ROAD BLOG AHEAD

Stopping at another cafe. Had to go abrubtly the last time. So I’m in Hilo now, which is the largest city on the Big Island, but is not a “big city” by any of my standards. Stopped at the farmer’s market to buy produce for the next couple of days. Can you imagine - 6 large, ripe strawberry papayas for $1???!!! Several hands of bananas for the same and a bunch of fiddleheads for $2. So we’ll get home well nourished!

I’d mentioned the stars. Yeah. I remember now how, when I was a kid, the Milky Way was a visible phenomenon rather than a candy bar and the night sky had great depth. Then, slowly over the last 40 years, the pale blur that is the Milky Way faded, the stars grew fewer by several thousands and the sky itself became flat and dull. Of course, that’s just what it looked like as the lights of the cities got brighter and brighter, as the cities themselves grew and merged. Even in the outlying regions the ambient lights made much of what is out there invisible to anyone on the ground.

Last night I found myself standing on the rural tip of an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles from the big cities of North America.The moon had not yet risen so it was very dark. Looking up, I realized that the sky of my childhood is still there in all it’s splendor. It’s just as deep and vast and alive with light as it used to be. Looking at the Milky Way splashed across the darkness, noticing planets, picking out familiar constellations was like encountering old friends I hadn’t seen or thought about it ages. I stood there in the road with Lena’s arm around my waist and tears in my eyes and drank it in. It reminded me of how vast our universe is - and how teeming with possibilities and magic.

We slowly wandered back to the house. I can’t help but think that the view of the sky moved something in both of us on a deep level. We’ve had little time and not a great deal of interest in either sex or play in the last couple of months. It’s just been too busy, too much in other directions. But last night we went back to the strange house in that place that wasn’t ours and we played and fucked our brains out quite spontaneously. It seemed, to both of us, a kind of celebration.

Today we are together, free, driving down the open road with vistas of great beauty around every curve. The past is behind us, gone and the future not yet here. There is only the moment - THIS moment - and then it too is the past, moving on, moving forward. There are so many possibilities.

Stopped for coffee and breakfast in a cafe in Weimea that turns out to have wi fi. On our way to Puna. Gorgeous view from the road.

Last night was special. After we got back from taking Rimpoche to the airport, we stopped for supper at a little hole in the wall with spam sushi and other local oddities. Later, we went for a walk. Oh the stars!!! It’s been so long since I’ve been that far away from the light pollution of the mainland cities, that I’d forgotten what the stars really look like

So I’m killing a bit of time in a Kona Coast shopping center while waiting for Lena to call from the airport for a pick up. She’s putting Lama Wangdor on a plane for Honolulu in a few minutes. He’ll be met by our friends there who will keep him safely overnight and then, first thing in the morning, get him to the plane for Delhi.

It’s hard to believe that 4 months is over now. Or, rather, it’s hard to believe it’s been 4 months and not 4 years or 4 lifetimes. Nothing is the way it was when we began back in March. Our lives have changed so radically that it’s hard to recognize the people we were six months ago. And the changes continue. Tomorrow we head to Puna for a couple of days and then fly back to SF on Friday. We’ll be there for a week and then we leave for Mexico until October. That’s pretty wild, ya know?

So I’m writing this to post when I get a few minutes. I don’t have internet access where we’re at right now. Which is rather surprising since there seems to be just about everything else, but this is Hawaii and it’s quite a different culture and lifestyle from the mainland.

We’re in Kohala now, near Hawi, which is the northernmost tip of the island so it’s windy and much cooler than Kona-Kailua where we were until yesterday – a situation which suits me just fine as I am not a fan of hot, humid weather. This is another grand palace type of place, big enough that I haven’t even really explored most of the house. We’ve been given our own wing which consists of three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a large sitting room. It works just fine since we have our friend Winna with us on right now – she flew in on Friday and has been making herself invaluable as usual, running interference, ferreting out information, finding things and – most important – as a dawn riser, she has taken charge of making morning coffee! So she has a small room to herself (yeah, small. Right.) Lama Wangdor has a nice room and Lena and I are sharing the largest of the bedrooms with a king size bed. Once again, the bathroom is overwhelmingly wonderful and about the size of a Manhattan apartment. People with the money to build to suit themselves seem to prioritize bathroom facilities – a choice of which we all highly approve.

I’ll try to attach more pictures. One of the view from the lanai of this house.

