Metamorphosis

She stands, propped up in the gravel lot outside the boatyard fence. The keel holds her high, steel tripods balance her fore and aft. She looks homemade; a sailor’s dream designed old-style on a drafting board with T-square, compass, and a slide rule. Wood planked, her lines are sharp; the piercing bow, squared cabin and angled stern. She stands straight and tall, contemptuous of the softly rounded fiberglass beauties in neat rows within the confines of the gated marine works behind her.

She is in need of a good scraping, scrubbing, caulking, and painting; superficial, cosmetic work at best. However, she is abandoned. Yet even in this obvious rejection, she refuses to deny her glory. There is no sag in her beam; her windows fully in tact, stare straight into the morning sunlight.

Her demise is in sight. The blue dumpster lays waiting behind her. It won’t be long and the chain saw crew will arrive to chop her into hunks. I have seen the process. A crew dressed in county issue red overalls does the work. An armed officer oversees them. Crew and supervisors are an unenthusiastic group. I doubt they will appreciate her beauty. I doubt they will pause even a second before they smash in windows. I doubt they will feel any pang of regret as they hunk off the sharp point of her bow.

I felt melancholy catch in my throat as I passed her on my walk today. I could not help but speak to her. I told her, “My dear, I hope the dreams designed into your prow were fulfilled: the races won, the children delighted, and the sunsets holy. The voyages were ones of high spirits and laughter. The adventures imprinted on all of those who walked your decks. I know you protected your crew in rough seas, cut straight into heavy weather, slicing the oncoming waves leaving them powerless in your wake.” She stood motionless and refused to stoop to respond, but I know she knows.

When her time comes, I will not watch, I am not brave enough. Her decommissioning will be violent. I am thinking they will probably just push her over on her side and begin the carving. Several crewmembers with screaming chain saws will take the big bites; transom, deck, cabin and bow. Others with axes and shovels will take care of the small pieces. An agile knobby-wheeled front loader will dump buckets full of her now splintered hull into the dumpster. In a few hours there will be nothing left but the empty space she once occupied…

… and the wind.

A Declaration to Abolish Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Prepared by:
Pink (the color), October (the month), and Mary (the disease)

I am pink.
I lavish the birth of baby girls.
I rouge the checks of elderly ladies,
Flush the faces of children
Building snowmen in winter’s first snow.

I fly on the feathers of tropical birds.
I pulse within the salty, slimy bulb of jellyfish.
I burst thru frosty soil on the buds of the delicate crocus.

I am October.
I extinguish the hope of latent summer days.
I shake dying leaves from the trees,
Fill the sky with gray,
Moving the thermostat from COOL to HEAT.

I cheer football, soccer.
I harvest squash, apples and potatoes
I illuminate too cold nights with moon’s full radiance.

I am Mary.
I fell in love with pink the October day I gave birth to my daughter.
I have breast cancer.

We declare the following statements to be true:

1. There is no pink in cancer.
2. There is no cancer in October.
3. Marketers have contrived victors and victims. They have minimized our innate humanity and replaced it with pink trinkets that confuse awareness with compassion.
4. They have made those with cancer the incarnation of one’s worst nightmare.

We therefore demand the undoing of this obscene tribute and henceforth authorize:

Pink to awaken cuddled in the mountains snowy clefts at dawn and lay down to sleep atop clouds at sunset.

October to play in piles of red and orange leaves and wander into winter, warm and nourished.

Mary to place breast cancer amongst her belongings, secure in her joy of living, comforted with the love of those who surround her, and graced with the beauty of this planet.



October 12, 2011

Bats, Dogs and IPads

So far I can sum this visit in three words; bats, dogs and iPads.

Let me start with this iPad contraption. Mary received this electronic slab from Gerry for her birthday two months ago. Gerry might not realize this, but he might have purchased his replacement as the love of her life. It is stuck to her like a teenager with a texting cell phone. She has her books on it, the grandkids pictures, Facebook (omg, lol, etc.), email, and answers to any and all questions via Google (last night's question involved the layout of the Southern Cross). But, it didn't come with a word processor so she downloaded an "ap"....God help me, I am using the lingo....called PAGES. It is decent but it thinks it is smarter than the typist. It corrects the spelling as one types. As a result, in proof reading there can be whole phrases that make no sense as PAGES has rewritten the words, all spelled correctly but nonsensical together. My spelling is awful, my intensions are good. PAGES spelling is perfect, but it has no real intensions. Hence this writer, Fern, ventures onto the following writing, hand in hand (finger in invisible force?) with PAGES, together. Reader beware.

