Pualani and the Infinite Memory

My oldest sister, Vicki, is three years older than me and really the Po`okela of the generation. The word in Hawaiian translates in being the best or superior one. Usually, it comes in the form, like her, of being the first-born. Another word for her is Lua -- First. In my case, though, since I am the first-born male, I would be Mua, which means second or equal. She was one of the heroes I worshipped as a child; always, she found a way to be strong and provide for us. Should we be hungry, she would steal food. If we needed clothes, well, she would steal or hustle those, too. When she moved out of my mom's motel room, I took up the slack, doing the same things she did, with the exception of drugs or alcohol. Then, when I was 13, I was kicked out. Just like her.
I cant say that I consciously emulated her, but I am glad that we grew up so similar. The only thing I can say that I regretted was her strokes of pure violence. As a kid, if she were angry, we paid for it. Dearly. I can recall my brother and I fighting her together because we were just too weak separately. She taught me how to be a man in a lot of ways. Mostly painful ways, for which she has admitted regret. She has apologized time and again, but some images dont go away. You have to learn to move past them.


Anyway, Vicki's Hawaiian name, her real name, is Pualani. It means Child or flower of heaven. True, she had some wiggle room as a kid and had to grow into it, but her name fits her well. The Hawaiians believe that your name is a representation of the power in your spirit, or your mana. To have heavenly mana is to be radiant and to touch the people you come in contact with, leaving a fragrant and lasting impression. This is the hidden meaning of Pua's name, the kauna. This is who Pualani truly is.


Here is what this blog is really about: I go visit Pua about twice a week. For a long time we didn't talk, but now she lives down the road from me about 2 miles and we catch up after work, talking about past, present and future. Sometimes, we just need to vent to one another, finally learning to share the burdens we so long kept inside of us. The raddest part, too is that she loves Jesus. The crazy thing, though, is that she's a lesbian. God, in His own perfect way, has found a way to love my childhood hero, even in the sin that is too hard for her to relinquish. As a result, it makes it easier for me to move on from the hard parts of our past and talk about the infinite memories that we have from our mutual childhood, sharing in things dug up with mothballs and dirty hands, long forgotten.

I never knew she used to listen to me read, doing homework when I was 5. I found out tonight when I read aloud the first part of one of my favorite books to her. It's called Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers. I spit out a few pages and stopped, she was looking at me so hard, with a smile unknown to me as a kid. She said, "You know, I used to listen to you do your homework. I loved it. I knew you were smart." I had no idea. I dont even remember reading aloud as a kid, at least not outside of class. But she got the details I missed.


I found that we share these experiences together and we dont even know it. When we talk story, we both come up with little bits and pieces that the other one looked over, like putting together a mirror that is in shards. After we have both done our work, we find the mirror bigger than we imagined. It's cleaner and better looking, too. My sister, with all her smug masculinity and mistakes, is much better than I remembered.

A Few Random Acts of Insomnia

I can't sleep. My eyes water and hurt and I still can't manage to get more than 4 or 5 hours of sleep at night. I thought I would be a better writer because of this damned affliction. I'm not. As a matter of fact, I'm probably a hell of a lot worse, mostly because I'm not writing anything right now.

I'm reading.

I'm running through this great book that is challenging my beliefs and theology in a new and exciting sort of way. It's called Velvet Elvis by a guy from Michigan named Rob Bell. Seriously, you need to pick it up. Seriously.

On another topic, totally unrelated, I miss the writings of Pete. Piete. Whatever. Anyway, we were emailing one another some things we were working on. He was getting Derailed Arts up and running and I, well, I could always use someone to peruse my writing. Things sort of fell apart, though, and I haven't heard from him in a bit. It's sort of depressing, especially as DA still isn't working. Oh, and he hasn't blogged anything new in almost a year.

But I swear I'm not bitter.

We got a new guy at work today. His name is Taylor. I don't know what to think about him, except that he is sort of a pretty boy, real quiet thus far, and I don't like his name. Hopefully, he won't be a doofus, he'll open up, and things will be cool.

Finally, Brian is quitting. Er . . . he is being forced to quit. That really sucks.

You should read Velvet Elvis.

