I have White Snake’s lovely 80s hit running through my head as I click, Open > New Document: “Here I go again on my own, goin’ down the only road I’ve ever known.”

I’m home. I back, on my couch in Oakland, with my space heater, sweater, sweatshirt, two throw blankets and a mug of hot tea. Back to my keyboard, back to you, to my friends.

It only took the full 10 days I was there, but I finally achieved serenity while in Hawaii. Yesterday. (Which, with my red-eye flight and layover, seems both farther and closer than one whole day ago.)

I was riding the ferry from the island of Lanai back to Maui after a day spent with my host, a housemate, and a couple, my host’s friends and natives of Lanai, exploring the island (the secluded ShipWreck beach, their home where a horned chameleon slowly trailed his way along their wooden fence, the spectacular view and lunch at the chi chi golf course). On the ferry back, it wasn’t the deep blue blue of the ocean, or the humpback whale tails we spotted as two dove for deeper water, or the sunshine that rendered the wind mild as a breeze – it was the simplicity, for me, of breathing without holding my breath. Without holding my belly. Breathing in fully the sea air, riding the grade and fall of the ship with loose knees and loose hands, closing my eyes, and finally, finally, not being anywhere else except for where I was; not wishing anything at all were different around or within me.

On the undulating deck of a tourist ferry, I found stillness.

The only thing that has made my reentry to this side of the Pacific palatable is that tomorrow morning, I head on my annual women’s retreat. With all the sturm und drang of, Retreat: yes or no; Hawaii: yes or no, I now feel it couldn’t have worked out more perfectly. The 10 days as prep for the retreat. Luckily, I don’t and didn’t feel a massive “I don’t want to go back” as I (yes, reluctantly) packed yesterday, because I knew and know that it means that I get to go on my retreat, and touch down even further. To be in a very different climate doing essentially the same thing – trying to get quiet, and find stillness.

And maybe even find guidance, but I suppose that’s just more of my expectations, and my relentless desire to feel different or better or know more or do more. I may get nothing; no guidance. I may simply get the opportunity to sit with a group of women in the hills of Napa and try to get some quiet between my ears and full breaths in my lungs, simply sit with them during our various modes of inner seeking and get repetition of things I’ve already heard.

Because, I did not, as was perhaps wanted/expected, get some stroke of brilliance for how to change my life, to turn around my “false start at life,” my “failure to launch” while I sat on a beach in a tropical locale. So, why should I get or expect one when sitting in a redwood circle around a bonfire? (Although, perhaps the brilliance is simply experiencing those moments themselves.)

I was talking with my host last night before she dropped me for my midnight flight near the north shore of Maui. We sat in a diner eating a combination of rueful snack objects not found on the mainland. And I told her how I’m trying to extricate my belief system from a Higher Power that I interpret as “You do good, you get good; you do bad, you get bad.” That I want to begin to associate a higher power more with the simple serenity I get when I touch into meditation, or like that moment on the ferry boat. Just calm. Just stillness.

But, I told her, this “it just is”ness isn’t necessarily comforting; that isn’t its point, as far as I can tell or “figure out” from my Buddhist-esque readings. The point, as I interpret it, is more to just be with what is; that’s the whole essence; that’s the end result. There isn’t a warm shawl of comfort to throw around your shoulders, telling you it’ll be alright.

As Pema put it, rather tongue-in-cheekily, we’d be better off with the catch phrase “Abandon Hope,” rather than, “It’ll be alright,” as the latter attempts to put us somewhere else, the future, the idea that in the future, the moment will be better. “Abandon Hope,” she says, means to encourage us to stop thinking that something in the future will come along to change how we feel or change the moment into something different – that hope takes us out of the current moment. And so, instead, abandon it, and abandon yourself to what is.

Well, this isn’t very comforting, is it?

Or, is it?

I don’t know yet.

But, my companion at the diner asked me, since my “higher power” is always and only of my own conception anyway, why not make it a comforting one? … *brain crack* Uhh. … Then aren’t I back to where I was before? Believing something will come along to make me “feel better?” when really I just need to be simply feeling?

Ack, said my brain. And, in full acknowledgement, my brain is not really the organ to be attempting to parse out spiritual matters. It is always bound to get wound in knots.

So, although I may not have firm expectations that I will be enlightened, or even mini-lightened, on this weekend’s retreat, I do expect that I will share some about my bardo, my transition, this liminal space, and I do hope (ha! am I allowed to use that word?!) that I can get some feedback or insight from other women whom I trust and love.

Most people dread coming back from vacation, because it means work on Monday. For me, it means Round 4 chemo on Monday. And I suppose, that “just is” too.

“Here I go again,” but perhaps not on my own.

