Kauai Backstory

I "Heart" Animals

2011-11-27T11:32:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Pam Woolway for her runner-up written entry in our 2011 Creative Competition.]

He ran as fast as his little legs could carry him. Later that day I would call him Kenny, named for the friend who helped coax him from beneath our truck, but I get ahead of myself.

My husband Wes is a paddler. His relationship with water is why we moved to Kauai 10 years ago. Wes, a paddle buddy named Kenny and I, were on our return drive from the boys having done a “run.” A “run” for a paddler is a trip by sea along the coast of the island. I had dropped them off with their boats in Poi’pu a few hours earlier and we were driving north on the highway from Ele’ele.

That’s when we saw him. The goat, soon to be christened Kenny, was on a thin strip of asphalt running along the highway. Accelerating up the steep incline with a parade of other weekend drivers, Wes spotted him first.

“Whoa, check out that dog? No. Wait. That’s a goat,” he said as he slowed to approach the running goat from behind.

Fearing the worst, a panicked b-line into traffic, Wes realized his mistake and pulled back on to the highway to cruise a few hundred yards ahead of this little gray goat no larger than my 25-pound terrier.

Our friend Kenny jumped from the truck on the passenger’s side while Wes and I climbed out next to the 50-mile per hour traffic racing past. As soon as I knelt next to the rear bumper of the truck, the goat began to bleat and run faster toward us. Thankfully he recognized us for the saviors we were intended to be.

He slid past me to seek shelter beneath the truck. Kenny and I drew him out and I rode the remaining miles home to Kapaa in the bed of the truck with this goat nesting in my lap.

At home he immediately fit into our little family of three juvenile sibling cats and three curious dogs. Our terrier, Flip, was the one most endeared to him, and the little goat now named Kenny, sparred with her ruthlessly for the rest of the afternoon.

“I want to keep him,” I said, stating the obvious.

My marriage is one of mutual support. I shuttle Wes when he wants to do a “run” with his buddies, no questions asked. In exchange I get to bring home any wayward animal in need of a pillow and a warm meal. It’s a very nice arrangement.

The next morning I sat drinking coffee on a bench beneath our Kari tree in the backyard idly scratching Kenny between his two nubby horns. In Flip’s exuberance to greet him, he startled and leapt straight up in the air to land lightly on my lap I didn’t even spill a drop of coffee -- he was that nimble. That’s when I realized how very small he was: the points of his hooves didn’t even dig into my thighs. He was definitely lighter than Flip.

Kenny followed me around the yard as I watered and when I’d disappear into the house he’d stand on the back patio bleating.

“He is obviously someone’s pet,” Wes said with a warning in his voice.

I didn’t want to hear that. “I want him,” I whined.

To further enforce my case I drove fence posts into the ground and wrapped five-foot high
chicken wire around them to create a 15 by 15 foot corral for Kenny.

Wes returned from work that Wednesday quite impressed. Twelve years of marriage and I’d never displayed any handywoman prowess.

I was motivated.

Then my conscience got the best of me and I told Wes I’d list him as a found pet in the paper. I offered to even make a phone call to one of the only people I knew on the West Side.

“Hey Shan, it’s Pam,” I said into the phone. Shan works for my brother-in-law in Ele’ele and is a
native of these islands. “You don’t happen to know of anybody missing a goat?”

She said she didn’t. Whew.

But then she added, “I know a lady who raises goats and can call her.”

Shucks. “Um, okay. Call me back.”

A few minutes later she calls to describe my goat and say this friend has a son who lost a goat over the weekend.

“And it’s not a baby goat Pam,” she chides. “It’s a pigmy goat.”

Damn that coconut wireless. “Why did I make that call?” I scolded myself.

The following day Kenny accompanied me to my job at the Kauai Humane Society where his “real” owner met me.

As we walked Kenny on a leash to his truck I asked what the goat’s real name was.

He looked at me quizzically and said, “Gabe.”

For some reason I found this funny coming from a big, handsome Hawaiian guy named Kawika.
“Gabe?”

He sort of blushed and smiled.

“My daughter named him.”

That’s when my goat envy vanished. There was a little girl at home waiting for my Kenny.

Taro Nagashi

2011-11-26T11:01:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Jean Rhude for her runner-up written entry in our 2011 Creative Competition. Check back daily for the next several days as we post other recognized entries.]

I live on an Island in the Pacific Ocean. It is located half way between North America and Asia. They say that an ancient chant still sung by New Zealanders about celestial navigational routes, will lead you across this great expanse of ocean to the Wailua River on the island of Kauai. Kauai is a gentle place where the cultures of the East and those of the West blend beautifully with what are left of the Polynesian culture. I moved here seven years ago drawn by a silent chant, the coconut wireless, as modern locals refer to it. I make my home near the Wailua River. I came here to heal.

. . . .

The child's blue eyes sparkle as he watches from atop his fathers' shoulders. At about five years of age he is aware of the solemnity of the event. Even the lights strung along the park, at the river, seem to know better than to appear festive on this night. Even the ringing of the bells and clanging of the symbols carry a resonance of seriousness. This is not like when he and his father launch their kayak or picnic here on the bank of the Wailua River.

There is no program, just a quiet surrender to the unfolding of the event. Undoubtedly the coconut wireless has sent her silent message and I am captive to the ancient unfolding. I am here by her invitation, an invitation that nourishes like the milk from her cavity. I am both a participant and an observer.

The mostly Japanese participants welcome the other Asians, Caucasians, Hawaiians and Portuguese that make up the crowd of 150 or so. A portable altar is faced so that Sensei can look out to the river as he chants and lights a candle. A line forms and members of the Jodo Buddhist Temple bow before the altar as they pass in single file, bowing and dipping their fingers into a bowl of water. It reminds me of taking communion.

Several go to the hundred or so lanterns attached to a series of five barges and begin to light each individual one. Each lantern is inscribed with the name of someone who has died and for whom it has been purchased. This ceremony symbolizes their spirits returning. It is believed that the family members come down from the mountains/afterlife to help with the planting and harvest during the Bon season and now they return as the lanterns are floated out toward the sea, lighting their way. The boat that will pull them is lighted by a large lantern and an offering of fruit is placed inside. The barges, each containing twenty or so lighted lanterns, attached to the barge with a decorative lotus blossom, are gently placed in the water. Immediately their illumination is intensified by their reflection. The full moon shows through the swaying palm tress.

Slowly the series of barges are taken up the river and then brought back down where they pass the crowd of people on the shore. We are mostly holding hands or hugging. Young children sit on the sea wall and their Tutu's, (Grandmothers), have brought them couchin, paper lanterns, attached to sticks, with candles inside. They sit and watch in silence, dangling their feet just above the water.

There is the fragrance of incense. I stand holding the hand of my sister and we silently contemplate the lantern we have purchased for our mother and also one for my son. We do not know the precise lantern that floats their names but this is not important in the collective glow of their light. I consider the healing represented by grieving in this way, with strangers, whose shared experience is stronger than our separateness.

We share in the glow of that mingled light in a celebration of our collective love of our ancestors. It feels good to create ceremony here in this land that has become my home.

The young father leans low to explain to his son, the sweet boy with blond curls and blue eyes, "The candles are for peoples’ family members who have died. The candles light their way."

“Their way to where daddy,” the boy asks.

I listen closely to what the young man will say. His gentle reply, ". . . on their way to eternity."

Chicken Little Calling

2011-11-25T10:09:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Hob Osterlund for her runner-up written entry in our 2011 Creative Competition. Check back daily for the next several days as we post other recognized entries.]

On a windy day in January, 2011, dense clouds body-slammed Kaua`i’s north shore with torrential rain. Within an hour of the deluge, dozens of waterfalls gouged vertical valleys of the Na Pali coast, canyons more typically draped by gentle green shadows. The Hanalei River ran milk chocolate and flooded its banks. A robocall went out to every home on the island.

“This is your Kauai Civil Defense Agency,” the flat Voice said, then issued a four-word declaration. “The sky is falling.” Click, buzz.

I did not alert Ducky Lucky. I did not run to tell the king. I did not follow Foxy Loxy to his lair. I did squeal like Piggy Wiggy. I did play the message several times before the power went. I did scratch my head and try to figure which of my friends could be so crazy good at faking a robocall. Ultimately I decided the call was authentic and began a new line of questioning. Why would any civil defense agency have a sky-is-falling option? Is there a pre-recorded stable of messages for every possible catastrophic event, or is each an original? If the latter, did the Voice emanate from an unwitting man whose parents failed to read him fairy tales when he was, er, little?

Perhaps it was recorded by a well-meaning government employee eager to make light of heavy rain. The humor would not have been altogether inappropriate, since it was not truly a disaster ----unless you count decades of saving (Henny) Pennies for a sunny Hawai`i vacation. No homes or livelihoods were truly threatened. No lives were lost except possibly a few dozen roosters too high on their own relentless crowing to notice their feathers floating. Of course, there was bad news elsewhere in the world. There were disastrous explosions and horrible diseases and shocking betrayals; there was the ongoing international epidemic of spiritual blindness. But there was also some better news: that day Rep. Gabrielle Giffords took breath unassisted by a ventilator and wiggled her toes on command. A Cooper’s hawk took shelter inside the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress. Zsa Zsa Gabor took courage and smiled, her leg just amputated. Nothing was reported about whether she wiggled her remaining toes.

Back on Kauai, electricity was restored and another robocall went out. “This is your Kauai Civil Defense Agency.” On the edge of my seat, I was eager for the next sentiment. A confession of comic relief? A comforting quote from Drakey Lakey? Or would words gush like a geyser from a lower realm of human response, soaking the terminal paycheck of a suddenly-unemployed worker?

“The message you received earlier was a test message sent by mistake,” declared Mr. Nasal Voice, then repeated all four guilty words. “The sky is falling.” The sentence dangled in space like a once-omniscient, now-decommissioned satellite. “Please disregard and we’re sorry for any inconvenience.”

What? Disregard a falling sky? Forgive the inconvenience of a panicked stampede of Turkey Lurkeys and Cockey Lockeys tumbling hell-bent toward the palace, scaring the poor king? Forget about Foxy-Loxy’s hungry intentions toward a vulnerable, plump-breasted Gander Lander?

Then, a final robosentence. “Please do not call the police.”

Maybe it’s just me, but I think I heard a subtle plea in the Voice. Perhaps the repentant tone Chicken Little used, acorn squirreled under his wing.

The Coconut Wireless

2011-11-24T15:01:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Lea Kala for her runner-up written entry in our 2011 Creative Competition. Check back daily for the next several days as we post other recognized entries.]

You left me-

Now you ask
Who I tell

People talking

You mo’ kea
How you look-
How she do-

No kea bout me

You no want
This wahine
I know

I no tell her name
I say nada

People get eyes

Her friends make
Buzz buzz buzz
Busy bullshit bees
Pointing fingers
Lak I make
Big stink over nuting

It not nuting
It something-

I feel it-
Hard-

Like befo’

I no talk
I no kea bout her-

Its you

I know
If I talk
You punipuni - lie
Say I ʻō.pule.pule - crazy

Her friends
When they buzz like that
They point fingers-
At you-
And her-

I no need.

Kono and the Chest of Drawers

2011-11-22T09:51:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Brian Doyle for his runner-up written entry in our 2011 Creative Competition. Check back daily for the next several days as we post other recognized entries.]

Kono, despite being unmarried, had no children, a source of quiet dismay to him, and something of a stain on his reputation in the community, in which generally those who were married were striving socially and economically and had no time or inclination for children, and those who were not married took solace and found fulfillment in having gobs and tribes of them. There were exceptions, like the Hualapai family, with many children, and the seven Taamami brothers, none of whom had children or appeared to desire same, but still Kono felt holes in his heart where children would be, and even past the age of thirty he continued to ponder the matter.

One day at a yard sale he found just the triangular chest of drawers he needed and he bought it for ten dollars. The chest was long and lean and fit beautifully into the corner of his cottage near the crown-flower trees. This corner had always been a problem, because the man who built the cottage was a shaman who refused to cut down any tree or bush whatsoever, because of primogeniture, of course, as he said, and so built the cottage around the creatures who already lived on the property, because they were in residence there before Kono was, and in matters like this one, respect is paramount, as the shaman said, almost politely. This is why the cottage had that narrow corner between the two momentous crown-flower trees who liked to tap on the windows, and the east wall curved around a patch of taro shaped roughly like a former queen of the islands named Kapiolani, a wonderful and imposing woman much esteemed and remembered by all for her courage and kindness. Many people had carved trees and gardens and boats and hedges in her likeness, a custom regrettably diminished in our day.

Kono, despite being past the age of thirty, was a strong man, and he carried the chest of drawers into the cottage himself, and installed it properly in the corner, and went over it carefully with gentle oils to pay respect to the wood, and he sanded the places that were rough with careless handling, and eased the workings of the drawers so that they would slide in and out without moaning, and tightened the circular handles so that they were fitted flush with their bases, and then he welcomed the chest to his home, and hoped it would be comfortable and peaceful there among the other working parts in the house, and said to it that he would now respectfully use the drawers for clothing and letters, if that was agreeable to the chest, but when he opened the top drawer, out came the spirit of a boy, about age five, with long black hair.

The boy perched on the top of the chest of drawers and said that his name was Lula and that he would have been Kono’s oldest son if matters had conspired in different directions, which they had not, such being the way of things, but that Kono had been blessed with a special blessing, and the spirits of the other children he might have had were now resident in the chest, each in his or her own drawer, and so Kono, near tears, opened each of the drawers carefully, and discovered three girls and two boys, all told, approximately ages nine, seven, five, three, and one. The baby, a girl, had not yet been named, said Lula gently, and he and the other children would very much like Kono to name her, so they could care for her better. It’s a lot easier to hold someone if you have a handle, said Lula cheerfully.

Kono, despite being an organized and meticulous man, was open to dreams and wonders, and he went walking on the beach with the spirits of his children, the four older ones holding hands and running in the surf and himself cradling the baby. The baby was mute and smelled like mist and cinnamon. One of the girls fell down and cried and Kono knelt, juggling the baby, and dried her face with his shirt and held her until she stopped crying and ran off to join the others, her feet kicking up feathers of surf. He knelt with the baby and she held his pinky fingers and kicked at the wavelets and made sounds like the sea. Once her wet hands slipped from his fingers and she fell face-first but she rose laughing, and Kono saw that she was related to the ocean, so he named her Kai, which is the sea. When the other children wandered back along the beach he told them her name and they were delighted and all the way back to the cottage they flitted around Kono and Kai, saying her new name with great glee and merriment. So that is the beginning of the story of Kai, the girl who was related to the ocean, and there are many more stories of her adventures, which began in the chest of drawers that Kono bought for ten dollars.

The Coconut Wireless: Kekaha-style!

2011-11-21T11:57:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Jose Bulatao, Jr. for his runner-up written entry in our 2011 Creative Competition. Check back daily for the next several days as we post other recognized entries.]

Any time of the day...."morning, noon, and night"....one could not traverse Elepaio Street in Kekaha, Kauai without being accounted for, wondered about, or merely noticed. It was back then, in the good-old, sugar-plantation era when the town did, literally, mind each other's business.

It was the coconut wireless in its highest and purest form.

From east to west or in the opposite direction, someone knew, someone saw, someone could verify, someone would report, someone heard, someone remembered, someone "observed" (which was a tinge more than just merely seeing)... and someone could get you into trouble or exonerate you from guilt)....whatever the case might be.

The coconut wireless was consistent and reliable, Kekaha-style!

There were specific reasons why. It was at a time when many variables contributed to that consistency and reliability. Most of the housewives in that era were the domestic engineers at each household. They were on duty, 24-7. Occasionally, there may have been a sick child at home who could serve in the capacity as "extra eyes and ears" monitoring what's going on right in front of their houses. There was no television, so one was not glued to a television set. To keep a radio on was fine, because one could do household chores while tuning in to the day's episode of a variety of soap operas.

Hanging the clothes out on the line was an excuse to keep one's eye on the road from the side of the house. The party lines via telephone kept everyone connected, one way or the other. One could tend to the roses in the front yard. One could "talk story" with a neighbor over the fence line while really keeping an eye on whatever might be going on at the moment in the neighborhood. And most of all, one could sit on the front porch relentlessly, to note the comings and goings of family, neighbors, friends, deliveries, passers-by, and downright strangers......no matter what!

"Hmmm, the kids late stay again this morning! As the second time this week, da madda gotta drive them to school! Dey must gat plenny money fo' buy gas. Ke expensive!"

"I wonder, only now the husband had come home? His shift pau 7 o'clock. Where he went? No take that long for come straight home from the mill! Da wife nevah figure dat out yet ?"

As the third time I had see dat boy go to that house when dat girl's madda no stay home. How come he go ovah deah only when da madda stay go to da hospital for visit her sistah? And her daughah, she no mo' shame, or what?"

"Ay, as Consing with her 'friend'! Where they going now? As not da dress she had just buy from Woolsworth? And can smell da perfume she stay wearing all day way to my front doah! Ke strong!"

"Look how many times dose keeds stay go back and forth on dere bikes? Dey bettah not be going to Kuramoto Store for steal candy. I going call up da store and tell dem fo' watch when da keeds go by da store every udda minute. Dey nevah catch on yet?"

"Who dat in da blue truck? I neva see him ovah hear befo'! I bettah ask da keeds if dey know who da ownah of dat truck! He gat all white-wall tires. Must gat plenny money for afford all dat!"

"As da fourth time she going to da store today. and not even lunch time yet! I wonder if she stay meeting somebody by da stoah. Da next time she pass, I going follow her. I like look fo' myself what she stay doin'."

"As must be da guy who stay talk to Tita's daughter, da one who nobody had know she was pregnant because she was always pudgy! You teenk he da baby's fadda? Look like him, lilli-bit!"

These are the kinds of thoughts and words that were exchanged at the dispensary while people sat and waited for their doctor's appointments....or in telephone conversations that innocently asked what one was cooking for dinner to begin the litany of exchanges about these various things or occurrences....or around the kitchen table when it was time for a neighborly chat and a quick cigarette....or between prayers at church, much less a funeral service....

These were the thoughts and words that reverberated through the community as people speculated with their suspicions, their remarkable intuitiveness, their outstanding attention to detail----to share with one another the comings and goings on the street where they live!

This was, as said, the coconut wireless, in action, in a given neighborhood down a particular street! It has dissipated, somewhat, in deference to the constancy of TV soap operas and reality shows and the cell phone which can keep people abreast of anything and everything anywhere and anytime.

It proves, somewhat, that the more things change, the more they remain the same! Only... with greater intensity and mobility!

A Day in September

2011-11-20T11:39:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Patrick Stack for his third-place written entry in our 2011 Creative Competition. Check back daily for the next week, as we post other recognized entries.]

He was rousted from sleep by a pre-dawn telephone call. The early morning calls from the east coast always pissed him off. When will they learn that Hawai’i is six hours behind New York?

“Max? Max? Are you there?”

“Yes Frank, I’m here…and don’t shout. I can hear you fine.”

“Max, the Trade Towers have been bombed. There are thousands of people unaccounted for.”

“Bombed? Both towers? Am I dreaming?”

“Yes, both Towers are completely down. It looks like a planned demolition where they implode from within and crumble into a pile of debris.”

“Hold on for a minute, Frank. I’m going to turn my TV on.”

“No Max, I gotta go. I just wanted to let you know. I’ll call you back later.”

“Okay, thanks for the heads up. Take care of yourself.”

Max watched the television incredulously. It was surrealistic for him to see the images of the place where he had worked for nearly twenty years in total shambles. How many of his former colleagues were dead? Are we at war? What about the markets?

After watching media images and listening to speculative jabber for two hours, Max decided that there was nothing he could do. He looked at his watch. It was 7:30. He remembered that he had a golf date at 8:45 with his regular foursome and thought that he should drive to the clubhouse and see if they’d be there. And, in any event, there’d be people there to discuss this tragedy with.

Max parked in the lot and walked past the cart barn and into the grill. Patrons, employees and golfers were all fixated on the ceiling-mounted televisions. And the news stations were beginning to show video of two different United Airlines planes crashing into the respective towers and the subsequent collapse. The god-awful images were disturbing in a way that made viewers want to watch but not see.

Max felt a hand on his back. It was Elliot Kulahele.

“Hey Bruddah Max, I guess it’s going to be just you and me today. The other guys called and cancelled. You still up for it?”

“Sure, there’s nothing we can do and, besides we’ll practically have the whole course to ourselves.”

As the two were driving their golf cart to the first tee Elliot asked Max if he knew anyone that might have been near the Trade Towers.

“Hell yes. I lived in Los Angeles but commuted to Wall Street every week. I had an apartment in Battery Park City and walked from my place, across the West Side Highway, through The Trade Tower’s atria and then to my office on Water Street.”

“So Max, you must have known someone there.”

“For sure; I just don’t know who, yet.”

“I’m sorry for you. Are you sure you want to play?”

“Yeah, in fact, let’s dedicate this round to all those who lost someone today.”

“How about you Elliot, do you know any one that will be touched, personally, by this?”

“No, thank God. My ‘ohana is all from here, safe and sound in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.”

“What about your daughter, Hannah? Doesn’t she travel to New York with her job?”

“Yes, she does, but I talked to her last night and she said she’d be flying from Boston to Pittsburgh. So, she is far from the Trade Towers.”

They teed off on the short, three hundred yard, par four. Both men birdied the hole which caused them to switch from their somber demeanor to a more accustomed, light-hearted, banter. Driving to the second tee both men agreed that they had made the right choice about playing versus not.

Elliot had honors, so he teed off first and found the green. He removed his tee from the sod and turned to see Scott, the club professional, driving towards them.