The Power of the Frisbee

Man, if there is any one super-cheap thing I enjoy doing, it's frisbee-golf. I know I sound like a hippee, but it's true. My buddy Jimmy and I tend to get out once a week to the chains and play 9 or 18 holes, depending on time, but I find myself more and more walking through the muddy lawns of parks in Southern California, disc bag against my back, driver in hand. When my younger brother was out here, we went 3 times I think, over a 2 week period and he was really a suprising shot. His long-game sucked -- he hit every tree and obstacle possible, but his short-game was pretty amazing. Now, I think he is going to build a course in the backwoods, country house my dad has in West Virginia. He went home with one of my discs. The above picture is of him on the 10th hole at El Dorado Park in the LBC.

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On an unrealted topic, I got in the spa for the first time since moving and man, was that shit awesome! Also, went dancing with my sister and some of her friends and I couldn't believe the amount of overly large, unattractive women dancing. ew. Anyway, now I am a little sore, unrested and bored at work. Looking forward to the weekend and some intentional writing.

Does God Want You Rich?

So, I am at work and I ran across this article on NBC MarketWatch. I have mixed emotions, especially as my church has a tendency toward the prosperity gospel, but makes it so that you have money to give money. Anyway, I don't have too much time to blog today, so read the article for yourself and let me know what you think.

Here's the link . . .

http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/godmoney_1.html

The Subject of Faith

Today I picked up New Seeds of Contemplation again and read a chapter simply entitled "Faith." Merton, in his basic yet poetic prose, steers clear of the purely philosophical or even theological conversations. These words rang as a chord in me and I thought you should hear them...

"The beginning of contemplation is faith. If there is something essentially sick about your faith you will never be a contemplative . . . [Faith] is not a conviction based on rational analysis. You can only believe what you do not know. As soon as you know it, you no longer believe it, at least not in the same way as you know it. Faith is first of all an intellectual assent. It perfects the mind, it does not destroy it. It puts the intellect in possession of Truth which reason cannot grasp by itself. It gives certitude concerning God as He is in Himself; faith is the way to a vital contact with a God Who is alive, and not to the view of an abstract First Principle worked out by syllogisms from the evidence of created things . . . The statements which demand the assent of faith are simply neutral to reason. We have no natural evidence why they should be true or why they should be false. We assent to them because of something other than intrinsic evidence . . . The importance of formulas [theological beliefs] is not that they are ends in themselves, but that they are means through which God communicates His truth to us. They must be kept clear. They must be clear windows, so that they may not obscure and hinder the light that comes to us. They must not falsify God's truth. Therefore, we must make every effort to believe the right formulas. But we must not be so obsessed with verbal corretness that we never go beyond the words to the ineffable reality which they attempt to convey . . . But above all, faith is the opening of an inward eye, the eye of the heart, to be filled with the presence of the Divine Light. Ultimately, faith is the only key to the universe. The final meaning of human existence, and the answers to questions on which all our happiness depends cannot be reached in any other way."

I dont think I have anything else to say, as all of it would seem watered-down after that lengthy quote. Any and all comments welcome, of course.

It's About That Time of Year Again... and I Feel the Need to Procrastinate

So, we are mid-way through September and the applications for next year's Master's programs have all come out. I should be pretty excited, seeing as how I miss going to class, researching literature and its criticisms, writing papers, all of it. But in reality, I'm really not. I haven't looked at the applications this year to the schools I am applying to (USC, UCLA -- both Comp. Lit., Cal State Long Beach and Fullerton -- both English and probably University of Hawai`i -- Hawaiian Studies) because of the fact that I didn't get into the schools I applied to last year.

I think I have been silently bummed out about not getting in since I received the fateful rejection letters last year, but I understand that I slacked off -- didn't write my writing sample until way late and didn't study for the GRE AT ALL -- and it was really my fault. That, in turn, makes me a lazy ass now, since I sort of question my own talent and intelligence. A real pussy, I know.

The writing sample for the Hawaiian Studies program is going to be on Hawaiian Myth and its similarities, I think, with Greek Myth. Maybe its too blase. I'm still working out the bugs on this one...

I am going to write the sample piece on Hemingway and Garcia-Marquez in relation to post-war literature, emphasizing cultural differences in how to deal with conflict. Since both writers have dealt with war in Latin America, it gives me a contact point from which to spring; Hemingway writes as a foreigner, Marquez as a National. How do these differ? It really isn't that elementary, but you get the point. I'd be using For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway, and The General in His Labyrinth, by Marquez. I also thought about using Across the River and Into the Trees, also by Hemingway, since its a little less known and is also in a flashbacky past-tense, similar to Labyrinth. Please let me know what you guys think, especially if this idea is stupid and I am way off of my rocker.