It’s dramatically different country than Kona, grassland and rolling hills rather than tropics or lava flows. You can see the sea in two directions and, on a clear day, you can see the island of Maui, 30 miles away. Everyone we stay with seems to have views. Guess it goes with the territory of having enough space for multiple guests. The guy who owns this place is apparently the heir to the Campbell’s Soup empire. We’ve only seen him very briefly at the teachings this afternoon. He’s young, very sweet and unpreposessing with an equally young, sweet and friendly girlfriend. Nice people.

Mostly Bennett has set up the larger area of his house to be available for spiritual teachers to come and Buddhist groups to meet, complete with guest facilities. He comes to that portion that pleases him but is otherwise pretty invisible. Mostly we’ve hung out with his house manager who is great, a strong, down to earth woman with a readiness to laugh at everything. She shows up and keeps the chaos somewhat contained and points out where things are hidden around here. Lena and I both have a crush on her.

Kona was a pleasant respite from our busy-ness of late. It rained almost the entire time, but we did manage to fit in a trip to a good beach where Lena and I got to frolic in the surf and even Rimpoche managed to get close enough to get himself drenched by the waves – much to his surprise. The tide was coming in so the surf was pretty rough. It’s been quite a few years since I had the chance to swim in the ocean (despite living on the coast for the past 25 years brrrrrr, cold there in SF!) and I spent most of my time being rolled around and laughing hysterically as I tried to get out past the breakers. I ended up with so much sand in my swimsuit that it took three showers to finally get it all out of my hair and my crotch. The weather cooperated long enough for a picnic and short dip, but it rained heavily by evening. I do have a sunset picture of the beach in Kona that I managed to take while standing in the pouring rain. You wouldn’t think you could see a lovely sunset in the rain, but you could there. Amazing!

It’s now Sunday afternoon and we just finished the final teaching for this trip. Went really well. Really well. Right now we’re over at someone’s house doing a house blessing and he hapens to have wi fi so I’m taking advantage of it while Rimpoche throws blessed rice into corners and makes nice with the sadak (spirits of the land here.)

Tomorrow we take him to the airport for his flight back to Delhi. We’re kind of trying not to make a big deal out of it. It’s always really, really hard when he leaves, even though it means we can relax and get back to our normal dynamics. We become such a team, such a unit, that his absence leaves an enormous energy hole for quite awhile. We always get past it, but it’s an odd kind of grief and gap when it first happens.

After he’s safely off, we head down to Winna’s house for a couple of days. Turns out that it’s not Hilo as I’d thought, but Puna, which is on the South East part of the Island. Means that, by the time we leave, we’ll have driven pretty much all the way around the island. Puna is near the lava flows so Lena will get her wish to explore the volcano. I’ll get pictures if I can. I’ve become quite the camera bug on this trip. I’m really enjoying the process of documenting where I’ve been with photos, particularly because digital makes it so easy and I can edit and crop them really easily.

in Kailua which is a nice and laidback location. Grabbed some local food from a deli and it’s quite good. We found an outdoor area with wireless internet so we’re sitting here eating and I’m online while Lena is reading a book. We left Lama at home for a bit since waiting while I check my e-mail isn’t one of his favorite things to do. Besides, we all needed a little space from being a constant trio.

The air is heavy and humid here, moreso than in Honolulu, though it’s a touch cooler, especially in the mountains where we’re staying. We arrived yesterday afternoon and drove immediately to the house we’ve been loaned on a remote road above the small town of Captain Cook. It’s been raining off and on since we arrived, a state of affairs that isn’t condusive to much sightseeing and is, apparently somewhat unusual for this place in this season. Yes, rain is common, but not all day. Early this morning it rained so hard that it woke me from a sound sleep. I lay there, listening to it coming down with such vehemence and all I could think of was that the sky itself must hurt from releasing such a ferocious downpour!

I may not get my wish to go swimming at dawn with the dolphins. This much rain and wind will make the surf in even the calmer bays somewhat too rough for that. I’m a fairly good swimmer, but it’s been a long time since I’ve swam in the ocean rather than fresh water. Lena wants to pay a visit to the currently active volcano and we’re figuring out how and when to fit that in. Probably at the end of the trip since the caldera is on the east side of the island and we’ll be staying in Hilo for the last bit which is also on the east side.