“Hey Max, here comes Scottie. He’s probably going to give us shit about playing, today.”

“Good, maybe he’s going to play with us.”

Scott was in an odd mood. The usually effervescent pro had a strange look on his face; he looked scared.

“What is it Scott? You want to play in with us?” asked Elliot.

“No. I don’t know what’s going on, but a representative from Governor Lingle’s office and a State Trooper is waiting for you at the clubhouse.”

“Get outta here Scott. You’re just busting my balls.”

“No, really Elliot, they need to see you right now. I’m not fooling around.”

“So, Elliot, what,did you rob a bank?’ asked Max..

“Very funny. Okay, Scott I’ll play along. Let’s go see what the Gov wants.”

“Mr. Kulahele, I am from the Governor’s office in Honolulu. It is with profound regret that I inform you that your daughter is dead. She was aboard the United flight which crashed into the World Trade Tower this morning. We have at your availability Sergeant Kua of the State Police. He will assist you and your family with all travel and hotel accommodations for your whole family.”

Elliot was motionless as he listened. Then like steam engine rising to a full boil he lunged at the Governor’s representative, grabbing him by the throat. The State Trooper jumped on Elliot s back and wrestled him to the ground. It all happened in an instant. Soon, all three men were back on their feet and brushing themselves off. The rep and the trooper were not ready for that reaction, but tried to be as sympathetic as they could under the circumstances.

Elliot’s demeanor changed. He apologized for his assault on the messenger and assumed a state of despondency, whimpering like an inconsolable child.

“This is some kind of mistake. I talked to her last night. She said she was in Boston and flying to Pittsburgh, not New York.”

“Mr. Kulahele, that is correct, however her flight was hijacked and diverted to lower Manhattan where it was crashed, we believe intentionally, by an unknown group.”

“Does my wife know?”

“Yes sir. She told us where to find you.”

“How is she? I’ve got to see her, now.”

“She’s at your home with two neighbors and her sister. Would you like to go there now?”

“Yes” he said in a whisper.

Max turned to Elliot hugged him and quietly said “Whatever I can do Brah.”

Scott was still seated in his golf cart, staying a proper, but curious distance from Elliot and the other men. After an instant of silence Scott said “Go Elliot. I’ll take care of your clubs.”

“Elliot, you want me to come to your house?” asked Max.

“Thanks, but no. I want to see my wife first and see how she’s doin’.”

“Do you want me to drive you?”

“No thanks, I brought the ’55. I gotta get that back home.”

It was agreed that the Governor’s rep and the State Trooper would follow Eliot back to his house and wait to see what they could do to assist. The distance back to Elliot’s house was barely a mile, but the entire way he was uncomfortable about driving such a blithe and sportive car. His customized Chevy convertible seemed to be most inappropriate, now.

The bright red Chevy and the Police car approached Elliot’s house only to find the driveway blocked with four cars. Elliot saw eight or ten women standing on his lanai with folded arms and sad faces. Elliot abandoned his car in the middle of the street and quick-stepped to his lanai and into his house. There he saw his wife lying on a couch sobbing into two pillows while her sister stroked her hair. When she saw her husband moving to her, she sat up and hugged him fiercely.

“Daddy, Daddy, bring our baby back.”

As the bereft couple clung to one another, the Governor’s rep and the State Trooper stayed outside moving cars around so they could get Elliot’s ’55 Chevy into his garage.

An hour passed while most of the ladies on the lanai questioned the Trooper and the rep as to what happened and what information they had. The ladies were generally disappointed that the two men knew less than they.

Inside the house, Mrs. Burnham the next door neighbor placed herself in-charge of answering the telephone calls. The calls were coming so fast that Mrs. Burnham started writing down names and numbers; the whole time explaining the obvious “She can’t talk now. Give me your name and number.”

Mrs. Burnham thought it appropriate because she was more than a neighbor. Mrs. Burnham baby-sat Hannah, taught her how to play the violin and served as her most important auntie.

Mrs. Burnham had just hung-up from caller number 12 when the phone rang instantly.

“Aloha, this is the Kulahele residence. No one in the family is unavailable now, but please leave your name and number.”

“Auntie, it’s me…Hannah.”

Mrs. Burnham made a gurgling, choking sound as she dropped the phone to the floor; both her hands were gripping her chest and her eyes rolled back in her head when she collapsed in a heap.
Two women went immediately to her side while a third hung-up the phone that was lying on the floor and another called for the State Trooper to provide assistance to Mrs. Burnham. In the confusion, Elliot and his wife became aware of what was happening, but both could not let go of each other. The State Trooper used his radio to call for an ambulance. Amid the excitement, no one bothered to deal with the phone that was still on the floor.

An ambulance was at the house almost instantly, but it didn’t matter; Mrs. Burnham was lifeless.

The telephone rang while most everyone was focused on Mrs. Burnham and the EMT’s. The Governors rep was listening to the phone ring when he decided that someone might be calling from the hospital for vital information.

“Hello, this is the Kulahele residence.” said the rep.

“Who is this?” asked the caller.

“Never mind. Who is calling?”

“My name is Hannah Kulahele and I demand to speak with my mother or father, immediately.”

The rep’s face drained of blood. “Is this some kind of joke?” he asked.

“This is no joke. I am Hannah Kulahele and there’s been a huge mistake. Let me talk to my mom, now.”

The rep was assessing whether this was some sick trick or if he should tell Elliot right now. He didn’t wait long. The State Trooper was marching toward the rep with information radioed to him: Hannah Kulahele is alive and in Boston. She failed to board the plane despite having been assigned a boarding pass.

“Ms. Kulahele, hold on for your mother.”

“Hannah is that you?” wailed her mother.

“Yes, mom. I’m okay.”

“What happened, dear?”

“Just as I was to board the plane I came down with severe cramping. I raced to the ladies room and had a diarrhea attack that lasted nearly forty minutes. Knowing I missed my flight, I went back to the ticket agent to re-ticket the next available flight. That’s when everything went crazy. Police everywhere, airlines announcing cancelled flights and I was taken to a holding area where I was asked a million questions. I’m sorry I couldn’t have called sooner.”

Josh

2011-11-19T12:27:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Anne Dimock for her second-place written entry in our 2011 Creative Competition. Check back for the next 8 days, as we post other recognized entries.]

I saw him again this morning, the skinny haole guy, this time dumpster diving at the thrift store before it opened. He was just leaving when I drove by, putting on a new old shirt for himself, hopping on that rickety ole bike of his – probably from the same dumpster a year gone by – and riding off to home which was sometimes the beach, sometimes Chucky-Boy’s carport.

Skinny guy, carrying nothing extra on that frame of his, he looks like one a those feral cats he is always feeding. Who knows where this one came from, he been here a long time already, pretty brown all over but different. His hair was light and he just looks so different from the mokes he hangs with. He came from the mainland, but he had a light wispy look to him that made me think he could be from Iceland or somewhere like that. Light gray eyes, light hair waving like dry guinea grass around a head shaped like a heart with a little pointy chin. Kind of pretty that way.

He was headed to the beach wearing his new old shirt and clutching a bag of bread scraps. He pedaled on over and I followed ‘cuz I was going there anyway. So I drove slow and let him get way ahead of me, gave him the whole road, why not? Enough potholes for all of us.

Hunched over his handlebars, the muscles on his back switched back and forth underneath the new old shirt as he pumped his way up the rise. He just wearing swim trunks, nothing else there, though he ought to think about what the chaffing is doing to the equipment, that bike seat is as sorry-ass as his sorry ass. He stands on the pedals as he goes over the bumps, but you can still see the jarring he and the bicycle take, almost like his frame was just an extension of the bike’s.

He’s fast on his wheels, his muscles revved up and working. Of all the flesh surrounding his bones, I say 95% of it is hard muscle. He looks good and women who like the pretty haole guys like him. He has the body of a young athlete but look at his face and you see he’s in his 50s. And I have to wonder what a guy his age is doing buying his shirts and his ride from a dumpster.

He’s not the only one, all sorts of people wash up here, some stay for a while and leave when they run out of whatever they came here with. But he’s been here a long time and he’s the one I wonder about and worry for a little too. I drive around to the beaches on this end, taking blankets and soap and canned meat to some people. I don’t bother with none of the cats, but my goodness, some people do. Well, let them, they got their path in life and I do too and mine is with the humans.

Mr. Iceland, that’s what I call him, but I think I heard his name is Josh. Lots of Joshes wash up here. I wonder about his people, where he comes from and if the folks he left know about his life here. If he were my uncle I would wonder, even if I don’t see him for, say, fourteen years. I been seeing Mr. Iceland about six years on this side of the island, and someone said he was on the north shore before that. He guides kayak tours for one of the outfitter companies. It’s not a steady gig, especially now with tourists staying home, but I heard he screwed up on one of the trips several years back and now he’s just occasional. Today is Wednesday and that means he isn’t working this week ‘cause if he was, he’d be unloading boats at Ha`ena right now. Instead he’s here feeding scraps of bread to cats.

I park my car and get my stuff and walk over to the dunes where I know some people are. I walk by Mr. Iceland feeding the cats and we say “hey” to each other. He just sits for a while with a dozen cats curling themselves around his ankles and he smiles. I go do my work and I come back and he’s still there but most of the cats have moved back into the bushes and out of the heat. He sits with his head tilted back, eyes closed, a thin smile on his thinner lips, Nordic cheekbones rising up like two boulders. The guy could use some sunglasses and I try to remember that.

“Howzit?” I say.

He opens one eye and half turns his head towards me, not shielding the sun with his hand. He’s already taken the new old shirt off and draped it from his head. Up close I can see the bedrock of his muscles, the strength and vitality from lean living and hard paddling. And I know it won’t last.

“Just enjoying another day at the office,” he replied.

“Need anything?”

“Got everything I need right here.” And he turned his heart-shaped face to the light like a sunflower.

Who’s to say this isn’t a good way of living? Visiting a trap line of dumpsters on a rickety old bike. A little bit of cash once in a while. The gratitude of some cats. Maybe he’s got it all figured out. But in case he don’t, I hand over a couple of cans of Vienna sausages I held back from the beach rounds.

“For the cats,” I say and place them on his bench, then I walk away.

I can see how this will go, his leanness already making inroads into the core of his life. He teeters on the fulcrum of robust good health and a precipitous decline. When his illness comes – and it will come – there is nothing to spare, nothing to absorb the ravages of a tumor, a virus, an infection that won’t heal and travels up the sinews. He’ll get sick and it will be awhile before enough people notice that he hasn’t shown up lately, but then the coconut wireless will whiffle the news out like wind on water. Then the posters will go up, a benefit for Mr. Josh Iceland Haole Guy so he can get some medical treatment for the leak that is draining away his breath. The wireless will vibrate a little while with this news and the request to buy tickets for the benefit, to donate the ono food, to give a gift certificate to the silent auction. And it’ll be in the paper, the radio, the bulletin boards, and Josh will be this month’s poster boy for the generosity of the island, his heart-shaped face from better days smiling into the backs of your eyes. The cat people will come, the paddlers will come, the places where the dumpsters are will give the gift certificates. The outfitter that occasionally employed him will make the biggest donation of two kayak adventure trips and a tourist from Montana will buy them and brag about how he got a real good discount from the full price.

But then his story runs its course and the wireless falls silent on the subject of this particular Josh. The benefit raised $1,042 and that keeps him going until that time when his body utterly fails him and his lungs collapse upon themselves and this haole guy really becomes without breath.

Nobody from the mainland comes to claim him as one of their own, so there was another little benefit to raise the money for the funeral house. Coconut wireless only work on the island. I wonder if all the Joshes that end up out here are somehow related and I ask a few of them if they knew Iceland Josh but they don’t.

The cats somehow get fed.

The Montana tourist has a really good time on his trip and he comes back year after year and finally buys a timeshare.

The thrift store puts its extras outside so those that need them can take.

And Iceland Josh fades from everyone’s memory.

I did find him a pair of sunglasses and dropped them off one time before he got sick. His pale eyes were getting paler. Couldn’t really say the glasses were for the cats so I just handed them over.

“Might save your sight for a little longer.”

He looked them over carefully, mumbled something about how we’re supposed to live unmitigated lives in the full blast of the sun’s furnace. He put them on and struck a pose like he ‘tink he all dat’, then laughed at himself.

“See what I mean? They’re just filters. Polarized filters.”

He took them off and placed them in the pocket of the new, new-old shirt he was wearing.

“Mahalo, brah – I’ll save them for Halloween.”

The light burned right through him, and soon enough he ended up as sun-blasted as the blistered paint on my car, as bleached and crushed and the corals we walked on. But he had learned to see past the glare of the sun bouncing on the water, and in that way see everything.

I sat with him for a while, took off my own shades, narrowed my eyes into a squint and turned my face to the sun. And I think that maybe it isn’t such a bad way to live, seeing everything if you can stand it, allowing the end to come when it does. We sat like sunflowers, offering our hearts to the sun, and let the coconut wireless talk of other things.

Wireless

2011-11-18T10:23:00.001-08:00

[Congratulations to Frank Reilly for his first-place written entry in our 2011 Creative Competition. Check back for the next 9 days, as we post other recognized entries.]

Jared Walker steps up to the return counter at Walmart. He's been there before, at different Walmart locations in too many different parts of the country to count. This time in Lihu’e, the County seat of the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

The return counter is where Jared picks up the cash when it's wired in. He never goes to those cash advance places like Pay Day, or anyplace else where it's brutally obvious what he's doing.

While he hadn't reached his father when he called, Jared left the same message for him that he had many times before, about the severity of his situation, his need for money and his expectation that it would arrive quickly so that he could get back on his feet again and establish himself in this new place.

Because there is always a new place. This is what sets Jared apart. He is an adventurer, he would tell you. Someone who is able to cast off the shackles of the connected world and go, without a laptop, without a cell phone (save the occasional call for cash on a borrowed line), without an X-box, an iPod, a Wii - no small feat for a twenty-year-old. He is busy living, he would tell you.

Jared is prepared when he steps up to the return counter. He is prepared to check on the wired funds in a voice low enough to be heard by the counter woman only. He is prepared to count the bills without ostentation, because who knows how many thieving eyes are on him?

What he isn't prepared for is what he gets.

Ten dollars.

"There must be some mistake,” Jared sputters to the slight Filipino woman behind the register who handed him the wilted bill. She smiles warmly and shrugs.

There has been no mistake.

_______________

Lani, a local girl, is three people behind Jared on the return line at the counter.

Lani is sixteen, but you wouldn't think that for seeing her. She has a shapely pair of muscular legs that can only be described as womanly. Her mother's legs, her increasingly nervous father has come to realize; the very thing that turned his head at nearly the same age. But there's something else that makes Lani seem older. Something about her composure. Something about her calmness. She is not disaffected, as teens often are. She is not bothered by or impatient with the line she waits in. There is too much to watch to be bored. In every person that passes her line of vision, too much to process, too much detail, too much subtlety to drink in all at once.

Her eyes are locked on the back of Jared's neck. The tattoo there doesn't surprise her. Tattoos are everywhere after all, so a single one rarely stands out. But this one does. Not because it presents a striking image, but because it offers an incomplete thought. In a florid script that begins just below Jared's shaggy hairline, are the words:

"My life is like a stroll upon the beach,"

...and the thought ends there, disrupted by the ragged collar of his plain black tee.

The comma that follows the word "beach" is what gets to Lani. That tiny mark implies that there is more to be said, that there is more to hear. But her thoughts are interrupted when Jared turns to look behind himself and she can see into his eyes, which are full of a watery fear that the ten dollar bill has dropped upon him.

_______________

Jared's legs carry him out of the Walmart and to a bus stop a few paces away from the front door. As the bus pulls up he is thankful that it does not resemble any other bus he's ever ridden. He decides that he will ride it to a beach that will not resemble any other beach he's ever been to. And there he will meet people unlike any of the others he has met before. And surely these people will understand him. And feed him.

Lani gets on the bus because she is headed home. There are a handful of other seats available, but Lani chooses to sit next to Jared, because Jared is different.

Lani's classmates don't understand her, nor have they ever really tried. As is the case with most sixteen-year-olds, their attention is focused inward. They are the raw and tender centers of their personal universes. But Lani's attention is focused out. She is content to be a satellite. She is happy to orbit those around her and revel silently in their diversity. Her contentment and her quiet are often mistaken as arrogance. Her selflessness is like a too-bright light in a too-dark room. And so, Lani is weird. Lani is strange. Lani is different.

_______________

The word "Aloha" opens a conversational door for Lani and Jared. She offers it as a matter of course, along with a wide smile. Jared grabs hold of it as a drowning man would a life preserver.

After a brief exchange about the lack of AC on the bus and the relative merits of flip flops vs. hiking sandals, Jared finds he is increasingly comforted by the warm glow of Lani's attention. He uses it to talk through his crisis, to vent thoughts to her that would be bouncing around his skull now, were he riding the bus alone.

He can't let go of the idea behind that damned ten dollar bill. The thought of it carries him back to his family's apartment, a duplex at the top of a doorman high-rise in Manhattan's financial district. He tells Lani about the expensive marble floors his father installed in the foyer there, practically on a whim.

Marble, he repeats, scoffing. Like in the suburban bank branch his father had managed before the family took to Wall Street: a cavernous space, with absurdly high ceilings and marble everywhere. Marble, he tells Lani, that was used to lend substance to a financial process that had become increasingly weightless.

Banks like those were long gone, Jared continues, but his father never abandoned his need to use the same theatrics in their home. Past the cold, marble floors are thick, steel sculptures on large, mahogany bureaus alongside deep, leather sofas. The thought of them all taunting him as his hand worries the lousy ten spot in his pocket.
_______________

Lani does her best to absorb Jared's description of this other world. But she doesn't ask him to explain what she can't understand. She notes, instead, the rise and fall of his anger, which runs alongside the constant hum of his fear.

And floating above his monologuing self, Jared is all too aware of his creeping sense of Lani as another pigeon, because his travels have been filled with them: attractive, wide-eyed girls waiting to be noticed, appreciated and seduced. He is able, however, to resist the urge to look down at Lani's brown, shapely legs.

When he finally gets to his plight - no money, no place to go, nothing, Lani reacts as she was taught to: with empathy. She had not spent her youth side-stepping homeless people, as Jared had every morning near the heavy glass doors of the Walker's building. She had not lived in a place where the high-flown idealism of a Sunday sermon was mocked by the venality of the world right outside the church doors. The teachings of Christ were applicable for Lani on Kauai, and Jared was giving her a chance to prove that.

She speaks, when the opportunity finally arises, of the coconut wireless, or at least of her youthful and idyllic interpretation of the phrase: A network of local connections that insures that those in need in her community are looked after.

When hurricane Iniki hit Kaua’i, a few years before Lani was born and years still before cell phones were everywhere, she was told that people who needed help were found quickly and attended to.

"People don't need to ask here", she says, "because word travels fast. And people are always ready to help."

And hearing that, Jared allows himself the luxury of a long, relaxed exhalation as the bus rolls on its way.

_______________

Lani's father, Kaikona, was younger than Jared when he started working at the resort. He made it through the first half-day of training for poolside services and thought he could coast through the afternoon when he was introduced to the ten-and-five rule.

On approaching a visitor, at ten feet away hotel staff should acknowledge the guest with eye contact. At five feet away, a greeting is required.

At first the rule didn't seem like much. It brought on some eye rolling and some head shaking from the other trainees. But that was it.

Beside the pool it became something different.

Kaikona found that when he did look up to meet the eyes of approaching guests, they were either staring at him expectantly, as if his congeniality was part of their vacation package, or deliberately looking away, as if they couldn't be bothered to be engaged by the help.

He over thought these tiny transactions and as weeks became months they began to exact a toll. His natural affability was overwhelmed by a constant parade of remote New Englanders, curt Germans, gruff Texans, stuffy Brits. Over a few short years, his rancor metastasized, to the point where he found excuses to linger in the kitchen rather than make his pool rounds.

He tried to empathize, thinking of what his expectations would be if he were dropping two thousand dollars a week on a hotel room, only to have all logic collapse beneath the insane weight of that cruel math.

When you could afford to fly halfway around the world for some blue-green surf, how could you be anything other than grateful? The question gnawed at him, slowly filling his blood with a rage that, by the end of a week, coursed through his body like race cars with severed brake cables.

He kept his surf board locked in his truck during the work day and spread his anger liberally over the pounding waves at his favorite shore break at dusk. Until, one Friday, he didn't. And a minor parking lot scuffle escalated into a severe beating that landed him in prison for aggravated assault.

Kaikona's too-young wife was at her wit's end by then. She dropped Lani, who had just turned four, with his parents and left the island for good.

When finally released three years later, a still-simmering Kaikona was saved by his young daughter, who seemed to absorb his fury as soon as he took her in his arms.

With Lani to return to every day, Kaikona reconfigured Kauai - the only home he would ever know - into what he needed it to be so that they could remain a family.

He found work at a different resort, loading and unloading massive, industrial linen driers, which satisfied him as a hellish kind of penance as well as a way to sweat out more of his rancor. Then it was home to Lani in the early evening before heading to a second job bouncing at a local bar, where any remaining ill will he carried found a fitting outlet.

Lani had a way of invading his thoughts during the day, her poise and unflappable calm an inspiration to him. He could never decide whether her easy-going nature was a gift to him from a benevolent God, or if it was forged in his hot temper as a corrective for them both. "Chicken-egg thing,” he grew fond of saying.

Kaikona's eyes are as wide as saucers, then, as he trudges up his driveway at dusk and spies Lani through the window to her room, pulling a plain black tee-shirt up and over the head of a blonde white boy who is perched at the foot of her bed.

