Keys

I’ve been back in Seattle for over a month. In that time the winter winds have blown, snow has fallen, and the days have gotten longer. I continue to have the odd feeling that I was never away, that nothing has changed, or that everything has changed and I recognize that nothing is familiar at all. It is very confusing.

When I was traveling, the only key I had was to my car. It was easy to keep track of. I didn’t lose it; I never locked the keys in the car. On nights that I stayed in a motel I would have a key card most often. It seems that motels have given up on keys – I suppose too many get lost or taken with the folks who spend the night.

For over six months I was living a simple one key life. Then I went to Hawaii and there I had to care for the keys to my friend’s house and keys to a car. Still it was simple and I kept track of the tools to be safe in a house and get around.

When I returned to Seattle, keys came back into my life and within a few days I had my own cars keys back as well as the keys to my house (though I still wasn’t living there since my tenants were still there), keys to my friend’s apartment where I was staying, keys to my mail box and keys to my ex husband’s house who was caring for my dog. A lot of keys----and I lost them.


I went to walk my dog and somehow lost all the keys except the one to the house where the dog was. I knew I had driven to the house so my car keys had to be somewhere in my ex-husband’s house I thought but no matter how much I searched I could not find them. I went over and over and over the house and still no keys. Finally I realized that he had an extra set of keys to one of his cars and I had an extra set of car keys back at my friend’s house. I got my extra keys, got new keys made for my friend’s apartment (I had to go to her work to get her keys to have them made) I had to go to my tenants to get their mailbox key to have another made only to have those keys made wrong not once but twice!!!

What a mess. I keep thinking that I had to have my keys somewhere but I just couldn’t figure out where. I walked the neighborhood with the dog thinking perhaps I had dropped them. Nothing. Finally I surrendered. I had lost my keys. I had made replacements and even though some love tokens that were on the key ring where gone I would be ok. I had new keys. It wasn’t the same but it was ok.

Two weeks later while tossing a small backpack into the car as I was going somewhere, my keys fell out of the pack. There was an extra pocket on the back of the pack that somehow I never checked. I had looked through the pack dozens of times to search for the keys, I had shaken the pack trying to listen for the keys but I didn’t find them – then.

I started to laugh. My keys, the key to my life back in Seattle had been with me all along. What I thought would gain or lose by going on my adventure was with me all along. So often I look outside myself to find meaning or encouragement or support when I really have it within myself. For over two weeks I had carried my own keys with me and had never known it. Perhaps that is true of my faith and hope and happiness as well.

There's No Place Like Home

On Christmas night I caught the end of The Wizard of Oz on TV. They show it at this time of year. I had tuned in right at the moment when the Wizard’s balloon was taking off and Dorothy had missed getting in because Toto had run away. She was heart broken – how would she get home. Glenda the good witch arrives and tells Dorothy she has always been able to go home whenever she had wanted to. She asks her: “ What have you learned?”

The scarecrow asks too: What have you learned, Dorothy?
Dorothy: Well, I - I think that it - it wasn't enough to just want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em - and it's that - if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with! Is that right?

Glenda says, “That’s right” and goes on to show her how to click her heals tree times and say “There is no place like home, there is no place like home, there is no place like home.”

I started to cry and repeated with Dorothy – “There is no place like home.” Dorothy had to learn that her hearts desire was in side of her (her own backyard) So to have I . I ran away to find the other side of the rainbow – to search for a place where bluebirds fly. And I found many places like that but not my hearts desire. Like Dorothy I had to re-find my brains and heart and courage. They were with me all along; I just didn’t know they were a part of me and not about where I was in the world.

I can’t click my heals to get back to Seattle, that will take a plane to do. And I may not be in Seattle all the time in future as well. My home, in the end is within me, and the people I love. The search I have been on has taken me back to myself. I self I never really lost, but I had to find out like Dorothy that it was mine again. Wherever I go, I take myself with me and the ‘home’ I have inside is what will sustain me and help me to share and be with others.

A Place of Refuge

Every year, at the end of the year, I try to do something to let go of the year that is ending and to be open to the New Year. In past years I have gone to a women’s spa and received a sea salt scrub – scrubbing away the year ending and making my skins soft and new as a newborn to great the new year.

