;

So yes, no flooding. The creek is pretty high even though we're in between storms, the pump is in place and the hose is running out a hundred feet into the grass. Now, we wait for round two.

I forgot to mention the other day that I saw a single tadpole in the pond. At least I think I forgot. Yeah, just one. The mallards might have something to do with that. Or, in that the frogs are still making a racket, a couple might have jumped the gun back in February when we had some nice weather, and only one survived the freeze thereafter. Hard to say. I'm not a biologist. Doesn't stop me from speculating.

The purple and green swallows are back as well.  I reckon that nuthatch will have to move out of the nesting box at the barn now. Too bad, as we'd become friends of sorts, and those swallows, well, they're hell on the bugs but rather stand-offish. Specialists, you understand.

So, where does that leave me? Just a blogger, I suppose.

A selection of my paintings are going to an art fair in NYC next month. An acquaintance from my old stomping grounds has asked to take them. It's his fair. Thing is, while he's wanting to hang them on a wall, he's asked me to find someone in the area to do the hawking. Understandable, as he's going to be busy keeping his stall renters happy. Problem is, I only know one artist in NYC these days. Used to be different, and I wish my friend Lee was still alive, for he would do it in a heartbeat and do a great job. I'd go myself, but I ain't got the dough. Gonna have to get creative in some other way, I suppose... you know, more strategic and pragmatic.

Now, I have to tell you, I've got my reservations about this fair as it is. The guy running it has been doing this sort of thing for several years now but not getting ahead by doing so. I rather wonder if I might be sending my work off into the ether if it is unattended. And, if his ventures are petering out and he's grasping, I also wonder if I'm just not filling space to prop the thing up a bit. Yeah, it's a bit of a pickle. Which reminds me:

"Laugh, if you must"

Yet, it hasn't stopped me from sorting through the work and making two piles: one, more text-inspired and the other abstraction.

As I am so fond of saying: Stay tuned.

I begin to wonder if my frequent use of the colon, and for that matter, the semi-colon, is not a product of my subconscious. I saw my GI doctor Wednesday and I'm back on steroids to get some quasi-immediate relief. (And the use of a dash evidence of ADHD? Too oblique?) It hasn't quite kicked in yet, as I can feel and hear the chicken soup I made tonight making it's hasty way. Anyway, the Doc says she's going to get me feeling better and we're going to rule out other physiological issues that might be contributing, wherever that may lead us. A quick check of lymph nodes and a rum-tum on my tummy suggest we don't have to worry about the big C. Blood has been taken. I'm hopeful, which helps, I know. Again, ST.

BTW, the diet sucks so far, but we have a cookbook now, which shows promise. Good thing I like chicken and cheddar cheese. Too bad I stocked up on oatmeal last week.

I don't want to leave on a sour note, but I'm going to wrap this up soon, so one more good thing. My show in Salem, MA has been firmed up for the beginning of June. Guess who I will be meeting at the opening.

Ta.

In all of the excitement

The buzzards have returned from LA ("Go where the roadkill is, children.") and the hawks are doin' the dive, which means it's mating season. I've seen them the few times I've been out this week, sleeping half the days away since the heavy tree trimming.  Some things don't make themselves as apparent as they should be until extreme situations occur, and even then it may take a few times before someone like myself (the HI hippies called me a "fixed sign") gets the message, takes the hint, comes to the realization, hears the yelling, etc. that things are worse than I thought.

Now, I've written about this before, if a little obliquely or lightly, and despite the fact that the weight loss has been minimal these last two years, the colitis is finally and dramatically taking its toll. Hence, the inability to muster enough stamina to make it to shore without fear for my life last week, and having to change clothes and sack out for two hours after each bout with the chainsaw this week. Fat reserves notwithstanding, my body just isn't getting what it needs to keep the engine going.

Now, I don't know if it is out of laziness or lack of energy to merely refer to and link the Carbohydrate Specific Diet, or we just don't talk about such matters at length in polite company, but it seems to be my last hope. The traditional eastern and western medicines have not helped, so it has come to this, starting yesterday. Now, what to do with stressors, the preciptators, if you will, since I was a teenager?

Last year the snorkeling I did was relaxing,  and I spent a lot more time in the water than this year. It would make sense then that last year I took better pictures of the fish I looked to for visual comfort. Nevertheless, I kinda feel like I owe you folks a few shots, especially after enduring my belly-aching.