___________________

Jared didn't put the pieces together when Lani walked him through the rooms of her family's small plantation house, perhaps because there was no one else home. Even her bedroom, with its attendant pop idol posters and pastel drabness, didn't sound the alarms it should have. He mumbled a half-question about "her roommates coming home" to the back of her head and took her non-reply as confirmation of their existence.

He cleans himself up in the bathroom and, noting the presence of a razor and aftershave in the medicine cabinet, goes down what had become a well-traveled mental avenue for him: This chick lives with some dude and she didn't even hesitate to bring me here when he's not around.

And with that, the tumblers on the tiny lock that hold his libido at bay turn to their open positions, and his feet carry him along to the threshold of Lani's room.

She lay on her stomach in bed, thumbing through a magazine, her toned legs flexing back and forth beneath the breeze from an old ceiling fan above her. She turns and, seeing Jared there, smiles amiably. A smile he loses no time labeling as "come-hither".

Jared sits down beside her as she sits up on the bed. He turns to face her just as she turns toward him. And in the heat of that moment, he is suddenly confronted with something he has never faced before.

A complete lack of guile.

With all the girls he had made advances on since he came of age, Jared had always been comforted by the unspoken fact of the transaction.

If his father had taught him anything, it was that all human interaction boiled down to this: An agreement between two parties. As he once described it, via a hastily sketched Venn diagram, a stock broker begins his sales pitch knowing that his client is looking to make money with no effort expended.

"If they have money to invest, it certainly isn't money they need, so losing it isn't a serious concern. The cost to them" he stressed, "is simply exposure to financial risk".

In much the same way, Jared came to hypothesize, a casual lover's pitch is about selling a similar fantasy, about feeling wanted with no effort expended. The less you know about a lover you are about to take, in fact, the more likely that fantasy will take flight.

"There isn't even a risk,” he tells himself. "If you aren't presenting your true self, then what are you exposing? And who the hell presents their true self?” he wonders. "Ever?"

All Jared needs from Lani, from any woman, is complicity. If she is party to the transaction, then she is the buyer and "let the buyer beware" - one phrase his father never lost an opportunity to trumpet.

But Lani is not buying anything.

She looks directly into his eyes, smiling openly, without an expectation of any kind. That look is not coy or coquettish, demure or demanding, hungry or hopeful. In its youthful innocence, it implies two things only; interest and concern.

And it stops Jared cold.

In the stillness of Lani's room, he is struck by how far from home he really is. How long it's been since he was pulled along a crowded avenue by a current of people, all of them rushing somewhere to get something. How unprepared he is to handle a situation that isn't about need and its fulfillment, about wanting and getting, about the transaction.

If he chooses to pursue what he wants from Lani, he realizes, he will be taking something from her, plain and simple.

Then another realization strikes him with enough force to rob him of his breath.

What Lani is already giving him is all he's ever really wanted. This rapt attention. This silent acceptance. He's left his home because it doesn't offer this. He's boarded and unboarded, hiked and hitched from place to place only to find the exact opposite of this. He doesn't move for fear of breaking the spell and losing this.

Lani watches Jared, her eyes widening, waiting for his next breath, wondering why it doesn't come. It frightens her enough to make her speak.

"What else does it say?"

"I...I'm not sure...what?" Jared stammers. "What else does what say?"

"On your neck. The back of your neck?"

Jared stiffens, flushing.

Lani smiles and grabs his upper arms, moving to spin him around playfully. He complies, allowing himself to be turned like a marionette, floating. Wireless.

His back to her now, she tries to pull down his collar and read, but there isn't enough give. The elastic scratches his throat and he instinctively crosses his arms, reaching for the bottom of his shirt. He lifts it half-heartedly, then struggles with it, blinded by it, lost in black fabric.

Lani laughs and pulls it up and over his head.

Then, able to see again, Jared is confronted with his own reflection. The sky having darkened outside, the bright light on Lani's nightstand switched on, the bedroom window has become an unwelcome mirror. He stares at himself forlornly.

And outside, Kaikona has stopped walking dead in his tracks.

As he watched the tee-shirt rise, so did his blood pressure. That soft, pampered, white body, like so many others he'd seen basking, lounging, burning willfully around him at the resort pool. Is that here? In his home?

He's looking Jared straight in the eye now, though he isn't seen.

What is stopping him, he wonders, from diving through that window, an angry, single-minded, animal force? It could be Lani, he thinks. He would never willfully traumatize her. But more likely it's Jared. Or rather, it's the look on Jared's face, which is not that of a young man on the make. Kaikona recognizes it because he's worn that look himself on occasion; the same slack-jawed, vacant stare of a lost soul.

Kaikona runs to the front stoop, kicks off his slippers and pads silently to Lani's door, steeling himself for a stealth entry in which he'll lift the boy up by the scruff of his neck and bounce him out good and proper.

But he's stopped again, just outside the threshold, by Lani's voice.

"My life is like a stroll upon the beach," she says, "as near to the ocean's edge as I can go.”

The words hang in the air like smoke.

For Jared, this moment typically plays out differently. The girl he's pursuing usually asks him what the quote means right away. And he dazzles her with a few scripted lines about its author (because Jared is well read), about his travels (because Jared is worldly), about his "quest.” But by then the girl is busy exposing a tanned shoulder, or rotating a taut calf, or pulling down her shorts just enough, in order to turn all attention to her tattoo, to her tiny, inked defiance, to her three-inch by three-inch summation.

And as this girl would run her fingers along the words on his bare back, his fingers would feather the spot where her rose bud, or her butterfly, or her bleeding heart lay. And from there they'd be on their way.

But Lani says nothing.

Jared turns to face her and he sees that she is thinking. Thinking, he guesses correctly, about everything she's learned about him in their short time together and how those things might coalesce into the words in his tattoo. And her eyebrows raise just slightly, as if she can't quite make the connection. And for this he is beyond grateful because he is finally freed.

"It's a lie.” He answers her unasked question.

"My life has not been a stroll. Hell, I've only ever run. And it's never been on a beach, but it should have been because I've never wanted for anything. I'm embarrassed by those words now, and I've never been before. But something about today, something about you..."

Kaikona peers around the doorjamb now, because this pause has got to be the moment when this boy is leaning in to kiss his Lani.

But Jared is not. He's pulling away, in fact. He's pulling his tee shirt back on.

"Thank you for taking me in,” Jared mumbles. Then more earnestly; "Thank you so much."

Jared stands up. He backs toward the bedroom door, drinking in Lani's confused smile, not realizing that the rogue wave that was Kaikona has receded now, away from the ocean's edge.

For Lani's father is stepping lightly, making his way back toward the front door as quietly as he can so he can enter his house again. But this time he'll let the screen door slam loudly behind him.

Where Kings Bathed

2011-11-17T10:50:00.001-08:00

[Congratulations to Aaron Feinberg for his first-place visual entry in our 2011 Creative Competition. Check back for the next 10 days, as we post other recognized entries.]

2011 Creative Competition Finalists Announced

2011-11-03T23:55:00.001-07:00

KauaiBackstory is pleased to announce the 2011 Creative Competition finalists are:

Jose Bulatao, Jr.
Anne Dimock
Brian Doyle
Lea Kala
Hob Osterlund
Mahealani Perez-Wendt
Frank Reilly
Jean Rhude
Patrick Stack
Pam Woolway

Winners will be announced on Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at Kauai Community College in the library, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at a special reception and reading. All finalists are encouraged to read their submissions at this public reading. Finalists are asked to please RSVP to kauaibackstory@gmail.com.

The 2011 winner in the visual category is Aaron Feinberg.

Time permitting, other writers may sign up to read their own original works of writing on a first-come, first-read, sign-up basis. Time limit not to exceed five minutes.

Publication of the contest winners and runners up will begin posting on www.kauaibackstory.com the day after the public reading.

We’d like to extend a big mahalo to Jocelyn Fujii, our guest judge this year, the Garden Island Arts Council for sponsoring the prize money and Kauai Community College for providing a place for our reception and readings.

Kauaibackstory.com is a venue for rigorous writing with a view about Kauai. Year-round, the on-line literary journal welcomes high-quality writing and thoughtful images from the public. All submissions are moderated by a three-person editorial board, however, not all are posted. Kauaibackstory.com encourages the expression of all voices and delights in words and images that shift thinking and open minds. Much like an on-line blog, kauaibackstory.com encourages interactive dialogue with the hopes that the time-honored tradition of kama'ilio, talk story, will build community and understanding.

Save the Date: Wednesday, Nov 16 from 5 to 7 p.m.

2011-10-31T00:20:00.000-07:00

Thank you to all who entered this year's Kauai Backstory Creative Competition--Coconut Wireless. All the submissions are now in the hands of our judges. We'll know the results later this month.

In the mean time, though, please mark you calendar for our awards night--the Kauai Backstory 2011 Reading Series. This year's readings will be held at co-sponsor Kauai Community College's Library on Wednesday, November 16 from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. We hope to see--and hear--many of you that night.

And if you run into Cammie Matsumoto or any other administrator with Kauai Community College, please thank them for hosting us. If you see Carol Yotsuda, please give her and the board members of the Garden Island Arts Council a big mahalo for ponying up the prize monies for this annual competition and helping keep Kauai's literary arts alive.

More to come.

Mahalo,
Gae, Kim & Lois Ann

Jocelyn Fujii: Guest Judge

2011-09-07T23:35:00.000-07:00

Have you heard? The award-winning Jocelyn Fujii is this year's guest judge for Kauai Backstory's annual Creative Competition.

Jocelyn is the founder of Hula Moon Press and the author of more than a dozen books on Hawai`i and the Pacific, including Stories of Aloha, Homegrown Treasures of Hawai'i, and Under the Hula Moon. Jocelyn's articles have appeared in many national and international publications, including the New York Times, International Herald Tribune and Westways. In 23 years, Jocelyn wrote 130 profiles for Aloha Airlines' in-flight magazine, Spirit of Aloha.

What's more, Jocelyn is a Kauai girl.

Are you writing? We hope so. There are 3 weeks and 2 days left to submit to this year's Kauai Backstory Creative Competition.

ANNOUNCING SIXTH ANNUAL CREATIVE COMPETITION

2011-08-03T23:21:00.001-07:00

Hello? Can you hear me now?

KauaiBackstory.com, an online literary journal, announces its sixth annual writing competition. This year’s theme, “Coconut Wireless” is again sponsored by the Garden Island Arts Council.

Cash prizes will be awarded in the following manner. Written: First place, $100; second place, $50; third place, $25. Visual: One $100 award. Winners and other noteworthy contributors will be posted on www.kauaibackstory.com and invited to read on a special night in early November. (Date and place to be determined.)

Writing form does not matter—essay, story (imagined or real), memoir or poems are all welcome. Visual entries must be submitted in jpg format.

As in previous years, entries must be relevant to Kauai, in some manner. KauaiBackstory.com is a venue for rigorous writing with a view about Kauai. We look for writing that builds understanding, not walls. We encourage writing and imagery that engenders respectful dialogue for we believe one way to build community is through conversation.

KauaiBackstory.com values the expression of all voices and delights in words and images that shift thinking and open minds threading us ever closer together in this calabash of a world in which we live. Entries will be judged on whether they achieve this vision or not.

A student category will be created pending interest and writing quality.

Contest participants may submit one entry per category. That is, participants may submit one written entry and one visual entry; however, you may not submit more than one written entry or more than one visual entry. This also means you get once chance per category to get it right, so please double-check spelling and grammar before hitting send. Please do not submit revised entries. We recommend using 12 pt. Times New Roman font on written entries. Please do not use a stylized typeface; do not use colored type fonts; do not use a variety of different type sizes. Entries must be pasted into the body of an email (no attachments) and sent to kauaibackstory@gmail.com. Images must be sent as a jpg attachment. On images, please do not include a name superimposed or embedded into the jpg in any way.

Visit www.kauaibackstory.com to view the quality of works posted and the blog’s mission statement.

The deadline for submitting entries is midnight HST September 30, 2011. Entries must be pasted into the body of an email (no attachments) and sent to kauaibackstory@gmail.com. Images must be sent as a jpg attachment.

Kauaibackstory.com is intended to serve as a timely, interactive forum. Readers are encouraged to visit often and post comments.

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2011 Creative Competition

2011-07-01T16:10:00.000-07:00

Word on the street is that the 2011 Creative Competition is open for submissions.

We know three things at this point:

1. This year's theme, if you weren't watching the votes [aside: sarcasm coming] roll in on our poll, is:

Coconut Wireless.

2. The deadline for submissions is September 30, 2011, midnight HST.

3. The Garden Island Arts Council is once again sponsoring prizes.

So, have at it. Start creating. We'll post more information as we come up with it. But, generally, you can assume the same basic rules and regs as prior years, so scroll down, if you're interested. And, as always, read some of your fellow writers' words, make a comment, get inspired.

Oh, submissions can be sent to kauaibackstory@gmail.com.

April is for Poetry

2011-04-15T23:34:00.000-07:00

Two Bonus Events for Friday, April 15, 2011

2011-04-14T23:38:00.000-07:00

1. Celebrate National Poetry Month
A Discussion of Poetry
3:45 - 5:00 p.m.
Kaua’i Community College
Technology Education Building, Multi-purpose Room

In honor of April as National Poetry Month, Brian Cronwall, Assistant Professor of English at KCC, will lead poetry lovers in a discussion of the April issue of "Poetry" magazine, a publication of the Poetry Foundation. The first 10 people to sign up (RSVP to Susan Ullis @ smmu@hawaii.rr.com or call 332-5694 with name, phone number and mailing address) will receive a free copy of April's issue. (RSVP to Susan Ullis @ smmu@hawaii.rr.com or call 332-5694 with name, phone number and mailing address.) And, bring your own poetic composition to read if time allows.

2. Reception and Readings
5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Kauai Community College
Technology Education Building, Multi-purpose Room

Guest authors and local Kauai writers are invited to attend and read. Contribute to the literary potluck with a poem, a story or an essay and a pupu or bottle of wine.

The afternoon and evening sessions are co-sponsored by The Garden Island Arts Council, KauaiBackstory.com and Kaua'i Community College.

The Technology Education Building is located at the end of the parking lot. Look for the "Technology Education" banner hanging above the double doors.

Coming April 15, 2011: Kauai Literature Festival

2011-03-20T12:13:00.000-07:00

Promise to Lumahai

2011-01-28T20:30:00.000-08:00

by Kari Marie

Lumahai, beneath the sky
a silvery moon fills my eye

a blanket of stars descends on me
the waves sing a soothing melody.

Lumahai, it’s been a ride,
I’ve washed my sorrows in your tide
I’ve made a friend upon your shore
and lost a lover here before.

Lumahai, I say goodbye
and touch your sand with grateful sigh
I shall return some better day
with happy heart to stay, to stay.

2010 Creative Competition Reading Night

2011-01-05T13:28:00.001-08:00

Thanks to the gracious and generous Anne O'Malley for sharing these images from our November 2010 Reading Night.

The Flight of Life

2010-12-06T09:32:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Kathleen Viernes for her runner up entry in our 2010 Creative Competition.]

He glides gracefully between the sun and the open sea,
the scent of soil in the air long forgotten

And then...
unstopped by stormy seas
with blood pumping purpose
he flies, fast
back to the beacon of his beginning
a birth place created for him

She soars silently between the sun and the open sea,
the touch of land beneath her feet long forgotten

And then...
pulled in a direction unquestioned,
drawn from the code of her bones
she flies, fast
back to the refuge of her beginning
a birth space created for her

Within him lies a power,
the sacred spark to ignite life
Unification awaiting!

Within her lies a universe,
golden orb suspended in sacred waters of life
Creation in waiting!

Forever fused through the miracle, life comes out quietly through a crack

In blood and bones through time, the dance has been set
two is one is two is one is two is one is...
Rhythm unfaltering!

The odds of impossibility were great
but far greater was the power to create

The odds of impossibility are great
but far greater is the power to create

And so they dance
two is one is two is one is two is....

Refuge

2010-12-04T11:26:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Jessica Meek, 13, for her runner up entry in our 2010 Creative Competition.]

Birds fly through the air
Coasting the breeze that ruffles our hair
They swoop and wheel to our delight
But are you aware of their dire plight?

So many species are sinking in number
Prematurely falling in eternal slumber
Lights in the night confuse them, oh no!
And their habitats shrink as our buildings grow

Where can these birds go?
With their sick and their slow
I know of one place that's welcome to all
Kilauea lighthouse stands beckoning, tall

There it's a refuge
Safety from this deluge
Of our buildings and domes
For the birds needing homes

Come visit there
You'll be aware
Of the birds soaring high
In their safe stretch of sky

The Great Tenderness on the Edge of Everything

2010-12-03T13:37:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Jean Rhude for this runner up entry in our 2010 Creative Competition.]

Narrow as a piece of paper that just sliced your finger, bringing a small show of red blood. The paper that lies on your desk ready to catch the words that fall from your heart onto the page now spilled, appropriately, with the blood from your finger. The page that catches and absorbs all that you think, all that you feel, the paper that is both your worst friend and your best enemy. The paper that you leave only to return, to whore yourself shamelessly if you allow the grace of your abandoned ego for just one sweet, precious moment.

The paper with her smooth facade and sharp edge became my refuge when I was young. I have returned to her off and on but never so much as after the death of my eldest son. No day is complete until my growth through the loss is recorded for the day. I have no other way to chart my "progress." There is no true North. My appetite for a truth that bleeds has grow insatiable. I no longer fear it. I sometimes resist it.

Sometimes the only place to rest is that narrow ridge, on the precipice, between two valleys. Look mauka in any direction to see them. Borne from erupting volcano’s, now covered with lava rock and jungle. Walking it you must carefully place one foot exactly in front of the other, find your balance and repeat, all the while climbing a not too gentle slope. You march on until you come upon a slight widening and burrow your body into the ground where deer or goat sleeps. From here the view to each of the valleys below can be observed without the painstaking concentration of going forward, upward. The going stops at this point. The stillness enters.

Both valleys are green, verdant. They each have a wandering stream, even a small waterfall. They have large tress for shade and shelter and soft moss for resting. They are equally inviting. One is the valley of the shadow of loss and I am pulled there by invisible forces that feel like powerful magnets. I long to rest and wallow and be in this profound sadness. I spend much of my energy carefully placing the feet so I will not fall here for fear that I will forget the way out. The power of the habitual lulls me. The other pulls just as forcefully with an energy that is playful, inviting. It invites me to nestle in the belly of a baby and soosh and coo. I skip in this valley. There is music and laughter and the profound love that draws me here constricts at my heart and chokes my throat while I surrender fresh, each day. In this valley I re-learn the language of happy.

Their intensity is what they share. It is their common denominator. It is what resides in my core with equanimity. In any given moment I can clone myself, be in both places at once or fall wholeheartedly in either direction.

Sitting alone with the grandson who is birth in a family with too many deaths, the sound of waves, of wind in the tress and the Shama thrush in the distance. I sing in my off key way as he surrenders to sleep in the crook of my neck, the full sweet weight of him on my shoulder and chest. The weight of him; his the sweetest burden and the discomfort of his twenty-three pounds held only by my arm is inconsequential.

The cavity so long left empty and dark and yearning begins to fill and as it does the intensity of the gaining is so like the intensity of the loosing; life/death, given/taken, here/ gone. The simple sweet new joy of the baby walks hand in hand with the harsh, cold empty loss of the son. The terrible buoyant weight of it grips me with poignant gratitude as I try to capture the slippery reality of it.

Sometimes I feel the poignancy, the bitter sweetness of life so intensely. I cherish the sweet moments of profound intimacy . . . as he wakes or surrenders to sleep in his dewy newness of self. His peacefulness is my reward and I could just sit and breathe with him. We are both of us strangers to earth, seeking balance. He sweetens the heavy humid air as the fan blows softly over us and I want to pick him up and cradle him close, to drink and inhale his newness. I begin to come truly back alive, one cell, one sense, one sweet plumeria scented moment at a time.

ODE TO SHANARAE KAULANA DONOVAN (1992 - 2010)

2010-12-02T14:06:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Catherine Lo for this runner up entry in our 2010 Creative Competition. Three more posts to come, so keep checking back.]

Shanarae! What a melodious name!
It seems it was only yesterday that I heard your name:
Of your leadership ability and community service:
And a future filled with promise waiting for you.

And now I read in today′s The Garden Island
Of a fundraiser planned for your funeral!
As I look at your photograph
I wonder what deep secrets took shelter

Behind those knowing eyes:
Secrets so deep they defied understanding,
Secrets so deep they were beyond words,
Secrets so deep you chose to bury them forever.

Alas, you could have attended the youth rally at Lihu`e
And learned a lesson or two from Hawai`i′s own
Olympic gold medallist Bryan Clay,
Whose troubled childhood signaled a doubtful future.

But his personal walk with God
Led him to the right path, paving the way
To personal success and athletic triumphs:
To a life worthy of emulation and applause.

The two columns of you and the three of Bryan Clay
Occupy the front page of the newspaper′s Sunday′s edition,
Side by side in a most prominent way,
But carry pointedly contrasting messages.

Shanarae! What a melodious name!
But you decided to deny forever
Your dear mother, younger sister, admiring friends,
Numerous relatives and Kalaheo neighbors
The melody that was Shanarae!

Red-Dirt Caked Feet

2010-12-01T16:02:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Sequoia Leech-Kritchman for this runner-up entry in our 2010 Creative Competition.]