This year I am in Hawaii. I decided to go to the Place of Refuge: Pu’uhonua o Honaunau. A wall surrounds this beautiful place at the edge of the ocean. Lava fields frozen in their flow reach the water. The most recent wall of the sacred ground was constructed around 1650 and the bones of the great kings are included in the wall. These ancient kings protect the area. The pu’uhonua was a sanctuary that provided people a second chance. No blood could be shed within its confines. Warriors escaping invaders could come and be safe. So too could anyone who had broken a kapu – a taboo. When a kapu was broken the penalty was death –otherwise the gods would punish the people with an eruption or an earthquake.

If someone could get themselves to the place of refuge though, the priest performed a ceremony of absolution. Then the offender could safely return home. All respected the spirit of the sanctuary – the pu’uhonua.

I carefully walked out over the ancient lava flow to the sea and there I sat with 5 pieces of coral. I had five requests for absolution and letting go. I asked to be released fro all anger and fear. After each request, I threw a piece of coral into the sea. When I was done, I walked to the beach and swam with the sea turtles and the most beautiful bright yellow fish. I am ready to return home safely and to start a new adventure.

Learning to Float

I started swimming lessons when I was five or six years old. My older sisters could swim and I wanted to swim with them. Instead I had been stuck holding my mother’s hand at the edge of the surf as I watched them run into the ocean. They would laugh and body surf until my mom could tell that their lips had turn blue from the rather cold water off the coast of Maine. They would be shaking and shivering, insisting that they were not cold. Swimming lessons would let me be with the big kids.

I learned to swim fairly easily and moved through the classes from tadpoles to beginner swimmer. In middle school I took a junior lifesavers course. I was scared to take the course because I knew my secret would come out: I could not float. Being able to tread water and float were requirements for getting my junior lifesavers certificate. I could tread water quite well, but float? Whenever I tried – I sank. I could do the dead man’s float – head, face, and belly in the water with arms and legs stretched out but float on my back without going under – impossible.

I had all kinds of reasons in my mind as to why I couldn’t float. I was a small person – not quite five feet tall and then barely 95 lb. That must be why. Perhaps it was because I had such small breasts or too big of a butt, my thirteen year old mind concluded. Whatever the reason, no matter what I tried, I could not float. I would start out OK with my body straight out in front of me and my head back. After a minute or so, my legs would sink, and then slowly y torso, though I tried frantically to keep it from happening, my face would fill over with water and my head would go under. Before I knew it I was the object of the lifesaving lesson. I did somehow make it through the class but was told never to try to get a job as a lifeguard.

As years went by I found that swimming was not my favorite active. There was some connection to not being able to float but there were other things. Swimming meant getting wet and often in water that felt cold to me. When I could be in the tropics with warm weather, warm winds, and bathtub warm water, I loved to swim. Anything colder than 85 degree water is too cold for me. Since I live in the Northwest and indoor swimming pools are never that warm, I don’t often swim, and so I gave up ever hoping to float.

A few years ago, while talking with a friend, I shared my inability to float with her. “ I can teach you to float,” Jan said confidently. “ You’ll love it –it’s the most wonderful feeling.” I assured her that it was not possible but that made her even more determined. Jan swam almost every day and loved the water. “ I will teach to let go – that’s the most important part of floating.” Suddenly, a chord deep inside of me was struck.

“Letting go?” I don’t let go of anything. Friends often joked that my tombstone would read: “She finally let go…maybe.” I chew and worry and try to figure out anything and everything. Yet I yearn to let go – to relax and I try to little by little. Maybe this learning to float thing would be a step.

We met one morning at the municipal pool near Jan’s house. She was chatty and upbeat. I was struggling to get into a bathing suit and trying not to run out of he locker room or throw up. Goose bumps came up all over me as Jan described the wonderful feeling she got while floating . She loved to float in the sea and watch clouds pass by. I listened, tried to imagine what she was talking about and shivered. We made our way through the mandated shower before going out on the pool deck. There we climbed down into the water. My teeth were chattering as much from fear as the chilly water.

“The key to floating, Jan said, is to reach your arms out an up and relax into breathing. When you stretch out your arms it raises your lungs so you can breath more and – float” With that she demonstrated and a big smile of contentment came across her face. “You have to keep breathing too, holding your breath will not work”. I tried to do as she said, really I did. Finally for a few brief moments I floated, sort of. I did it! I didn’t sink! “That’s great! Now you just have to practice and relax and you’ll start really enjoying yourself,” my friend said as she ended the lesson.