A little writing with a lot of heart

Here are a few poems I have been toying with lately.

For Orr

In the compost heap that is my life
I can see the orange books
Vivid in the dirty darkness
Making sense of the Void --
Blue lined, word filled pages
Cauterize the chaos
Around me.
Stacked 30 deep
They glare with blackened gold
Letters embossed upon their breasts
Sitting near the typewriter
I am crowned atop the carnage
I am reclining atop the prose.


Seasons

Autumnal leaves arrive ere the season
Summer winds have turned coldest, like black death.
But cometh on Fall weather, come treason
Amidst falling leaves, around me hard pressed.
To grasses green, to the skies brightest blue
Autumn golds and reds here soon to follow
Turn from lively colors to death’s dark hue
Soon comes the Winter bird, gone the swallow.

But with white masks of winter’s ‘ternal sleep
Come slush from snowings, and most icy rain
Within three months hear the new robin’s peep
And thaw the rivers, snows begin to drain.

Though Autumn leaves lead to snow and rain
Prepare the way for Spring to come again.

Desert Wonder

Spherical expanse of sky
Gone cobalt, liquefied
Dark sapphire inlaid
With glimmering diamonds—
Twilight
Flashes momentary
Over dark mountains
Silhouettes
Gray-white fluffs
A barrier of protection
Thin and strong
Against the storm.
Airplane lights
Down below—
Reflected in the skies
Off dark waters.

The trip we made to the Santa Monicas...

For those of you who dont know, I love to rock climb. I picked it up after working at a summer camp on and off during my college career and I cant seem to get enough of it now. I've always been a bit of a monkey, climbing trees, lightposts, telephone poles and what have you since I can remember. But in climbing the rocky face of a wall, crack or slab so that my fingers pinch and sweat -- my chalk-stained hands slipping from the contoured surface until they find some niche to hold my weight-- I feel a sense of freedom and fear that I cannot experience anywhere else. Climbing teaches me about myself and stretches me beyond what I would ordinarily experience.
That said, my climbing buddy April and I decided to climb at an area in the Santa Monica mountains known as Echo Cliffs. Pre-dawn, we packed our gear into her Honda Civic, stopped for snacks and water, and were well on our way from Fullerton to Thousand Oaks. It was a Saturday morning and we drove with the sun rising at our backs, saluting our trip. We hit traffic on the 101, growing weary of the concrete and skyscrapers, desperately hoping to be rid of the city-scape. An hour and a half later, we pulled off the freeway at Westlake Road, made a left, and headed into the hills.
The Santa Monicas are located between the beach at Santa Monica (where the 10 meets Pacific Coast Highway) all the way up to Thousand Oaks and contains some of the best climbing in Southern California. The rock is a volcanic conglomerate called brecchia and doesn't trash your hands. The especially nice perks though, are three-fold: 1. The climbing area is large enough that we don't run into a lot of people, 2. There is shade all-day and we don't get run out by the scorching sun and, 3. There is a multitude of water holes close by, should you feel the need to swim.
The approach is about 2.1 miles over a well-worn path, so that you climb upward half of the time, then dip into the valley and skirt its farthest border, where the feet of the hills meet the wide ravine-like stretch. A mile and a half into the hike, we made a right and scrambled down a gully filled with boulders and tipsy choc-stones. Navigating the bends in the road, we came to the valley floor and were happy at the shade and sound of running water.
We couldn't have asked for a better area. Sycamore trees abound in the grotto -- the area we were climbing -- and provide enough shade and root-work to have a place to set our gear, find a comfortable position and take a nap if need be. We immediately worked out a route, April leading it and I belaying her. The bolts shone in the din of the sunlight, her quickdraws slipping over an end, and the rope following quickly. After about an hour and a half, some cursing, a cramped neck and a lot of work, she made it to the top of Gameboy, the 5.8 that climbed like a 5.10. She celebrated above me while I removed my camera from its pouch, snapped off a few shots and knocked back a gulp from my Nalgene bottle. We did this back and forth throughout the day, taking turns. After climbing a bit at the head of the grotto, we moved into the nook under the trees to avoid the sunlight that nearly burned our necks. The climbing there, too, couldn't have been better.
By the time we left, we had each ticked off three new climbs and were none the worse for wear. The drive home was nice -- I took a nap after sticking my head out the window at 70 mph -- and the sunlight found its way to our backs, quietly and alone.