Let me say first, I have finally accomplished what I came here to do: I have achhiieevd sunburn.

Also, let me say, that i am using the couch surfer’s wwirrrreless keyboard, hooked up to my phone, so may any mi8stakes of spellling be forgiven.

That nall said, i have to ay that my brain has taken this full entire wek to even BEGIN to shut off. I went to the beach for the first time on sunday afternoon, for a very bief, before dark OH PLEAE LET ME GET TO THE BEACH MOMENT, and as i laid there in the final hours of sunlight, I had what shouldn’t surpirse any of us — thoughts. Thinking, a constant running chatter, that also now included Pema chodron telling me that it was okay that i was having thoughts and to not judge the thoughtmaker or the acknolwdger of the thoughmakings… it got very loud and vry confusing in my brain An this is supposed to be VACATION! i kept telling ti.

My brain does not know what a vacation is. What it knows is that there was a brief pause in”doing stuff”, and so let’s fill it with chatter. Mh, I’m not surprised, and c’et la vie, i take myself whrever I go, doln’t I?

But, finally, and for a few moments, there was stillness, or even, ha! laughter! or even, can it be? joy. A few moments when I would even call it joy

The first few days I was here, I was shuttled around by my host family, which was great, because I got to see things that I wouldn’t ordinarily on my own, like their neice’s 30th birthday party, but, i really felt the need to be out on my own – there is a lot of small talk involved whn you’re withother people, especially people you don’t knw – surprise – and, really, that doesn’t feel very relaxing to me, howevr wondeful they are, and, these folks are.

So on Friday I rented a car, and set out to Hana, on the complete opposite side of the island, the last “hawaiian” place on the iland, so it was billd. Oy. What a siaster. It was raining to hard, and the drive is like Route one, pacific coast highway, but worse, because of the thick jungle. plus, i was alone with myself, which as i’ve said, is a little like being alone with a crazy person. i’d anted to go on that ride, drive, in order to have silence, pace, to get out of my own way, and go somewhr beautiful, and it wasn’t like that at all. By the time I got to Hana, five hours of teacherous road later, it was grey, torential, windy, and cold. SSo much for hawaii, eh?

(i promise, I get to some gratitude!)

i rented a room in what was a little like a cros between a hostel and a motel, and set everything down, just as it was turning dark outside. i went downstairs to the kitchen to heat up some wter for tea, and met two nice couples, one from california, older, one from new york, younger. we ehchanged pleasantries,shared about the horrors of the drive, and hat we were likely to do when there. it was nice. it felt cocooned, and safe. safe in from th storm, safe, talking to other people, and sharing stories. warm for the night.

i went back up to my room, and took out some of the art supplies i’d brought with me on the trip, and drew and colored a postcard to send to a friend. i felt serene, finally. it was warm, uit, i was engaged in doing somthing i loed. really, it didn’t matter where i wouldn have been at that point. hawii, or oakland, or whreveet, would have been the same. i was finally uiet in my head.

there’s more to say about the reest of the trip, but that’ll do for now.

as to the title of this blog, i left an art gallry in paia this afternoon, after a full and relatively (RELATIVELY) brain free day. i’d wandered in, attracted by this large piece of abstract work, all copper and bronze and then streaks of neon that should render the whle thing a “no,” but instead, make it just right. All these lines, lik a foret, vertical stripes, thick, malleable, slops of acrylic. i sat on the bench in front of this piece, vaguely hearinga coupl talk to the gallery manager. they and i conversed a bit about th pieces, and then they left, and i was left to chat with the gallery owner (i later found out). an argentinian.

and i won’t bore you with the chrge of flirting that cut an undercurent below the chat about art marketing and distraction/creation. but, i will tell you that it was tjere. and it was good.

so when i left the shop as he took a call, and handed me his personal card, me, with th sunburned legs, and the wisps of baby hair peeking out from under my bandana, i was smiling one of those mona ilsa smiles, one of those contented, nobody can fuck with thi, becauseit just IS smiles, I askd myself, is it the art, or the argentinian? 😉

So, let’s see how long a blog I can write using my smart phone before it gets too tedious!

Things here in Hawaii are awesome, but, it is not sunny. Not yet at least! My host family is super sweet and helpful, and I’ve basically been tagging along with them for the past few days, or allowed myself to be scooped up and taken along with friends.

The first moment I arrived here — I’ve been having all these quasi-flashbacks to when I lived in South Korea, but from there it was so easy to plane-hop to a Pacific Rim/Southeast Asian country. One year I went with a newbie to Korea, and so a near-stranger to me, to Indonesia.