Bats. I witnessed my first flyover the other night. It is winter here. It starts getting dark by 5:45 and then the flying behemoths start appearing one by one. Within ten minutes the sky is filled with flotillas of 'em. Well, flotilla isn't a great description, but it isn't a formation like geese or F-16's. Imagine letting go a fistful of fat, oblong, helium balloons into a good breeze. There appear to be many near collisions as they dip and dive in the breeze. The bat's sonar "sight" keeps them heading for their meal well within their defined traffic patterns.

Dogs, many many many dogs. Packs of adults and puppies wander the roads and neighborhoods. Mary remembers growing up in Tacoma when fenced backyards were unusual and everyone knew everyone's dog. Perhaps it is the same way here. However it seems this is a reflection of one of many broken systems here. There is a spay and neuter program, but there is no anesthetic available to do the surgical procedures, so more dogs and more cats. Missing Pearl, Mary's heart twists a bit when she sees them.

Enough, Fern.

Hello all, Mary here.

Thought I'd write some notes regarding my vacation from my vacation. Friday we flew to Western Samoa. Our air travel was via Polynesian Airlines. The plane sits 18 regular size people and their luggage. We all are weighed, suitcases, purses, and bodies. Solar powered calculator in hand the attendant sums the poundage (kilo-age) to determine how much baggage gets to go along. The flight from Pago to Apia is about 35 minutes over spectacular coast line, sapphire blue ocean, and reef protected white sand beaches. We sit directly behind the cockpit, and thus are able to read the gauges in case there was reason to panic...or think we should.

Our stay is in a lovely resort. We had great dinner that night at a harbor side open air restaurant. My dinner was a rich fish soup made with coconut milk. Dennis had tuna and Anne had an eggplant parmesan. Her Italian meal was made even better when we shared some tiramisu, probably the best I have ever had. (Fern is nagging me that all of this is boring...). My point is that this island is much more dependent on tourists and caters to them in style.

The Miss Samoa contest was held Saturday night, with a Fa'afafine show the night before. Fa'afafines are men who are raised as girls. Not really cross dressers, transvestites, drag queens, or any other category we would like to put them in as it relates to our white American culture. These men seem to be completely accepted into this culture.(I read a sports article about a family of boys, six of whom described as rugby-crazed and one a Fa'afafine.). As for the Friday night show, I am not sure what it consisted of, but I believe over the top theatrics and drama are involved. But the fact that it was the pre event to the beauty pageant says something.

Saturday Dennis rented a car and we toured the western side of the island. We tried to get into a resort called Aggie Gray's and were turned away. The whole place was been leased to the Survivor television crew. They are about one month from finishing and will have spent six months there. This season's locale is apparently this main island, Upolu, probably back into the jungly highlands that consume the center of the island. Denied entrance to that resort, on around we went. The road slowly diminished as we rounded then western end. While still passible, we slowly climbed up and over the mountainous headlands. We had spectacular views from a road that makes the road to Hana in Maui look like a superhighway.

We dined Saturday night with Dennis's boss, a Kiwi whose office is in Apia. He and his wife are just moving into a newly constructed home located on a bluff overlooking the ocean....spectacular...but then I am using that word too much.
The final excitement of this vacation from my vacation was flying back to Pago from Apia. A large group of very large Samoans were flying with us. While we were lucky to have our baggage make the plane, there were very few pieces that arrived with us. As I said, there are 18 seats. I think only 14 were occupied and little luggage made the flight...you do the math.

Dennis and Anne took Friday off from work. With the Labor Day holiday we had a great four days together, three in Western Samoa and full day of exploring this island. They are back to work today, Tuesday. I am still not sure of the driving, so I'm holding fort at the house, reading, writing, and relaxing.

