How I Spent My Mother Vacation and.....Waffles.

I've done a lot of things since I dropped my mom off at my brother's house in Maryland. Mostly, I feared that these two months would be filled with procrastination for the real life tasks I'd planned, and that I'd spend way too much time curled into a fetal position with the occasional foray into the kitchen to make popcorn which I would then return to bed to eat. I feared I might walk in circles around and around my house, wailing and tearing my clothes, or burrowing into Dan's ashes, begging for an answer to the unanswerable why. Okay, I did some of that.

But I also road-tripped to a niece's wedding with my daughter C. I flew to Hawaii for two 50th birthday parties on two different islands, and visited one of Dan's friends on a third island. I went to a T'ai Chi Chih retreat in New Mexico, and spent a week getting accredited as a T'ai Chi Chi teacher in Santa Barbara. I drove north 5 hours to my godson's wedding and drank a barrel of wine with two of my oldest friends. I've had lunch with friends, drinks with friends, dinner with friends, long talks with friends, gone to various plays with daughter M, proving, I guess, that an introvert can socialize when  it's a matter of life and death.

The domestic-doer me threw it into high gear. Kitchen and patio deep-cleaned. Bedroom decluttered--which involved shredding seven or eight bags of paper. (Didn't I just do that before I moved two and a half years ago? Why, yes I did. And yes ,I still have the six document boxes of divorce documents in my garage, thank you.) I got a new book shelf so all my T'ai Chi Chih books and Dan's T'ai Chi Ch'uan books can get cozy together in an organized sort of way. I cleaned out my closet. Again. Honest to god, I'm at one of those mid-life (Ha--why do we say that?-- Last quarter of life) junctures where I loathe all of my clothes.

I shopped. This is big. I bought two nice dresses and a pair of shoes that are not flip-flops. I bought a red toaster/toaster-oven combo that I hope my mom will love because the previous toaster was a pain in the ass and I'm not sure why she or any of my house guests put up with it. I bought this: supposedly handmade by a local artist. I hope it is.

And in my never-ending quest to make my house brighter and more colorful, I've ordered fabric to have my dining room chairs recovered.

Because, well....this is what my living room looks like after I went berserk in there a couple months back--except now the tray is bright turquoise. Stay out of my way; I still have some of that paint left. Didn't Monet paint everything redder and redder as he aged and began to lose his sight? I want everything to be orange.

Oh, and I wrote stuff. And stuff got published. And well, I wanted to write about waffles and about what the yoga teacher said this morning, but I have to go now. Tomorrow. Waffles. I promise. 

Namasté.

This is the Light that Shines

Tonight's Sunset

When you arrive at LAX and ride the steep escalator down to baggage claim, it's the feet of the person awaiting you that you see first. As you descend past the overhang from the upper floor, the rest of the body gradually comes into view. You see a pair of jeans, a torso in a jacket so familiar you know the feel of it even before the hug. Finally you see that face you can't wait to kiss.

Dan picked me up at LAX dozens of times during the five years we knew each other. Grad school. Fellowships at writer's residencies, visits to see my mom, or friends, or M who was away at college. Almost every month, I went somewhere. Only once was he running late and picked me up at the curb. Every other return, I rode down, watching for the first glimpse of his black and white Nike's.

I flew back to L.A., landing about 7:00 this morning, and let that vision materialize even though he wasn't there. I'd been away all but a couple of days this month, having a wonderful time with three different sets of friends on three different Hawaiian Islands. It was a perfect trip. But there was a surreal comfort in coming home to that image of Dan waiting at the bottom of the escalator. He was here in my house, too. On the beach. In my car. More and more as the weeks and months pass, he's everywhere, and I'm beginning to finagle a sort of peace with that--well, at least some of the time.

I've packed and re-packed for two other trips this September, and that's left no time for house cleaning so today I scrubbed, thoroughly wiped down the kitchen surfaces, opened a laundry basket full of mail, dealt with some of the general clutter all while listening to music. I stopped listening to music when my mom moved in with me two years ago. It seems rude since she can't really hear it, and I worry that if I have the volume too loud I won't be able to hear her if she needs me. This month while she continues to stay with my brother and his girlfriend, I plan to work my way through the almost 7000 songs on Dan's iPod.

It was still summer when I left, but the light shines in at a different angle now. The patio gets very little sun, and the house seems almost chilly. I plan to make this a fall and winter in which I stop complaining about the dark and seek out the light.

Here's one of the songs from the As in the iPod. Dan liked it a lot. Go ahead. Close your eyes. Dance.

HI from Kauai and Fun Facts

view from the back door of the birthday house

A flock of chickens lives under the house.

This morning it rained and the ocean looked just like a Winslow Homer painting.

It's hot. Hotter than Maui. Hotter than the Big Island, but the breeze here provides relief.

It's incredibly fun to whisper in the dark with a friend before giving in to sleep.

Eating with a full contingent of smart friends is beyond pleasant.

Word games amuse me greatly--even when I'm stumped.

There's nothing like a compelling personal story told around the table in the fading evening light.

There are no singing frogs here like there were in Hilo, but the ocean waves make their own song.

The back porch is shady and just large enough for T'ai Chi Chih and one-person yoga.

This is the closest I've ever been to the ocean while in a house.

There's great Indian food here.

I really love papayas.

I still get excited whenever I see a rainbow.

And I promise to avoid being arrested.

In the quiet of the deep

It was dark when we awoke. Barely light when we headed to the car. By the time we got onto the boat morning was fully settled in, and off we went around the island of Lanai for a day of snorkeling. The boat was more raft than boat. (See above) And thus is the smallest boat I've ever been in out on the ocean. The ride was bronco-like at times, but I settled in. For those of you that know me and the level of anxiety that I cart around with me from time to time, let me just say I'm as surprised as you are, but I was so sleepy at the end of the day's adventures that I actually nodded off for a bit during the wild ride.

We've snorkeled every day here in this paradise called Maui--some of it just down at "our" beach. But today's adventure was a whole different jar of caviar. Ship wrecks, underwater grottos and arches. A sea cave. And the fish! I was in an aquarium. I was a fish. I was the water. I was a speck of the Real.

I am still marveling about how this trip came to be. To be the guest of friends on three different islands when I needed  a getaway in the worst possible way. I keep asking how did that happen, and then I stop the asking and just receive with gratitude. I have been wined (and pina colada-ed) and dined. So much has been given.

When Dan and I first started dating, I told him I wanted to get away, that I wanted to leave L.A., leave the geography of my divorce and never eat in a restaurant where I'd dined with my husband or drive down a street or a freeway that I driven down when I was married. Hawaii seemed insulated from all that, and I seriously considered it. He loved Maui, he said. Told me of a trip there--the beach, the air, and when he walked into a  certain bar, it felt like he'd come home. Dan loved L.A., so this was kind of a big thing. In the days preceding this trip, I tried to find out where exactly he'd been. I wanted to walk where he walked. To soak in the beauty and him. I never found out anything. Apparently  it wasn't a t'ai chi trip, and I thought it had been. So I had to give up. I had to give over to the idea that I still could walk where he walked in the big picture. I could see the beauty, breathe the air, love what he loved. It's been awesome. It's been fun. Today I depart for Hilo.

Barbie at a beachside bar

My final Maui sunset