The land on which we’re staying is overflowing with bounty. So far we’ve discovered lemons, limes, pineapple, papaya, enormous avocadoes, lychee (a favorite of ours) and several acres of coffee. The guy who met us at the airport is a corporate lawyer turned coffee farmer who was delighted to hear that we’re caffeine junkies and has promised to bring us samples of his best. Which is supposely very good indeed, having won several international competitions. It’s wild to drive down the road and find that the curve is slick with - squashed mangoes which have fallen from trees overhanging the highway. To see roadkill and realize that, no those aren’t possums or skunks - that’s a mongoose! The island is full of mongooses which have naturalized here, much to the detriment of the local avian population. If it can’t get rats or snakes, a mongoose will happily snack on sparrows, or any other small feathered critter.

What can I say - there are zillions of absolutely beautiful women around here. Big ones, little ones, old ones, young ones, with skin like dark amber honey and long, thick hair. There’s a certain carriage to many of the Hawaiian women that I find really attractive - a sense of being very present in their bodies, a solidity and balance that turns my head.

The fun of going from place to place is that there are such distinct differences, distinct characters to each new region. And smells. Right now the Kona coast where we’re staying smells of rain. You know that odd, almost stale smell that comes when it rains? I’ve never been sure if it comes from the air/water itself, absorbed as it passes through the atmosphere or if it is released and rises up from the ground as the moisture falls. I’ve never smelled it quite so clearly in any other place. I always thought that rain should smell like green, growing things, like grass and flowers and maybe a little like lemon verbena or vanilla. But it doesn’t.It’s a geological smell, an odor of minerals and dust and the chemical changes of water passing from vapor to liquid. As I type this, it’s really strong around me and I’m anticipating more rainfall at any second. The light is changing too and the wind is riffling through the trees with a certain determination.

My location isn’t going to be secure from a downpour, so I’m going to sign off now and pack up the old ‘puter. More when I am able

Tomorrow we leave Oahu for the Big Island of Hawaii. First Kona for a few days then to Kohala at the NW tip of the island to teach over the weekend and then Lama leaves for Delhi and Lena and I take off for a few days at a friend’s house in Hilo before returning to the Bay Area for a week.

We really like Honolulu. It’s a vital, young, energetic city with a good attitude, laid back people and gorgeous scenery. As far as big cities, it’s one of the nicest I’ve been in, a good walking city. I haven’t been able to enjoy that aspect as much as I’d like since my left knee is really screwed up and I’m only good for a couple of blocks at a time right now. Hoping that a few months of swimming and hot springs in Mexico along with regular acupuncture treatments will fix it before we really go on the road!

Anyway, Honolulu has been great! It’s been quite amazing to stay in an ultra-modern highrise apartment full of glass and mirrors and all-white carpets and furniture. The bedroom has glass walls. Really. Fortunately, it also has draperies all around so it doesn’t have to be a fishbowl 24/7. Most of the walls are covered with floor to ceiling mirrors. I hate that - I don’t want to be looking at my ass receding every time I walk out of the bathroom! The back wall is sliding glass leading to a balcony that looks out on the views I posted earlier. Our hosts keep polishing it so that it’s crystal clear and then Lama, who isn’t used to such things, keeps walking into it. We find nose and forehead prints every morning LOL!

Hopefully, the next few days (Tues. - Thurs) will be mellow and private. A friend of a friend who runs a B&B on Kona is giving us the house for the week and we don’t have to do much. We’re renting a car and we’ll pretty much have the week to do some R&R. Our friends told us about a good beach about 15 minutes from where we’ll be staying where, if you go in the water early in the morning, pods of dolphins come and join you. I really want to do that! We went swimming yesterday, but not with dolphins LOL. It will be nice to have more than one day in a row that’s down time. I have a lot of paperwork to do - all the records about the Tibetan refugees and the people who have agreed to help them, all the non-profit type of stuff, accounting for donations, etc. It all has to be in perfect order by the time Rimpoche leaves on the 27th so that he can carry hard copy with him back home. I can’t complain though - it’s the reason that I’m here in Hawaii - because we need to complete those records and he’s leaving from here, so I have to accompany him.