Part of my gene pool. Let's hope not so afflicted.

In other news, I am happy to report that I am painting again. I bought some drywall the other day to construct a device on which I can hang in order to properly document the art. Another sizable project that will require some energy that seems to be lacking at the moment. Even so, I did fabricate the structure in my mind last evening, so that is a start.  And the snow has melted off at a disciplined speed and foregone the need for flooding. 

And the daffodils look nice.

Upon my return

As we pulled into the driveway, even in the dark I could tell something was amiss. The branches on one of the flowering plum trees jutted out into our path. But it would have to wait until morning because of a lot of other matters that needed tending. I have a saying about vacations: You pay for them before going as well as after, and I'm not just talking about money. At least I still had a home to come back to.

It seems that there were a couple wet and heavy snowfalls while I was gone, and some good gusts. What I saw in daylight was worse than I expected. Three of the four plum trees had sustained substantial damage, two of which required the chainsaw for larger limbs plus a lot of hand sawing with one of those extending orchard saws. I took out about 25% in two trees and 10% in another. That was Tuesday.

Tuesday night we received another five inches of heavy snow and out came another 15% in three trees and a small amount in the one that had managed to avoid taking part of the brunt. I had enough branches to make another tree, minus a trunk. Yet, one of the trees was listing bad from the ground up, so I could still get a base for my accumulated limbs.

Last night added another six inches with a power outage from 0300 to 0830. The generator kept the house going but I dare say I have more cutting to do. How much remains to be seen once we get some thaw. Of course, with almost a foot of snow on the ground and the temp about 50° today, we'll be sure to keep an eye out for flooding.

In better times.

Written in Bone

Around seven o’clock each evening, music filters up the hill to my vacation rental in the Kona District from the large dance hall. I can hear the house band sing about paradise while visitors, retirees and honeymooners alike, swig down fruity rum drinks and nod to each other in sweet agreement. The song shifts to the inevitable end of the trip and the lament of having to return to the cold, hustle-bustle or humdrum existence that awaits back home, leaving only memories and a desire to return, the latter receiving it’s own verse. Then the music changes as the island’s drum and dance troupe rush onto to the stage to whip even the most cynical Poli-Sci or Anthropology professor into a desire to go back to the room and have one last go at the Missus before the plane in the morning.

Similar scenes play out on other islands in this chain, as they do in the Caribbean and other tropical isles around the world. It’s how a significant number of the locals make a living, the visitors. What is unique about the Big Island of Hawai’i is that many of the tourists leave behind a mark of their presence, something they can call their own and hope to someday see again.

North of the Kona airport the drought-tolerant trees and grasses give way to fields of dark lava. Little else is here, yet it draws vacationers and locals alike to pull off of Highway 19 with buckets, plastic bags or satchels full of dead white coral. Using the pieces and clumps as markers, they pile lines along the dark ground to spell out their messages of hope, love and commemoration. This is coral graffiti.

 The lava flows are from the volcano Hualalai, which last erupted in the 1700s. Yet, it is somewhat difficult without further research to know if some of the flow is from Mauna Loa, which is still very active and has vents extending into this region. The coral is hauled up from the beaches where it is found in abundance. It is tempting to draw contrasts of life and death with these minerals: The coral was once alive and the lava the birth of an island; the coral bleached white in death and the dark lava denying roots a hold. Yet, my purpose in such a trajectory would be to merely segue back to those who combine these elements to leave sentiments less sublime, yet all too human.

 

 

From the highway, it’s as if I’m looking at the leftovers of a party I wasn’t invited to, the remains of favors and a good time. I have never seen someone actually do this graffiti. Yet,  when I venture out onto the lava, I cannot help but feel disappointed, for taken individually, so many of the grouped pieces of coral seem pedestrian in their sentimentality: a couples’ initials surrounded by a heart, a first name, a home town, a memoriam, and if especially industrious, a date or some extra decoration in the shape of a star or flower.

 

There are a few clever or, better still, enigmatic pieces, and while I did not catalogue every marking left along the one-mile stretch of road (both sides), I am comfortable with this assessment as a rule. I am perhaps most amazed by the groupings that are the furthest from the road, as far as one hundred yards into the lava. The effort is noted and I assume the trek made to better insure their mark is not disturbed or pilfered by opportunistic souls with a lesser empathy for others. I dutifully document these even though the marks themselves are no more special, revealing or imaginative than those ten feet off the road.