The Wellborns are well established in this community. Between Dennis's insurance sales and Anne's law practice they have made many friends and contacts, both Palagi (white) and Samoan. While I know they miss their family, they seem quite content here and hope to stay for a while. I am not sure that I could. I strained to watch THE plane come in last night....the same flight I arrived on one week ago. With only two flights in and out per week, these landings are well anticipated.

More later regarding this place and maybe Fern will tell you more as to what she really thinks about the state of affairs here in American Samoa.

Mary

P.s. The "g" sound is pronounced "ng" sound....hence the "n"sound in Pago Pago.

P.p.s. Did you know the moon fills top to bottom here just south of the equator?

August 29, 2011

Samoan greetings from Fern!

I am traveling with an idiot! She has been telling everyone about the trip to Samoa and that Hawaiian Airlines only lands there twice a week. Did she not translate this to the size and remoteness of the island, the community itself, roads, airport? No, she did not. As we begin the decent into Pago Pago she asks her seat mate, a Samoan, do you see the lights? He nods and smiles with the definite eyes of one thinking, "Are you kidding lady?" Granted we were on a big plane, Boeing 767, and had the bustle of the Honolulu airport six hours earlier. Did she not notice that many of the people on board knew each other?

(an aside here: as I write this the neighbor has determined that Manuel Noriega has set up shop here in this house as he/she is blasting this place with disco music, while not Van Halen, it is Thriller, KC and the Sunshine Boys celebrating, and..... wait for it, yes, Donna Summer is now working hard for the money. I give! )

But now back to poor silly Mary...

It is dark when we land, first right wheel, then left, then right, then left, a rough one certainly. The attendant announces we are in Pago (the N is sorta silent, well, it doesn't exist, but there is a bit of one the next to the short A sound...rhymes with "bongo", almost). We are to keep our seat belts fastened until they attach the stairways fore and aft. They need to be secured as it is blowing hard outside. Sitting in the second to the last row we are third to deplane out the rear door. The wind whips a hot blast zapping the manufactured chill provided within the plane's cabin. Instructed not to walk under the plane's wing (why?), we follow a set of orange cones into the building. Through the glass we see a herd of people and Mary finally gets it. Twice a week they light up this place and bring a plane load of people in and take a plane load of people out. These employees are working this gig only a couple of times a week. This remote rock is not Kansas, dear Mary.

We walk into a small holding cell where we show our passports, then walk into a larger room and wait for our baggage. While we just walked past the trucks and workers unloading our stuff, they deliver it behind closed doors to dramatically emerge via an old, groaning serpentine luggage belt. It is a crazy attempt to look like an urban airport. But unlike those airports no one is jostling for position. Everyone is chatting. Obviously newcomers, we are none the less engaged in conversation with all sorts of friendly people. The other side of the room has at least ten blue uniformed customs workers laying in wait. Hanging overhead are placards advertising car repair, insurance, and pizza. They remind me of the style and quality of the ads strapped on the end zone fences at a high school football field.

Finally the belt starts grinding and out comes boxes, strollers, loads of taped up coolers, and suitcases. The cart vendor charges $4.00 to rent a cart and most of them are whipped up in a flash. Either these travelers have been away from home while, or they stock up with stuff in their off-island visits. Fighting the urge to muscle my way to the belt line, Mary holds me at bay. Well into the snaking procession of stuff, her single bag appears and we are off to inspection with the friendly, if somewhat less than fully occupied, customs personnel. While declaring no food on the customs form, Mary panics when the customs man pulls out the large bag of coffee beans. Oops. Not a problem and off into the night we go to find Dennis and Anne waiting with a lovely purple lei and hugs around.

The Wellborns are waiting for another couple, neighbors, who were on the same flight. They spot them, they get their lei greeting as well. We wheel our stuff out to the car.

The ride home is mostly talk with the neighbors, catching up on local gossip (some one is pregnant?), and sites they saw on their trip to Italy. Mary is straining to see into the night as we bump off though the potholed roads, through standing water, and make our way to the "hill", their neighborhood. The night feels like a floral hot-house, complete with the floral, by the way. The humid darkness sticks to the skin.

First impressions: While not your paradise resort, the place seems filled with lovely people that appear to love where they live and are not driven to build grand edifices for photography in Paradise Is My Life Style magazine. Granted this is a pretty poor place, but maybe they have figured out some stuff here...we will just have to see.