It’s balmy, there’s an almost-full moon and I’m hanging out in a paradise with the love of my life and my guru, laughing, being well taken-care-of and, generally, having a lovely time

My body thinks it’s 2 a.m.and I’m slightly punchy so will go to bed in a couple of minutes. Sitting here in Honolulu in a condo that looks like the set of a porn flick - all glass and mirrors - on the 31st floor of a downtown highrise. The view is of the ocean and of Diamond Head. Mellow flight but Lama’s plane was late (we had to travel on separate planes) and so we got back here several hours later than expected and are pretty trashed.

The view is spectacular, but it’s been so many years since I was in a building this tall that I’d forgotten that I get vertigo. Flying doesn’t bother me - it’s buildings above about 10 stories that get me. My intellect and my instincts war and make me really nervous. I had to step back from the balcony. Maybe I’ll get used to it over the next few days

I’m burned out today, just kinda tired of it all and wishing I could stop someplace and rest for a few days. It’s been so damned hectic for so long that I feel like I’ve been on rollerskates for the last four months, mostly just doing my best not to crash into anything as I careen wildly downhill on the curves. This next bit is an uphill stretch. You ever trying going UPhill on rollerskates?

We leave for Hawaii this afternoon. I should probably be excited, but I mostly feel resigned. Due to the time difference, by the time we arrive at our destination, it’ll be about 1 a.m. our time. We teach for the next three days, have one day off and then fly to Kona. There for three days which may well be restful, but may not be and then to the next destination where it will be very intense and high speed. From there to Hilo for a couple of days and then fly home to spend a week sorting, packing and putting our lives in order for the next months before going off to Mexico. That is where I actually expect to have some bona fide down time.

I think it’s the changing locations every few days that is starting to get to me. Just as we begin to adjust to a spot, a bed, locate things in the neighborhood, etc., it’s time to move on. And because we’re the thing that’s happening, everyone wants attention, wants to be entertained, validated, blessed, empowered, etc. Every now and then someone actually wants to learn something, but that’s the exception. Most of the people we interact with are so excited, so wound up or so nervous that they tend to babble or stare or want to distract themselves by dragging us around to endless tourist sites. They mean well, but overall, it gets to be a bit of a circus.

I guess I’m feeling cynical today and I really shouldn’t be. Intellectually I know that people are being really nice to us and offering up their best on a lot of levels. Emotionally however, I’m just pretty exhausted and I can tell that Lama and Lena are feeling the same way. We’re tending to either grunt at each other or to speak among ourselves in Tibetan without translating it for the people we’re sitting with - which isn’t courteous. Occasionally I remember to at least come up for air and give a synopsis or explain that we are discussing baggage weight or airline food or something of little interest to others.

Im not much of a translator. Occasionally I can explain something in great detail and then I’ll hit an entire area that I have no words for and just sort of wave my hands. People see that I have some Tibetan and assume I can translate anything they want to say. Not. Particularly since there are some ideas and concepts that just don’t cross the cultural borders. Often people tell jokes that are so totally based on cultural “givens” that they are absolutely incomprehensible outside the culture of middle America. Of course, Lama does that too sometimes. So it’s not just translating words, but concepts and there are plenty of occasions when it’s simply not possible without spending hours creating a base for mutual understanding!

Well, it’s time for me to pack up the old laptop and head out. Supposedly the place we’re going first in Honolulu has wireless internet. So I may be back soon. Or not. We’ll see..

Except where the hell is home? Right now I have stuff in so many different places that it’s hard to tell. There’s family stuff, heirlooms and mementos, at my daughter’s place in Oregon. There’s a bunch of misc. junk in Ellen’s basement that was already there when our lives blew up. There’s a garage of boxes to be looked through at our friend Allison’s place in Alameda - all the stuff people quickly packed up for us, most of which we won’t want to keep, but just enough of it is important that we can’t just send the boxes off to Goodwill without checking them first. Our cats are in Montara with Lena’s cousin. Our business paperwork is stashed at another friend’s business location where it’s safest. Our other wife is in Oakland. Lena, Rimpoche and I, along with our luggage and a few boxes of valuables, are back in Bolinas for a few days.

The last several weeks have been an excellent trial run of what it will be like to live on the road. Every few days it was time to pack up and move to the next location. By the end of three weeks, I was much more clear about what stuff I really need and use that’s worth carrying in my luggage and what just isn’t worth schlepping around with me. Some of it was surprising.

