Local Roots

This past Saturday we took the beautiful drive along the Hamakua Coast to Laupahoehoe for the Laupahoehoe Music Festival. The weather was spectacular and the music was really great.

As we turned off the main highway and descended down the winding road that took us to Laupahoehoe Point Beach Park, the ocean opened up before us in all of it's glorious expansiveness. As the road narrowed on our way down, drivers on the opposite side of the road got friendlier and friendlier as each us became more and more aware of the others' presence.

When we got to the beach park, festival staff members guided us through the parking area and onto a grassy area. I rolled down my window to get parking directions from the guy working the grassy area. His instructions went something like this,
"Ho--OK bruddah--hea's wat you going do--Pull up ova dea an den back um in right in front of da black cah ova dea--Make shua you leave nuff room so da oddah guy can get out." Simple enough. I nodded, said, "tank you--my bruddah.", and parked.

As I got Bodhi out of his car seat, he looked at me a little puzzled and asked, "Daddy, how come the Uncle( the parking lot attendant) was talking so funny?"

Kim and I shot each other "Uh-OH!" glances.

We consider ourselves very conscientious parents. We work hard to make sure that he has as many experiences that we can set up for him to aid his development. But that morning at Laupahoehoe we realized that we had neglected an area. It was about exposure. He wasn't getting enough doses of his local culture, he wasn't hearing enough Pidgin English.

Kim and I basically speak Standard American English and so does our very articulate three and half year old. I grew up speaking primarily pidgin. The pidgin is part of who I am and part of my cultural make up. It, like any other language is part of how I understand and perceive the world. It is a vibrant language with many subtle nuances. Also, it is a connecting point for people who grew up in this glorious place.

There have been attempts in the past to squeeze the pidgin out of Hawai‘i's youth and homogenize the language into Standard American English. I actually hear less and less pidgin being spoken as Hawai‘i's local culture has become more closely aligned with the culture of the rest of the Continental U.S. I hear more of our youths' language emulating the stars they see on MTV, rather than that of their local culture.

Perhaps I have a cultural responsibility to expose my son to more Pidgin English. It is a growing language. It is very different from the pidgin my grandmother spoke on the plantation to communicate with all that gathered here to make a new life. But it is still a part of the culture of this wonderful place.

So---Afta we wen pahk da cah, we wen go check out da music an all da ono grindz had fo eat. Burah, was so good fun! Me an Bodhi wen go check out da watah. He neva have da kine swim shorts, so he wen jus go in wit his bebahdees. He neva keah. Bodhi had one Redondo Hot Dog fo lunch--he wen bite um, look at me and say--"Ho Daddy--dis Hot Dog is winnah, winnah--chicken dinnah."

Actually, I made the last sentence up. He actually took one bite of the hot dog and said, "Daddy, this hot dog is really yummy." We're working on it.

The Bliss List

In the January/February 2010 edition of "Cook's Illustrated", Cook's founder and editor Christopher Kimball writes "The Bliss List" on his editorial page. Kimball does a great job of distilling a few of the more blissful moments of his life into a few delightfully written paragraphs. To see Kimball's list go to http://www.cooksillustrated.com/byissue/default.asp?doctypeid=12&selDate=153

I thought it would be fun to write my own bliss list. I admit that I cannot possibly jot down every single blissful moment of my life. There are countless wonderful moments that I have shared with Kim and Bodhi that would make the list stretch far beyond what could be feasibly written down. But here are a few that I came up with to share.

July 1, 2006. Our Nu‘uanu cottage is quiet. Kim and Bodhi are sleeping on our bed. The midwife and doula have gone home. We all just went through 31 hours of labor. I sit on the sofa with the morning sunlight streaking in through our picture windows. Tears are flowing down my cheeks as I soak in all the joy and fear of new fatherhood.

March 20, 1994. I'm standing at the altar of a small candle lit chapel in Manoa. A string quartet plays as the murmur of the guests' voices vibrate through the space. Suddenly voices stop and the quartet begins to plays Bach's Suite #3 as Kim comes walking down the aisle toward me.

Early morning May 2001. Dawn patrol with my brother Scott. The water is icy cold as we paddle out at Schwabbies. The waves are breaking about 3-4 feet and glassy. Every time I would take off on a perfect right my eyes would squint up from the bright sun coming up in the east. No crowd.

October 1989 New York City Central Park. It was a beautiful Indian Summer day. The leaves were just starting to come into their autumn glory. The air was crisp and dry. I was away for college. It was the first time away from Hawai‘i. A group of friends and I had spent the day going to museums and taking in the city. In the park we came across three guys playing guitars, drinking beers and singing "Three Little Birds." I was 20 and I was free.

March 1991 on a train somewhere between Riga and St. Petersburg. My head and the sleeping car was spinning from drinking too much homemade whiskey from the Latvian compartment mates I had just met. We attempted to communicate in broken English, broken Russian, broken French and tremendous amounts of hand and facial gestures. We must have been pretty successful at communicating because we laughed and laughed all night long.

March 2008 Kurtistown. Kim and I are standing next to Jim and looking at our bull dozer guy Bill in his D-7. Bill fires up his engine and the sound of it rumbles through all of us. Kim and I look at each other with looks that are mix of "WOOOOOHOOOO!" and "Oh My God! What are we doing?" We walk behind Bill's dozer as it clears what will be the future driveway into our land.

Thanksgiving 1999--Kim and I are Innkeepers at Kia‘i Kai Bed and Breakfast. We wake up in the morning and are greeted by the wonderful smell of cooked food. It smelled as if someone had cooked us breakfast. But there was no one there but us. We had no guests booked for the whole weekend. About an hour later, our neighbor comes into the house and thanks us for letting her use our oven to cook her turkey while we slept. When she started to cook at her house, she ran out of gas and knew we never locked our place. She came in at three in the morning, turned on the oven, roasted the bird and was so quiet she didn't even wake us. I love that kind of neighborliness.

Fall 1989--Running through Stony Brook Village to the Long Island Sound. Fall leaves floating down all around me and the streets are quiet. When I get to the beach it is absolutely empty and unlike anything I had seen in Hawai‘i. The fine sand was blown into dramatic dunes and tall grasses danced in the breeze. It was stunning.

Summer 1995 Kyoto Japan. Kim and I are walking around the streets of Kyoto and come across the biggest Bon Dance we had ever seen. The air was still and humid as we joined the masses in the circle dance. We danced all night long and didn't care if we knew all the steps.

January 2010--On the land. Jim came by the other day on his tractor. Bodhi, Kim and I were on the deck and saw him drive up. He stopped in to chat a bit. As he was leaving, he invited Bodhi to sit up at the driver's seat with him and steer the tractor. Bodhi got to pull the lever that raised and lowered the front bucket. When Bodhi got off the tractor he had this thrilled look that was worth a million dollars. He told Kim and I as he walked away from the tractor, "I want a tractor like Uncle JIm's."

Every night before we close our eyes to sleep, Kim and I go through the process of recalling to each other what we appreciated about the day. This ritual of ours really helps to keep us open to all the wonderfulness that is happening around us all the time. There is, I believe, always something to appreciate and be grateful for. It's all a matter of deciding to see it. This "Bliss List" is in no way a complete list, it couldn't possibly be. It was in a way just a fun exercise in recalling some of the joy I've experienced in the last few years.

There is so much wonderfulness happening in the world. What's on your "Bliss List"?

If you haven't had a chance to see this video clip of writer and adventurer Mike Dooley, check it out. It's well worth a watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PH-6FTraz4