Look Before You Sit Down in Paia

The condo we stay in is in Maalaea village. It's in between the ocean front and sugar cane fields. I love the semi-rural, semi-neighborhood here. Population is small and people mind their own business. You can sit in your jammies on the lanai with morning coffee and nobody cares.

You can spend an entire day on the lanai, watching the harbor, observing wildlife... doing nothing. There's a monk seal, a couple of eagle rays, a heron, jumping fish, mongoose slipping through the landscaping, geckos chirping, and brightly colored cardinals contrasting the green grass.

Everyone who visits my condo asks about sugar cane spiders, since the field is so close. I've never seen one, I tell them, but I understand they are very big and run fast. They must like staying out there in the cane, and that's fine with me.

One afternoon, Fran suggested we drive up to Paia, on the Northshore, and do some shopping. Maybe find lunch. We might as well bust a move, we've been sitting so much. So Fran and Judy and I drove 18 miles to the former plantation town, now tourist attraction. There used to be a big sugar mill here, built in the 1880s, and the population was once over 10,000 people.



Sugarcane and Red Dirt

 Most of those people, immigrants from China, Portugal, Japan, Philipines (in that approximate order) lived in camp-like housing. Eventually, as they prospered, they moved into tract houses in Kahului. The camps disappeared and the sites plowed into more sugar cane plantings. The storefronts remain, and are occupied now by boutiques, galleries, and cafes. It's very quaint, no ABC Stores here, like you see in most Hawaiian tourist centers.

Paia is a bedroom community nowadays. Commerce is centered in Kahului, but Paia is a nice place to live. Sugar cane fields border on the mauka (inland) side, and some of the best windsurfing beaches on the makai (ocean) side. People who live here know each other, and are very friendly toward visitors.

The three of us covered ground with enthusiasm once we claimed the elusive parking space. It's nice ducking into an air-conditioned shop in the 86 degree weather. Store keepers are good greeters, asking where we are from, and telling stories about how they came to Paia to stay. It's a hard place to leave, apparently. Some residents hold three jobs to get by rather than return to the mainland.

"Oh, look! Crepes!" I exclaimed. I love crepes. I could smell them baking on grills.
"And French wine, too. This is it!" My friends weren't sure at first. Most of Paia looks shabby and dusty because of the tradewinds. They come from the Northwest, remember, and the beach is just North of the main street. All around are those cane fields and that iron oxide dirt. You can sweep it away, you can rinse it away, but you cannot remove the rusty stains it leaves everywhere. Paia is authentically weathered. Old woodframe buildings have survived over a hundred years of tropical storms, termites, and sometimes neglect.

Storefronts in Paia, Cafe des Amis nearest

We sat at one of the shabby chic tables, and the server brought us a bottle of filtered water and three rustic glasses. Oh, that tastes good! Besides crepes, there are curries and sandwiches, but I'm focused. We will have a bottle of that Cote du Rhone and I'll have that mozzarella tomato basil crepe.

You know the food is good when it's on the table and everybody stops talking.

We paid the bill and left the cafe. Judy decided she needed to go back and use the washroom, so Fran and I waited outside.

Judy ran up to us a few minutes later shaking like a leaf. It's pretty unusual to see her rattled about anything, so it must be a big deal.

"The paper towel roll was empty, so I reached up to get a new one. This huge spider jumped out of it and ran down my arm! He's in the toilet bowl!"

Fran had to go look. "Yep. He's still there, and that's a big one."

Now I had to go look. Wow. He's as big across as a tuna can and not delicate. He was inside the bowl, partially under the rim. I walked to the kitchen and told a server about him, thinking he should be removed before the next customer went into the washroom. The girl shrugged and said that they don't bite.

The cane spider, or brown huntsman spider, does not spin a web. It hunts insects on foot, mostly at night. So the slumbering creature was probably as startled as Judy was. In it's sleepy state, it rested in the toilet where it landed, and unless aroused again, it would probably stay put until nightfall.

But I don't think that's likely.

Massive Attack - Teardrop

Beach

I've been on Maui for a few days with two of my best friends. I think it's the fourth year we've taken this week together and it is so very relaxing. There's a four mile stretch of beach between Maalaea and Kihei on the South side of the island. It's county park, so there is no development on it, and most mornings you can have it all to yourself. The three of us set out to enjoy it after breakfast.

Maalaea Bay is shallow and wide. It's here that humpback whales are born in the winter months. The warm waters ease the newborns into the world. Some locals say that on still nights you can hear the calves take their first breaths. It is May now, and the whales have all returned home to the North Pacific where food is plentiful.

There is nothing so delightful as putting my bare feet into the gentle waves. Soft sand and cool water are excellent tonic.

I let my friends go ahead of me, preferring to lose myself in the sound of the wind and the waves. The shoreline changing as I walked along the edge of that refreshment, water ebbing and flowing around my feet, sand scurrying in and out. I stood for a moment, looking out toward Molokini, as my feet sank into the quickened sand mixing with ocean. Little silvery fish darted back and forth with the movement of the small surf.

I felt my mind begin shifting to that good place, that place so hard for me to get to. Where eternity feels unbroken, and I gear down into that slow passage of time. A sort of stillness.

I heard a familiar voice. "Small world," he said.

And there stood Michael just a few feet away from me. I knew him by his blue eyes and his soft manner. He looked older to me than he did last summer in Fairhaven, when we shared cupcakes and good conversation. There were lines in his face and gray in his hair I hadn't noticed then. It's the different light, I thought. It's so bright here and there is reflection from the sea water.

"What burden can I carry for you today?" he asked, with that familiar smile and easy affect.

