BEHIND THE SCENES

Dylan and Joe--Just Two Wild and Kolohe Guys!
(Photo courtesy of Kathleen W.)

Three days ago, I had the pleasure of having family visitors from Kauai.  Needless to say, their sweet aloha and warm personalities were a wonderful contrast to the seemingly bipolar weather that has recently beset the Emerald City.  I think the sun is starting to win the Who's Going to Dominate the Sky Today? competition, however, and I'm convinced that my loved ones tipped the scales by bringing some of the Hawaii weather up here...at least for a little bit.

Featured above with yours truly is the charismatic, vibrant, and adventuresome Dylan Imaikalani Watanabe, my five-year-old grand-nephew.  For your information, Dylan is highlighted in several of my humorous posts   on the close cousin blog to Hawaiian Odysseus, aptly named Hawaiian Odysseus 2.

Just in case, let me provide you with a link to HO2:

http://hawaiianodysseus2.blogspot.com/

In fact, if you get a chance to view HO2 sometime soon, you will see a recent post on there (which I'm working on in my head just yet) that uses the same image as that above.

Okay, now that we've taken care of that detail, we can proceed.

Dylan is a very special child and is a permanent guest in my heart.  When I first met him a couple of years ago, he instantly won my affection.  The best way I can describe the close bond I feel with him is that he reminds me of the little boy that was me, fifty-plus years ago.  On some level that I don't quite yet understand, when I think of or interact with him, I am attending to that little boy growing up on Kauai in the 1950's when Hawaii was still a territory. 

And so we come to the gist of these two blogs that I pen--Hawaiian Odysseus and Hawaiian Odysseus 2.  The first is a more serious look at life and Everyman's journey to find himself.  For me, personally, it is a challenging trek, and I embrace each fork or curious bend in the road, each passage of imposing body of water, and each Cyclops, siren, Scylla and Charybdis, Calypso the nymph, Circe, and angry Poseidon passionately and voraciously.  Why?  Because to experience the process of working through and maybe even overcoming these obstacles and adversaries means that I am getting closer to going home...to my queen, to my castle, and--most importantly--to my true sense of self.

It may be Everyman's journey, to be sure, but this blog seeks to chronicle my unique homeward trek to metaphorical Ithaca. 

The Greek playwrights and their successors knew and  understood the value of balancing life's scales.  If there is tragedy, then there must also be comic relief.  Real survival relies on this yin-yang balance.

This is where Hawaiian Odysseus 2 comes in.  It is light humor--sometimes obvious, sometimes cryptic, sometimes sophisticated, sometimes elementary school playground.  But foremost and always, it is a wonderful complement to Hawaiian Odysseus.

And it is my earnest prayer that my faithful followers and casual readers will review both blogs.  Undoubtedly, you will prefer one over the other, but just as the need exists for this writer to invest in both in order to maintain mental, emotional, and spiritual stability, you--the reader--will welcome a similar respite at times.

So, back to Dylan...he will pop up as the featured attraction now and then in the HO2 posts.  And when he does, I hope you smile and/or laugh your heart off.  

Thank you for your gracious attentiveness.

Aloha and mahalo!  See you around the next bend...