Signing out from Pago Pago,
Fern

P.s. From Mary.... My seat mate was returning home with his younger brother, killed in Afghanistan. I saw him and other family members in the waiting area in Honolulu. They each had a picture or framed plaque of this young man. I couldn't understand then written words as they were in Samoan. In talking to Dennis he says per capita, Samoa has suffered the highest death rate in our current wars. Many of these young people opt for military service as not only provides good employment, but also pride to these families. So sad. I had very little conversation on our flight with this man, other than to say how very sorry I am for his loss. So sorry. So sad.

".....is fear itself"

Gnawing at my bones
Are cells,
Pieces of me
Gone rogue.

Gnawing at my psyche
The thoughts,
Pounding pulses
Short-circuit my brain.

Gnawing at my hope
The images,
Slabs of dread
Strain my beating heart.

Gnawing at my faith
The doubts
Question the questions,
Pummel my soul.

Residue piles
Shit out by
The dull tooth rogue-

Well fed by fear,
It gnaws,
Subtracting me

Bit by bit.

God is love.
Love is the answer.
All you need is love.

Big talk
Big words
Big question:

What is love?
The breath we take?
Or that we breathe?

The child we birth?
Or that he exists?

The God we worship?
Or the desire for answers?

The deep kiss of a lover?
Or the need in loneliness?

I choose to
Imagine love,

Its uncontained vapors,
Sweet with pure, clean desire,
Tamed with the breezes of peace.

This love sings into life
A singular privilege;
The actuality of
Being

April 26, 2011

Fern Posts from Maui

Fern here, here in Maui. Mary gets so hyped up over this place and yet B-16, Hono Kai remains the 70’s cheap build, with dark fake wood cabinets (they don’t chip, they flake hunks of sawdust), Berber carpet (nubby-ness long gone and replace with dark circles), the mauve and blue poster of Hawaiian lady from New Year’s 1981, and the ever-growing yellow stain around the bathtub drain. But she thinks it is great, so here we stay.

The curtain of vine-y jungle that separates this building from the parking lot of the building next door died and has left this unit exposed. It is loud with the coming and going of people, and you know how I feel about obnoxious people. But, the good news is vines provided the perch for all the crazed morning singing birds. The cacophony of their morning wake-ups is thankfully gone. We are left with the sound of coffee grinding in the kitchens of the units surrounding the now exposed parking lot. B-16 would not even make Rick Steeves’ travel book. Resort life isn’t in my resume, and Mary is McGoldrick-cheap.

The regular morning sequence of events has dwindled to two. The sun is comes up around 7:20 over the top of Haleakala and the Whale Foundation boat that spends the night moored in Kihei motors over to the boat basin. The third leg of the a.m. routine has been the swimmer, “shark bait”. This guy was caretaker of an estate a couple of doors down. The house was sold, so the guy’s gig was up. I imagine he is swimming and tempting sharks elsewhere.

The whales are leaping and lazing. They are visible only on these two scenarios. Their most spectacular feat is the full body projectile out of the water, followed with a huge splash and disjointed thump that follows. It is the same delay that separates the flash of lightening and the rumble of thunder. They do love to “pat” the water, slapping their fins and tail flukes. They also laze along the water top, the black triangle of their back moves slowly interrupted with exhaled blow of water that proves their mortality as opposed to being some sort of silent naval secret weapon.

The troop of regular suspects are here. The Alaska crowd are tanned and happy. This weekend, Ernie, the partriarch of the Ketchikan crowd, will host the annual salmon feed. Mary’s friend, Mo, from Comox, BC, arrived Tuesday. They plan to walk the beach regularly and solve the problems of both Canada and the U.S. A. Bobbi, a resident, was happy to see Mary and will update her on the daily life of an aging hippy on Maui. Mary will continue to be envious, but I will slap her back to reality regarding her grandchildren, her children, and the isolation of living on an albeit spectacular rock far out in the ocean.

So life, the three Maui weeks of the Mary’s annual fifty-two, is just the same…sun, sand, friends, Safeway, books, whales, turtles, and sunscreen. I’ve yet to convince her to find the bowling alley, but am happy that she has decided to take this day to work only on her book and her tan.

