4/9/07 - Re-

I feel this huge sense of relief, even though it's just from myself, and my thoughts.

I haven't been writing much and that was bothering me, and also not really playing guitar or thinking too much about what to do with myself. I worry a lot about whether or not I'm making progress, or moving in any direction in my life. If there's anything I have a fear of, it's stagnation.

It's a silly thing to worry about especially since I'm aware that my life has changed so drastically in every direction in the past few years... just like it's about to change again, and really soon when my severence runs out and I am burped back out into the 'cold, harsh real world'.

But there it is. I'd been thinking about when I left Maui and the intentions I'd set- which I realize now I've never written about, but have faithfully kept in the back of my head since the moment I stepped on the plane and waved 'Aloha' to the island that set my heart free.

They were as follows:

1) There was a sense of clarity and knowingness that I had only caught glimpses of before... which I felt so consistently that I believed it to be a part of me that was timeless, and would never go away.

I came to Kahua and every beautiful thing reflected it back into my retinas and ears and fingers and mouth in such a way that I could see it with my eyes closed, or open, or full of tears.

I could see it in the persistent and unrelenting beauty of every person's radiant face and body, no matter what shape or proportion. I saw it in the majesty of every crashing wave, waterfall, bird, flower and plant that even now leaves me at a loss for words, and that photographs do no justice.

I could hear it in the insects, and the wind in the trees, and the crashing of the waves and the ringing in my ears resonate on one frequency... low... rumbling... it breaks your heart and you fall on your knees and palms and look down into the grass and the ants are singing along with it...

I could feel it when sand fell through my fingers, and when I jumped into the warm ocean under the hot setting sun and it was like diving into liquid gold, luminescent and salty, letting me float. I could feel it when the wind blew my skirt and made me feel like I was flying, and in the soles of my feet on burning hot rocks and icy cool grass.

I could taste it in the tiny yellow pineapples that we watched all summer, waiting for them to ripen. In the papayas that turn yellow and cry for you to pull them off the tree in a way that a person completely in love wants to give every ounce of their being to the soul that holds their heart. I could taste it when Amanda and I scooped a passion fruit out into a papaya and ate the two together, and realized that it didn't matter who was responsible for such perfection... just that it was just that- perfection- put on this planet for us to discover with our tongues.

What was It....

... It was in our fingers touching, and our mouths tasting, and our eyes seeing, and our ears hearing. Everything. All of it. It was realizing that this overwhelming beauty couldn't EXIST without us- us, being TRULY present, and REALLY there, to play the crucial and sacred role of finding it beautiful.

It was a blessed interaction with the world around us. We were so blessed, all the time... and all we had to do was see, and hear, and touch, and taste. It was bigger than winning every prize in the world, because it was like winning every prize that our imaginations could conjure, even when it came to intangible things like the human soul, or the universe.


It was so important for me to know that this could still be a consistent part of me outside of Maui, no matter where I was, or under whatever circumstance. I needed to know that I could do this. That it wasn't a dream. That it wasn't an illusion veiled over my eyes... some sort of inner-beautiful mirage brought on by the overwhelming decadence of living in paradise. In other words, I needed to know that it would still be there, even in a city, surrounded by strangers, in a place I'd never been to, that is cold and dark eight months out of the year.

To tell you the truth, I was afraid I would leave Maui and lose myself in the confusion and complexity of life outside of our little island. That I wouldn't be able to see the sun through the smog, or hear anything over the roar of the city, or feel anything because I have numbed myself to protect myself from things that may hurt me, or taste anything because food is just a thing we put in our bodies to keep us from running out of the energy it takes to survive, both mentally and physically.

I was afraid I would forget how to see, and hear, and touch, and taste.

And now as I've written this, I'm laughing because it seems that I'd forgotten that the 'forgetting' is part of it all. We forget things so we can remember them... to feel this thing that I'm feeling right now, this remembering, which is wonderful.

And I remember it here, in Boston, which is beautiful in a completely New and Different way that adds another dimension of beauty to the way that I experience being alive.

2) I knew I was meant to learn something very important by accepting the job offer and the re-location to Boston, regardless of whether or not the job worked out... and I intended to learn that lesson, whatever it was.

And it's funny, because in a way I knew what was going to happen, even though I never could have predicted it and I had no control over the outcome. I'd told Amanda then, and on the balcony of our hidden surrealist castle which we'd struggled long and hard to find, that this would be El Ano Fuerte, the year of strength. That hard times would come, and many things would be out of our control, but that we would move through it gracefully like water over a cliff-

- water transformed into water. Constantly changing but always, in it's truest essence, just what it is. And strong enough- with the knowledge that anything is possible over a long enough timeline and that life is long- to carve stone and reshape this world. That we could, and we would- no matter what happened to us- and just by Being.

3) After I'd seen Gabriel play for the last time, I realized that I would not hear anything quite like that in Boston, because it just simply wasn't there.

Yet.

I told Amanda that in two years I would be a Ninja - Fairy - DJ: that I would playing in clubs in Boston and enrapturing people the way I was enraptured, and made to dance because I couldn't help it, soul-cleansed, mind-cleared. Gabriel gave me a gift from his ears to mine, and I fully intended to, with enough listening and passion, take something that had given me joy and re-create it through my own ears, and creativity, and perspective, which is wholly unique in a way that everyone else's is, too.

I haven't been writing because the time for me to write was not then, but Now. I had just been doing something other than writing; I have been expressing myself to the people around me in words, and facial expressions, fingertips and smiles, which is what I do when I am meeting new people in a new place.

I haven't been playing guitar because I've been learning to DJ- re-configuring auditory synaptic connections in a way that excites me so much it is electrifying, and you (I mean You) can feel it. I may not have played guitar in a few weeks. But I have never in my life been so immersed in what is happening to my ears, and how I am hearing it than I am now. And that is something worth reckoning.

And I haven't been thinking about so-called progress because it's already happening, and effortlessly... so much so that it feels so fun that the lack of struggle is unfamiliar to me and feels like Play.

I was feeling lost this morning, and worried. There are a lot of things to worry about if you look at it one way.

It's funny, and also okay. I just forgot you could see it other ways... and I see it another way right now, for now.

The perfection all around me. Smell in my nose, beautiful people in my presence, old wood floor full of history under my feet. Inspired fingertips and listening ears. Laughing mouth, gorgeous old city in my eyes. The unparalleled, appreciative look on people's faces after eight months as they gradually realize that soon it will be warm.

Perfection all around me. Nothing like Maui. Everything like me and the world working together to make beauty exist.