The guy I was dating at the time, his great aunt lived in Indonesia, outside Jakarta (this was not a cool Bali surf trip), and was, and Erich described her, the little old lady who lived in a zoo 😉 And she really was. She lived in the orangutan exhibit/village INSIDE the zoo! Se my new friend Neil & I were set up with the connection, and off we went.

She was something else- a slightly dotty, but immensely sweet, and obviously intelligent very old woman- she spoke German, her native language. Apparently, she & her German husband had moved to Indonesia fifty years prior to help rehabilitate the orangutans that had been abused or illegally sold and malnourished, etc., but nearly as soon as they arrived, her husband died. And so she stayed, and stays, living within the bounds of the zoo, in a small very quaint house, at which she served us tea and invited us to play with and meet her charges, which also included one mildly deluded parrot who’d plucked all his feathers…

…Anyway, why am I reminded of all that? Well, easily. This is just another south pacific country, basically. The humidity, the enormous leafy plants, the lax sense of time. My hostess said the only thing that keeps Hawaii from being just another third world country is the U.S. government: 1/3rd works for the government, 1/3rd for the army, and then the last third works to support the infrastructure all that creates.

But, back to the moment I arrived thing; I was so sharply reminded of the trip I took on my way home from Korea after two years of teaching. My brother was studying abroad in Sydney, and a co-teacher had just moved to Brisbane in Australia. So I took a detour. I flew down to Cairns on the northern coast of Australia to go see the coral reef, before heading to see those I knew elsewhere on the island. When I got the plane, I exited right into the outdoors – no enclosed walk through a large gate area, just right outside. Where I had left, it had been snowing; this was February after all.

And I walked outside, and I was swept up and into the dense warmth of the air, and greeted by large, waving green plants and the tops of palms in an endless, massive sky.

The moment was echoed when I arrived here, straight into the warm healing arms of Maui.

“Eponymous.” Elfin. Golf. Statue. Hindrance. Place-mark. Dorsal. Evident.

It came to me backwards. I had to catch it by its tail and write it down in reverse.


The Ultimate Have-Nots and the Willy Nillies. Caracticus Pots and the Merry Weathers. Formidable convictions and antipathy. The humours ran golden with bile, stacked on the rug like melted sand. An uproar in the warehouse led to roaring in the streets and tempered glass maligns. Invented for the sole purpose of having a middle finger. Two wasteful benches, settling. Over an understated little number, like two-point-seven. Miraculously, Spats Malloy and the Uptown Goslings. Hugo Bones, himself a wanton eruptor. Ordinarily and eventually fastidious, this currency of autumn patios. If there were to be a farce, the audio would play in tomes of three.

Make the force of it indent upon the soul, the stricture rent open by a tornado of invention. 

Playful wicks of dynamite, we offered a sacrifice of melted crayons and Q-tips doused in Pine-sol.

Mostly spotted but slightly pale, the hairs fell out in patches shaped like Denmark.

Ultimately blue and occasionally gaseous, we injected the slotted spoon into the roiling cement. How can you be so callous and jacquard? How can it become sequestered and imminent? There is no need for the hypocrisy of movement or the icicles of stagnation.

I haven’t the clue(!) or the hourglass! Don’t tell me to orchestrate the revolution, the turning has happened seven times before. How can it be so materialized: the mechanics of a starfleet optioned for two sequels and a hairshirt? For it isn’t often that the employer will birth an oval or subdue a square; it isn’t in its nature.

Quietly alarming and sensitive to a fault, the crack lay bare, a salted wound in the painted landscape of verboten. It follows, naturally, that it wouldn’t bend, for in so doing, it would necessitate learning the downward dog of joy, that feckless horsen youth.

Orchard games and a penny hat offered under the watchful roof of birth and the vaulted ceiling of disuse.

Be open!, it screams, through the pinhole of time. Be open, says the pansy and his syllabant “S.” Have mercy, intones the gizzard and its wrapping, avoiding the factory line toward integration and osmosis.   Its fist stands up, out of the plaid and plaintive oracle. Have mercy, to the ownership of the least visited oxen and the shearling plucked clean of their bark.

Haven’t you seen enough?, shouts the earthen sponge, itself a copy of a copy of a do-over. Itself the image of obstinacy and cool-hearted musings. Go forth unto the juicy rectangle of glorious disguise and effulgent harlequin patches. Argue with the intimacy of gated illusion, embolden the woolen sock of Time to its Vesuvian arguments. If it hasn’t the lateness or soggy artifice of neglect.

Go. Amber eyes of tabled journeys and sunken ordinances. Go. Turnstyles of hope and silken bodies. I haven’t the wormhole to stop you, nor the pageantry of resistance. Bastille yourself from the chains of undergrowth, the moss of stoplight madness.

I haven’t the gaul to malign you today, so step forth to the ultimate gaiety.