Hawaii journal: 2008 part 1

The birds frantically greeting the day seem as happy to be in Hawaii as I am.

I am seated on a piece of furniture unique to me – a couch four feet deep. My legs are as comfortable as they would be on a chaise lounge, and I am wondering how this would go in the apartment in Hoboken. The couch is in the sitting room of of our B&B apartment in Waikiki, on a hill a ten minute walk from the beach. The ornate ceiling fan looks as if it came from Thailand.

The “& B” part of our stay is wafting across the spacious open porch called a lanai ten lush feet from me, barely visible through the foliage. It is as if nature were upholstered, so naturally does the furniture live on the lanai. Am I outdoors, or indoors? It is the meeting place for all the people who live here or are staying here. Exactly who lives here is a little inconclusive. The rooms and living quarters are splayed over a large footprint which it is difficult to comprehend, so dense is the vegetation.

Terry spotted a red-white-and-blue scavenging sort of bird unlike anything I had ever seen before alight on the road ahead of us yesterday, then fly away. I have no confidence that either the trees, flowers, or birds are anything that I am familiar with, so would never even try to figure out what it was. What was that enormous spreading tree with the gnarled embracing aboveground roots and the dry-looking tentacles hanging down from its branches, hanging down to the ground, where their tentacles spread out to make structures like the base of a table? The tree with sideway-reaching branches as long as my house is tall is a double-pod acacia. I saw no flowers on the hedge along the driveway yesterday, but last night there were large white flowers dotting it. They were fast fading flowers, with the last night’s blossoms lying limp and spent on the ground.

My brain was a gumbo when I arrived. Where was I? What time was it? I felt as I often do on New Year’s Eve – okay, now it’s time to get excited. But I wasn’t, just a little awestruck. This morning my tummy is giggling with excitement, after a fish dinner on the beach, sitting comfortably watching the sun go down over Honolulu, and ten hours of sleep.

Privacy is a mutable concept. In Europe, for example, I sometimes feel violated by peoples’ standing “too close” to me, or touching me "too often." In Zimbabwe, one had to figure in servants, who were going about their business, but often on a path that collided with mine. Giving access to my private life to a total stranger, even if that stranger was an employee, felt odd. In Hawaii, privacy is commonly secured by visual blocks – huge plant leaves, draping vegetation, screens of all sorts – that windows are wide and open. Air is so vital that even the bathroom has small rectangular open screened windows high on the wall. Terry and the hostess of this B&B were talking on the lanai while I peed three feet away in the bathroom, with two open windows. I was aware of a slight embarrassment, but aware also that sounds are dispersed here, coming from all directions, and constantly. My sounds were swallowed in the chirping of birds, the sighing of wind, the movement of leaves, the sounds of other people in the open house. It was not as if two people were having a conversation in the hallway outside my bathroom where the sound of tinkling would be the only sound they heard. There are doors in our apartment, both between its rooms and to the outside, but I can’t even figure out how to close some of them, or haven’t yet attempted to do so.

The beach in Hawaii is the center of far more varied activity than anywhere I have ever been. Last night, in the two hours we sat in the lanai restaurant in the New Otani Hotel, we saw a cruise to nowhere pass from right to left, then an hour or so later, come back left to right, smaller sailboats and yachts, five outrigger canoes, a young boy paddling on a surfboard, getting his sealegs, surfers, swimmers (and I mean swimmers – swimming parallel to the shore for long distances), paddlers and dabblers, kayakers. Nothing with a motor on it, and no fishing so far as we could see.

The fish at the restaurant was freshly caught, and tasty. It was mother’s day, and many of the women at the restaurant tables had a lei, or two, or three, around their necks.

There was also a surfeit of buff bodies, a depressing surfeit of buff bodies. We’ll get to work today, with a drive to Waiamea Beach and a swim someplace. SWIMMING in the ocean – that’s my kind of place.