I am from the sounds of roosters not only in the morning, but all day long
They wake me up, keep me going at noon, and by dusk they put me back to sleep
When the roosters aren’t enough
Rain will come out of nowhere, thick as molasses, with the smell that can only be described as "rain is coming"
The sun will come in from the window light illuminating my face
And when I truly do not want to wake up
A coconut falls on the roof
Waking me up with a start

I am from a house hidden in a jungle of overgrown weeds
They take over and choke out the week
Only the strongest survive here, this is why we protect the weak
The ones who are strong inside, but never have a chance to show what they’ve got
Because the strongest, meanest, bully of them all is taking over

I am from uncontrollable weather
A surprise unfolds each day before my eyes as I see a perfectly sunny day turn into a rainstorm
As darkness turns to light in the blink of an eye
And the most searched image on google of all
A Hawaiian sunset that photographers go bonkers over

I am from stir-fry with freshly cut vegetables from the land
While she is from spam served over rice
And he is from poi pounded by his tutu with lau lau right out of the imu
When thanksgiving comes we all share our specialties
And you would be considered lucky if there was any room left over in your stomach for dessert
But even if there isn’t, you chow down the greatest recipes from around the island anyways

I am from dusty fans spinning round and round to the point where the air coming out is not cool but hot
From the red dirt that is caked under everyone’s unknowing feet
This is the kind of stuff you cannot rub off
This dirt is caked so deep that your feet will never be the same once taken its first step upon this hearty earth
It is a stain that lasts forever
Almost impossible to get out
You must rub and scrub until you bleed into the earth giving back what you have taken
Then you may leave if you wish
Yet there will still be the slightest trace of that reddish stain on the bottom of your soul...
But most like their red dirt caked feet just the way they are

Sugarberry, One Beautiful Albatross

2010-11-30T14:30:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Ron Horoshko for his runner up entry in our 2010 Creative Contest.]

I asked my friend, Mr. Ron, to sit and have a man to bird, or bird to man conversation. See, I am Sugarberry, a beautiful albatross, if you don’t mind a little boastfulness on my behalf. I am proud of my pedigree, for I was named after my mother’s great grandmother, Wanda Sugarberry Flan. Her husband Sir Winston Flan III was the first of our kind to soar above the mountains of what is now called the Himalayas. He caught an air stream that took him across the Pacific Ocean to the islands, which now are known as Hawaii, and my birthright.

I say right because my mother and father were deeded the land on the island of Kauai. My mother was a genealogist and kept very accurate records, both air plots and land surveys. Mom had this feminist attitude that I was the recipient of and will pass on to my children. My husband, Sir Cedric Wilson, is one strong Albatross, a little overweight in the mid-section and not as romantic as when we first meet. See, there was one time when we were cuddling below a palm tree overlooking the cliffs above the north shore gazing at the grey cloud cover with the sun rays drawing water from the ocean’s white capped swells. Cedric, put his wing around me, drew me so close that I had to bend my wing to protect my breast from his unintentional petting. Yet, on the other wing, I suppose I wanted that moment to turn into the "Mating Dance". If you have not seen us dance, it is an inherited waltz of sorts with a little salsa and merengue mixed in. We once performed this exchange in the quite still of the evening with trade winds cooling the warm body heat as we danced to the music of the evening, as if Andrea Bocelli was performing live "Per Amore".

Now, sad to say, it’s not Cedric’s fault that he can’t get the juices flowing. See, this once peaceful refuge was taken over by landlords, that word lord should be stricken and changed to hordes. They just started digging and building and moving our homes without even giving us notice. I hear they did the same thing to group of Indians on another continent. I guess that’s a lesson in history that just got overlooked. See, before these landhordes, there was a "beautiful people" that loved the land and cared for the land and its inhabitants. They danced and sang songs and played in the ocean. They even made their alphabet with only a few letters, so when they wrote songs and letters it was mo better. Here I go again ragging on something I can’t change. I guess our nesting grounds, someday will be gone. See now we live next to a "natural gas tank" and the only trades we feel are when the air conditioners are running and the air from the inside is blown out of a hole in the wall.

Well, Mr. Ron , I guess I am the chatty one, please forgive me, for my aunties are gone, my family is now just me and Cedric. See for some strange reason I can’t get pregnant, oh well, maybe it’s for the best. We are down in numbers and soon this once proud bird of Hawaii will be gone, not by the way of the wind, but by the way of greed. Mr. Ron, why is greed so important to your people? Don’t they want the refuge of Aloha that we once shared with the beautiful people, the Hawaiians?

Sugarberry, see someday, someone will get it right, hopefully before it’s too late. Sugarberry, "[ T]he greed of gain has no time or limit to its capaciousness. Its one object is to produce and consume. It has pity neither for beautiful nature nor for living human beings. It is ruthlessly ready without a moment’s hesitation to crush beauty and life out of them, molding them into money."*

It’s sad... Sugarberry .

*Rabindranath Tagore

Listening to Agnes

2010-11-28T11:24:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Bill & Judie Fernandez for their runner up entry in our 2010 Creative Competition.]

Three a.m. and I cannot sleep. Giving up, I tiptoe out of the bedroom and settle onto the koa framed sofa. Bill’s mother, Agnes, bought the sofa and two matching koa wood-framed chairs when she and Bill’s father married and moved into her house in 1927. I settled down onto the dark green fern and flowery-patterned kettle cloth, my head resting on old quilt-patterned pillows, and looked slowly around the small room. Why couldn’t I sleep? 

A gecko chirped from the kitchen. I could hear gentle waves washing ashore nearby. The moonless sky was a deep black, cradling the house. Sounds drifted in through the windows, palm branches rustling in the breeze. The soft air soothed me. Living on an island, nature caresses you, something I miss when away from the islands. 

This really is a charming place, I thought, as my eyes roved slowly around the room. The wood slatted walls and ceiling, the dark wood trim at the top and bottom of the walls framing the room, the built-in, dark wood, china cabinet. Inside the cabinet, sit the purple tea cups, the etched red glass ice cream dishes and matching plates, the old ukulele, a couple of hand-made lauhala hats with handmade feather lei circling the crowns, treasures once part of the life of Bill’s mother, Agnes. I imagined her opening the glass doors, which didn’t have rusty hinges then, and serving a special mango ice cream for dessert after the Sunday duckling dinner. I suspect Bill always wanted seconds. In the kitchen, we still use the tall, glass-door cabinets from the 1920s. One of the cabinets has wire mesh shelves and screened openings at top and bottom for air circulation. Bill calls it a ‘cooler’ as the air cools the fruits and vegetables stored there. On the wall next to that cabinet, adjacent to the back door, thick, stiff, electrical wires enter the house through big holes drilled into the wood and then run down into the fuse box. Geckoes must consider it their private entrance. Since the house was constructed with only single walls, the wires could not be covered up. So we painted them white. Agnes’ house had indoor plumbing but not every house in the neighborhood was so fancy. 

Agnes must have loved every inch of this two bedroom cottage. She paid for it with her pineapple cannery earnings after saving for years. Required to help pay for the education of her brothers at a high school in Honolulu, and no high school on the island for her to attend, she was sent to work at age fifteen in the cannery. Her long hours produced meager pay. But with several siblings, there was little possibility of further education in those days, especially for a young woman. Life was difficult, and money was hard to come by despite her father’s job at a plantation as a luna, supervisor. She married late for those days, in her thirties. Not for her, ala ala, lazy boys. She had made up her mind that she wouldn’t marry a man unless he earned two hundred dollars a month. Given the limited opportunities on the island, most men worked in the fields of pineapple or sugar cane. Long hours, hard work, poor pay. No, Agnes wanted a more secure life. So she worked and saved her money. 

In the early 1920s, a developer named Sanborn bought several acres of marsh and sand dunes in the Waipouli ("dark water") Stream area to the south of tiny Kapa’a and built a few dozen homes. Mr. Sanborn thought the area was perfect for a suburban development of homes on large lots. It was here that Agnes bought not just one, but two, of the homes when the developer struggled with hard times. On her wedding day, she and her husband moved into one of the houses. She must have been pretty proud. 

The Waipouli neighborhood was settled by many of the immigrant workers who completed their labor contracts at the plantations and soon the streets became playgrounds. The sugar train came puffing right through the middle of the area on its way to the refinery to the south, its squat cars stuffed with harvested cane, pieces dropping off as it trundled along. A favorite game for the kids was running alongside the slow-moving train and pulling out a long piece of cane to suck on it. "Cane! Cane!" the kids would yell, coming frighteningly close to the steel wheels. When they would grab a piece and pull, it sometimes dragged them along for several feet until it either came loose or you couldn’t keep up with the train. The bigger kids heightened the danger by playing ‘chicken’ and would stand on the narrow bridge over the canal as the train approached, jumping off seconds before the train could strike them. One of the small boys called the train "puffagiggey" because it made that sound. It may seem strange that family homes were built surrounding the train tracks, but that’s the way it was. 

Once we made the decision to move back to Bill’s home on Kaua’i, Bill and I had had many discussions about how to fit into this small, two bedroom house with only one bathroom and little storage space. After a conversation with a contractor and hearing ideas for expanding the home, we spent hours talking about it. Tonight, at dinner, we finally concluded there was little economic sense in just remodeling a termite-ridden old house with sloping floors and decided to tear it down and rebuild. The big lot allowed for a nice home and we could add a second story with a balcony facing the ocean. Windows in the rear would face the mountains and allow breezes to move through the upper rooms, a natural air conditioning. Think of the storage room we would have, the larger living room and kitchen, all modernized! So our thinking went, each comment cementing our decision. 

Now, at three a.m., looking around Agnes’ home, its charm, its old island style, I was overcome with sadness. Perhaps we could put wood slatting on the walls of the new house instead of dry wall. Perhaps on the ceiling too, just like this one. And we have to keep the dark wood trim at the floor and ceiling. And the china cabinet. Oh-oh. Must try to save it and reinstall it in the new house. But what am I saying? If all of this is so hard to let go of, perhaps we made the wrong decision? How can I tell Bill I have changed my mind, if I have? We have gone so far as to sketch plans and get a rough cost estimate. Is it wrong to reverse the decision now? Will he be disappointed? 

A deep yawn convinced me to try to fall asleep again. As I leaned over to turn out the light, I admired the reflection of the light on the wooden walls and ceiling. I will miss this charm, I thought, and headed back to bed. 

After our morning ritual of coffee and watching the waves, Bill and I walked down the street. He described again how the developer had planted three rows of ironwood trees between the street and the beach, providing a wind screen for the homes. Under the trees, sweet-smelling night-blooming cereus would send its fragrance into the dreams of sleeping families. The beach, a few feet below the road level, was a perfect place for keiki, kids, because the low upthrust rock reef prevented big waves from knocking you down and kept the water level no more than knee deep. No worry your little one would get swept out. A neighbor placed a wooden dock out in deeper water for the bigger kids to use for diving. Bill learned to swim at this beach and built tin canoes with his friends. Later, he would snorkel there and once even met a small shark swept in by big waves. 

As we walked along enjoying the morning and watching the clouds drift up to the mountains, Bill asked if I still wanted to tear down the house and build a new one. Surprised by his question, I paused. Was this the time to tell him my feelings during the night? If he really wants to do this, is it right for me to change my mind? Then I told him how I had awakened at three a.m., sat in the living room and began to feel sad about tearing down Agnes’ home. 

Bill broke into a smile and laughed. "I woke up about four AM and had the same feelings! I cannot tear it down. My mother bought it with her pineapple cannery earnings which was such an unusual thing for a young woman to do in the 1920s. It’s small but so charming. Shall we forget about tearing it down and just remodel?" 

"Yes!" 

The rest of our walk was spent describing what we would like to do: add a big porch, a laundry room and bathroom, expand the bedroom. We also agreed that it just might have been Agnes who woke up each of us with a message in the soft breeze: "Please don’t tear down my home."

Refuge

2010-11-27T09:43:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Sharon Douglas for her runner up entry, "Refuge."]

The sun’s setting rays bathe my bare arms, legs and face with gentle warmth. Foamy waves froth around my feet. Gentleness seeps into my being. For many years I have relished the solitude of this beach. How often it has been a place of refuge for me: a place where I have been able to just be. Today I still walk here alone, but rumors connecting the recent disappearance of two wemoon with attacks that took place on the west side many years ago, create inner turmoil.

The tide is low. The granular texture of compacted beach sand massages my feet. I imagine it is releasing my tension; dislodging my fearful phantoms– letting them wash away into the vast ocean.

The golden sheen created as the incline of beach is washed by ocean and infused with setting sunlight, is the backdrop to where crabs seem to pick up skirts and glide like Japanese dancers towards the ocean. A dark grey bird with a long flat silver beak shakes out its feathers as it perches on one of the huge tree boulders lodged in the beach sand.

As I step into the red dirt river that snakes into the ocean my feet anticipate the contrast. While they remember and still hold the comfort of the waves’ warm water, the colder water that has come from its source at Mount Waialeale revitalizes them. I stand here a moment enjoying how alive this makes me feel.

I turn to look at the full moon as it languishes on the eastern horizon. A sudden movement causes my chest to tighten. The gentle, soft air in and around me pauses. My refuge vigilantly watches with me. The inner seesaw begins.

"Turn around! Go home! Be discerning! People care about you – have warned you!"

"I will not let paranoia rob me of my sanctuary…it’s just hype…this place is protected…I’m protected…."

Inner voices struggle to find balance – totter one way and then another as they try to find that inner still place of allowing what is….

My refuge sighs with me when we realize, "Ahhh palm frond shadows playing on driftwood – an illusion of movement…."

Determined to banish unsettling thoughts, and enjoy this peaceful slice of paradise, I pick up a wrinkled but still intensely yellow lilikoi. I sit on a bleached white branch where ocean and sand meet, soaking in the sights of mercurial ocean washing into protected bay, and the silhouette of palm trees stretching into blue with white streak of clouds. Waves roll in and gently break. Birds sing and, where but on a beach on Kauai, would a rooster crow. I sniff in deeply, and savor ocean air mixed with the woody smell of driftwood and koa nuts. I deliberately breathe slowly, and then bite into the lilikoi and gently squeeze the sweet fruit caviar into my mouth. The thick yellow juice dribbles down my chin.

Great Pele – how I love this beach! Pakala -Hawaiian for ‘place in the sun’ is what someone told me. I continue to walk and pass driftwood sculptures…the beckoning hand, the crouching lion, the startled buck...pass the kiawe bush with its dark tangled branches and thorns that grow right into the water…pass the kukui nut trees that flutter down huge yellow heart shaped leaves...pass the palm trees with thick trunks layered like shakes of a roof. Sometimes, it is the intense blue of a discarded lobster shell that beckons me to take a closer look. This evening it is a piece of coral that looks like a finger.

What was that? Deliberately I stop and look all around...slowly. Is it just a falling kukui nut…or coconut, or is he waiting in the underbrush? Is the coral finger warning me, or is it giving fear the proverbial middle finger? Is fear just an acronym for false evidence appearing real?

I turn to face where the sound is now a constant crashing. My heart is racing. My body is taut. I struggle to breathe. It takes all of my will not to run. My fingers shake so much I can hardly touch my husband’s speed dial on my i-phone.

I nearly cry with relief, and burst out laughing when two rust-red heifers emerge from a clearing between the palms. Surprised to see me, they pause, give me a long hard look, and then bolt back from where they came.

The moon emerges from behind a cloud, and I imagine she winks at me as she showers her silver light on sand, trees, sea...and me.

Kono's Car

2010-11-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Brian Doyle for his second-place submission (tied with Laurie Barton) in our 2010 Creative Competition. Check back as we post runner up entries, one per day for the next week.]

Kono had a car that occasionally remembered everyone who had ever been in it, and when this happened the car would bulge out hugely on both sides, looking like the cheeks of an enormous chipmunk, a most remarkable sight. The first time this happened Kono had the side-panels hammered back into place by his nephews, but when it kept happening he tried to sell the car, but the car refused to start for any potential buyers, so back it kept coming to Kono, for whom it started as soon as he laid a hand on it. Finally his nephews put loose canvas panels on the car.
That was a most remarkable car. It got so it would start for Kono if he even waved his hand from a distance in a certain way or asked politely or sang a certain song.

The car also remembered the voices of every person who had ever ridden or slept or eaten in it, which Kono discovered one day when he turned on the radio and out came the voice of his grandmother who had been demised nine years. She was on the AM dial with the other old people, and the young people who had been in the car were on the FM dial. You could go to any radio station, AM or FM, and pick up a story someone had been telling when they were in the car. It was a most amazing thing. Kono said we should take the car to the university where they paid money for stories from the old days but when we went to the university no one believed a car-talking story so that was that.

The problem came when we were driving along one day and Kono turned on the radio and out came the voice of the girl he was dating saying things she should not have been saying to a man she should not have been saying them to. We were all quite startled, and Kono remembered that he had given her the car last summer for two weeks while we were fishing in the islands to the west. Kono had talked to the car for a long time before we went that time, explaining that he would be away, and that it was okay that she drove it, she was a girl you could trust, but here was proof she was a girl you could not trust, which was quite startling, because you should have seen this girl, she was the sort of girl you would like to have as your girlfriend if you did not have the girlfriend you have, for many more reasons than her beauty, which was considerable, but here she was on the FM dial, saying things that were not the sort of things you would like to hear your girlfriend say to anyone other than you.

Kono changed the station and we drove on silently for a long time.

Kono has no expectations in life, because he says you always get disappointed if you have expectations, and disappointment leads to fistfights and despair and dents in your car, and expectations are also essentially fascist, he says, because they are essentially attempts to constrain the behavior of others, and who am I to tell anyone how to behave? Yet we could see that he was deeply sad at hearing his girlfriend say these things. He would not confront her, because confrontations, he says, are functions of expectations, they are the theater of expectations, in which he declined to participate, but he did not find opportunities any more to ask her to go fishing or dancing or driving in the car anymore either, which was saddening to everyone involved, because this was one excellent and wonderful girl, and she really liked Kono.

This went on for ten days during which it rained all the time and the car was so crammed with the volume of all the people who had ever been in it that the canvas panels were flung out like sails in gales. It refused to play the girlfriend’s voice at all after it realized Kono was sad and when you touched the button for the radio station where the girl’s voice had been you got a men’s chorus from a church in Hanalei, usually singing Just a Closer Walk with Thee. After a few days it refused to play FM stations at all and would only play the old people telling stories on AM.

On the eleventh day the car began to play only Kono’s grandmother telling stories, but she was a remarkable storyteller, and death had not staunched the flow of her stories, for out they poured, one after another, stories no one had ever heard before, to the point where pretty soon people were crowded around the car and Kono had to prop up the canvas panels so the old people could hear better. On the twelfth day he gave up all thought of actually driving the car and he parked it in front of Foodland and opened the canvas and people came with folding chairs to listen to Kono’s grandmother. By the fourteenth day people were coming from all over the island and even from Oahu and there was a lady from the university with a tape recorder. There were also people selling fruit and beer. On the seventeenth day, late in the afternoon, Kono’s grandmother said that she had come to the end of this particular story cycle, and would like to speak privately to her grandson Kono. He was in the car for a long time, with the flaps down and the windows rolled up, and when he came out he smiled at everyone and said the stories were finished for a while but there would be stories again at some point, he would alert everyone as soon as he was told the schedule, and he said politely that he needed to actually drive the car, he had been assigned a mission by his grandmother, and everyone was very polite and made room for Kono and the car to slowly inch out of the parking lot. He drove to the girl’s house and said he was sorry for being sad at what she had said, and whatever she said was her business, and not his, his business was to say that he thought she was the best and coolest girl there ever was, and to ask that she come with him in the car to the beach, where they could hold hands and drink beer and tell stories, and she said she would, so that was that.

FOR THE PORTUGUESE BURIED IN PEACE AT ST. RAPHAEL’S

2010-11-24T11:10:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Laurie Barton for her second-place entry in our 2010 Creative Competition. Check back for the next several days, as we post other recognized entries.]

-Koloa, HI

Hibiscus, blossoms waving shadow
on white Church walls, blank as
death’s weeping erasure.

Walls clean as penitent sugar-men
taking Christ’s body into their own.
Hungry men filled with linguica,

quick to cut stalks, to pluck joy
from the five-stringed rajczo,
fret-fingers jumpy as fleas.

Strong ones gone, Madeira lost as
cane gave way to Crazy Shirts,
as Daishi built 88 shrines.

As sugared malasadas stir craving
at the shack in Lihue. As jokers
mumble: one Portoogee…

Bones as dry as geranium leaves
deep in the riotous cluster,
far from the flower-pots of Lisbon.

Each bloom a wonder till puckered.
Till buds in a silent untwisting
glorify white wall and sky.

Awakening

2010-11-23T09:12:00.000-08:00

[Congratulations to Jericho Panasuk for her first-place entry in our 2010 Creative Competition. Check back for the next 10 days, as we post other recognized entries.]

In the City

She was a ghost walking in her body

Living a strange dream of grey concrete dark resolutions conformed to the masses

She dreamed of the oceans, of jungle forests rich with absolute freedom

Leaving all she knew, her identity, the threads of the clothes she wore and the things she used to own, that she thought defined her

Leaving all she knew on the wings of a flight

She fled to the sea

Because it was better to be lonely with the wind in her hair, staring out at the possibilities of an endless ocean...

