“The bravest are the most tender; the loving are the daring.” - Bayard Taylor

A HOPE FOR A HOME

 

Your eyes sing a melody

and my heart strums along

your tender touch melts me

In your arms

I've found my home.

 

 

OCEAN-MOON

 

I am the undulating ocean

And you are the moon.

I will never reach you,

Yet I try.

 

 

PRISM

 

I feel you are a prism,

And before you,

My light breaks into color.

Pieces of me visible.

I thought I had "me" hidden,

But you see.

 

 

“All Joy reminds. It is never a possession, always a desire for something longer ago or further away or still 'about to be'.” - C.S. Lewis

***Some older poems***
 

 

TIME’S TIDE

 

Time has a rhythm,

Like the waves upon the shore,

Teasing the toes of memories

As they try to leave their mark.

Time.

It rubs everything down

Until the edges are gone.

Time.

Never stand still and lament

its song.

 

 

BLUE

 

Pale, tired blue.

Weariness untold in that nomadic gaze,

Searching for a future.

 

 

ECHOES

 

Wordless echoes rattle my frame

No sound escaping.

Grief rips asunder a heart full of loss.

A stiff upper lip denies an unspeakable loneliness.

My soul stretches to fill the void.

 

 

GRIEF

 

Grief is an ocean,

You cannot cross without getting thoroughly wet.

You must submit,

It tosses you and batters you.

The harder you fight, the more it

Destroys your stroke and pulls you under.

Float upon it.

You will reach a solid place again.

Hope

and

Wait.

 

 

 

ODE TO AN ICEBERG

 

So loney, an orphan in the sea,

Victim to time’s relentless caress.

 

 

 

 

 

  

“I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.” - Augusten Burroughs

When I was ten, I had the misfortune of growing too tall too fast, which meant I was a clomping, stomping, klutz-o-matic machine. My mom put me in tap dancing classes, which played to those strengths. I soon learned that different stomps made different sounds when wearing tap shoes. A simple flap-ball-change-brush-heel-toe-heel was the threshold into a world where my klutziness became a power – I reveled in all of the delicious sound I could make with my feet. It was something I really enjoyed and was a competitive tap dancer until I turned 15 and discovered track.

Dancing went on the backburner until I moved to Melbourne, Australia, and worked part-time for a dance studio to cover rent while going to graduate school. As I sat at the front counter, I heard music from seven different studios, and saw people go in and then come out of class with the hugest smiles on their faces. During those 2 years in Melbourne, I was able to learn a little French Modern Jive, or Ceroc.

Dancing again went on the backburner until I joined the Ke Kai O’Uhane Outrigger Canoeing Club and took hula lessons. Hula is pretty much showing your heart and soul through the movement of your body. There is no shyness or hiding - as a late bloomer, it was the best thing I could have done. Then one of my friends told me about dance classes in Pacific Grove where you could learn Tango, Foxtrot, Waltz, Cha-Cha, Rumba, etc., for only $10 a class. This led to the discovery of a larger dance community and the $5 dance nights at Chautauqua Hall in Pacific Grove every Saturday night.
 

I am the youngest person there by at least 30 years (as someone who has always felt more comfortable around people older than I am, this is pretty much perfect). The Big Band music echoes around the old hall and it is especially nice when they open the barn doors and the cool, sea breeze fills my lungs. Dancing with strangers isn’t without its quirks - there are those who serenade their partners perfectly word for word all of the Frank Sinatra songs during the Foxtrot dances, and there are a handful who bypass the conventional lead methods; they are the wrist-clutchers with the death-grip of Colossus who steer their partners around the dance floor against the flow of traffic. Leading should be a proposal, not a demand (much like steering a canoe – demanding always brings out the worst stubbornness in any vessel, human or not).

But just to be able to dance and learn something new with the familiar music I grew up with - that is what I like most. And sometimes I can feel the young klutzy me smiling inside, because my feet feel as light as my heart as I fly across the floor in a spinning waltz.

“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.” - Carl Sagan

Written Jan 1, 2016:

Today was the first time back on an OC1 since December 5 - the day I did the 4 mile surfski and 8 mile OC1 race in Oceanside. Those races tested everything in me, and I’ve been searching my heart for the lessons to be learned from the experience. In life, I've always pushed myself to go beyond what I thought I could do. In paddling, I wanted to push myself, too.

Paddling in conditions that I never faced before, I confronted fear that I never knew I had in me. When you are cold, alone, and not sure if you are even going in the right direction, it takes everything just to keep that fear reigned in. During the long course race, I realized that you can't stop from feeling fear. You can accept it and then it has no power to immobilize you. After that, you realize that all you can do is go forward...one stroke at a time. That race felt like my life. I knew the ocean was going to teach me something that I would carry with me beyond the 8 miles of the course: feeling fear is not weakness or defeat.