Los Angeles journal: part 2

We were stopping in Los Angeles on our way to Hawaii, so wanted to rest up and take the time change slowly. So this was a lazy day, with a massage, and a pedicure and manicure given by a sweet, petite Hispanic woman named Gloria. She had been an R.N. until she injured her back holding onto a 200 pound, 5’10” woman t o keep her from falling. Now she cleans the salon and does manicures and pedicures. She thinks that’s how God wanted it and is accepting of her reduced station in life.

I refused to get in the car for another choking drive on the ever-full L.A. highways. This obstinacy was met with no resistance, since Terry was also still reacting to our drives of the previous day. We had dinner in our ornate, historic hotel, The Biltmore, at a restaurant named Sai Sai, a “fusion Asian” restaurant. Dinner was adequate to good. We chose a fondu dish for dessert featuring fruit dipped in marshmallow sauce which Terry thought tasted like chalk. I thought it was too bland for the fruit.

There was an informed conversation about the Gewurtztraminer with the German owner of the Asian restaurant with the Hispanic waiters in Los Angeles. Come to think of it, the glistening tiles at the entrance of the restaurant didn't feel Asian, more German. Perhaps the clean, clever décor also reflected his exposure to sexy hip European architecture. At the salon the owner was Iranian, the masseuse French, the hairdresser Ukranian, and the manicurist/cleaner Hispanic. The mix of folk in L.A. is different from New York. There seem to be bigger chunks of each ethnicity in L.A. But what do I know.

L.A. was chilly. The newspaper says Honolulu is in the 80’s. I was so filled up with L.A. that my mind had not yet attached to Hawaii.

As we entered the airplane the next morning, I remembered one reason why I had never yearned to go to Hawaii – I find the music trying, boring, anodyne. Pictures of Hawaii look canned. Soon I will be able to touch it, smell it. The trip will then come alive.

Los Angeles Journal: 2007 part 1

On May 10^th, 2007, I left for Los Angeles and Hawaii. I hadn’t bought the tickets or made the reservations. It was the first time in my life (since childhood) that I had not been responsible for the travel arrangements, and paid at least for my part of the trip. I know that sounds unlikely, as I have been married twice, etc. etc., but it is true.

I was no longer perilously in charge, but was lower to the ground, safer. Someone else was worrying. It’s not fair that one of the two had to worry, but Terry had offered this, and I was deeply grateful.

I sympathized with his edginess as we checked in – patting his pocket to be sure he had the boarding passes, getting the slightest bit snappy with the Los Angeles hotel clerk who said that the only room he could find for us didn’t have what we had requested. Terry huffed a bit. “We made our reservation several weeks ago.”

The clerk backed off and gave us what we had asked for.

I felt his discomfort as he realized that getting a PT Cruiser wasn’t the best idea. It had looked spiffy and modern on the Web, but it had no power, was weak going up hills, maneuvered poorly and had hard, uncomfortable seats. I knew how he felt responsible for every little thing. The car was fine, just not perfect.

This was my second visit to Los Angeles, the previous one was in 1962. Terry had lived in this part of California for several years, so I could relax and allow myself to be led around. There wasn't anything in particular that I wanted to see, other than where my daughter was living during her six months out there.

The traffic was intensely annoying and driving was as unsatisfying as it has ever been in my life. Washington DC is also annoying, sludgy and overcrowded, but Los Angeles is much worse.

I don’t like it that the trip into New York along Route 3 is unpredictable, with traffic sometimes ruining one’s giddiness at going to a show or out to dinner, but L.A. has been crafted as Road Rage’s perfect storm. The heavy brown cloud of smog hangs in your future as you crawl along. Identifying license plates from different states as a diversion would be impossible, as the number of cars flying past is unparseable. Everywhere. All the time. Up on a mountain road. At 11:00 at night. Here. There. Everywhere. The estates are among the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, but getting in and out of them must drive the owners crazy.