I knew she was right. I knew it in my bones. Letting and relaxing into floating or work or life has always been a challenge to me. Building faith and letting go of worry comes when I breathe deeply, stretch out my arms to life and I trust.

And yet – I still feared the water and really couldn’t float like I would like. Here in Hawaii a group of women went out swimming the first week I was here. Unlike the pool we swam out over 1/3 of a mile. The water depth was 30 feet or so. I swam comfortably with a snorkel discovering that I enjoyed swimming so much more when I didn’t have to pull my head up and over to get air. Just the help of the snorkel was such a gift to my enjoyment. We got out to a point where a boat was anchored and I figured I would rest by holding onto the boat. I had swum more than I was used to and tired. But I couldn’t really reach a lace to hang on and then I panicked – I would have to tread water or FLOAT to rest.

I will also remember to loving women who surrounded me as I told them I really couldn’t float. Sure I had for a moment with Jan, but I never practiced and I was in far deeper water. They held on to me, tried to help me float but my butt keep sinking as it always had. Finally they did show me how to calmly tread water – to float upright so to speak. That really helped but still I was sad about my anxiety and fears in the water. I really wanted to float.

Two days ago I went out on a snorkel trip with a friend here. I had a plan. I knew on these chartered trips that they provided everything. So when it came time to snorkel, I put on a float belt and got in the water. A calm came over me that I never experienced in the water- not deep water. I could float! I was buoyant! It was so wonderful. I knew why other people enjoyed the water so much. I lay on my back and floated around when I wasn’t looking at the most amazing fish. I could stop and talk with my friend without fear.

With the help of supportive friends and the help I need personally, I float. I float on the currents of life and I let life and God carry me. When I was 12 and needed glasses to see, I didn’t judge myself for needing help to see. I don’t need that now either – or ever. I need the support of friends, to listen to what I know is true for me and to find the help in whatever form I need it to enjoy swimming or anything else. Sometimes I can learn something without assistance, sometimes not. If I can keep the goal in mind, I will find a way and most often that way has to do with getting help from things and people.

Winter Holidays in Paradise

“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose, Yuletide carols being sung by a choir and folks dressed up like Eskimos”

As I listen to this song while shopping at an outdoor market where the sun is shining, even at 5:50 PM in the afternoon and the temperature is 80 degrees, I know that the holidays are different here – weird in many ways.

It started with Thanksgiving. There are hundreds of wild turkeys running around so the images are what I am used to but that’s it. Everyone still cooks turkey and gravy – but often in a pit like they cook pigs for Luaus. Added to the regular things for Thanksgiving often are dishes that are Hawaiian or Japanese or even Samoan. The diverse cultures here are very strong and as a white person I often feel a bit out of place in the shopping areas where locals shop.

The day after Thanksgiving people often put up their trees. The trees are shipped in from Oregon and California and are very expensive - $60 often for a small tree. The lights go up on houses- often with Santa and a sleigh or a snowman or other winter theme. Yet it is warm and no one here sees snow unless they go to the top of Mauna Kea after a storm.

Other music I have heard includes Christmas songs sung in Hawaiian. The tune is familiar but I do not understand the words. I have been struck with how having another language makes this state so different from our other 49. This really is another country that happens to be a state. And I am sad to read about the history of this state. I have learned that the US basically invaded and took over a foreign land. We brought disease and creatures that destroyed so much of the native animals, plants and way of life. The missionaries shamed the people so deeply that even today most Hawaiians are the most dressed- even at the beaches.

But back to the holidays. The poinsettias are blooming. They are large bushes – like our roddies in the northwest and they are covered in brilliant red flowers, often double flowers.

I love to celebrate the solstice – the return of the light, but in Hawaii, the change in daylight is only about 1 ½ hours over the year. All the symbolic tales of the child being born at the darkest time of year, of hope and faith returning in the dark just doesn’t seem to connect with my experience here.

I am told that New Years will bring many fireworks. We in Seattle know about this but for folks back east – the tradition comes from Asia and it makes the New Year noisy and bright.

I am missing the holidays in the north. I find I am so surprised by that because I have so often found them to be stressful and not enjoyable. This year is giving me so many new perspectives. They are my gifts this year.