In those moments when nothing goes right, or you don't feel prepared for anything, or you don't think that you can possibly face what you must, that is when you find the deeper beauty of you - you dig deep into that well of strength. Everything goes on...you have to keep going on, too. Even if it isn't going in the way you want it to, life is scary and hard and good and wonderful. I guess it all comes down to how you face it all - the good and the bad - with an open heart.

So, today I paddled an OC1. A wave caught me, and I flipped into the cold water. I got back on the canoe and I kept paddling...because that is what I do.

“About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won't like you at all.” - Rita Mae Brown

Every time I hear the X&Y album by Coldplay, I remember traveling through England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Ten years ago, my sister and I spent all of our babysitting savings on roundtrip tickets to London, England. Yes, changing all of those diapers was suddenly worth it.

I remember sitting on a bus with my sister, sharing earbuds to a CD player with X&Y on repeat. The plaintive rhythms seemed to echo what I drank in with my eyes – the rugged intensity of verdant hills and cliffs, pierced by rocks, and shrouded by delicate, changeful fog. I felt I could not look hard enough, for scenes of such beauty would suddenly slip into another world of white, reminding me of Brigadoon.

Every time the bus stopped, my sister and I hopped out and explored the nearby hiking trails. The most amazing hiking trail we ever found was near Loch Lomond. The trail head was hidden behind an old fence post, and the forest was thick and solemn. We followed the trail up a steep hill until we saw that we were actually on the side of a mountain. Looking down, we could see pure blue lake waters sparkling boldly in the thin sunshine. An ancient, gnarled tree beside me looked like a protector of the forest.

When we traveled to Ireland, I remember hiking around a lake in Killarney. It started to rain, but the rain was soft and warm. My sister and I sang in harmony as we skipped rocks across the rain-dappled lake waters. I still remember the sound of the rain patting the leaves around us. What music!

In Wales, near Colwyn Bay, as soon as we stepped off the road, we found an old stone fort. A trail went through a sheep pasture, and the sheep baa’d as we walked by. Looking down, we could see the shoreline. It looked so small, and I felt like a giant above everything. The green was so green that it didn’t seem real. This is why green is my favorite color.

The gardens around Blarney Castle were magical, too, with “Wishing Steps” that you must walk down backwards while making a wish in order for it to come true. I almost wasted my wish wishing I wouldn’t fall while making my wish.

In Edinburgh, hidden down a narrow cobblestone street, we found an old cemetery. It was tucked behind a very small stone cathedral, pitted by time and patched with moss. The courtyard was sitting on the edge of a steep hill. Beautiful, heartbreaking epitaphs, worn by the elements, made me wonder about my place in this world.

I remember looking around and thinking - this is what has been seen by so many eyes over so many years. The land connects us to a time before and a time beyond ourselves. How is it that a place can touch a soul indelibly? Everyone has stories and dreams and longings and hurts, and all of them are thrown into relief when faced with an every-changing sky, an untamable land, a teasing wind. Before such beauty, it is so easy to unfurl the soul and yet become transfixed - everything you ever knew or felt or desired is suddenly thrown into that great canvas before you, and you can look at your thoughts as you stand in that wind, in that place, and just wonder at that beauty, and know that you are here, looking, as others have looked (and will look when you are gone).

In closing, there is nothing like a landscape that looks like a patchwork of green delight, and for this, I will always love Aberdeenshire and Inverness the most.

“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.” - Ray Bradbury

I had just graduated from UCLA, and I longed for a journey - for the undiscovered parts of myself that only new challenges could uncover. I packed one suitcase and found my way to Taichung, Taiwan, despite not knowing any Mandarin Chinese.

When I think about that year, it seems like half-forgotten music and I feel I should know the tune. I think that life is like that - all moments are like notes strung together; some images are so full that they almost seem like they are living. Looking back, I remember...

On my first day, I remember finding a way to the roof of my apartment building and looking down at the street below. It was early July, and the rain was soft and warm. Hundreds of umbrellas twirled and bobbed in a dance of color on the street below.

I also remember the sound of the garbage truck that would come by in the morning. In Taiwan, garbage trucks sound like ice cream trucks - music is played from speakers to let people know to bring out their trash. I still remember the sound of  "Für Elise" echoing in the early morning.

I remember riding on the back of a scooter for the first time, weaving in and out of thick traffic - buses, cars, other scooters, and darting pedestrians - and the beeping horns and blinking lights on signs I could not read.

I remember going to night market, with endless stalls filled with wares and steam from food vendor carts turning everything into a hazy dream - sizzling stinky tofu stacked on popsicle sticks and little bags of purple sweet potato fries, cut thick and sprinkled with spices.