We drove along Rodeo Drive, watching for movie stars but seeing only illegal aliens. At the end of Rodeo, as the millions spent on each house rose and rose and rose, we turned left on Sunset Boulevard, ready for our close-ups, past the elegant gates of Bel-Air, past the spacious, beautiful UCLA campus which Terry said he had seen only AFTER choosing another college, down the hill to the Pacific Highway and Malibu.

Gladstone’s, the fish restaurant near the intersection of the Pacific Coast Highway and Sunset Boulevard, has it too easy. Their location is so good, and their purpose so well known that they no longer have to try. The food was mediocre. The waiters were very cute. Hannah asked one of them “Do you have a ladies room?” “No, you have to hold it,” was his answer. Cute. The view of the ocean was matchless. After lunch, we moved on to the Getty Villa down the block.

On the way, we passed the first of many Malibu beachfront properties, dens of luxury and sybaritic pleasure. There is a strip about ten feet wide in front of the closed garage doors facing on the highway which owners would have to negotiate when getting in and out. How could you give a decent dinner party with parking like that? If the guests parked across the highway, they’d have to wait five or ten minutes to get across. The owners are rich enough to phone up limousines to take their guests to and fro, I suppose.

Waiting to get onto the Pacific Highway can take five minutes. If I lived here, I’d get used to it, but I think I’ll refrain from living here.

We missed the entrance to the Getty Villa and had to go around the corner. They waved us off our effort to enter at the Exit, so we went the 20 yards or so back to the intersection at Pacific Coast Highway. The entry to the villa was too close to the intersection to turn the corner and then immediately turn left, especially given the steady stream of vehicles going 60 miles an hour. We waited five minutes or so for the light to change, and then Terry turned left against the oncoming traffic (which was stopped at a red light, but you never know) along the shoulder to get into the Entrance.

The guard at the entrance, who, we found out, came from King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, noted the eccentric entry with a smile, then said we needed to have tickets, which were available printed from the Web or mailed several weeks in advance. Parking was the problem. We screwed up our faces and looked at each other .

“You from out of town?”

“Hoboken, New Jersey,” Terry said jovially.

“Okay, maybe we can make an exception to today.”

He pulled three passes from his guardhouse. “Just remember, “ he said, pointing at the passes, then at Hannah, “You’re Terry, you’re Jill, and you’re Hong.”

“Hung?” I asked. Terry might enjoy saying his name was “Hung?”

“But I’m Terry,” he corrected the guard.

“Not today you aren’t. She’s Terry today.”

Beggars can’t be choosers.

‘I think it was the cool turn into the entrance that got us in,” Hannah remarked as we drove up the hill to the museum.

We parked in the spaces reserved for the people working on the estate, took a tour which pointed out the sort of intriguing architectural details and materials which Getty money can buy, took us through the villa and the amphitheatre, pointed out the buildings housing academics who restore, study, and educate regarding ancient art and culture, mentally scarfed up the sculptures, jewels, paintings, heads, torsos, and, my favorites, signature rings from thousands of years ago. Wouldn’t you love to have a little stone in your pocket, just a little stone, which had an exquisite carving in it or a face or a bridge or a pattern, which you used to sign with? What would I have on my signature ring (though, as a woman, I guess I wouldn’t have had one)? A horse I think.

After two hours I was museumed out, ready for something else. We took the long way back.

Looking down from the top of Malibu Canyon the horizon was layered with the brown effect of the Catalina fire, the second major fire in a week. (The first was the burning of Griffith Park in L.A.) With only two inches of rain since January, it’s no wonder that the bushes and trees are sere. It is more a wonder that Topanga Canyon is still green.

We stopped the car at the entrance to the Dead Horse Trail, leading to the Tripett Ranch, partway up Topanga Canyon, and Terry and I took a walk. Hannah stayed behind seated tranquilly at a picnic table attracting warmth and light, as she does so effortlessly in all parts of her life. Her face turned like a sunflower to follow the westward moving sun.

On the sweet-smelling, easy trail we saw animal footprints that looked like the mountain lion footprints portrayed on a warning sign at the entrance to the trail. The presence of a series of houses no more than 100 yards from the trail made me feel more comfortable about the prospect of stumbling upon a mountain lion. The houses had laundry hanging out the back, and must have had children around. To confront a mountain lion would be a rare occurrence.