I showed him my empty hands and smiled back at him. "How was Alaska? And how to you happen to be here on Maui?"

"I always enjoy Alaska.  All the way to Dutch Harbor and back down to Anchorage. I got here by hitching a ride on a cruise ship repositioning from Alaska. The executive officer and I had met in a tavern in Anchorage, and after a beer, he said he had a stateroom for me. So, why not?

 "How is it you are on Maui?" he asked me.

"I came with two friends. We do this once a year, and it's a good time. We've fallen into some routine, enough so that we are very comfortable with each other. I cook, Judy cleans, and Fran makes morning coffee. It's enough to do, some days, to sit on the lanai with good books at the ocean's edge. There's a monkey pod tree that rustles in the breeze. Tour boats filled with happy vacationers go in and out of the harbor."

"The sharing of beautiful things," said Michael, "Joy is enough purpose sometimes."

I nodded. "Joy is a big word. But maybe that's what it is. Never sleeping late because we want to see the sun come up over Haleakala the moment it lights up the sea bright blue. Talking about the events at home with calm detachment because home is so far away. "

"Not all joy comes with balloons and marching bands," said Michael.

"But I feel sad thinking about the flight home. The days here go by too fast." I bent down to look at a piece of sea urchin shell, purplish with a bright constellation of spines.

"What is the difficulty?" asked Michael.

"It's hard to explain," I said, "It's like I'm in two different places at the same time. Since I talked to you in Fairhaven, there's been a shift, and home seems an easier place to be. And that's just it, it seems to be. There is a heavy place in my chest that doesn't want to lift. It is not settled. It says, I'm missing something. I'm missing something very important."

"Explore it," said Michael, "Ask your heart what it wants."

"I'm afraid to do that. I have so much responsibility, so many obligations, pressures from family. For instance, what would my dad think if I threw any of those things off?"

"I know your father," said Michael. And I thought, did I mention him in Fairhaven? We talked about so many things, and I might have told him about the love of my dad and how I've never found it's equal.

"Think of this. You have children yourself. Are any of them perfect?"

I shook my head, no.

"What if one of them quit his job and ran off to join the circus? Would you love him any less? Would you try to force your will on him to change his direction?"

"Of course not. I might be alarmed, but I'd still love him as much as ever. And he's got to find his own way or he won't learn anything."

"That is the way the father loves you. He knows he gave you a compass, but it's your choice how you use it. Consider this: All human beings are connected through the Spirit. We love and take care of each other through relationships. Some people understand this connection and some do not. What one does not understand, one cannot access.

"You might consider that your highest purpose is to love. When you love, you are closest to the Spirit, and your direction is made clearer. If there is an obstruction, like heaviness in your heart, that connection suffers and you feel confusion.

"And I can't tell you what that heaviness is about. It's conflict, certainly, but you must trust that it is there for good reason. You must be free to let it speak without worrying about consequences, or you cannot hear it.

"Your father loves you. That is constant. You cannot earn that love, and you cannot be penalized by it. So, knowing that, first take care of your self, and when self is in order your other relationships will fall into place. To know how to love others you must understand how you are loved."

A gust of salt air, tradewinds from the Northwest, blew sand around my face, and I coughed.

"Must be getting close to the noontime," said Michael. "The still of the morning only lasts until about now."

And that is true. Maalaea Bay is at the bottom of the isthmus between Halaeakala and the West Maui Mountains. A natural funnel carries wind at gusts of 20 to 35 miles per hour as the day heats up until about sunset most days. It is time to wave to my friends for catch up and leave the beach.

"It was a nice surprise finding you here, Michael. I hope you enjoy the islands as much as I do."

"Oh, I will. This is one of my favorite places, too. I have many favorite places, so I always keep moving. It's heaven on earth, if you can see it that way."

And I saw him walk to the shower at the trail head where he rinsed his feet and put sandals on, looking toward the community garden and the residents working there.

Dead Terrorist, We Are Told

Photos of Osama bin Laden's dead body should have been released to the public immediately upon his death.

Some say the images are grotesque, too graphic, inflammatory. Well, tell me anything about this man's terrorist activities that wasn't. Put it out there in full color. This is the grim reality.

And you can't make the fanatics any more fanatical than they already are. I really believe that it is increased intelligence and security measures that have kept them from continuing to kill Americans, not any kind of appeasement or polite press.

The world needed to see this dead body, no matter how bloody or disfigured, without delay. The moment is now lost when Americans could believe that this President is sincere about transparency and moral character. The decision to withhold the photos reminds us that he knows what's best for us and thinks he can control that which is not controllable. Arrogance.

Call the corpse a trophy if you must, but it is best evidence, and there should be no shame in full reporting to the American people (and the people of the world) on the success of the raid. 

No one will win over the hearts and minds of extreme religious zealots. I read that only 10% of Muslims are extremists or sympathize with extremists. Considering that there are 1.57 billion Muslims in the world, that means only 1.57 million of them would like to see all non-Muslims dead. (Pew Forum statistic) I predict that in Abbottabad, at the scene of the raid, a shrine will be built.

1.57 million. Scattered all over the globe.

In London this afternoon, "Islam will dominate the world."

Wake up, Mr.Obama.

Here is a photo taken off the Drudge Report that shows bin Laden watching news coverage of himself in his untidy home. Here's another guess: The disorder and neglect might indicate that he was on that slow burn toward self-destruction that seems to happen to all good sociopaths. I doubt if he was of much value to his band of merry pranksters at this point in his life. Sitting in filth, strolling down memory lane, waiting for martyrdom, which is his best use.