THE LIGHTHOUSE AT THE TOP OF THE CLIFF

Kilauea Lighthouse
(Photo courtesy of Ryan)

It's time.

Time to revel in my daughter's graduation from high school.

Time for me to celebrate my son's graduation with a dual master's degree.

Time, after 33 years, for me to have a reunion with my father.


Time, surprisingly, to acknowledge and affirm my personal growth.

Time to go home.

My Lighthouse has always faithfully illuminated the way home.  

My Moral Compass has always pointed True North.

And I, true to my fallible knuckleheaded ways, haven't always been obedient or compliant or willing to listen.  Consequently, on many an occasion, I have lost my way.  


Funny thing is, the Lighthouse mysteriously, supernaturally, and always...ALWAYS!...with great compassion, in a manner not unlike an internal Global Positioning System, suggests a correction of sorts.  And, fortunate for me, there have actually been times when I have heeded the correction.

At my age and graciously blessed with lessons learned from chronic disobedience and follow-up correction, I grow weary of traveling down bramble paths that lead to nowhere...of stumbling on dense rootage, especially the kind I don't readily see at first...or, if I do see it, lack the ability to recognize the camouflaged deception.


At long last, however, some of that proverbial wisdom in my teeth has finally reached my brain.


Simply put, my success in the autumn of my life has been directly proportional to the amount of times I've paid attention to the arena of light cast by the Lighthouse at the top of the cliff.


For example, one major decision that came about by being mindful of the clarion call of the Lighthouse was to engage in the writing of this blog.  As alluded to in a number of this writer's posts, there are three journeys for Hawaiian Odysseus:  the journey to home of origin; the journey to nuclear home; and the journey home to self.  Faithful readers of this blog will encounter familiar, nostalgic, and spiritually resonant chords as they peruse my posts.  The journeys of Hawaiian Odysseus, after all, are the journeys of Everyman.


June will be a month when the journeys align--i.e., when the events mentioned in the first five lines of this post occur--and it should be a veritable feeding ground for the crazy, silly, and daredevil cells in my brain that are assigned to blog-writing duty.


Stay tuned.  


For now, I bask in the nurturing and enduring radiance, an ever present gift from the Lighthouse at the top of the cliff.

POWER SURFING

Surfer at Beach in Hanalei

(Photo courtesy of Ryan)

Recently, this writer was pleased to get some positive, in-person feedback from a reader of Hawaiian Odysseus who had been moved to share with her husband the blog post entitled, "Could I Have Just One More Season With Her, Lord?"  

You can read this post by clicking here:  http://hawaiianodysseus.blogspot.com/2011/02/could-i-have-yet-another-season-lord.html

I wrote this piece from the perspective of a parent.  What's interesting is that this woman wanted to share this particular post with her husband because he is the adult child experiencing his mother's reluctance to let go.  By reading the parent's perspective, the young wife believed that her husband would be better able to understand his mother's motivation(s) and thus respond in a compassionate as well as boundary-oriented way.  This process of empathy truly takes us a lot further along in our personal journeys.

It was a delight to know that there had been this positive difference in others' lives as a result of reading our blog.  Sometimes, for whatever reason, it can be difficult for this writer to transcend the realm of introspection to the reality of transferring those lightning bolts onto the written page.  

Brainstorm?  Ha!  It's more like BLITZKRIEG!

So, to encapsulate today's message, I want to encourage each of you, as I have been encouraged, to get past the texts and the tweets and the abbreviated Facebook  messages and communicate via the old fashioned way...WRITE YOUR THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS DOWN USING COMPLETE SENTENCES.

Maybe, just maybe, you'll get lucky and find that magical moment when your creativity powerfully takes you over...and, whoa! hang on, my friends! because that's when this incredible and overwhelming mystic wave takes you for the ride of your life. 

Here's to you and the awesome power of your written words! 

                                             

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...

                                                      

 

MY PRIVATE RETREAT

Kahalani Beach on the island of Kauai
(Photo courtesy of Silas Kaumakahia Aqui)

I work the graveyard shift as a baker at a bagel production company in the Microsoft capital of the world--Redmond, Washington.  My co-worker is a 49-year-old black woman who loves--no, who lives!--to complain.  She has designated me (against my will, I might add) to be her go-to guy for all her rants. Wouldn't be so bad if she could just add a rave now and then...but like the incessant northwest drizzle, my co-worker (bless her heart!) is the proverbial contentious woman Solomon wrote about in Proverbs.