There were birds skittering out of the underbrush as hawks threatened from their smooth flight path above the trees. The ruckus in the undergrowth to our left was fortunately not a rattlesnake, but a small brown bunny whose transparent ears shone Hollywood pink as the sun flooded through them. There was scat of different sorts; a dog-like sort, pellets, a cat-like (lion-like?) sort, plus a scat that looked like someone had let a mixture of coffee grounds, nut shells, and cranberry skins fall from their torn garbage bag. A lot went on in these woods.

Having gotten the kinks out of our legs and brains, we set out for Dodger Stadium. As we came down into The Valley where the Valley Girls come from, it was slightly frightening to realize we were driving straight into that brown bank of smog ahead. Terry said that sometimes the buildings to our right in the near distance were barely visible due to the smog. We got off the Freeway, which was clogged, traveled along Ventura Boulevard, then got back onto the Freeway, which was by that point flowing fairly freely. The constant flow of vehicles, even high in the mountains, even in the middle of the night, is like a madman’s hallucinations – whish whish whish whish whish whish whish whish.

The signage to Dodger Stadium was almost as bad as the signage in New York and New Jersey. In both cases, you have to know how to get there and then they tell you. The signs are more in the way of confirmation than direction.

We drove up the back of Chavez Ravine, circling to the top parking lot, bought our Loge tickets, took the escalator and elevator down to the correct level, and watched the game. It was quite cold. If Hannah had not brought layers, including a cashmere sweater, we would have all been shivering. Terry was the lightest clad but also the least affected. He got up after the third inning to wander around in search of warmer seats.

We pretended to be rooting for the Dodgers. After the long day, this kind of silliness and fun was what we needed. We had our hot dogs after the fourth inning, sang Take Me Out to The Ball Game, arms around each others’ waists as we promenaded toward the elevator, wended our way up, then down, to our car, and were out of there by the time the Dodgers pitcher was taken out of the game because he had thrown too many pitches. He struck out 11, the Dodger center fielder made a great catch, a Dodger bruised the third baseman while sliding into base, and the Dodgers won 2-0.

The length of my shower was somewhere between a drought shower and a very-long-day shower. By the time we all hit our pillows, we were wrung out.

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Grandma and Grandpa in love

My church asked me to teach their sex education curriculum. It was difficult to find that fine line between telling too much and telling too little. My fellow teachers and I laughed with each other over the fiction we were creating that we knew enough about sex to tell others about it. We learned a lot too.

If I had had a class like this when I was a teenager, where I learned not only the sexual nitty gritty, but discussed the ethical and practical issues of dating, my life would have unfolded much better than it did, but that is another story.

One of the beautifully rendered illustrations showed a picture of an older couple lying in bed. The woman’s long white hair was down, her head on the man’s shoulder. The man lying on his back smiling, his arm around the woman’s shoulder.

“Yech!” said one kid.

“Why do you say ‘Yech’?” I asked.

“That’s, like, my grandmother.” His expression showed disbelief.

“And?”

“Well, that’s disgusting.”

“Why would you deny your grandparents the comfort of sex?”

The thought had never occurred to him.

“They have lost a lot by their age, and a lot of fears have been introduced into their lives; fears of death, and illness, and the death or illness of people they love. They might need the comfort of sex and affection even more than young people do.”

I wish I could perfectly describe the way the young man’s face softened into understanding. He smiled. “Yeah. That’s right.”

Our exchange not only affected the way he saw his grandparents today, but when he becomes their age, he will remember that the sweet comfort of affection and sex is available to him.

The fiction we create that older people don’t have sex has not one good reason to recommend it.

Keeping fit

Pictures of me 15 years a go show a dowdy woman carrying 40 more pounds than today. I'd always been thin, and didn't know what to do with myself when I gained all that weight. It humbled me. In a period when I wasn’t paying attention, I became lean and strong. I’ve stayed that way, and here’s how.

