's pretty remarkable that they can keep up with school at all. They also have a
HUGE crystal meth epidemic in Hawaii (ice as it is known here). These two problems aren't unrelated. Drugs permeate the culture here. In the 70s when there were only 55 students graduating each year from Pahoa, guerilla farmers had huge crops of marijuana growing on this lush mountain-side. That remains here in the culture. When talking about utopian societies in class the other day, I asked students to identify problems in our society that we'd need to fix in order to make a utopia. One boy's response was "green harvest," which I'd never heard of. Apparently it refers to when the authorities cut down your marijuana crop. According to my student, this is a problem because when they harvest a person's marijuana, they are driven to take ice. Interesting logic, huh?

Despite these challenges, my students are very bright, have incredible senses of humor, and want to learn. I like EVERY student I have, which I couldn't say on Maui, even though I did like the vast majority there too. I'm excited to teach, though the job is limitlessly challenging, and indeed the only thing that I feel has truly challenged me in my whole life. I think about the job that I held for the last year at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild. An incredible place. Amazing people working there. And yet, I wasted so much time as an employee there. Not that I didn't complete my job, but I did it efficiently, and was left with so much extra time to visit the coffee maker, the studios, glaze a pot, dye some fabric, talk story (as they say in Hawaii) with a friend. Luxuries not afforded to me as a teacher. And yet, I feel so much more energized as a teacher. I feel like I make a difference to those students. I feel like my day's work matters. And I'm being challenged daily, which I believe is good for the soul, the intellect and the body (as long as it isn't too extreme.)

I'm thrilled to be here, though this wasn't at all what I had intended to write about. It is what it is, and I'll just go with that for now.

First Day Off; First Blog

Here we go...a try.

I've always said I wanted to be a writer. It was just a matter of time, I surmised. Maybe if I commit to writing something every day, that will make me a writeR?

It's a cloudy day in Puna with waves of rain washing over the corrogated tin roof frequently. Raphael is in the garage building a sewing table for me and occassionally the shrieking hum of the circular saw blocks out the music and soup boiling on the stove. The only color against the dirty white sky is the deep green of the Ohia trees and Norfolk pines.

This is a new life for us. An experiment in living. Rural Hawaii. Struggling schools. CUTE kids. So well-meaning. An ocean of water (literally) and an ocean of emotion (figuratively) between our families and us.

A start. A small start.