Hmm...I wonder if the wise king once moonlighted at a bagel production company himself?  They had bagels back then, didn't they?  Sure, they did.  Not to mention contentious women.  (Note to self:  Contemplate a future post comparing contentious women with bagels.)


Anyway, in spite of the full moon last night, I managed to get through the 10,000 bagels without burning a single one.


In fact, I went the whole week without toasting any bagels before their time.


That's a real plus for me.  Don't know if it's the ridiculous hours I work or if I have too many things going on in my brain all at once (truly, any rumors about me being bipolar were shattered years ago when I decided to fly off the disorder charts and land in my very own multiple-polar diagnosis).  But I digress...


I've been feeling fragmented lately.  And I know why.


Just returned three weeks ago from a splendid vacation on Kauai with my wife and two adult children.


Although it rained ten out of the twelve days we were in Hawaii, we had a great time visiting with my family of origin and taking in the breathtaking island sights.


It was a double whammy for me to say goodbye to my mother, siblings, and extended family members only to have to say goodbye to my wife and adult children two days after we arrived back in Washington.


The economy being what it is today, it's been necessary for me to work in Redmond while my wife and daughter live approximately 250 miles away in southeast Washington.  (My son attends graduate school in San Luis Obispo and is now officially--poor guy!--a California resident.)  My apologies to California residents--it's not your fault Arnold (Call me Terminator!) Schwarzenegger was a better actor than governor.  I'm just saying...


But I just love  the Eagles' "Hotel California."  I really dig that line:  "You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave."  What the...?


Where was I going with this?  I do have a point to make.  I think.


I wanted to RAVE about the fact that when I am feeling fragmented, that when I am in the midst of this tremendous angst about how much my life sucks and how very, very much I miss my two families, that when I find myself withdrawing my head into the 10,000 bagels a night because the pain of listening to my female co-worker's rants is just too much to bear...


I have a private place to retreat to.


Better than a vacation.


Better than a million bucks.  (Okay, it's well documented that multiple-polar personalities kid themselves.  A lot.  A whole lot!)


Better than getting into a hot tub.


Better than...okay, enough of that!


My private retreat is...


This blog.

MORNING MUSINGS

Coconut Plantation, Island of Kauai
(Photo courtesy of Ryan)

It is another schizophrenic morning in downtown Seattle.  


The nagging misty rain, like a stubborn shower spray, has temporarily stopped.  The wind has picked up, as evidenced by Old Glory and the emerald green Washington state flag fluttering in the breeze on the facade of a medium tall building kitty corner from the Starbucks at 4th and Seneca that I'm presently sitting in, sipping on a lukewarm venti drip.

I miss Kauai, and I miss my family of origin, so very, very much.

Facebook provides me with a respite from this agonizing homesickness.  My son has posted the dozens of beautiful photographs he took when our family went on vacation last month.  I rush to find an image that will grace my work-in-progress blog.


The coconut plantation has been there in Waipouli--halfway between Kapaa and Wailua--for as long as I can remember.  


Seems to me these statuesque vanguards were surrounded by pasture land when I was a little boy (five decades ago).


Today, it is bordered by hotels.


No matter.  I would still prefer to be in the midst of those trees right now instead of these Northwest skyscrapers.


I would love to walk barefoot and feel the combination of dirt and sand squishing through my toes. Here in downtown Seattle, I would never dare walk barefoot.


So many changes...and yet these majestic palm trees still remain. 


Giant stilts.  Prepared, as it were, for the next great tsunami to hit.  


What's the lesson in it for me?


Adapt.


Establish my roots.


Whenever necessary, bend a little.


Weather anything and everything...come what may...and know that I will remain standing.


Even in the meteorological schizophrenia of Seattle.

I CAN SKYPE, I CAN SKYPE, I CAN SKYPE!!!

Seems like it wasn't very long ago when I was so elated that I could drive a car down the road all by myself while my mom was doing such a lousy job of hiding the anxiety in her large dark brown Okinawan eyes. Seventeen, and I ruled the world in our family's blue station wagon.