I have a scale in my bathroom, and weigh myself several times a week. When I get three pounds overweight, I cut out carbohydrates for a couple of days, and add an extra exercise round every day. Every day. In the ten days surrounding my cousin’s recent wedding in Colorado Springs I had the hotel’s ample breakfast, a full lunch, and a dinner with appetizers, wine, and dessert. We happened on a German restaurant with authentic everything and ate spaetzle, schnitzel and cheesecake until we were sick to our stomachs. The scale was unnecessary. I could feel it. My pants were hard to cinch closed. I could feel the padding at my sides and on my stomach as I sat down. My clothes tell me when I have gained weight. The scale forces me to face it.

On the trip, I didn’t exercise, and could eat much more without feeling full. Exercise does something to my metabolism which makes me feel full faster.

It was only five pounds, and it came off quickly.

This quick-response method had worked for ten years now and can work forever.

Craving, hatred, and delusion: the fetters of the ego

Craving, hatred, delusion form one of the neat sets of virtues and vices from the Buddhist liturgical canon. They are called “fetters of the ego.” In my own psyche they rank: 1) delusion; 2) craving; 3) hatred.

Hatred is number three. I have had three enemies in my life. For a moment I could only remember two of them. That is a good sign.

Once your antennae are trained, you detect your hatred early, and that is the moment to depart, before you waste energy, emotion and brain power. There is room for pretty much everybody on this earth, and the person I hate might fit in tidily somewhere else. Hitler, Genghis Khan, people who would kill 500,000 Rwandans, and Saddam Hussein are outside of this scope. They are the stuff of grand philosophy, Devil and Evil talk.

One of them was an extremely successful litigation partner in one of the biggest law firms in the U.S. Her disdainful, manipulating and suspicious nature were perfectly suited to her work, and when she died an early death she left millions of dollars behind, specifically cutting out her mentally ill brother, giving it mostly to the Republican Party. She probably died of hatred, though they called it something else.

Craving is my median weakness. Craving is all mixed up with impatience. If you could only wait until dinner to eat, you wouldn’t get fat. Craving the sound of a boyfriend’s voice has gotten me on the telephone long before I should have been, during times when a period of separation would be a better idea. Craving has landed me in bed with someone long before the relationship was ready for it.

The opposite of craving, waiting for perfection, is also counterproductive. You have to date quite a lot before you find out which flaws are dealbreakers, and which you can get used to.

Viewing it as a continuum, we look for the sweet spot in a relationship where you each have a few tolerable flaws to put up with for (you hope) the rest of your life but you get that feeling of sweet security, reliability, response, and I guess we call it “love” that you have craved.

My cravings have turned frogs into princes one too many times. They are frogs.

Now we come to the force which has made me fall off the edge of the earth. Delusion.

Once I was leaving a job and at my going-away party one of my fellow teachers read a poem which was very funny and appreciative, but included the lines:

Ann is smart and at her sternest

When talking about the importance of Ernest.

Ernest was my boyfriend, later my husband. I was unaware how gradually, but completely, I had made Ernest my world. I had deluded myself into thinking he was giving me a wider world, not, as it turned out, less of everything.

Other peoples’ advice and observations are a good way to check delusions and maybe I should have listened more closely to that observation. I didn’t have my internal delusion detector working properly, and possibly still don’t.

It is rare that a pointed observation is made so wittily, in rhyme. Think of the clumsy, well meaning warnings you have received which came out as insults. Think of the overstatements of risk so grossly overdrawn that you discounted the warning.

Our delusions are so deeply rooted in our expectations and our predictions. A male friend fell in love with a married woman a few years ago during a torrid, brief affair which she abruptly broke off. The mere mention of her name still strikes deeply into his heart. He is convinced that she loves him more than she loves her husband, and that she will come to him one day. Delusion. Or is that true love?

How slippery delusion is, because it somehow involves predicting the future, and nobody can do that.