A light, brocaded jacket I had thought was indulgent to pack turned out to be an oft-worn item - the right weight for late spring evenings and just colorful and ecclectic enough to dress up a plain outfit. I’m still working out the shoe equation - I so prefer boots, but they are bulky to pack and not really interchangeable with my heavy walking shoes.I had it down to a pair of dress boots and the walking shoes, but discovered I absolutely need a pair of sandal type slip on shoes to serve as slippers and easy-on/off shoes. That makes three pair and, in size 12W takes up a good bit of room in the luggage. Do I really need a hairdryer? Even a tiny fold up one? Cream rinse? 3 lipsticks? (hey I used to have 30!)

My lastest indulgence has been new luggage. I understand why it is called LUGgage!!! I guess I’m weaker now than when I was in my 30s and doing a lot of traveling because I sure am grateful for the invention of wheeled luggage. I used to be able to live for a couple of weeks out of one garment bag and a little tote. I went all over with carry ons. Now it seems that I’m hard pressed to function within the baggage weight limits of most airlines! My old wheeled duffle bag was starting to rip around the zipper, which meant that it’s going to give out sooner rather than later and probably in the middle of running through the airport! My large wheelie suitcase has a zipper which routinely jams. So, if I’m living out of suitcases, that won’t do. And my office IS a suitcase now and the bag that had been adequate for occasional work just wasn’t cutting it in constant use - too bulky, too awkward.

So I went online, researched a bit and ordered myself some stuff from e-bags. I’ve bought from them before and have always been satisfied.Their selection is huge and the prices are great. I’d been lusting after a red Victorinex wheeled duffle for awhile now. These are the “Swiss Army Knife” people and the bags are gorgeously designed and made. Pricey, but there’s a lifetime warrantee. And they were having a sale and the one I’d had my eye one was less than half price with my discount so I grabbed it. I got another more generic (and much much cheaper) duffel with wheels too and a bag designed by the e-bags folks specifically created as a mobile office.

They were waiting when I got into Berkeley on Thursday. Today I got to play with them. I started packing the swiss army bag for the Hawaii trip. Damn that thing is nice! I could wish for a few more compartments of course, but it’s well-designed (has snap out mesh shoe bags for instance)ergonomic and practically rolls itself along. I started filling it and damned if it doesn’t hold a lot more than it looks like it will! So far, everything I want for that trip fits in easily leaving room for the jeans, t-shirts and underwear that are currently going through the wash. I’ll have to be careful that I don’t overfill it weight-wise.

So yeah, as life changes, one gets excited about really different things. Sexy is well-designed luggage LOL!

Much to say about my travels, plans, the latest manifestations of the psycho (ex)landlord, etc., but I’m pretty tired tonight after a full day’s work that began at eight and has run ’til nearly midnight. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get to wax poetic about something other than a new suitcase.

Tue Jun 07, 2005 2:12 pm

Not a whole lot to report at the moment. We’ve been traveling and teaching, traveling and teaching and not much else. Spent the weekend in Mt. Shasta, which is a beautiful spot. Pretty much was working the entire time in one way or another. From like 9 a.m. until bedtime. You don’t really get to let down and just hang since you’re always the “important” guests in people’s houses, which essentially means that you’re the entertainment. Yesterday we drove from Mt. Shasta to Garberville - a “4 hour drive” that took most of the day due to rain and incredibly twisty, serpentine mountain roads. Have spent most of the day thus far trying to catch up with paperwork, phone calls, e-mail, etc. and am taking a bit of a break right now. Tonight is a meditation teaching at the local Buddhist center. Tomorrow morning we will head back to the Bay Area for a little while before going to Hawaii next week. We’re all of us pretty much exhausted.

This particular gig was actually set up by my old friend V, who happens to live up this way and impulsively volunteered to pull something together. It turned out that a lot of local people were interested so we came. It’s sort of a worlds colliding situation and V and I are giggling a lot over what people would think if they knew HOW we know each other.

Wow. I just started dozing off over my keyboard - I guess I’m more tired than I realized. You know it’s pretty bad when, instead of fantasizing about sex, you find yourself fantasizing about sleep! I haven’t actually *owned* a bad of my own to sleep in since about mid-April now. Surprisingly, I’m getting good nights’ sleep and learning to make myself comfortable wherever I land. But there’s that longing to have the luxury of laying down in a nice spot and taking a nap if I feel like one. I swear I’m starting to judge people’s homes, not by decor or housekeeping, but by how sleep-worthy their sofa appears to be!