She found herself walking the craggy lines of ocean and land the parti-colored sunrises, watching ships fade slowly in the distance. She lost track of time and began to dance she found herself feeling ancient in her art form

She moved languidly through the beauty of the island

She found refuge

The pulse of her heart sustaining and her body coming back to life and her breath

Pushing farther into the heart of the island as she came nearer to Kalalau

She was reminded of her heartbeat a fierceness so deep it pushed her on as tears streamed down her and she lay on the warm rocks of redemption

She found refuge

Living without the limit of time she began to learn how to let go, she began to sing from a place she had not known

From the pure space of the divine

She found refuge

She dreamed of dolphins and awoke and was brought to the sea, it was calm and flat and she swam out to find them swimming as the sun rose

She found refuge

She began to surf when the sun would rise she would drive down and paddle out on her board...it was there where adrenaline and calm resolve would meet

She found refuge

She returned to a little sleepy town and decided to do all she ever wanted, she made all that surrounded her beautiful, she began to paint picturesque symphonies the colors liberating something deep inside her

She found refuge

In the trails which would stain her with the earth of red dirt, the solace of the eminence of velocity of the rapport of nature vibrating to the step of her soul

She found refuge

On the island that healed her soul in such a way that she had never known, the deliverance of her voice, the recognition of life

On the island

She awoke

She found refuge

She found refuge

She found refuge....

2010 Winners Announced

2010-11-12T09:22:00.000-08:00

Kauaibackstory.com congratulates the 2010 "Refuge" creative competition winners. This year, first place goes to Jericho Panasuk for “Awakening.” Second place resulted in a tie, going to Brian Doyle for “Kono’s Car,” and Laurie Barton for “For the Portuguese Buried in Peace at St. Raphael’s.” There was no award given for the visual category.

Winners and runners up (see list below) are invited to read and share their entries at a public reading on Monday, Nov. 22, 2010, at the Technology Education Building* at Kaua’i Community College from 5-7 p.m. All winners and runners up are asked to please RSVP to kauaibackstory@yahoo.com.

Time permitting, other writers may sign up to read their submissions on a first-come, first-read, sign-up basis. Time limit not to exceed five minutes.

Submissions of the contest winners and runners up will begin posting on www.kauaibackstory.com after the public reading. We give a special thanks to our sponsors, the Garden Island Arts Council, for its continued support with cash prizes, and to Kaua’i Community College, for sponsoring the venue for this annual event. We also recognize award-winning author Patricia Wood, Lottery, for serving as guest judge for the 2010 KauaiBackstory.com Creative Competition.

Kauaibackstory.com is a venue for rigorous writing with a view about Kauai. Year-round, the on-line literary journal welcomes high-quality writing and thoughtful images from the public. All submissions are moderated by a three-person editorial board, however, not all are posted. Kauaibackstory.com encourages the expression of all voices and delights in words and images that shift thinking and open minds. Much like an on-line blog, kauaibackstory.com encourages interactive dialogue with the hopes that the time-honored tradition of kama'ilio, talk story, will build community and understanding.

Runners Up:

Sharon Douglas, “Refuge”
Bill & Judie Fernandez, “Listening to Agnes  ”
Ron Horoshko, “Sugarberry, One Beautiful Albatross”
Sequoia Leech-Kritchman, “Red-Dirt Caked Feet”
Catherine Lo, “Ode to Shanarae Kaulana Donovan (1992-2010)”
Jessica Meek, “Refuge” (student entry, 13 years old)
Jean Rhude, “The Great Tenderness on the Edge of Everything”
Kathleen Viernes, “ The Flight of Life”

* The KCC Technology Education Building is located on the north end of the campus parking lot. Drive into campus; pass the Performing Arts Theatre on your right; look ahead for the Technology Education Banner; look for the metal railing and enter through the left side door.

Whither Goes Carol

2010-08-05T01:38:00.000-07:00

by Jodi Ascuena

Knowing I was coming here today to serve tea to a group of eminent writers, I felt compelled to dress the part, so in an earnest effort to accomplish this goal, last week combed the thrift shops of Kaua'i for a couple of maid's outfits for Melissa and I. Saturday morning saw me up at dawn, bright-eyed, not QUITE bushy-tailed, traipsing round the yard sales hunting for that perfect mop hat and apron. When I finally located the required black skirt I had to drive halfway round the island to pick it up. ALAS! Not only was it a foot too long but the waistband fit over only ONE leg. Last night, even though I was officially babysitting, once the children were asleep, there I was, taking up the hem and adding substantially to the elasticized waist! As I'm still engrossed in this task at 10.30 p.m., I began ruminating "How come I got roped into this hare-brained scheme anyway? I'm up to my ears in schoolwork, I've got a big test coming up on Tuesday, Eddie Kamae's at EKK on Monday, I have to babysit Saturday and Sunday nights then again Monday daytime. I am SWAMPED; hell, what was I thinking?"

Well, then I began to remember how it was I got involved, how Carol casually mentioned there was an awards ceremony for Kaua'i Backstory and they were considering tea at.......

"TEA?" I repeated, ears pricked, eyes wide, head cocked.

Something about Carol Yotsuda always makes me want to throw my hat into the ring. I'll follow her almost anywhere. It's just plain fun. Words began to form in my head. By midnight I had the bare bones of a poem and by 2 a.m., I was done. Here it is.

Whither Goes Carol

She's a Treasure, you know, a Living one at that
And whatever she does, whether making a hat,
A painting, a pot or a bowl full of rice
It all becomes FABULOUS with unique Carol spice.
Simple dishes of noodles will be served with such vigor
It's quite useless to mention you're watching your figure.

She maketh me lunch from her bountiful yard
Encourages me to be a great bard
"Of course you can write, of course you can sing,
You're capable of absolutely every thing!"

I'll follow you, Carol, wherever you roam,
To the ends of this island and then return home,
For all that you do is bound to be fun
Continually joyful and NEVER quite done.

While working on deadline, fuelled by tea
Probably green for Carol; P.G. Tips for me,
We'd be eating at midnight over at Duke's
When EKK's over, having packed up the ukes,
Chairs carefully folded, some brown, some are black
Neatly lined up like soldiers for Victor to stack.

When in Honolulu it's easy to see
Why Carol's adored by that whole company
Her art is exquisite, success is a shoo-in
(I'm looking for something to rhyme with a "Chu-In")
Those forty nine figures, seven by seven, are delightful,
Though waxing them fast to the floor was quite frightful.

"Say, let's build a sculpture of wood, whaddya say?
On the beach at Kekaha at the end of the day
Then just as night falls, it will be our desire
To burn it all down, have one massive bonFIRE!"

I may dress up like Alice, Cheshire Cat or Mad Hatter
I'll come as a teabag; what the hell does it matter?
When you do stuff with Carol, why, everything's fun
Then you think it's all over, but you're not really done.

Whither goes Carol, there shall I go
Not once, even twice, but always I'll show
'Cos Carol brings something of the best out in me
Whether writing, reciting, or serving high tea.

ANNOUNCING FIFTH ANNUAL CREATIVE COMPETITION

2010-06-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KauaiBackstory.com, an online literary journal, announces its fifth annual creative competition. This year’s theme, “Refuge” is sponsored by the Garden Island Arts Council.

Cash prizes will be awarded in the following manner. Written: First place, $100; second place, $50; third place, $25. Visual: One $100 award. Winners and other noteworthy contributors will be posted on www.kauaibackstory.com and invited to read on a special night later this fall. (Date and place to be determined.)

Writing form does not matter—essay, story (imagined or real), memoir or poems are all welcome. Visual entries must be submitted in jpg format.

As in previous years, entries must be relevant to Kauai, in some manner. KauaiBackstory.com is a venue for rigorous writing with a view about Kauai. We look for writing that builds understanding, not walls. We encourage writing and imagery that engenders respectful dialogue for we believe one way to build community is through conversation.

KauaiBackstory.com values the expression of all voices and delights in words and images that shift thinking and open minds threading us ever closer together in this calabash of a world in which we live. Entries will be judged on whether they achieve this vision or not.

A student category will be created pending interest and writing quality.

Contest participants may submit one entry per category. That is, participants may submit one written entry and one visual entry; however, you may not submit more than one written entry or more than one visual entry. This also means you get one chance per category to get it right, so please double-check spelling and grammar before hitting send. Please do not submit revised entries. We recommend using 12 pt. Times New Roman font on written entries. Please do not use a stylized typeface; do not use colored type fonts; do not use a variety of different type sizes. On images, please do not include a name superimposed or embedded into the jpg in any way.

Visit www.kauaibackstory.com to view the quality of works posted and the blog’s mission statement.

The deadline for submitting entries is midnight HST September 30, 2010. Text entries must be pasted into the body of an email (no attachments) and sent to kauaibackstory@yahoo.com. Images must be sent as a jpg attachment.

Kauaibackstory.com is intended to serve as a timely, interactive forum. Readers are encouraged to visit often and post comments.

###

HANGIN’ AT THE YACHT CLUB

2010-06-04T01:49:00.000-07:00

by Susan Campbell

The yacht club at Nawiliwili
rests on tall concrete posts.
Tall, so small tsunamis pass safely beneath.
Boats are the only requirement for members
sailboats, kayaks, occasionally a rich man’s toy.
Even then boats no’matta.
Tee shirts and slippers de riguer.

Piers jut into the water
walkways for boat owners
with gated access -
a heavy duty padlock
or slip-chain.

Old men with long poles
sit around fishing,
talking story,
drinking beer.
Occasionally one walks to water’s edge
to take a piss
confident no one watches,
not caring if they do.

The fish don’t seem to mind...
They leap and splash in the harbor
in open water
between boats.
Kittens carry on mock courtships on shore
or fight over scraps of food.

As the sun sets
and fog blankets the ridges
and evening breezes blow down from the hills
fishing gear is packed away
final beers are tipped back,
laughter escalates.
There are pidgen shouts of "Later!"
Bottles are tossed into truck beds.

And one by one
rusty pickups with grinding gears
are backed out of parking spots
and make their weaving way
from the harbor,
pointing their hoods toward home.

Walking Trail II

2010-05-30T00:51:00.000-07:00

by Charles Looney

There’s bamboo still

On the bamboo trail

But the Rainbow’s gone

O the Rainbow’s gone

Gone the carpet

Of the Rainbow leaves

The green and gold the auburn leaves

Gone the Rainbow

Gone the shade

Gone the lovely path inlaid

with petals from the Rainbow tree

There’s bamboo still

On the bamboo trail

But the bamboo’s frail

O the bamboo’s frail

On the bamboo trail

Tsudo-Nami

2010-05-13T00:25:00.000-07:00

by Susan Ullis

There was an earthquake in Chile
February 27, 2010
8.8 at 3:34 am.
A true nightmare of shattered
earth and broken hearts
helpless in the hands
of megathrust and tsunami.

And the Pacific Ocean,
being one body of water,
continued, as water will do,
to roil and churn.

Geologists and newscasters remembered
the killer tsunami of 1964 – 159 dead –
and 1960 – 61 dead – and
the Indian Ocean's Banda Aceh
two hundred thirty thousand dead.
They calculated the possibilities
and sent us a telephone message
at 5:30 am Hawaiian Standard Time
alerting us to an approaching
tsunami event.

Friends called from Phoenix, Seattle,
LA, and the ones who just arrived in
Poi'pu the night before
came up to us on higher ground
to take us out to breakfast.

The Kalaheo Cafe was swarming
with cars and people and a serpentine line
so we headed for Grinds in Ele'ele then
turned around when no one was going our way
and the oncoming lane was packed.
Two hours later we finished our sandwiches
at Kukui-o-lono and ventured out for a stroll.

It was a lovely day; cool, comfortable,
light winds. A good day for a crowd of
people to sit on the lawn around the
Pavilion, politely conversing
about interconnectedness and
the repercussions of certain events,
waiting for a wave to appear.

But it never did, really. Not here.
No massive wall of white water
roaring toward the coast. No slamming
and crashing of rapacious waves
into the Hyatt or Waiohai.

Now, given how destructive that would have been,
even with the possibility of death . . .
Yet, after all that fuss and hustle bustle to get
everyone safely away from the shore to
sit and scan the apparently placid ocean
through 200mm lenses with all antennae up;
Well, tell me if you didn't notice
that meandering scent of disappointment
in the anti-climatic air.

Glass Beach

2010-04-19T17:29:00.000-07:00

by Charles Looney

Not a beach for drowning or
loving strolls. Lava rocks
like fractured tusks protrude
or lurk beneath the water’s surface.
A body doesn’t sweep to sea
or lilt upon a sunny tide
but bounces like a pinball
from tor to jagged tor
along the fifty yards of grimy sand
until the broke remains
are spat back
onto the dreary shore.

Yet here the polished gems of glass collect
themselves from miles and years of
ocean wars. Churned and tossed and polished
shards of Blackbeard’s kiss
or the cupboards of Atlantis swirl in
little eddies and great pools, scrape with
crabs the bottom of the sea, leap and dive,
dive and leap and soar until the cutting
edges dull, the sharpness altogether
disappears, and the roundness of water
takes their shape.

Black sand it’s called but gray’s
closer and small, darkened gravel
closer still to some.
Beach because it lies at the ocean’s end and
flat between the rocks and cliff.
In all the million miles of water
to choose this rough, this ugly
strip of smelly sand to birth the
tiny jewels of white and green, amber, blue
and red, crafted and ocean aged
nature plays a discord with herself.
Tumult sprinkled on a thumb of sand.

Kauai Backstory announces its second annual “Reading Series” at KCC

2010-04-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

Kauai Backstory will host its 2010 “Reading Series” featuring keynote writers and bestselling authors Jill Marie Landis, Stella Cameron, and Kristin Hannah on Monday, April 26, 2010 at the Kaua’i Community College Library from 5:00-6:45 p.m. The three authors will discuss their craft in a question and answer panel. After that, Kaua’i writers are invited to read from their own work. Writers will be allowed a maximum of five minutes to read, on a first-come basis until 6:45 p.m. Fiction, nonfiction and poetry welcome. Kauai Backstory will also announce the theme of the 2010 Creative Competition at this event.

This is not a workshop, a critique session or contest. You will not receive feedback. You will, however gain a startling new perspective on your writing as you read it aloud to others. Think about this as an “open mic” night for writers. And, of course, you do not need to read to attend. Your presence as a willing listener is greatly appreciated.

On Nuuanu Avenue in Honolulu

2010-02-27T19:52:00.000-08:00

by Brian Doyle

While clutching my own tooth in my hand like a best man
Grips a wedding ring so tightly his fist hurts for days after,
I encounter a man who confides he is the Incarnated Spirit
Of Admiral Chester Nimitz. I ask him where is the dentist?
Is an excellent Japanese dentist on Punahou Street, he says.
I start to shuffle away, because I am holding my own tooth!
My head is falling apart! Pieces of me are fleeing the ship!!
But the man falls into step with me and says most earnestly
You attend to me now, sir, please. I am the admiral restored
To this life, in the very city where I am held in most esteem.
There is a grade school named for me here. This pleases me.
And a yoga parlor and a highway. This pleases me. Yes, yes.
Punahou Street is not far; aim that way. Tell them I sent you.
My name is still magic in these streets; you will see this, yes.
Is that your real tooth? Why are you carrying it in the street?
Is there magic in it? Would you like to sell it to me? Miracle
Things come in every size package; there is me, for instance.
By now we have arrived at the dentist, and the Admiral sails
On alone down the street. I ask the genteel dentist about him.
O yes, Admiral Nimitz, courteous man, we pulled his molars,
Says the dentist. Refused anesthesia and never made a sound.
He said certainly some of the men who served under him had
Had the same painful experience and he would do as they did.
Very courteous man, carried himself with remarkable dignity.
But that’s what we would expect of a man who made admiral,
Yes? Now to work. Are you carrying any other of your teeth?

Literary Tea

2010-02-14T17:09:00.000-08:00

A few images from our recent Literary Tea. Thanks to Pam Woolway for these photographs.

Above: Finalist Rocky Riedel shares.

Above: Winner Kimberly Kirk presents her image.

Above: Winner Bettyjo Dux shares.

Above: Jodi Ascuena and Melissa Kemp serve tea.

To see more photos of the event, please visit this website, generously shared by Anne E. O'Malley and John Ullis.

"Postcards" Finalist

2010-02-06T14:44:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the 12th and final in a series of posts honoring the winners and runners up of Kauai Backstory's fourth annual Creative Competition. The theme was "Postcards." This entry by Aliana Ho, 8, was a student finalist.]

Angry people only see rain clouds, storms and fire.
That blocks the beautiful view of love and truth.

"Postcards" Finalist

2010-02-05T10:51:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the 11th in a series of posts honoring the winners and runners up of Kauai Backstory's fourth annual Creative Competition. The theme was "Postcards." This entry by Ela Young was a student finalist.]

I can feel my heart flutter as I watch the first sun rays caress the silhouettes of the trees and plants that grow along the river
I smile, knowing that I am going to enjoy another day in this paradise
I remember how grateful I am to be here, as I watch the crystal blue water break onto a shore that I have fallen in love with
I don’t want to be anywhere but here, where the land is bountiful and giving, where the people smile as they pass me
This Island is beautiful in every sense of the word

"Postcards" Finalist

2010-02-04T09:25:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the 10th in a series of posts honoring the winners and runners up of Kauai Backstory's fourth annual Creative Competition. The theme was "Postcards." This entry by Rocky Riedel was a finalist.]

Embraced

A broken piece of plastic poked its head out of the midnight sand.
The ocean, wearing its lacy white negligee
tiptoed in and kissed the flotsam’s faded skin
making tears stream down its face.
Slowly, gently,
the ocean caressed the castoff’s rough edges
until it lay there softened
uncovered
naked
exposed.

Then the ocean waved silken sheets over the cast away
merging it, bedding it, into the sand.

Where it remains to this day.

As do I.

Safe and sound.
No longer adrift.

"Postcards" Finalist

2010-02-03T12:42:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the ninth in a series of posts honoring the winners and runners up of Kauai Backstory's fourth annual Creative Competition. The theme was "Postcards." This entry by Hob Osterlund was a finalist.]

Birds tell riddles. After dark, Kaua’i shearwaters bray overhead as if donkeys could fly. Softly-named boobies are sharpened spears. I’iwi beaks are commas, a puzzle penned by a run-on sentence. Stilts walk on their names. Koleas don tuxedos and sprint to Alaska. Nenes calmly graze, as if they hadn’t just yesterday clung to extinction’s calamitous cliff. Hummingbirds are moths. Coots get religion and walk on water. An albatross moos like a cow and flies farther than the moon. Gallinules fetch fire from the gods; soaring ‘iwas summon pterodactyls. Red-tailed tropicbirds fly backwards, their trailing banners daring you to GO FIGGAH!

"Postcards" Finalist

2010-02-02T10:32:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the eighth in a series of posts honoring the winners and runners up of Kauai Backstory's fourth annual Creative Competition. The theme was "Postcards." This entry by Polli Oliver was a finalist.]

RAINBOW

Away from the drizzling rain
Under the shelter of
a wise old mango tree
A small tousle haired
dark skinned boy
sits, with tear streaked face
his faithful lop-eared poi-dog puppy
by his side

Alerted by the chirp of
a cheerful nearby redbird
he glances up
sees the brilliant rainbow
and smiles

"Postcards" Finalist

2010-02-01T12:54:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the seventh in a series of posts honoring the winners and runners up of Kauai Backstory's fourth annual Creative Competition. The theme was "Postcards." This entry by Tamara Moan was a finalist.]

Postcard of Stars

The night sent
a postcard of stars
to greet me when I woke.
Dreams drifted
in the dark at Kokee,
still far from morning.
Sitting in the hush
I watched that square of sky,
waiting until a shooting star
blazed through the black.

"Postcards" Finalist

2010-01-31T00:01:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the sixth in a series of posts honoring the winners and runners up of Kauai Backstory's fourth annual Creative Competition. The theme was "Postcards." This entry by Alison Hummel was a finalist.]

dearest kauai,

we miss you dearly.
we love you clearly.
your heart, as big as wai'ale'ale
your fragrance so sweet in your flowers.
your soul, wraps around like your ocean.
your jokes evoke laughter in the waves.
the thing is--
we left our hearts/souls
on your grass/sands
in your trees/waterfalls
(and oceans)
we will return to get them in july.

love,
Alison and Jon

"Postcards" Finalist

2010-01-30T09:22:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the fifth in a series of posts honoring the winners and runners up of Kauai Backstory's fourth annual Creative Competition. The theme was "Postcards." This entry by Ron Horoshko was a finalist.]

Received this postcard postmarked Japan,a circled date: Dec.1941.Water marked, and covered with years of old stale dust. I felt my son's heavy heart as he wrote: Dear Mother, I have a mission I must fly and die, for I am a Kamikaze. I dropped to my knees, placed it hard against my chest and cried.

"Postcards" Visual Winner

2010-01-28T11:00:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the fourth in a series of posts honoring the winners and runners up of Kauai Backstory's fourth annual Creative Competition. The theme was "Postcards." In the visual category, first place goes to Kimberly Kirk.]

"Postcards" Third Place

2010-01-27T12:41:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the third in a series of posts honoring the winners and runners up of Kauai Backstory's fourth annual Creative Competition. The theme was "Postcards." In the written category, third place goes to Susan Ullis.]

She is five. She is lucky to be alive, having been born 4 months premature weighing only 1 pound. One pound equals 4 cubes of butter. She didn't melt away, though. She became the miracle baby. Now she is counting out the first 100 days of her life in kindergarten. Her class wants to collect 100 postcards from all over the world by the first 100 days of school. I'll send mine. One that shows Kaua’i in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I'll write Aloha one hundred times and become a part of her lifetime of memories.

"Postcards" Second Place

2010-01-26T09:30:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the second in a series of posts honoring the winners and runners up of Kauai Backstory's fourth annual Creative Competition. The theme was "Postcards." In the written category, second place goes to Cosibella Cristenas.]