Forty years later, I've exchanged places with my mother--figuratively speaking, of course--as I wake up anxiously each day way before dawn, frantically searching my gmail inbox to see if my 23-year-old son, Ryan, has emailed me. Italy is, for better or worse, nine hours ahead of the Pacific Northwest time zone, and so--with 7 parts fatherly concern and 3 parts meddling buffoon, I fling the bedcovers off and, fumbling idiot in the dark that I am, scramble for my laptop, carefully raise the top, and find and press the circular device on the upper right. I close my eyes and desperately try to convince myself that doing so gives me a few more seconds of alpha sleep (I lie!). I groan as I see the LED display on my clock radio read: 4:15 AM. Sleepily--no, make that lazily--I do the math and determine that it is a little after 1 PM in spaghetti world.

Meanwhile, the irritating musical notes Microsoft implanted in this high tech machine I have only just recently become acquainted with--okay, so I'm a baby boomer caveman (if it fits, I'll wear it)--signals that it, too, is struggling to wake up. Just as I hit the g button that cues the words gmail.com in my browser's drop down menu, the screen goes black on me. Cursing the idiocy of it all (with me at the top of the list), I realize that my battery has died. What this means, of course, is that I have to get up from my half sitting/half reclining state, step onto the cold thinly-carpeted floor (my landlord is a slum lord, I swear!), freeze my buns off, and blindly grope for the light.

It pierces my eyes, and it's a few seconds before I can adjust to the hurtful brilliance of it all. I rush to find the cord for the laptop, attach it to the machine, and plug the other end in. I plop down on my bed, my brain now losing battery power rapidly, and wait for the laptop to come to life.

Ryan, my handsome, bright, and talented 6'2" son (who hasn't a clue that I still view him with a split/frame perspective: the tall young adult on one side, and the cute little toddler on the other side) is thousands of miles away on the European continent, and I am dying to hear from him. Where did the yearsgo? Two decades ago, some kind soul told me, "Cherish this time. They grow up so fast!" No kidding! (No adulting?) Seemed like only yesterday when I was pushing his stroller up and down the sleepy sidewalks of the southeast Washington bedroom community of College Place.

Now here he is, four times graduated--first, from kindergarten; second, from 8th grade; third, from Walla Walla Valley Academy; and fourth, from Walla Walla University. He now attends graduate school at Cal Polytech University in San Luis Obispo, CA, studying for a dual major in Mechanical Engineering and Business Management. For his second quarter of grad school, he was blessed with the opportunity to study abroad at the University of Milan.

My wife, Rita, and I saw Ryan off at Sea-Tac Airport on Wednesday, December 30, 2009. He had a long but safe flight to London and enjoyed a great evening delighting in the splendor of the Queen's Empire. After that first delightful and relatively stress-free night, however, Ryan began encountering challenge after challenge. What I am greatly inspired and encouraged by is how he evolved from ranter and complainer to wise old soul--he turned the emotional corner when he was in the deepest of valleys, confronting himself to stop whining about his situation and making a decisive choice to start having fun. It was like the proverbial lightbulb turning on.

Which brings me full circle back to the light being on and things coming to life.

This baby boomer dinosaur has learned to SKYPE! Ryan turned me on to this wonderful and innovative high tech tool a week or so ago. I was at the Ballard Library when I decided to click on the lime green icon at the bottom right of my laptop screen. I'm glad I did because I came across my wife and Ryan having a great conversation. Quickly, I typed an instant message to Ryan, asking him to invite me to a conference call. He immediately responded.

Wow! It was great to hear both Rita's and Ryan's voices! And the wonder of it all was that Ryan sounded like he was right in front of me. Thank God for Bill Gates and Paul Allen and all the subsequent high tech geek clones whose brilliance resulted in figuratively shrinking this globe to the size of a grapefruit.

I am very thankful to be living in this amazing era. Yes, we see growing evidence each day that the angels are straining and steadily losing ground in their efforts to hold back the winds of misfortune and suffering. Even so, it only means that we who believe and trust and live our lives accordingly will soon be in a better place.

Until then, let us endure the gentle tugs at our hearts when we come to that juncture where we let our children go, thanking Him for the short yet glorious season He allowed us to have them.

I only ask one thing of Him as I meditate on how I will cope with this time in my life. Lord, whatever You do, let me have my split screen image of Ryan.

ps Thanks for the Skype!