Aloha,
Fern

p.s. Please note those of you that seem to kill houseplants on a regular basis; the trees in Maui manage to grow them better than you do.

Primeval Resurrection

I’ve been held in the arms
Of forest
Of wind
Of sky.

Oh Forest!
You preserved deep riches
You sheltered and shaded
You ripened my soul.

Oh Wind!
You blew wild warmth
You pushed and exhilarated
You energized my soul.

Oh Sky!
You radiated limitless horizons
You purified and lifted
You freed my soul.

And now released,
Rich with life
Fueled by love
Unbridled in spirit

I thrive.

Begin, Again

January 1, 2011

It pulses pain in a box laid up in a closet. I’ve opened it but twice in the past six years. Today it is calling me and today is the day I will pull it out into the light of day and take a good read. A long red leather strap wraps tight around the bound book of once blank pages. A yellow decal affixed to this journal was stuck there those years ago in anticipation of a family trip to Maui; a trip meant to heal or at least deny a few consecutive days the wretched pain that had descended on my family and our lives.

Taking a deep breath, I unwind the strap and stand the book on its spine. Opening it floods my nose with the sour smell of the binding and musty paper. The odor brings me instantly to those days when I pressed pen and shaking anxiety into the pages now laying open before me. Reading the first page, I realize I have forgotten the original purpose for purchasing this journal. I had some crazy idea that I was going to launch this into the public in some way, have total strangers write in it and fill the pages with their happy thoughts. When the book was full, a prepaid envelope affixed to the back jacket would instruct the last writer to put it into that envelope and mail it back to me. I’d receive back a book full of wonderful happy stories from total strangers. I would publish the gems. It was my experiment to document the edges of human bliss. The first page was one on which I carefully wrote out some happy thoughts to launch this project. However, as I turn the page, I immediately find the writing I was expecting; the torrent of words that sends this journal tumbling down a darker path.

The red leather book is about 80% full of my own writing that spans a period just short of one year. There are loose papers shoved in here and there. Other pieces taped in, several pictures, and some birthday and anniversary cards are included. The writing meant to document my own search for bliss, peace, grace, truth, love, and THE answer to the eternal question, “Why am I?” In paging through, I find the oppressing weight of pain and confusion with the nagging idea that only if I could concentrate on the positive, pound the nail of faith deep into my psyche, and avert my eyes to the heavens, all would be okay. I would wake one morning and find the ache in my gut gone and the darkness in my brain replaced with the everlasting brightness of true LIFE. There is none of that. Instead, I find teary-eyed misery.

First entry, November 13, 2003: I am waiting for a bone biopsy to determine the exact nature of the mass on my hipbone and sacrum. All expect it to be the same stuff, breast cancer, a recurrence of disease treated four years previously. In 1999 it had lumped up in my right breast and escaped leaving a trail in my lymph nodes in my right armpit. The results are as predicted, the breast cancer cells have decided to take a whack at my bones. The mantra in these first few pages relates to the destruction of the “mass on my ass”. (Humor is my consistent weapon of choice.)

However, immediately, my writing asks me to pull my thoughts away from the smallness of cancer to the largeness of life. As I read these innocent ideas, my eyes fill with tears knowing that while my current life is full of wonderful things, I have lost track of where I actually fit into the immense glory of real life and authentic living. This journal traces the long haul of my cancer recurrence, treatments and the horrible end to a 32-year marriage. Somewhere between the last entries and now, these ideas of hope and faith have faded out of my current consciousness. I’ve chosen a determined course of living and living and living, strong and hard and straight down the middle. Blinders have so focused my eyes that I’ve ignored the blessed universe that surrounds me. I have lost the innocence, the faith that all will be well in the largeness of existence. I’ve sped by God’s wonderment, clutching the leather reins of my own galloping days. I’ve let hope and faith take the backseat while I spend this new life piling up treasures of things, experiences, and community.

This is where I need to begin, again. I need to find the faith and hope that was the center of my writing when my world fell apart. I need to feel their breezes and let the power of Love push/pull me in my every day living. Perhaps this is where I will fill my new year. To do so I will have to take another read of this red journal; this time, not with the eye of the victim, but with the eye of the victor.

I will begin at the beginning.