Other Novembers

     I remember walking under old ironwood pines, planted in straight lines and running parallel to the even older stone walls; mossy and tumbled but still beautiful even in their disarray.   The pines hummed and whispered with the lightest breeze, and we would braid their long  supple needles into whips, slashing the air as we walked.
       There were peacocks living up in those hills, in secluded groves where you would happen upon a gorgeous banyan tree, long smooth limbs reaching out, waist high, for twenty or thirty feet- a perfect seat to rest on.      
      There was an old home foundation, with coconut palms planted around it, looking a little out of place in the middle of the rolling, grass-covered green hills. You could see for miles, down through every shade of green, down to the brown desert grass, down to the blue ocean with whitecaps and the occasional whale frolicking  amidst them.
        Let's buy this place, we said. Let's live here always and never leave. And in a way, it happened- memories like unending green hills, deep blue oceans of memories, will always be there,  and can't be taken away.

October 12, 2014

                                 October 12, 2014

       The air tonight is cold, but nothing so obvious as frost is to be seen; the trees are mostly bare of leaves and I'm walking on a gilded  carpet of the fallen.      Snow on the mountains of Hatcher's  Pass inches lower day by day, and the Lake  is ruffled and foamed  by a stiff wind. My hands are cold,  reddened by the same wind,  and the new boards in the dock stand out in stark contrast with the lovely old weather-beaten ones. My brother's boat is shipping water- it is one of the few still tied alongside this ancient  gray dock.  I must remind him to pull it out before it freezes.    

       It is the middle of October again, and as I walk swiftly up our road I hope sincerely that the bears are all fat and tired, sleeping sweetly in their dens and caves.  The house on the hill has a light on, an autumn beacon in the slowly falling dusk.

     

The House at Pololu

                      The House at Pololu

               I remember thick green mint, crushed beneath our sandy feet as we drank out of a small silver cup that hung from the faucet. It smelled delicious, fresh and cool and it made the last long walk up the hill unbelievably worth it.

          The house clung at the top of a long sloping driveway, partially hidden behind a small forest of banana trees.  It gave it  the air of a tree fort. There were windows with wooden shutters, or bamboo screens to roll down at night or on rainy days. There were mosquito nettings for every bed, and bookshelves full of books, some in Japanese, which seemed both exotic and exciting. The shower remained a mystery to me all my childhood and youth- I could never manage the hot and cold water right, but somehow,  that too was exotic and added to its charm.

       

         The Surinam cherry tree- did it ever go out of season? I remember it always full of cherries. They were tart and sweet, and tasted like nothing on earth but themselves.  I would circle it, eating as I went, rashly at first but with more discretion after a full round.

       There was a beautiful terraced garden, bursting with everything you could wish for in a salad. My salad-loving young heart fell in love at first glance. Gardens, especially terraced ones,   were new to me, and I can still see and smell the nasturtiums and even the cilantro when I think of it.

       An oasis means different things to different people, and that house meant oasis to me. It wasn't my home, nor was it my family, but when I'm homesick it's for that family, that home; for the sun sparkling on the waves below and the winds that rushed up from the  ocean.

        The Lord reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the Lord is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.

       Thy throne is established of old: thou art from everlasting.

      The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves.

      The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.

       Thy testimonies are very sure: holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, for ever.

                        P s a l m       93

            Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.

                         W a l t    W h i t m a n 

   "Dad's twenty-nine now," Chloe said thoughtfully.     Her age is linked with his and she notices it. Last year it was twenty-eight and five; this year, twenty-nine and six.  The wheels of time turn round and round each year with equality. I was nineteen when I had her, just a girl, and just a woman.   She will always be Eldest; my Firstborn- words I disliked for myself but that seem so fitting for this dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty of a daughter.  May she have every gift we can bestow, and surpass us in every way.

     "It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to."

                     J R R   T o l k i e n 

J u l y 15

        The sun shines down, deliciously hot on my bare shoulders. Eleanor naps on a big striped pillow in the shade of a lawn chair, her eyelashes soft and thick resting on her little round cheeks. Her baby lips inspire kissing at all times, and she is sleeping too deeply to be woken by a kiss or two.
      Anthony, the son of his father, industriously pushes a miniature red wheelbarrow full of clippings back and forth across our small green lawn.
       Chloe and Elysia are playing at being rabbits,  picking wild flowers and clover stems for their dinner, and the shade of the lilac tree is dappled across the grassy hillside.
 
       The lake hums with summer noise, boats and float planes buzzing to and fro across and above the blue water. I'm reading 'My Life in France' by Julia Child- I love it, but her writing always makes me madly hungry. I think there is a watermelon cooling in the icebox.

                      Oh July! I adore you.

                         

           

                    
     "It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things."

             L e o n a r d o   d a  V i n c i

J u l y 1 0

J u l y  1 0

  The rain has fallen thickly all morning; there is nothing half - hearted about our good Alaskan summer rain.  I keep a window or two open so we can enjoy the sound of it falling. The gray sky envelopes the sun, and it is hard to tell whether it is ten o'clock or two! Eleanor sleeps on our soft white  bed, her sweet round face a  perfect 'O' on the pillow. Eleanor  Olympia.   You are like a creamy peony, or a full-blown white rose. How did I ever live without you?  

          

             

summer evenings

J U L Y 8

J u l y 8

Ten o'clock.  The sun streams in the windows,  nowhere near to going down yet. Chloe, in her white nightgown, can't fall asleep and asks me if she can read in her bed if she is quiet. Yes, my lovely, precious newly-six year old. Read all you want.

I fell asleep on our bed in the sunshine, and while I slept the sun clouded over and the wind picked up.  With my eyes still half-closed the sound of the wind murmuring in the trees reminded me of the sea, so strongly that I could almost smell the salt in the air and feel it, white and dusty on my legs. A seabird, wandering inland, screaming and calling in its wild tongue made the illusion all the more real, and made me long for the ocean, for the sun and the sand, the rain falling from a blue sky and the cool mountain breezes. Being born in Hawai'i is a gift you can never repay.

May 17 2014

                                    J U L Y  6

The Sunday rain falls, heavy and sweet on the grass, rinsing the birch leaves clean and ruffling the lake into tiny  waves.                                       Anthony snuck into our bed early this morning, and the thin, precious weight of him rests against my legs. Two years old, he has become aware of fear, named and unnamed. He wonders if a moose could climb our stairs. No, my love. The moose have their home as we have ours. Sleep soft and deep, my  little son.