Beloved,

My heart is now awash with light here by a river called Kalihiwai on the northern edge of Kauai: river meets ocean; liquid jade meets aquamarine; constancy meets perpetual change. Neon yellow hibiscus become sunset orange while floating downstream--miniature prayer boats like the ones I lit and offered into the sacred waters of the Ganges in honor of your life. Without you, I was shoreless--dangerously adrift and drowning. Thankfully I have found the sage edge of solidity and fluidity, and in my crystalline dreams, you are with me.

Me Ke Aloha.

"Postcards" First Place

2010-01-25T09:30:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the first in a series of posts honoring the winners and runners up of Kauai Backstory's fourth annual Creative Competition. The theme was "Postcards." In the written category, first place goes to Bettejo Dux.]

The mules moved slowly in the cool morning light, can saddles stuffed with seed. Mule madly enamored with my leopard Appaloosa, Brownie caught sight of us first. During planting season we met her and Blackie and Caliban every day. Her raucous love song awakened sleepyheads in houses lined along the shore. Long ears flopped and tiny hooves drummed a hula beat in the red earth and her friends, joining her, lifted their heads and did a tail-flipping dance, tasting the air, as their handlers shortened and tightened their grips on sweaty leads.

Beau, my handsome horse, head high, pranced by.

Readings at Kilohana Plantation

2010-01-09T12:46:00.000-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Kauaibackstory.com congratulates the 2009 "Postcards" creative competition winners. Kimberly Kirk captured first place in the visual category. In the written category, first place goes to Bettejo Dux. Second place goes to Cosibella Cristenas. Third place goes to Susan Ullis.

Winners and runners up (see list below) are invited to read and share their entries at a public reading on Sunday, Jan. 24, 2010, at the Living Room at Kilohana Plantation. The readings will start promptly at 2:00 p.m. and wrap no later than 4:00 p.m. All winners and runners up are asked to please RSVP to kauaibackstory@yahoo.com.

Time permitting, other writers may sign up to read their own original works of writing on a first-come, first-read, sign-up basis. Time limit not to exceed five minutes.

Gaylord’s at Kilohana Plantation serves brunch on Sundays until 2:30 p.m. You are welcome to enjoy a delicious meal before the readings.

Submissions of the contest winners and runners up will begin posting on www.kauaibackstory.com after the public reading; however, a special, one-night only preview will take place at A Ell Atilier as the showcased art during the weekly Old Kapa'a town Art Walk. It will be held Saturday, January 23, from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Kauaibackstory.com is a venue for rigorous writing with a view about Kauai. Year-round, the on-line literary journal welcomes high-quality writing and thoughtful images from the public. All submissions are moderated by a three-person editorial board, however, not all are posted. Kauaibackstory.com encourages the expression of all voices and delights in words and images that shift thinking and open minds. Much like an on-line blog, kauaibackstory.com encourages interactive dialogue with the hopes that the time-honored tradition of kama'ilio, talk story, will build community and understanding.

Runners Up:

Aliana Ho, student
Ron Horoshko
Alison Hummel
Tamara Moan
Polli Oliver
Hob Osterlund
Rocky Riedel
Ela Young, student

KauaiBackstory.com Announces Results of 2009 Creative Competition

2009-12-14T20:54:00.000-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Kauaibackstory.com congratulates the 2009 "Postcards" creative competition winners. Kimberly Kirk captured first place in the visual category. In the written category, first place goes to Bettejo Dux. Second place goes to Cosibella Cristenas. Third place goes to Susan Ullis.

Winners and runners up (see list below) are invited to read and share their entries at a public reading in January (date and place to be announced). Submissions of the contest winners and runners up will begin posting on www.kauaibackstory.com after the public reading.

Kauaibackstory.com is a venue for rigorous writing with a view about Kauai. Year-round, the on-line literary journal welcomes high-quality writing and thoughtful images from the public. All submissions are moderated by a three-person editorial board, however, not all are posted. Kauaibackstory.com encourages the expression of all voices and delights in words and images that shift thinking and open minds. Much like an on-line blog, KauaiBackstory.com encourages interactive dialogue with the hopes that the time-honored tradition of kama'ilio, talk story, will build community and understanding.

Runners Up:

Aliana Ho, student
Ron Horoshko
Alison Hummel
Tamara Moan
Polli Oliver
Hob Osterlund
Rocky Riedel
Ela Young, student

Deadline Coming Soon

2009-10-18T15:49:00.001-07:00

Announcing Fourth Annual Creative Competition

2009-09-24T11:50:00.000-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Kauaibackstory.com, an online literary journal, announces its fourth annual creative competition. This year’s theme, “Postcards” is sponsored by the Garden Island Arts Council.

This year’s competition differs from previous years in two distinct ways.

First, cash prizes will be awarded in the following manner: First place, $100; second place, $50; third and fourth place, $25 each. Winners and other noteworthy contributors will be posted on www.kauaibackstory.com and invited to read on a special night later this fall. (Date and place to be determined.)

Second, in keeping with the theme, written and visual entries must “fit” on a postcard. For writing, entries must not exceed 100 words. For visual entries, submissions will be evaluated based on their impact when viewed as 4”x6” images (either horizontal or vertical).

Writing form does not matter—essay, story (imagined or real), memoir or poems are all welcome.

As in previous years, entries must be relevant to Kauai, in some manner. Kauai Backstory is a venue for rigorous writing with a view about Kauai. We look for writing that builds understanding, not walls. We encourage writing and imagery that engenders respectful dialogue for we believe one way to build community is through conversation. KauaiBackstory.com values the expression of all voices and delights in words and images that shift thinking and open minds threading us ever closer together in this calabash of a world in which we live. Entries will be judged on whether they achieve this vision or not.

A student category will be created pending interest and writing quality.

Contest participants may submit one written entry and one visual entry; however, you may not submit more than one written entry or more than one visual entry.

The deadline for submitting entries is midnight HST November 1, 2009. Text entries must be pasted into the body of an email (no attachments) and sent to kauaibackstory@yahoo.com.

Images must be sized to 4”x6” at 75 dpi and sent as a jpg attachment.

Kauaibackstory.com is intended to serve as a timely, interactive forum. Readers are encouraged to visit often and post comments.
###

Omiyage

2009-09-02T13:17:00.000-07:00

by Sherilyn Lee

“Grandma,” I said, “Can we stop here? I'd like to get some taro chips.”

I had seen the familiar packages of taro chips at the market when I arrived on the island for my annual trip to see my grandparents, but I chose to purchase mine directly from the source in Hanapepe, just as my family always had.

“Oh sure,” she replied. Time is plentiful on Kauai .

I pulled off the two lane road and parked under the shade of a tree near a cottage thick with green and white paint. An empty wooden bench sat in the yard like a child just slightly straying from his mother's side. A carved sign below the window frames read, “Kauai Taro Chip Factory.”

We called out a “hello,” and as I opened the screen door, it was so light, I first thought I had torn it off its hinges. As the door closed behind us, we stood in the middle of the factory’s production floor, a large kitchen. An old, black stove sat along the far wall where during previous visits the blue gas flames blazed beneath the two large woks of simmering oil. Frying taro sounds like an island storm so thick with rain that even the windshield wipers can’t keep up.

By the time we arrived today, the kitchen was cool and quiet. An elderly Japanese woman greeted us, wiping her wet hands on her apron. She and my grandmother were about the same age and height.

“Are you done for today?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” she said smiling. She and my grandmother nodded slightly and smiled at each other, a respectful, friendly greeting among the locals.

The woman stood behind the table filled with clear, soft plastic bags filled with taro chips.

“My granddaughter,” Grandma said, touching my arm, “is visiting from Los Angeles . She likes your taro chips.”

A white and green “Kauai Taro Factory” sticker on each bag listed the ingredients, but not the irrelevant calorie count or fat content. Even though it has been fried, the chip remains white, with fine purple threads, like an embroidered potato chip. The bag doesn’t reseal. Once it’s opened, all of the chips must be eaten.

“Oh, Los Angeles ,” she said as if I had traveled all the way from Antarctica .

I asked her for two packages. As the woman wrapped them in a plastic bag, I noticed that her knuckles were still swollen from years of planting and harvesting taro roots, a task that must be done by hand while hunched over a humid, swampy patch. I learned from another visit that the years of this hard work made her back ache continuously.

“Where’s the man who greets the tourists?” I asked, “My father enjoys talking with him every time he visits.”

“Oh,” the woman said slowly, “He had a stroke. He passed away last year.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” I wished I hadn't asked. The floor creaked beneath my feet as I shifted my weight and wondered what I could say next. I wanted to say something to make it better.

My grandmother asked, “Who’s this?” looking up through her bifocals at a photo of the old man who used to sit on the bench.

“That’s him,” the woman said, “my husband.”

“Is this your husband?” replied Grandma.

“Yes,” the woman nodded, “A tourist from the Mainland took that picture. It was one of the last taken of him. When it came in the mail, he put it right there.”

She pointed to the precious artifact on the old refrigerator, a magnet that still held his touch.

“I remember him,” said Grandma.

“You do?” asked the woman, her voice just above a whisper.

“You do?” I turned to my grandmother.

“Yeah, he used to sing at the Bon dances. Oh, he used to sing big! Sometimes, he made up words as he was singing them,” said Grandma, turning to me, laughing.

The woman nodded and smiled, “Yes, he did,” she added, “And when he sang, people would tape record him. They even videotaped him.”

“It’s not the same without him,” said Grandma.

Car doors slammed and a tourist couple walked towards the factory.

“Grandma, we'd better go, she has customers.”

The Taro Chip Lady handed me an extra bag of chips, “Omiyage.”

Omiyage (oh-me-yah-geh), a little gift for or from a visitor given in fondness and remembrance.

The Never-ending Revolving Door at Art Pod

2009-08-08T12:51:00.000-07:00

by Carol Yotsuda

Today was Open Studio Day at Art Pod in Niumalu
Glazing tiles and making murals was the plan for today
I woke up early and spent an hour organizing the patio for glazing and clay

Before I make my coffee, I will start the laundry, water the plants,
move the cars to make space for parking, take a quick shower
and load up the Nissan for a dump run

But here is Beau, bright and early, to start painting the patio,
So let's get him started with roller and paint; catch the coffee later
While he's painting, I will pug 200 pound of clay...
Be ready for Jungle George who wants to make a mural today
The flower picker comes and says the big "H" hits on Monday
I start to worry about everything outside that can blow away
So I start to move things under the studio

Jodi shows up to update Van Go data, but she knows how to do that,
so Beau and I start tearing down tattered blue tarps that "H" would surely blow away
Nissan is parked ready for any and all rubbish, but I am dizzy with no breakfast and Beau has to meet his wife for lunch...so...
I head to the kitchen, but Jodi has a minor computer crisis so I detour into the studio

We square away the computer problem, Jodi remembers to "SAVE" often
I can go make breakfast now; it's already noon...."Someone is here", says Jodi
John and Mara show up and they are clay novices and need serious instruction
So back to the patio to get them going with everything from A to Z in glazing
Perceptive John notices that Carol is cranky and hungry
Offers to make me food...kind soul...I race back to my kitchen
Mango, Avo, Banana, yogurt, spirulina, ice pile into the blender...but....

I hear a truck and see Jungle George striding by
"Wait! I be there!" and stuck a spoonful of chunky peanut butter in my mouth
"Where's your mural design?" "I need to draw it."
"Here's paper and pen...draw what you want. I be back!"
I check on John and Mara and they are glazing their tiles slowly and carefully
with 2:30 pau hana deadline when the mosquitos come to feed.
I race back to the kitchen and whirred up the blender, chugged down a cupful,
and ran back to patio...George's design too complicated

"Let's just work with the clay and just have fun and play
We save the complicated design for another time...not today"
Lessons in rolling out clay, transferring design, carving out design...
but his heart is set on Catalina Tiles.....whoa!
Special tools, special process, special glaze mixture
Simple suddenly got complicated.

He has a 3:00 date to build beehives in Koloa so he does what he can
"I be back tomorrow!" he says and roars off in one of his four trucks

"Somebody's here!" Diane and Donna show up to glaze
"John, you teach them how to glaze" (My smoothie is waiting)
He was attentive; he repeats everything I told him about glazing
...and at 3:45 I finally guzzle my breakfast/lunch smoothie ... the whole blender

The mosquitos are ready to carry Mara off, so they are ready to move on
But before they go I make a pitch to John...he would be a great board member
He likes the idea...I think he's sold...what a SCORE!
I load their pieces into the kiln and they race away from the mosquito feeding frenzy
I sit down with Diane and Donna ...we chat, we glaze, we solve the problems of the world
I am finally beginning to feel sane today.

A friendly voice floats in...."I brought you dinner!" says the awesome Sabra Kauka
holding high some plastic bags with yellow chicken curry from Pho. YUM!
She needs to eat first; I need to digest my smoothie to make space for curry.

Donna and Diane proudly admire their glazed tiles and then they are on their way
Sabra gets a lesson on making fish tiles...she is loving it and catches on quick
I keep glazing my test tiles...but...."Someone is here!" says Sabra

"Sorry we are so late!" yell out Melissa and Beau. "We came to glaze our starfish!"
They know the ropes....they can do it with just suggestions.
The smell of the yellow chicken curry got to me and I had to have my dinner.

So there I am 12 hours later....200 pound of clay pugged and sitting there...
waiting for Jungle George;
the Nissan full of rubbish never made it to the dump;
the laundry still in the washing machine;
the hurricane preparedness aborted mid-stream;
we have a new board member;
Sabra's happy with her imaginary fish;
Melissa and Beau happy with their Starfish ....
almost all the fish tiles glazed and ready for firing...I start the kiln at midnight

Oh No! It's the FINALE NIGHT for "So You Think You Can Dance!"
and it already started.

"Sorry, folks, I have to go watch my TV....just finish up, leave the lights on...
I will be back to finish my work"....and I race out my never-ending revolving door.

Carol Yotsuda
2:30 am August 7, 2009

Lois Ann Ell

2009-05-30T15:05:00.000-07:00

Kauai Backstory welcomes Lois Ann Ell to our editorial team. Lois Ann participated as a judge for our 2008 Creative Competition, as well as organized our first Kauai Backstory Reading Series night. So, it's about time we gave her an official title, editor.

Lois Ann is a freelance writer and regular contributor to The Garden Island newspaper. Her story Makauwahi Cave was a winner in the 2006 Kaua’i Backstory Creative Competition. She has poetry published online and is currently working on a collection of short stories. She lives on Kaua’i with her husband and three small children, who are often the inspiration for her work.

The Sensitive Plant

2009-05-20T23:16:00.000-07:00

by Susan Ullis

I know you are shy
It is in your
Mimosa pudica genes
A little shake
A light backhand
You collapse
Fold into yourself
Like a wallflower
Sometimes just one branch
Clams up
The offense
Not affecting the whole

People find this habit of yours
Rather endearing
School children marvel
At the timid potted plant
In the wild
You lay low
Fan out
Thorns drawn
Once in a while
You bravely lift up
A bright blushing
Blossom

Aki Sitting on the Crater at Raraku

2009-04-13T20:10:00.000-07:00

by Brian Doyle

Let’s say a reiki healer called Aki makes a haiku at Raraku.
And, for once, let’s not go any further at all with this poem.
Let’s just stop right there and not arrive at any conclusions.
Let’s just happily contemplate the absolute Akiness of Aki,
The tart wind off the ocean whipping the pages of her diary
So that she has to maneuver her whole left arm to pin them,
And just as she calculates syllables for the seventeenth time
One of the enormous statues below her, the legendary moai,
Topples over, face first, and plunges its immense schnozzle
Into the dense ancient soil with the faintest plop! imaginable.
There’s a split second that could be said aptly to last forever,
During which dust swirls and an albatross is vaguely curious,
And that seems like a really excellent place to end this poem.
We’ll never know if Aki leaps up and runs down to the moai,
Or if she just sits there astonished up on the rim of the crater,
Or if she starts to scribble another poem altogether, or maybe
She gets all totally absorbed in the albatross, I mean that bird
Is the size of a biplane, and how often do you get to see that?

Come. Listen. Read.

2009-03-31T21:20:00.000-07:00

Kauai Backstory announces the “Kauai Backstory Reading Series.” These periodic events will invite writers to gather and read their work out loud to an audience.

Our kickoff event will be Friday, April 24, 2009, at Small Town Coffee in Kapa’a, starting promptly at 7:00 p.m. and ending at 8:30 p.m.

Keynote writers Patricia Wood, author of the critically acclaimed Lottery, and Kealoha, world-renowned slam poet, will share their art and answer questions. After that, Kaua’i writers are invited to read. Writers will be allowed a maximum of five minutes to read, on a first-come basis. Fiction, nonfiction and poetry welcome.

This is not a workshop, a critique session or contest. You will not receive feedback. You will, however gain a startling new perspective on your writing as you read it aloud to others. Think about this as an “open mic” night for writers. And, of course, you do not need to read to attend. Your presence as a willing listener is greatly appreciated.

Pikomanawakupono

2009-02-26T17:06:00.001-08:00

by Brian Doyle

In recent weeks, while wandering among islands in the ocean,
I met people named Hua, Wao, Tufu, Tutu, Puna, Wi, and Hu,
Not to mention a totally silent man from Estonia named Hooh,
Who the whole extent of his conversation was to nod six times
In the twenty minutes we spent together, this was in Kapiolani,
But perhaps the most rivetingly monikered lad I met in Hawaii
Was a youth named Pikomanawakupono, who was a startlingly
Silent fellow also, and in the couple of cheerful hours we spent
Together, this was in Hanalei, he only spoke twice that I recall,
And both times he uttered words in a tongue I don’t understand
Yet, but to be fair I don’t think anyone else quite caught his gist
Either, because Pikomanawakupono has just recently arrived on
This island after a voyage I cannot even dimly begin to imagine.
You could say, with complete accuracy, that his traveling began
With dreaming, and we do not often enough salute how a vision
Insists on being born, how what we imagine so often takes shape
In this world, in this air, on all sorts of islands, in all sorts of seas.
It’s really amazing when you think about it, which I think we are.
Anyway, the two words I caught sounded rather like piu and bub,
And then his mother smiled, and gave him more of her holy milk,
And Kauai sailed on to the southeast at roughly four inches a year.

Ocean Death

2009-02-12T09:55:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the final post that recognizes the runners up of the third annual creative competition sponsored by Kauai Backstory. This year's theme: Surf. Congratulations everyone.]

by Laurie Barton

A young man from Rzeczpospolita Polska

hiked into a valley, powered by waffles and latte,

some blackened ahi from the night before

Reached the shore of Hanakapi'ai Beach

and flung himself in--

so far from the traffic and chill of his city,

so warm for October--

Feeling sure there was nothing but pleasure

to find, his long legs splashing a flutter-kick.

Slow currents no match for his shoulders.

Pulled to the deep--faster than it takes a cresting

wave to flatten. The pilot looked down at his body,

floating in surrender to the north swell.

Took him to Black Pot, imagined what no one

would say. How none of us

know what it's like to die strong, in the blue grip

of something much stronger.

Watching Daughters Surf

2009-02-09T09:44:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the sixth in a series of posts that recognizes the runners up of the third annual creative competition sponsored by Kauai Backstory. This year's theme: Surf. Congratulations everyone.]

by Sandra Krawciw

Once leashed to me,
by the undulating braid of an umbilical cord,
I see them go now,
joined by a thin black thread
to a slice of wood.

Seeking the sea’s heartbeat,
they dip their way to the horizon,
like polite princesses,

but they return like warriors,
riding their shields through the plunder,
of waves and foam.

Our eyes meet, cords real and imagined,
tighten and deliver,
gift after gift from God.

Surf Northshore

2009-02-06T10:14:00.000-08:00

(Double-click on image to enlarge)

by John Ullis

[Editors' note: This is the fifth in a series of posts that recognizes the runners up of the third annual creative competition sponsored by Kauai Backstory. This year's theme: Surf. Congratulations everyone.]

Return to the Surf

2009-02-04T11:40:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the fourth in a series of posts that recognizes the runners up of the third annual creative competition sponsored by Kauai Backstory. This year's theme: Surf. Congratulations everyone.]

by Alison Hummel

I hear the crash and thrash of the waters.
I listen.
In my mind, I listen.
No, no.
In my heart, I listen.
Listening now--eyes closed.
I scream, "Yes I hear you!"
Quickly opening my eyes to look around.
Nobody notices my outburst.
I close my eyes again.
Tightly.
Like I am five years old again.
Hiding from monsters under my bed.

Back to the thrashing and crashing.
I have been hiding from you.
Hiding behind the bushes in my parents back yard.
Still crashing and thrashing
like the waters that you are.
When can I see you again?
I am longing to feel the crashing and thrashing.

Of course these days, in my throat my heart lives.
It's like stuck in there.
ahem.
I try to cough it up.
But no that won't work.
Fighting the tears.

And then they come so hard,
like out of the blue.
It's sort of funny.
Tears: like the surf running down my face--salty.

When I open my eyes, I look around.
I am on Fourth Street, in Philadelphia.

And then I remember that in my heart there you are.
And of course my heart's in my throat.
And when I let it up--the tears.
And then you are on my face again.
I cry so that I may return to you.

Return to the surf.