Against these massive fields of lava, we humans are small things, insignificant except in helping to erode the surface with each step or in the garbage we leave behind. This is the overwhelming sense I carry with me as I sweat in the heat and my eyes begin to sting with salt. I step carefully, knowing that should I take a serious spill or an apparently solid surface give way to a precipice, I could become more like the coral in a short period. I am less aware of my humanity and more of my mortality, my piece-of-sand transience. A memory and sentiment that will both fade long before these stretches of lava show more signs of life than the occasional tuft of grass.

Such a frame of mind! It perhaps then is no wonder that I soon tire of J.K.’s undying passion to get into L.M.’s pants via a clump of dead sea creatures, and instead begin to take special note of the graffiti that has been dispersed by either vandalism or tectonic rumblings. 

Were I otherwise disposed, I suppose I would celebrate the lovers, feel compassion for the families of those remembered in this way. And perhaps I could wait until that time to write a more compassionate essay. But I find it difficult to have such hope out there with the lava and coral that only serve to reinforce what I want to claim as my own sentiment. Nevertheless, I must be touched on some level, if ever so slightly against these feelings of futility, and ultimately come to terms with my own desire to leave a mark... my mark… a fitting mark. 

Older than last time

It is hard not to get a little trippy when in twenty feet of water twenty feet from shore, a camera in one hand, snorkel and mask in the other and a fin threatening to fall off. I don't care if it is saltwater. I may have some pictures... not of the panic but of fish. Don't know yet. Need a nap.

Home tomorrow.

Wait

Working on a long piece with a shitload of photos. But there's a fruity rum drink in front of me and more where it came from, so you'll have to wait.

Save time and trouble

It is said our attitudes create our perceptions that we then confuse as reality. The dream or the dreamer? I keep thinking this place has to be seeping in a bit, but no. Kundalini breathing in the adjacent room this afternoon, I shit you not. I'll give you a visualization... Just give me a fast highway and a lot of very narrow, winding side roads. Or sex. But no camera, okay? (BTW, all with the Canon Rebel.)

There's your postcard shot. 

There's a story behind these, or this place. A tragedy. I didn't bother reading the info boards.

A person could do a book of all the churches on this island.

Favorite from the day.

I tried a variety of angles for this one. There was something there, but I didn't get it in the camera.

Up in the mountains by an Army base. Didn't stop often or long on this stretch.

 I'll get around to putting these and a few more on Flickr, but Thumper's had a big day.

Noman

There are four active volcanoes on this island. At least I think that is how many. I was told once and may have forgotten or added one or two, or the teller may have misinformed me anyway. Call me lazy but I am not going to do the research to find out. There are two inactive volcanoes as well. These I have seen with my own eyes, recognize them as such, snow at their peaks. Still, "inactive" does not take into account the unseen, the plumbing or, if you will, the subconscious, and I would advise caution in final pronouncements. It occurs to me that the same can be said about the history and outcome of human relationships, which may explain devout nature lovers, for flora and fauna may indeed speak to these people. Flowers, birds and soil do not take account for more than they need.

I met a swami today. I'll get around to that later.

Other than that, here are some photos. I'll be updating until I go home.

Can Cans

Slowly but surely I'm amassing a series of photographs taken in the restrooms I visit. I believe I've posted a few in the past yet a quick look shows only the one above here, and a couple in the Picasa file. The latter I am relieved are some pretty nice photos, if I do say so myself.

You may remember these two.

I know there are more in my files. Many more, and perhaps many more to come if treatments do not eventually, after nearly two years, prevail. (Yes, I know this may be TMI. But then again, you should know that I endure, ever hopeful, and well-versed in available facilities.) So, what else but to make a little came of it? I even had a ball cap inscribed, specifically for the poker table: "As me about my colitis." Are you laughing yet? I hope so.

Today at the pet clinic

This one holds a special place in my heart. Also taken today at another clinic, one for humans, I've been planning, actually practicing for this shot for three weeks. After all, one does not want to spend an inordinate amount of time behind the locked door. People might not want to follow you in line.

I hear there is a guy who is taking photographs inside the restrooms at all of the state capital buildings. Seems equally fitting, no?