Homesickness

It has taken eight months for my homesickness to set in. I am surprised as anyone that it should arrive while I am in beautiful Hawaii. Perhaps though it is precisely because I am in such a beautiful place that I am so aware of missing Seattle.

Most of this trip I have moved from place to place with only a few days or perhaps a week at each spot. During the summer my home base was New Jersey and my sister’s house. I did not feel homesick there but then in a way I was home, the home area I grew up in. The land was familiar, the weather familiar and the people I mostly saw and connected with I had know all or most of my life.

When I left the east and headed back to Seattle, on my way to Hawaii, I was annoyed to be in Seattle. The grey of the fall had begun, it seemed like I had never left and whatever big AH HA I thought I would have in my year of travel had not happened. I still wanted to move on, explore new places and be in the sun.

I had a taste of homesickness on Maui. I began to realize that even in Paradise, every day life creeps in and the weather alone does not give meaning to life. I began to yearn for the deep connections I had in Seattle. I talked more often to the friends that I had who had been with me through the 27 years I have been there. Now I was in a place where I knew almost no one and I wasn’t just traveling and I wasn’t working and I felt lonely in a way that I hadn’t yet on this adventure.

My brief time a Kalani Retreat Center confirmed for me that the time of isolation and retreat was ended and it was time to move into a more active involvement with the world. When I contacted my friend in Kona and had the opportunity to move there I was thrilled.

In the last month I have learned, perhaps, the most important lessons of my trip. Here in Kona I have connected with a small group of women who have been so kind and generous. I have some work to structure my days and the weather is great. Still I have a growing sense of homesickness – what is that about? I even found myself wishing I could put on long pants and a sweater!

Moving to a place where I have little or no long-term connections is hard at 53, even when I am here for a few months. In order to tell something about my history or myself I generally have to tell 3-4 things first. The investment I have in my community in Seattle has become so much clearer to me now. While the weather is great here, the everyday hassles of living are just like they are anywhere. There is also a bit of a guilty feeling that creeps in if you don’t feel great everyday – since the beauty and sunny weather are all around you as are so many happy faced tourists.

I now know that WHO I spend my life with is more important than WHERE I spend it. If I were partnered I could imagine living away from Seattle more. I would know that each day I would have someone who knew me as I developed friendships. People in midlife have settled on friends for the most part. Oh, we let in a few more here and there but the richness of long-term friends is so important. We have been through so much of life together.

So I am making plans to head back to Seattle, probably after the New Year. I would love to be here during the winter months but that time will come. For now I will work to keep the sun in my heart as well as the new love I have discovered for my hometown.

Ordinary Paradise

What would life be like in Paradise if it were everyday? My first hint came when I was in a mile long back up on the “highway” on Maui. Road construction had stopped traffic. I wanted to get to the beach, hurry up! I caught myself that day. I was astonished to see that with a few weeks of being in Hawaii I had forgotten my easy, vacation attitude.

It seems that the reason we all love vacations in the tropics is because they can lift us out of our everydayness. We break from worry and timelines and ‘got to be there’. We slow down and see things differently. On Maui I counted rainbows and orchids. I thrilled at the colors. But slowly, after two weeks or so I started to take the world I was in for granted a bit. I stopped watching the weather because it was always nice, then I expected it to be nice and didn’t pay much attention to it, or the beauty of it. I ran errands – the post office, buy groceries and slowly the every day way life crept in.

Here on the Big Island of Hawaii, I have been to the beach three times – but they all happened in the first week or so. Now that I can go whenever I want to – I don’t. I let other things get more important. I have helped the woman who I am living with get her garbage to the dump, return movies to the video store, and get an estimate on her car for repairs. All things that can happen anywhere you live. I can see how I could so easily take the beautiful view from her Lanai for granted, or the sunshine, or the bougainvillea spilling outrageous colors over walls and houses.

Being in paradise, or anywhere else won’t guarantee that any of us will appreciate it. We have to commit to it. I have to choose to see the beauty anew each day. Hawaii has lots of problems, just like any other place. Traffic, high prices, crime. If I think I can escape them because the land is so beautiful, I am mistaken. My worries and fears are still with me as well. I can’t escape them either.

On vacation we take a break from so much more than work, we break from ourselves and our everyday worries. If I choose and commit I can keep that vacation spirit alive wherever I am. Wherever I go, I take myself, so I am learning to keep the best of me, the one that is filled with gratitude and kindness and let her live in paradise or wherever.