Surf

2009-02-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the third in a series of posts that recognizes the runners up of the third annual creative competition sponsored by Kauai Backstory. This year's theme: Surf. Congratulations everyone.]

by Faith Harding

I hear the surf in wee hours of the morning from my bed. It’s my natural alarm clock. Sometimes it sounds like it is coming right over Poipu Rd. As I am waking up, I imagine the surf crashing against the `aina, enveloping cars, washing the debris from the vacant developer’s destruction away…I can hear its mighty crash over and over as I lay in bed not wanting to get on with my daily rituals. Birds chirp all around me, I hear cars racing on the bypass but I can still hear the surf crashing against the shore. I think it’s coming from Shipwreck’s as it echoes throughout the open space behind where I live. It’s a fierce force. I have tumbled only once in its surf and I’ve never again gone in at Shipwreck’s. It could be from Brennecke’s too as I have boogie boarded on that surf a few times which has scared and thrilled me. I toss and turn in my bed contemplating if the crash and swish is as foreboding as it sounds. I snuggle and smell my pillow and sometimes think that the surf could come and wash me away at that very moment. I would be a castaway on my used Serta mattress with my 300 thread count sheets. However, that would be polluting the ocean and I would just sink and have to swim to shore. Reluctantly, I shake the cobwebs from my head, turn off the electric alarm clock and begin surfing through my own waves of the day.

Tank in Sand

2009-02-02T10:32:00.001-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the second in a series of posts that recognizes the runners up of the third annual creative competition sponsored by Kauai Backstory. This year's theme: Surf. Congratulations everyone.]

by Susan Ullis

Surfer Cake

2009-02-01T09:48:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the first in a series of posts that recognizes the runners up of the third annual creative competition sponsored by Kauai Backstory. This year's theme: Surf. Congratulations everyone.]

by Laurie Barton

Then I snuck into the kitchen of the condo

and plundered the cake, waves of blue frosting

that tickled a white foam sea, the plastic palm

trees almost real if I squinted so that Happy

Birthday Kimo read like petroglyphs at Waiopili

stream. Jim had removed the toy surfer, licked

smudges of blue from its surfboard, stashed it away.

How I would argue with him at Lihue not to bring

that extra bag of golf tees, cake candles, those empty

cans of board-wax. How close I would come to telling

him, I don't love you. After my knife slipped through

the sea, cool frosting gave my teeth such a shiver that I

could not wish or remember, nor feel anything but

the rush of sugar, fingers mashing the blue. Then I

pictured Cook sailing into Waimea, greeted by men

on koa boards, welcoming Lono. Those giant swells

pushing them up, teasing them to prove their ocean

skill. Only ali'i allowed to ride, each one snug in his

place, known for it, hailed. In the morning I would

catch a plane, look down at the waves. Wish for a

village, breadfruit and chanting, a glide to my shore

with friends waiting.

Untitled

2009-01-31T11:19:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the fifth in a series of posts that recognizes the winners of the third annual creative competition sponsored by Kauai Backstory. This year's theme: Surf. Congratulations everyone.]

by Emily Rider

(Student at Kula High)

Putting a wave in a frame doesn't do it justice.

It has no ceiling, no floor, no walls, just a back door.

It allows me freedom,

Immersion in unfiltered experience.

Its blue eyes are unforgiving,

Never shy in punishment.

Yet it leaves me wanting more,

A path to a spiritual ecstasy that could never fade.

When I sit, stand, and paddle,

There are shadows that follow me,

Signs of reassurance yet, a deep vulnerability arises.

Finally able to let go, it starts,

Allowing me to slide into that parallel universe,

Where time changes.

It flies, runs in circles, flows backward, and skips around.

The subdued voices disappear,

And the winds take direction.

Finally, there's nothing left to be concealed.

In water all my thoughts are pure.

It takes me away from dull existence,

And brings excitement, danger, escape.

It is the peak of my life, the segment of rainbow I have clutched.

Remind Me I'm Alive

2009-01-30T00:15:00.000-08:00

[Editors' note: This is the fourth in a series of posts that recognizes the winners of the third annual creative competition sponsored by Kauai Backstory. This year's theme: Surf. Congratulations everyone.]

by Ben House

When I was a kid I asked a neighborhood boy how to pray. He described something like a person-to-person phone call. I tried it once but no one spoke on the other end so I figured it didn't work.

Later I met many people who said god spoke to them, but not in the way that people speak to each other. Some hear god in the in rustling leaves or waterfall's roar. Others hear it in guitar's plucked strings or see it in an artist's brushstroke. Maybe god's voice comes in a baby's cry or a loved one's embrace. In his novel Contact, Carl Sagan wondered if we might find a message from god in the infinite digits of the number pi, a code written into the laws of geometry.

Light waves bring the world to my eyes and sound waves to my ears so I can perceive my world but what about the waves traveling across the ocean to the shores of Kauai? What do they bring? Is there a message for me or for us?

As I stand on the cliff to check the surfing conditions at Hideaways I wonder if my mind is big enough to grasp the enormity of what the sea would be saying if waves were words. Maybe it's more like music, with all the winds of the Pacific blowing a song ancient and unimaginably
complex.

With my feet on the motionless ground all I can do is wonder. But in the water on my surfboard I'm no longer a spectator. If the language of the ocean is beyond my mind's comprehension, I can still experience its motion in my body.

Maybe that's what I didn't understand when I tried to pray as a kid. Maybe god doesn't speak in the words we use because there are no words for what god has to say to us. It's only through experience that we ever really understand, anyway. I don't know if I could say what I've
learned surfing Kauai's warm waters. Is god loving or wrathful? The ocean can be both. Ecstasy, frustration, humility and more are all there. Above all, I always want more and the ocean always has more to offer.

I'm one of those people that wants answers but the ocean only gives up its secrets on its terms and it's more like poetry than prose, more like the moon with its shifting rhythms and cloud dances than the sun with its daily, decisive brilliance, more like a feeling than a thought. Maybe my body can feel the entirety of what my mind can only wonder at. It looks like a good day to go find out.

Watching Lincoln Surf

2009-01-29T10:55:00.000-08:00

[Editors' Note: This is the third in a series of daily posts that will recognize the winners in the third annual creative contest sponsored by Kauai Backstory. This year's theme: Surf. Congratulations everyone.]

by Sandra Krawciw

now you are four months old

propped against your pillows

between the mountains and the sea

like king kamehameha

your smile is sunshine

your baby gap nightie is soft as sand,

fresh with fallen stars

yours surfer toes stick out the bottom

but it is your arms

that give you away

they are paddles

your eyes ask for the ocean

you stand on the board of my lap

balanced between my hands

your face parallels the lip

your knees bend for the cut

your toes are on the nose

trade winds own your hair

barrels meet you from the left and right

you ride through

your people watch from the shore

of the bed

they are amazed at

this extreme performance

aloha sprays over us all

like a wave

The Waterman

2009-01-28T00:18:00.000-08:00

[Editor's Note: This is the second in a series of daily posts that will recognize the winners of the third annual creative contest sponsored by Kauai Backstory. This year's theme: Surf. Congratulations everyone.]

by Michelle Dick

Surf Dog

2009-01-27T10:44:00.000-08:00

[Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of daily posts that will recognize the winners of the third annual creative contest sponsored by Kauai Backstory. Congratulations everyone.]

by Frank Reilly

I moved to Kauai from New York nine years ago. Made a pretty concerted effort to leave as much of the New Yorker I knew myself to be there. But, you know, you can pack your bags as lightly as you’re able – and it’s still baggage.

I worked at a Manhattan advertising agency for fifteen years before that. And for fifteen years, I picked up speed. More to do and less time to do it, faster and faster, until my work life felt indistinguishable from the blur of images that blew by the window on my late night train ride home. Or was it my pre-dawn commute in? And did the direction matter?

At the end, the money was good. So good I didn’t think I could do without it. The urge to chuck it all was always counterbalanced by the fear that I couldn’t succeed at anything else. That I wouldn’t feel the same adrenaline rush I had been taking for granted for so long at the agency. That I wouldn’t be driven by the same ambition that had gotten me to where I was. And that drove me harder still. It was like I was trying to outrun myself.

Which begged the question: How to stop?

Remember that movie, the depression era period-piece? The one where the railroad bulls have the winded hobo cornered in the last box car of the freight train? And the hobo’s ready to jump, but the train is moving quickly enough that jumping promises the same beating that the bulls do? Maybe worse?

Well, I do.

Kauai was going to be my emergency brake. My stop sign.

* * * * *

We got the dog shortly after moving here, my wife and I. A lab mix from the Humane Society. He was sure to be the lap dog we needed. Every night he was going to climb onto the sofa lazily, drop his head in my lap, and fall asleep there. I had it all planned out. I could feel my blood pressure dropping just thinking about it.

Instead, he took to the water.

Turns out he was a surf dog.

We took him to Kealia every day so that he could swim. And he swam like he was made to do it. Like he wouldn’t choose to do anything else. I don’t remember coaxing him into the ocean. I don’t recall tentative pawing at the water’s edge, or the obligatory game of tag that anything young feels compelled to play with the comings and goings of sea
foam at the shoreline. He was just in the drink, always, as if he’d been given the gift of two mediums in which to thrive. He was amphibian.

But being in the water didn’t seem to be enough. He needed to be in the water with intent. He needed to be swimming toward something. And the horizon, as jaw-droppingly beautiful as it can be on Kauai’s beaches, doesn’t offer much to the goal oriented.

So after a while he’d just stand at the shore line–and bark.

Only a dog could get away with that, with a loudly voiced complaint aimed squarely at the Pacific Ocean. Imagine a tourist at the water’s edge, screaming “but it’s listed in 101 Things To Do as an activity! I’m sorry, but gently rolling waves are not a “Thing To Do”!

And so, the lab owner’s favorite verb: fetch.

Which quickly evolved into a routine as complex and unvaried in execution as high mass at the Vatican. He’d burst out of the barely open car door, catch sight of the tennis ball I hadn’t tried hard enough to hide (because chasing sticks was passé after week one), and bounce and spin in front of me wildly, his front paws lurching forward, trying to gain footing on anything – the passing thigh, abdomen, testicle – that could be used to vault him within snapping distance of that tennis ball. That tennis ball!

Within a few months, I’d come to the beach armed with a canister of tennis balls, because he’d never relinquish one if there wasn’t another to pursue. I’d throw them out to sea, again and again, farther and farther, and he’d dutifully retrieve them all, his snout piercing through breaking waves five times his size – like some bizarrely hirsute surfacing submarine – just to get at them.

After 45 minutes of frenetic activity, it would reach the point where I’d be approached by tourists, usually-land-locked dog lovers with worried looks in their eyes, asking me pointedly if it was a good idea to have him swim out so far, if I wasn’t pushing him too hard.

Then I would stop throwing so they could witness his fury. So they could hear, first-hand, his hoarse howls of disgust at a tennis-ball-less sea.

The writing, as they say, was on the wall. We had adopted a pet with a type A personality.

This dog, it seemed, desperately needed an emergency brake. A stop sign.

* * * * *

It was a typical day at Kealia. Warmth in the light breeze, the clouds taking on the rosy tint that comes with a setting sun. The jetty side of the beach was clogged with young families, so my surf dog and I took our Spalding canister to the beaches’ mid-point, where we could engage in our fetch fetish without interruption.

The riptides in this section of the beach were well known to locals long before traffic cones and danger signs started sprouting there, as they have in the recent past, like the mature growth that had to come from our collective fear of liability. But me – what did I know?

When I threw that one ball…that one ball…I knew, somehow, that it had gone too far. I was pushing my luck, our luck, a little too hard. And that was before I realized that I had broken the cardinal rule of tennis ball fetch.

My dog hadn’t watched me throw.

And if he didn’t see the ball arc over the sea, if he didn’t see the splashdown, then nothing had been thrown.

So he sat there, dumbly staring at my hands, waiting for another launch.

I only had one ball left. And one ball meant one thing. After every throw, I would have to wrestle to get that one ball back. And that wrestling match would involve all the attendant teeth baring and flying saliva you would expect. From me and the dog.

So I dove in.

A hundred yards out, no big deal, I could use the exercise, right? And the swimming was easy. It was only when I got to the ball and turned around that I realized why the swimming was easy. Because the swim back wasn’t.

You take those public service announcements for granted. I had no idea it was a waste of time to swim against a rip tide. So I swam against a rip tide. And I kept swimming, blind to my predicament, convinced that I had plenty of energy to get back to shore.

And then I felt that paw come down on my shoulder.

My surf dog saw what I was swimming for, and he’d be damned if I’d get his ball.

I recognized something in his insistence as he was pushing me further and further under water. Something in the adrenaline-crazed look in his eye, in his naked ambition. And that thought rolled through my head a while before I had the presence of mind, when I came to the surface, gasping, to throw the ball ahead of me, to give unto the surf dog what belonged to the surf dog.

* * * * *

Metaphors and allegories are powerful things.

And there’s no sense in writing if you’re not prepared to see the makings of them in just about everything in life. Sometimes those real-world moments of inspiration can be comically over-the-top, too – so much so that they’re completely unbelievable on the printed page. I once watched a bird feather its nest with a ropy strand of bright yellow police-crime-scene “caution” tape.

I remember thinking “that bird will never get published”.

But sometimes you’ll see yourself at the center of a real situation that’s perfect fodder for a story. And if you feel the urge to write it, it is my contention, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that you have that realization for a reason: Because you’ve refused to acknowledge all the rough drafts that came before it. Like the one where a tightly-wound and less-than-self-aware New Yorker is gifted with a type-A dog. Or the one where the type-A New Yorker, who is unable to acknowledge the type-A-ness of his dog, feeds said dog’s frenzied instincts with too many well thrown tennis balls into the raging Pacific.

As my swimming stroke weakened and I saw the situation for what it was, I calmed down, oddly enough. It was like I had passed through heavy rains of panic and settled into the eye of what I knew to be a nasty storm. Then I had one of those random moments of clarity. The kind that only seem to accompany tragic situations, like those you’d read about in pulpy, Back-From-The-Grave testimonials.

At that moment, I saw the metaphor I was flailing through for exactly what it was: I was swimming harder and harder towards a beach that wasn’t getting any closer. I might as well have been back in New York on that early morning train to work, falling asleep, a three-page To Do List slipping through my fingers.

Then I was out of the eye and back into the storm. I swam as hard as I could for as long as I could, so fearful that I would look up to see that I hadn’t moved forward an inch that I just didn’t look up. And when I couldn’t swim any more, when I was completely drained, I let my legs drift down. And I was beyond relieved to immediately feel sand
between my toes.

As I staggered back up the shore, my surf dog was right beside me, looking none the worse for wear, the bright yellow ball locked tightly in his teeth.

I sat down heavily and looked out at the vast, undulating carpet of blue-green that stretched out to the horizon, the tennis-ball-less sea. And my surf dog lay down lazily at my side and dropped his head in my lap.

No, really.

Then his jaws loosened and the tennis ball rolled back down the embankment and into the water. And we both watched as it was sucked out again by the same tide. He started to move toward it, too, but a gentle tug on his collar was enough to restrain him. He was dog-tired, after all.

It felt good to just cradle him there.

And the ball got harder to see as it drifted farther away. Another metaphor, and fairly over-the-top, too. Still, a pretty clear lesson:

It’s a tennis ball, for Christ’s sake, let the ocean take it.

Reading Date

2009-01-13T16:35:00.000-08:00

The reading date for winners and runners up of the 2008 Kauai Backstory Creative Competition is Monday, January 26, 2009 at Small Town Coffee in Kapaa, starting at 7:00 p.m.

All winners and runners up are invited to read and asked to RSVP to kauaibackstory@yahoo.com, so we can plan accordingly.

Kauaibackstory.com Announces Winners of 2008 Creative Competition

2008-12-11T23:08:00.000-08:00

Kauaibackstory.com congratulates the 2008 "Surf" creative competition winners Michelle Dick for her image, "The Waterman," Sandra Krawciw for her poem, "Watching Lincoln Surf," Ben House for his essay, "Remind Me I'm Alive," and Frank Reilly for his story, "Surf Dog." And 11-grader Emily Rider for her untitled poem.

Winners and runners up (see list below) are invited to read and share their entries at a time and place to be determined in January. Submissions of the contest winners and runners up will begin posting on www.kauaibackstory.com after the public reading.

Runners Up:

Laurie Barton for "Surfer Cake" and "Ocean Death"

Faith Harding for her untitled submission

Alison Hummel for "Return to the Surf"

Sandra Krawciw for "Watching Daughters Surf"

John Ullis for "Surf Northshore"

Susan Ullis for "Tank in Sand"

Clouds and Sun Sing Hallelujah in Golds

2008-12-11T22:29:00.000-08:00

Sharon Douglas

2008-11-22T11:58:00.000-08:00

Haiku by Catherine Pascual-Lo
Image by Carl Lo

When day is over
turtle doves return to roost
at their comfort zone.

Pete

2008-09-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

by Brian Doyle

I’ll tell you a surfing story, and this is the rare surf story that has no oceans or surfboards in it, because it’s about a guy who spent almost his whole life surfing situations and relationships, never falling in, never over his head, never breathless, always on top of the situation and never in or of it, you know what I mean? And he went half a century without ever getting his feet wet, and then, as so often is the case when we talk about hearts being startled awake, it was a kid who knocked him off his board and into the sea where hearts get hammered and startled and shivered and born again.

But I get ahead of myself. The guy’s name was Pete. He had been a terrific athlete as a kid and then he was a terrific hand with money and investments. He made boatloads of money, got lots of girls, traveled everywhere, did every dashing thing you can imagine, but after a while even the coolest girls would gently disentangle themselves, because, as one of them said with real affection, you never get tangled, Pete, and in the end we see that you don’t want to bother, and even someone who just wants to have fun can’t stay long, you know what I mean?

He did know what she meant, too, which is what stung.

He got all the way to age fifty like this, looking cool on the outside and not getting birthday cards from anyone, and no one except the doorman at his condo knowing when he was sick with the flu, and finally he sold his condo in Boston and bagged his lucrative master of the universe job and moved to Poipu and bought a condo on the beach and spent his time paddle-surfing, but nothing really changed and he had girls but no lovers and companions but no friends, you know what I mean? But finally what happened was he was driving drunk and got busted, and during the whole process of getting that fixed he met a detective who showed him the world of meth babies, kids whose parents were addicts and dumped them or burned them with cigarettes and dangled them from highway overpasses and evil shit like that, and there was a kid named Kimo who was four and both parents dead from meth, and this kid says to Pete one day, at the cop orphanage, how come you never look at me with both your eyes? and Pete says that was the moment everything cracked. He says it wasn’t like in the movies where there’s swelling music and the lights get brighter, in fact he said he wanted to slap the kid for being rude, but he didn’t, and eventually he adopted Kimo, it’s a long story and there’s no happy ending neither, because they argue like hell, and neither one of them can cook worth two cents as yet, and Kimo just got his face tattooed like a Maori for some reason, which sent Pete into a roaring fit like you read about.

But he roared, you know what I mean? If you are furious you’re not surfing, right?

Announcing Third Annual Writing Competition

2008-09-21T20:24:00.000-07:00

Kauaibackstory.com announces its third annual writing competition. This year’s theme is “Surf.”

Entries will be accepted in the following categories: essay, story, poem and visual image. A student category will be created pending interest and writing quality.

Entries must focus on Kauai. Participants are urged to express their thoughts, feelings and observations about the theme, “Surf” through the lens of their own unique experience and viewpoint.

Prizes will be awarded. Winners and other noteworthy contributors will be posted on www.kauaibackstory.com and invited to read on a special night later this fall. (Date and place to be determined.) Writers may submit up to three entries. There is no word limit--brevity is encouraged but not required. Visit www.kauaibackstory.com to view the quality of works posted and the blog’s mission statement.

The deadline for submitting entries is midnight HST November 15, 2008. Text entries must be pasted into the body of an email and sent to kauaibackstory@yahoo.com. Images must be sent as a jpg attachment.

Kauaibackstory.com is a venue for rigorous writing and imagery with a view about Kauai. The journal is intended to serve as a timely, interactive forum, and readers are encouraged to visit often and post comments. The editors look for writing that raises thought, not walls, and encourage writing that rouses respectful dialogue. The editors hope to build community and understanding through conversation. Think of kauaibackstory.com as a conversation about Kauai.

###

E Kala Mai Ia’u: A Reflection on Paddling

2008-09-14T16:30:00.000-07:00

by Dena Cassella

In the matter of canoes, there was nothing to be understood. Everything was instinctual. Paddling canoes is the sport and spirit of Hawaii. A way to preserve a sacred culture in just seconds: spurts of remembrance when wave touches wood. It was a rite of passage. For me, it was a chance to redeem a fair complexion. I had always been a strong and structured girl, with broad shoulders and thick trunks of legs. Sturdy is what my father called me. Only feeling small and delicate while nestle in the sands of Makapu’u beach, sinking deep into the moist crumble of earth, feeling the sun boil and birth our connection as we’d melt into ourselves.

Digging deep into the current’s white splashed tips, I became a paddler at age ten. I became useful, fluid in motion and incredibly effective in a canoe. Dragging 600 pounds of hollowed Koa wood great distances with such elegant intensity sent shivers down my shoulders and awakened my body to the miracle performed by our crew of six girls. The canoe cradled me, positioned so neatly in its flat plank seats. It was my kumu, my teacher, nurturing my learning. I knew how to navigate the current of an open ocean, and keep the balance of the canoe in treacherous winds and unforgiving waves. Paddling was my being—I’d sweat salt water and breathe ocean breezes. There is no sensation more powerful than feeling as mighty as the sea.

In late May when I was nearing seventeen, something went wrong.

With the six of us seated and alert, we lined our vessel up to our starting mark, an empty gallon milk jug bobbing above its anchored self. We sat up straight and listened for our commands. Our coach, a tall, tan man screeched with intensity, hut ho, and we were off. Blades following one after the other in sync with our lunging bodies as we pulled the canoes down the murky stretch of canal. I dug my paddle hard and wrenched my body upright sternly. Harder and faster, the stroke count rose and we followed intently, not like young girls, but like brutish creatures with unstoppable resolve.