I remember the first time my youngest student smiled. She was very small for her age and very shy. She showed me a drawing of a butterfly. It was the most beautiful butterfly drawing I have ever seen (or will ever see).

I remember the temple in Taipei. It was misting in the courtyard, and incense seemed to float on the mist. That mist eventually flowed in the seams between the cobblestones beneath my feet.

I remember hiking through the mountains and looking for lychee. I remember the feeling of the sun and the wind on my face as I looked out at the softly rounded, yet dramatic, landscape. I wished I had seven-league boots so I could travel beyond what my eyes could see, beyond that next mountain, and the one after that...

These memories do feel like a music I heard long ago, and I can't quite remember the tune.  

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I was a senior in high school, the show choir I sang in (Pizzazz) was scheduled to perform on a cruise ship departing from New Orleans, Louisiana, to Cozumel, Mexico. If the name "Pizzazz" conjures images of singing dancers wearing sequined outfits and twirling top hats and canes, then the person who made up the name for the group should get a gold star. I liked that group and I really liked singing with everyone. The only thing I didn't like were the sequined dresses with sequins in the armpit region (try doing jazz hands with sequins of itchy doom in your armpits...seriously).

So, we embarked on our adventure, taking a charter bus from Pacific, Missouri, to New Orleans. We explored the city for two hours (just long enough to dart down Bourbon Street and realize how naïve I was) and soaked up the slyly warm February sun. In front of one of the stores was this giant, black scaffolding. One of the chaperones warned us to not walk underneath - it was bad luck. Our merry little group laughed at such a notion and marched daringly under the skeletal structure, skipping lightly over the heavy shadows from above.

Our first night aboard, while we were sleeping in our beds, the ship ran into a sandbar. Instead of waking up to a panorama of pure blue, we could only see muddy banks and freight ships full of cargo. The captain announced that due to the delay, we would be unable to make it to Mexico, but we would instead head for Key West. He told us this news in small increments (maybe so people would be cranky in small increments?), so later that day, we found out we would only get two hours ashore. My younger sister and I spent most of our time on the deck, watching the wake curl out from behind the boat. The ocean was a deep grey; it was the coldest color I had ever seen.

When we arrived in Key West, we had enough time to play on the beach before heading back to the ship. Key West had a "sunset rule," which means that they didn't want any stinky cruise ships marring their beautiful sunsets...so, we were forced to head off into a storm.

Dun. Dun. Dun.

There we were, rehearsing one of our numbers ("Under the Sea"), when the ship began to tilt precariously. Stools toppled to the ground, pyramids of glasses shattered, people clung to the pole in the middle of the room. I looked over at my sister and wondered if I had enough time to sprint to our cabin to grab the life vests before the ship went belly-up, like The Poseidon Adventure.

The captain's voice came over the speaker once again. He told us not to worry; not to panic. The ship was merely turning away from the storm, and would likely scoot along all tipsy-like for another twenty minutes or so. The stewards duct taped the doors to the decks closed. Nothing makes you feel safer than being duct taped into a ship.

The best part of that trip was not performing "Under the Sea" later that night to a small crowd of people who flinched every time we sang the chorus (no doubt, memories of what had happened earlier that day still swimming in their minds). It was going to the dining area later that night and making up tragic soap opera scripts and acting them out using salt and pepper shakers ("You peppered my heart, Pepper, with nothing but pain!" Salt lamented). Moments of laughter...those are important...pretty much anytime, anywhere.

PS: Our bus got a flat tire on the way home.
PSS: Not that I believe in those things, but don't walk under scaffolding.
PSSS: I had fun on that trip, probably more fun than I would have had if everything had gone according to plan.

 

“One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.” - Carl Sagan

This time of year brings back so many memories:

Growing up on a farm in the middle of a town so small that it didn’t even have a stoplight, where the closest street to my house didn’t have a name; where evenings were spent down by the pond watching for bats and lightning bugs, listening to bull frogs bellow on the muddy banks and the gentle lowing o...f the cows nearby; afternoons spent making wreaths woven from the wildflowers in the field; the feeling of the soft, balmy breeze that scattered the dogwood buds at my feet – pink snow; the slippery moss on the felled trees in the forest nearby, where the creek was musical and I just wanted to walk in it forever, skipping from one flat stone to the next, discovering treasures like the first spring flower – a tiny, blue starburst, so shy and small and tucked right by some moss – and finding that rusty, metal mailbox by the tree that my sister and I used for years to send letters to each other; flying down the hill on an old sled that didn’t respond to steering, with Lassie, our collie dog chasing after us, joyfully barking; making snow forts in the pasture, pretending we were on Hoth (the curious cows became AT-AT walkers); going on a mission to find the brightest orange and red leaves in October; collecting maple syrup from the trees and drizzling that goodness into each little square on a homemade waffle; climbing the spindly persimmon tree and seeing how many I could carry back to the house in my shirt; frolicking in the freshly tilled garden and relishing the softest, warmest dirt on earth; drawing on old pieces of wood and transforming the hay loft in the barn into the NCC-1701-D with a long PVC pipe to fire/roll walnuts at intruders; making the Barbie doll swim in the cow trough (I’m sure she loved those close encounters of the cow kind); cuddling lambs and seeing new life and new beginnings every spring; leaning against Thumper, the sweetest steer, while I read old Nancy Drew mysteries and he chewed his cud; kissing Merry’s velvety pink nose and hearing her soft whinny; brushing Lassie for hours, singing to her and listening to her happy doggy talk; rolling down the hill by the barn in old metal grain barrels, crawling out and staring at the sky until the world stopped spinning; playing “raptor tag” with Christine after dinner (when you’re a kid, you actually believe that your sister has transformed into a raptor and is going to eat you); swinging on the swingset after dinner, watching the clouds pile high like lumpy mashed potatoes; feeling the wind change as the deep rumble of thunder in the distance filled my chest and made my heart beat fast – I just wanted to be caught up in that sound and that power; swinging as high as I could, with a sticky, melting popsicle in my hand, and jumping off, wishing I could keep soaring into the sky; that feeling of running barefooted through the pasture, hopping through the grass and praying I wouldn't land in anything...questionable; walking beneath a cathedral of heavy-laden trees in a glistening world of white; making perfect footprints in fresh snow all the way to the barn; feeling the wildness of a winter wind blowing ice crystals across the barren pasture - the sun transformed that movement into scattered diamonds; the comforting clatter of the heater turning on in the middle of the night; the teasing spring breeze that made me itch from the inside-out for something…some adventure…something beyond myself; searching for the first shoots of bright green spring grass  - the end of a long, wearisome winter.

"A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke." - Vincent Van Gogh

I'm caught in distortions.

A self-reflective blame.

Empty space with no words between.

Lost moments.

I pierce myself with accusations.

Truth burns.

I bleed within.

I linger in this realm,

Forgetting the sun

And what matters.

My passion lies dormant,

Afraid of its own strength.

Love changes lives,

Restores riggings

And redeems the lost course.

It is a choice to accept it,

Like the warmth of the sun,

You must leave the shadows to feel it.

 

 As the shoreline beckons,

Abandon this ship of solitude,

For you are not alone.

The chilling haze can be but a memory.

The light is within you.

Trust it.

Whispered promises

In a playful wind.

Memories teasing past-

A game of chase.

I sit and let

The wind soothe my mind.

Haunting, wistful

Notes of joy

Dance inside,

Each tune better than the last.

Enveloped in this changeful embrace,

I feel a push,

Letting me know

I’m not forgotten.

I’m of a substance stronger.

And up is only there,

So close.

The sky to touch,

To breathe.

It’s in me,

This wind.

It’s through me.

In this rush I fly.

I truly soar.

I’m free.

 

The song of myself

had no tune for a spell

The moments of color

Suspended…

Until,

I gathered my heart,

inspected the pieces,

Put them together,

and listened.



"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." e. e. cummings

 

I've seen "The Sound of Music" many times, and I know the songs in that musical well. When things at work are tough, I like to write parody songs to help myself feel better.

 

Humor - what would life be without it?

 

Thus, I give you "An Ode to Property Management" to be played on my ukulele:

 

 

Raindrops on windows

And floods through the ceiling

Bright stains on wallboards and paint that is peeling

Brown, clumpy TP that clogs up the pipes

These are a few of the regular gripes

 

Cream-colored tile with brown spackled mold marks

Doorbells and bad smells and snitches with ‘tudes bark

from hallways and corners, they hiss about noise

These are just some of the usual joys

 

Tide pods are staining and doors snag the undies

The dryer is “broken” on all days but Sundays

Silver-white soap flakes that litter the floor

You’d think it’d be easy to properly pour

 

When the day bites

When an ALL CAPS email stings

When I'm feeling sad

I simply remember my favorite things

And then I don't feel so bad

“You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” - Maya Angelou

I often see sea otters in the harbor. The baby otters are so fluffy!!!

“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” — Henry Ward Beecher

Here are some old watercolor illustrations and acrylic paintings.

I am very inspired by the work of Beatrix Potter.

 

 

 

The same thing happens to me when I eat jelly beans...

 

 

Here is Jemima Puddle Duck in the woods...

 

 

 

A little bunny

Sirius and the birthday balloons...

Someone ate all of his honey...

“The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” — Alan Alda

I love drawing silly pictures. Here are some sketches from a book I’m working on about outrigger canoeing…

Always carry a spare blade.

 

Do not cheat in a race.

Do not lean to the right.

Teamwork is important. 

Learn to ride the swell.

Play nice.

Watch out for kelp!