Without warning, it happened: I could not feel anything. Nothing. Not the dried layer of salt blanketing my skin, not my wrists, not my fingers, I could not feel the waxy wood of my own paddle in my grip. Nothing. I looked down at my limbs, for reassurance, and they still seemed intact. The sensation distracted me and our boat slowed down as we neared the finish. My crew relaxed breathing heavy sighs of exhaustion. I lay my paddle on my lap and stared at my fingers, plump and tense, and watched as my hands uncontrollably shook and twitched. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what this was. I panted, turned to the girl in the seat behind me and displayed my hands in her face. My eyes releasing a flood of tears made her panic and share in my numb terror. She held them still with her own tired hands, trying to stop the shaking, but she could not. The weary head of every girl in the vessel perked up, confused and frightened by my condition. The shaking grew worse. It weakened my body, stripping me of my sturdiness, causing me to slowly slip out of my plank seat in the canoe. Only my weeping strengthened. Mixing with the salty film of dried canal water, my tears rushed down my cheeks, bombarding my lips with a rotten taste.

Carpal tunnel syndrome said a doctor, who suggested surgery and I refused it. Damaged nerves, said another doctor, frequent ice baths. But they did say one thing in common you cannot be fixed. But I could not stop paddling. Though my body pleaded with its mental, and my performance as a paddler weakened, I did not know how to exist with out it. I did not want to exist with out it. After two more years of numbed races and practices, my parents told me to quit. But it is hard to leave your successes behind you. It is harder to leave your entire being behind you. The sacrifice of belonging: the trade off of ethnicity and identity, pale and tan, an existence and a life.

I still go to races, to sit, and watch the canoes take off. I nest near the shorelines, by old hala trees and smooth water-washed stones, and I wait. Feeling all I can in my sandy burrow, the tiny dips of indented skin on my thigh from the clinging granules, never letting me go, and the warm sticky island air rushing from ocean to meet my face with humid kisses. I wait to remember the delicate neck of the paddle and the miraculous sensation of muscles moving. Digging my hands deeper into the grainy surrounding, grasping what I can of the sodden sands beneath my body, holding it tight and desperate. With browning skin blistering in the sun’s rage, I silently request forgiveness from the waves, and understanding from the wooden vessels fighting the tide out to the starting mark. E kala mai ia’u, I beg them, pardon me for sitting these races out.

Open Yo Maka

2008-09-13T16:24:00.000-07:00

by SistaG

Paradise
where everything's nice
palms are swaying
and folks are saying

things in pidgeon
it's almost a religeon
this way of life
the illusion of no strife.

Paradise
where everything's nice
on the surface at least
Just don't look too deep

Paradise
where everything's nice
yeah, right
we've all been asleep

wake up sweet brother,
little sista too
your folks are old
it's up to you.

and it takes more than
stink eye
to get the big guys
to change.
listen to your heart
don't get shame,

we still got
more than a lot
to work with
to get them to stop.

and remember
even folks that do
stand firm and true,
even they get shaken
when more is taken

by those in power.
can't you see the hour
is drawing near
for all we hold dear,

All that we love
all that we say
we put above
all else?

It takes a very strong man
or woman or child
to have the vision
to keep it wild

here in Paradise
where everything's nice

so let's be wise
for a change...

In the Heart of a Kauai Winter

2008-04-14T16:44:00.000-07:00

by Sharon Douglas

A symphony of bird song celebrates the clear, blue, what will become an 80-something-sunny day. Doves coo. The white and black shama thrush click, and sing their complex little songs. Red cardinals sound like melodious cars starting their singing engines. A rooster, or two, or three … punctuate the cacophony with a “How do you do?”

Green lushness, on closer inspection reveals a color splotched canvas: Papaya trees laden with sunrise papayas; yellow edged palm fronds form green splayed fans; hand shaped hau leaves on tangled trees with flowers that change from yellow to a red-orange when they drop; ti leaves splattered in intense yellow or pink blotches; and pink and white tipped snowbush. Splotches of color-on-green.

Drive down to the west side and see light green breadfruit footballs growing in trees, protected by waxy dark green leaves. Or see tall, tassleless sugarcane grass swaying gently as it still grows.

Even more vivid are the intense egg yolk scrambled flowers etched high against blue sky on the yellow shower trees. There’s the one near the Koloa fire-station, and then there are a few as you head out of Waimea Town. This yellow scramble of color, high up and, then, lower down, the yellow hibiscus smile brightly. Or there are the cup of gold vines that compete with the intense cerise and purple and hot pink bougainvillea.

There are also the African tulip trees with their vividly orange cup-like blooms. These are profuse and their abundant color can be seen almost everywhere on Kauai.

And, should you head up to Holy Cross Church from the west side into Kalaheo: the flaming Mexican vine, ablaze in orange as it drips off, garlanding green shrubs and trees in the valley to the south.

At sunset, a bikini clad walk, on Kekaha’s long wide soft champagne colored beaches can be enjoyed. Shawl of water fringed by waves lapping onto silky shores leads to foamy feast fondling naked feet.

The sound of the ocean: huhwash!sh..sh and silence… Gahwash! Sh…sh and silence is the background music, as the watermelon-gold sun-orb drops behind the Forbidden Island, Niihau, huge whale-like silhouette, and slowly withdraws its energy in long rays that trail across the now pearly gray-mauve ocean.

Deep in the Heart of a Kauai Winter

2008-03-01T09:23:00.000-08:00

by Laurie Barton

We watched Candace and Roy
exchange their vows in Hawaiian
on a beach whose name was changed
by a letter getting blown off a sign.

Anini Beach had heavy wind that day.
Waves were knocking hard against the reef.
Candace and Roy promised to stay together
though their parents hadn't
(and neither had most of our parents--
inundating us with partners, step-sisters,
second ex-wives.)

Candace's dad showed up in a sailboat,
telling big stories of the Baja Ha Ha
rally. Passing beers all around on the beach.
Candace's brother had sailed in, too,
the kind of guy who wanted solitude.
Pacing the shore,
keeping his eye on the ocean
that would swallow him up again soon.

Winter Wonderland

2008-02-25T12:23:00.000-08:00

by David Dinner

Is Creativity the Answer?

2008-02-15T00:36:00.000-08:00

by Hannah Rees

My heart is aching for all the senseless killings
that go on all over the world. Yesterday was
supposed to be a day celebrating love – the respect
and cherishing of one human being for another - yet
someone thought it would be impressive to re-create
the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and walked into a
lecture hall at Northern Illinois University – the
same university our daughter attended a few years
ago – and shot 6 students attending the lecture,
before shooting himself.

A few weeks ago 5 shoppers were shot down in front
of a Lane Bryant store in Chicago. We read of
suicide bombers and missile attacks all over the
world.

As we bask in the aloha – the celebration of the
breath of life here on Kauai – I am saddened by
these news reports and by the anguish that must
reside in the killer's heart for his/her life to be
filled with the wish to destroy.

I have read that “creativity is the antithesis of
destruction” and I''m wondering if our consuming
world has negated the basic joy of creativity. We
are encouraged to opt for any ready-made product
instead of making anything ourselves. Our children
are often taught to be entertained, to play games,
to win, to use and to waste. And when the budget
gets tight, what do our schools eliminate from the
curriculum first - the art and music program! Of
course there are exceptions, but overall the
classroom is thought to be a stepping stone to
earning money to buy things. Things do not provide
one with the joy of self discovery found through the
process of creating.

Creating takes time and intention. Relationships
need both time and intention to develop, just as the
building of a house, planting a garden, keeping a
pet, cooking a meal or writing of a poem. Creativity
requires a person to invest of himself, his ideas,
his dreams. I wonder if more energy were used in
creating, perhaps the dissatisfaction that leads to
suicide and the destructive killing that is
encompassing our world would lessen.

One can only hope.

Jungle Jam

2008-02-14T10:38:00.000-08:00

by SistaG

Remember me?
I live here in Haena
under a tree
where I like to spend a
day at the beach
so I'm gonna send a
fax or an e
to get you here with me!

I have a little place
in Hanalei
a river runs thru
we could spend the day
walking thru the jungle
careful not to tumble
in the hila hila
I just wanna steal ya!

Come spend the day, baby
come spend the day
You'll love the jungle
you'll love the bay

Come spend the day, baby
into the night
Then in the morning
ahm onna take you chicken fight!

Take me down the coast
we'll sail to Wainiha
Park our little boat
out on the sand bar
build a little fire
pretend we're castaways
tell me what you require
to be led astray!

Come spend the day, baby
come spend the day
You'll love the jungle
you'll love the bay

come spend the day, baby
into the night
I'll feed you mangoes
you'll love every bite!

And then I'll dance the hula
and you'll dream the kama sutra. . .

The Biggest Cockroach in the History of the Universe

2008-02-06T09:46:00.000-08:00

by Brian Doyle

Lives in a house on the north shore of the island of Kauai,
The one island never conquered by the old Hawaiian kings,
And you can see why, if there were insects the size of cars,
Which there are, and there are stories of roaches who tried
To catch and eat Hawaiian monk seals, and of even larger
Roaches who banded together to try to conquer Honolulu,
And of one roach, this was a heroic and mountainous one,
Who flagged down a truck and ejected the terrified driver
And tried to digest the truck, which is a phrase you never
Hardly hear, and there are still stories, and I believe them,
Of roaches who occasionally get such a yen for cable TV
That they break into houses and overdose on NBA games
And are found days later staggering around in the forests
Muttering about assist-to-turnover ratio and similar stuff,
But a story like that you have to take with a grain of salt.
Anyway the biggest cockroach in the history of roaches,
Periplaneta Americana is his name, lives in Hanalei Bay,
Right near Michael Crichton, who is the famous novelist,
But the people of Hanalei, they misdirect you on purpose
If you ask for where either of their most famous residents
Live, and you can understand that, it’s a form of affection
And respect really, so the thing is, when I tell you that the
Biggest cockroach in the history of the universe, an insect
Big enough to have its own area code and zoning precinct,
Big enough to change the weather, bigger even than Oprah,
Lives on the north shore of Kauai, well – don’t tell anyone.

A Note on the Birds of Hawaii

2008-02-05T12:35:00.000-08:00

by Brian Doyle

There is of course the ‘a, the booby with the red feet,
Says a tiny man at the Foodland, to whom I had said
Merely wow, is that a frigatebird over the parking lot?
And then of course there is your ‘akikiki, the creeper,
And ‘i’iwi and ‘o’u’ and nukupu, also honeycreepers,
And pueo, the little owl, and ‘io, the Hawaiian hawk,
And ‘ulili, the little tattler who wanders, and our ‘o’o,
She is the honeyeater, the cousin of the honeycreeper,
And ‘elepaio, the flycatcher, and ‘alala, old man crow,
And huna kai, the sanderling, her name is ocean foam,
And hoio, the shearwater, he lives in caves by the sea,
And ao, she is another shearwater, what a lovely word,
Shearwater, don’t you think? And then uau, the petrel,
And aukuu, the night heron, and koloa, he is our duck,
And of course you know nene, the goose, and ewaewa,
The tern, and kolea, the plover, he comes every winter,
And ukeke, the turnstone, and amaui, that is the thrush,
And the curlew who balances on one leg, she is ‘kioea.
Did you get all that? Are you writing down every thing
I say? Are you a book writer? Do you speak Hawaiian?
Do you want more names of birds? There is the mejiro,
That is the Japanese word for the little bird in the bush,
And piha’ekelo, that is the mynah, he comes from India,
And manumele, the canary, he comes from oversea too,
And shama, the thrush, he comes from elsewhere, India
Also I think, although I am not sure about that, I am not
Very knowledgeable about the birds. My dad, however,
He would tell us stories about birds he loved as a child,
Birds who are no more on any of the islands of Hawaii,
One was the mamo, who drank from flowers like a bee,
And another was a very tiny green one who ate crickets
But who never got a name because no one ever saw her.
That is all I can remember and say about our birds here.
Do you have any other things that I can help you with?
Yes sir, I say. I am curious about a word for this place,
May I ask what is the name for where we are standing?
Why, this is Foodland, he says, and we lose it laughing
And both go in to get whatever it was we came to buy.
By pure chance we cross paths a little later as we leave,
And he says here is one last name for you to remember,
That is ‘iwa, the thief, the frigatebird, and yes, that was
Her over the parking lot a while ago, isn’t she glorious?

Deep in the Heart of a Kauai Winter

2008-02-04T18:00:00.001-08:00

It is way too quiet this winter at Kauai Backstory, so we are tossing out a writing prompt: Deep in the heart of a Kauai winter.

Use this as a place to start writing or photographing. Does it conjure up an image? Maybe write a poem, then. Does it conjure up a scene? Write a story, then. Does it make you want to preach about something? Write an essay, then. Or, get out in the blustery weather and take some pictures. Basically, take it and run. Have fun. Then, send it to us. We won't guarantee we'll post everything we receive, but if we like it, if it moves us, if we laugh, cry, scream or sigh, we just may publish it on Kauai Backstory.

We'll accept submissions on this theme through the end of winter--whenever we deem that to be or, more accurately, whenever Mother Nature deems that to be. Please send your submission to kauaibackstory@yahoo.com.

As always, thanks for writing. Thanks for sharing. Be sure to visit www.kauaibackstory.com often.

Aloha,
Gae, Kim, Pam
Editors

Blue

2008-01-31T17:15:00.000-08:00

by Kerith Edwards

When morning stands fresh
dilated cool with wind and sun
my heart—
having totaled rainy workadays—
remembers instead
long-sighted swell
watched to here!
wave mounted
ridden to low.
Lure me again, darling
yours today and forever,
my blue Kauai.

Not Today

2007-12-02T21:14:00.000-08:00

by Lea Marie Taddonio

The tsunami alarm sounds off the first Tuesday of
each month.

Cane fields are stirring like water just before
wind.

The cat on the step ignoring.

The gecko pipes once.

A truck backfires up the canyon.

A cloud becomes turtle
then a dragon that eats the turtle
and it seems like such a waste of time to die.

Big Boat

2007-11-19T13:55:00.000-08:00

by Lea Marie Taddonio

Where do boats come from?
Arriving as tiny miracles
We look up from the want ads
pause in the middle of polite conversations.

This boat is different.
It boasts about the horizon’s secret
loudly so you can’t miss hearing
the exact bulk of its bank account.

I had a lover who was bigger than this boat.
Every time I looked at my ocean
He was there, nodding on the waves.
Until finally
I created a hurricane.

Skullwalking

2007-11-12T14:57:00.000-08:00

by Lea Marie Taddonio

Tourists at Ke‘e Beach pound over the skulls
of ancient ones.

Quietly urinate in thickets, spin tires in fine sand
groan about the clot of cars
trying to circulate out the parking lot at sundown.

The rhythm here is not the ocean
but a collective heartbeat

I am I am I am

The Paving of Paradise

2007-11-04T18:01:00.000-08:00

by Jerry Von Schott

Dreams
covered in concrete.
Hardened reality
poured stony gray.
Hopes paved over
in flowing
unconciousness.
Paradise
gasps in darkness.
Crushed
under the weight
of cold slab.

Young Fruit

2007-10-29T14:54:00.001-07:00

by Caleb Odam

Green is the smell of grass in my face
when I take a nap at the park

or the deep flavor of arugula.

Green is dancing dandelions, soft soccer fields
and sticky spirulina.

Green is young fruit

and the ferns that
crawled out of the ocean
at the beginning of the earth.

Come Alive Dream

2007-10-27T12:53:00.000-07:00

[This is the final post from our second annual Creative Contest. This year's contest theme was "Green."]

by Craig Davies

First open your ears; now hear my plea.
Peace is a Dream that will come to be.

It all starts right here in our little home.
From this tiny island, Peace will be born.

Many have come here knowing not why.
The answers elude us; perhaps we should pry.

"Why are we here?" I ask of our Gods.
Surely They know why we do trod.

"To be an example”, They say to me,
"Of Love, of Peace and true Harmony".

“Energy of Ages has been given to you,
So that you may be leaders...you know what to do”.

To be a World model , that is our deed.
The spark of ignition, we will be the seed.

To feed all our people, no more need we seek.
We have fertile lands and the best of technique.

Self-sufficiency, the spirit is there.
We have all we need with plenty to share.

Alternative energy, so many options.
Wind, solar, hydro...without any toxins.

All said and done, great heights we’ll have soared.
The time has come to cut the cord.

Hawaiian sovereignty, a strong energy.
On this we must ride for then we will be...

A sovereign nation unto itself,
No need of war, guns on the shelf.

Peace we can have; Peace isn’t for sale.
So let's get to work, we must tip the scale.

The One Hundredth Monkey, have you heard of this?
If my vision is true...Kaua`i is it!

Awaken old souls, the time has arrived.
We've been called to Kaua`i to Come Alive.

Kekaha Signal Light

2007-10-26T10:50:00.000-07:00

[This is the sixth of seven runners-up from our second annual Creative Contest. This year's contest theme was "Green." Each winning and runner-up entry will post on successive days, so be sure to make daily visits to www.kauaibackstory.com.]

by Juan Lugo

While traveling to Kokee with my grandchildren, driving past the small town of Kekaha, we came upon a broken and neglected signal light. One of the children asked, “Grandpa, that light is old, broken and not working. Why doesn’t someone remove it and take it to the dump? It could fall on a car and hurt someone or cause an accident.”

Memories flooded through me and I was so overwhelmed with emotion, I pulled off to the side of the road to compose my thoughts. The children must have thought they had said something wrong and after a few moments of silence, I decided to share with them a couple of stories of what the light meant to me and to those that grew up on the Island of Kauai. We stepped out of the car and I began to share my memories of the Kekaha Signal Light.

“This signal light on the road leading to Waimea Canyon represents the Marquesans, the first group of people to settle these islands. They introduced the sugar cane. They did not realize that this plant would attract a group of businessmen and cause the eventual overthrow of the unformed Hawaiian Monarchy. It represents the legacy of the sugar cane industry. This industry brought together a diversified group of people from all over the world. Each group being very proud of their rich ethnic culture and equally proud of their neighbor’s culture providing our Island of Kauai with an exotic flavor. It represents the agricultural greening of Kauai and of Hawaii. The light also reminds me of my childhood. This light was magical to me while growing up on this beautiful island of Kauai and it opened my heart and eyes to that magic.”

I pulled drinks and snacks from the cooler and gave them to the children. I continued my story. “In those days the trains would bring in the harvested sugar cane from the fields to the mill for processing. The method of harvesting was to set the fields on fire and after the fire died down, a dozer with a rake in the front would push the burning cane into rows. A crane with a grappling hook would load the burnt cane onto the train. Sometimes the dying embers would be re-ignited and a blazing inferno would occur. The train had to make it back to the mill very quickly. The light was installed to stop the little traffic that made its way up or down the Waimea Canyon.”

“The Kekaha Signal Light is a reminder of simpler times. We listened to nature’s whispers and to stories of our past. Today, it is the home of a family of Myna birds with the glass broken by those individuals that do not know of that time.”

Clearing my throat and fully immersed in the story, I continued, “I grew up in the Wailua Homestead on a Pineapple farm. Working in the fields was hard work and I hated it. My parents had a twenty-five acre farm and we grew pineapples as our main crop. We also had milk cows, pigs, chickens and vegetables to care for. Since the pineapple was our main source of revenue, my siblings and I had to work in the fields after school and on week-ends. We could not afford hiring outsiders.”

“So, when my father would announce on a Friday Evening that we would be going to Kekaha to watch the signal light change colors, we could hardly control our excitement! Not only would we be treated to an absolutely wonderful display of magic in seeing the lights change colors in the middle of nowhere, we would not have to work in the fields that week-end!”

“That night we would ready our surfboards, fishing poles, Hawaiian Slings and camping gear. These activities would be interspersed with talking about the magic of seeing the signal light change colors. I remember thinking that the changing colors were magic in the purest sense and it would send me spiraling off into the world of my imagination! We would talk late into the night and my mother would finally scold us and tell us to go to sleep.”

“Early, Saturday Morning we would finish our chores and then load up the back of our pick-up truck with the surfboards, fishing poles, Hawaiian Slings, food, drinks, guitars, ukuleles and camping equipment. We would be balanced precariously amidst all of the paraphernalia as we made our way to Kekaha from Wailua.”

“Once we reached Kekaha, we would set-up camp on the beach and then we would start doing everything we had talked about the previous evening. Whether it was board surfing, body surfing, fishing, spear diving, or simply lazing about and eating, whatever activity we were engaged in, would come to a halt, when we heard the sound of the whistle from the train as it made its way to the mill from the fields. We would run, helter-skelter through the small town of Kekaha and reach the light as it changed colors! I remember, jumping up and down, cheering, clapping my hands and joining in with my adult ohana and siblings as the train approached and the light would change colors! It was so incredible and I never tired of seeing the magic!”

“Later that evening, with my opu full, I would drift off to sleep listening to the gentle strumming of the guitars and ukuleles. I would listen to the songs and watch the dancing by the campfire. I would be lulled to sleep by the rhythmic pattern of the waves as they splashed upon the beach. I would look up at the sky and watch the moon and the stars play hide-n-seek behind the clouds. Many happy memories filled my memory banks. Happy memories, that I could make a withdrawal from, when my life was filled with strife and challenges. Those happy memories would see me through the troublesome times of my life.”

“And, that is why,” I whispered to my grandchildren, “I will always be grateful to the Kekaha Signal Light. It showed me how to believe in magic and to live my life open to daily miracles! A magical beauty that it is all around us! We only need to open our eyes and our hearts to see it.”