That Giant Floating Island

You know that giant floating island of plastic in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? I'm pretty sure I'm personally responsible for that. Clearcut forests and depleted natural resources? My fault. Climate change? Blame me. As a result of all this guilt I find it extremely difficult to throw anything away. Putting things in the garbage can is not a simple act for me. My brain gets in the way.

It probably comes in part from living on a tiny speck of rock in the middle of the ocean for so long. A rock where pretty much everything everyone needs to live has to arrive by boat or plane. And all that stuff that arrives eventually has to go somewhere. When I threw something in the trash on Kauai I knew exactly where it was going. It was going to the west side of the island into a gigantic pile. A pile that has been in a perpetual state of crisis for as long as I can remember. A crisis that all those hardworking county employees were always trying to figure out how to manage. Could they extend the life of the landfill again? Would they finally find a location for a new one that everyone could agree on? I am not the only one tormented by trash.

My response to all this worry about waste was to become what my husband fondly refers to as The Queen of Recycling. I rinsed out all my plastic bottles. I broke down cardboard boxes. I flattened empty toilet paper rolls. I called the catalog companies and made them stop sending me all that glossy paper. I loaded up the car and went to the recycling bins every week. On Christmas and birthdays I smoothed and folded all the crumpled tissue paper. I saved bows and boxes and bags so they could be used again. And I started having garage sales.

Garage sales are a lot of work and the monetary reward is small. But for me it was never about the money. It was about the challenge of seeing how much stuff I could keep out of the landfill. Things that even Goodwill wouldn't take. It was about what I could get someone to think was worth using, with just a little bit of fixing or some brilliant marketing strategies. I remember the triumphal moment one year when I finally figured out how to use all those plastic bags the newspaper comes in that I could never bring myself to throw away. I found some old t-shirts that I knew the thrift stores would never accept and I cut them up into neat squares. Then I folded those little squares and stuffed them into the bags and called them Bags of Rags. And I sold every one.

I love having garage sales. On Kauai I had them at least once a year and sometimes more. One of my favorite things in all the world was to go through and purge my house and start a new garage sale pile. And part of our mission when we arrived here at my in-laws' home on Oahu was to do the same thing. We wanted to help Gary's mom clean out her entire house and then have a giant sale at the end. So that's what we did.

Throughout the year we collected and sorted and boxed. The pile in the garage grew. The growing mound lowered property values. The neighbors despaired that it would ever go away.

But then one day we laid everything out all nice and pretty, and invited the world to come shop. 

And the world came. And they shopped. They lined up on the road and created a traffic jam. We sold tons of stuff. We gave away things that weren't worth selling. The high point for me was when I took the old plastic kitty litter hotel that had been languishing on the side of the house waiting to go to the dump, cleaned it up, repaired it with some zip ties, and a happy smiling woman took it home for her kittens to sleep in. Victory is sweet.

And in the end, property values went back up, and one of the neighbors came over to congratulate Gary on how clean the garage was. It felt like our work here was done.

In a way it was a relief when we moved to Oahu and I learned that they incinerate a large part of their waste and turn it into energy. Now, when I see an empty toilet paper roll in the garbage can, I am able to look away with hardly any sense of shame. But that giant floating island is still out there, and somehow it makes me feel compelled to never stop having garage sales. And to always reuse my Christmas bows. Which makes me feel as if I'm saving the world.

Some pretty cool reusable wrapping thingies here.

To Milk A Goat

I want to learn to milk a goat.  I want to learn all kinds of things.  I want to experience new ways of living.  I want to see different parts of the country and imagine myself living there.  I want to find a place that speaks to my soul in a way that somehow Hawaii never has.  This is the great motivation behind our uprooting - it is our quest.  Yes, we want to see amazing places and meet new people.  We want to have time for ourselves and be able to relax, but more than that we want to figure out what comes next - where we will land and how we will live.

The last few years of Gary's life in politics brought great rewards and even greater sacrifices and made us both realize that there had to be a better way to live.  We just didn't know what that way was.  Our solution was to quit our jobs, sell our house, put our belongings in storage and give ourselves time to wander and think and figure things out.  The problem is that this could take a while.

So, in the interest of extending our time on the road, stretching our limited resources, and possibly even expanding our minds, we have joined two different virtual communities.  The first one is devoted to house-sitting.  It is called Trusted Housesitters.  There is a pretty hefty yearly fee of $95, but we decided it was worth it and plunged in.  We rounded up some good samaritans to write character references.  We sat down one night about midnight, after only minimal amounts of wine, and created our profile.  The very next day I received the first of the now daily email updates on new house-sits available throughout the world.  When one popped up for a month in Portland I applied immediately.  In just a few hours the homeowner had stopped accepting applications.  Several weeks later we received the news that somehow we were the chosen ones.  Yesterday the signed contract arrived in the mail confirming that we have indeed landed our first house-sit.  It is now official - we will be spending the month of March living in a house in N.E. Portland caring for a cat and a Rat Terrier.

Cats are easy.

This is Manao helping me wrap presents yesterday.

This is a Rat Terrier.  

I looked them up to see what we were getting ourselves into.

I think we can handle this.

If this house-sitting thing works out it will literally open up the world to us.  The listings in today's email included house-sits in London, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Australia, Los Angeles, Vienna and Canada.  I have seen listings for a month in a castle in France, 6 months on a horse farm in Ireland and 2 weeks in New York City.  The possibilities are endless.

So house-sitting is good for the thinking and figuring out part of our quest, but what about the learning new things part?  The seeing how other people live part?  For that we have joined another online community called Helpx.  It is a website where people looking for help on their farms or in their homes create a profile describing exactly who they are and what they need.  There are all kinds of situations listed.  There are a lot of organic farmstays.  There are B&B owners that are looking for someone to help change sheets.  There are old ladies that just want someone to help them paint a room or clear out some of their junk.  There are people with goats that need milking and Llamas that need feeding and bees that need tending.  There are listings all over the world.  Access to all of this information comes at the bargain price of $25 for 2 years.

In general, Helpx-ers put in about 5-6 hours of work a day, 5 days a week, in exchange for room and board.  One needs to read carefully to find out exactly what the hosts mean by 'room and board', but overall it seems like a pretty sweet deal.  I already have about 20 places bookmarked in Idaho, Montana, Utah, South Dakota, Colorado, Washington and Wyoming.  Places that look like they have decent accommodations and interesting hosts.  Places that look like the tasks required are within our capabilities.  Places that are in beautiful, awe-inspiring areas of the country.  And I haven't even started looking east of the Mississippi yet.  The possibilities are endless.

Of course any and all of this could be disastrous in so many ways.  But that is okay.  We know how to deal with disasters.  We have lived through quite a few.  If there are issues we will reassess and move on.  I think it is the moving that matters more.  The moving and the seeking.  I have no ambition to sit on a beach in the sun for the rest of my days.  I want projects and purpose.  I want to be curious and open and alive to new ideas.  I want to be out of my comfort zone.  I know that the holy grail of the perfect life in the perfect place does not exist, but that doesn't mean we can't go looking for it anyway.  And maybe milk a few goats along the way. 

You Guys Are Crazy

So here is our adventure vehicle.

It's a 2010 Wolfsburg Edition Volkswagen Jetta.  
I know what you're thinking. I'm thinking it too.  
You're thinking, "What kind of adventure vehicle is that?"

I actually wanted a VW Vanagon.

Now this looks like an adventuremobile.  
It has a place to sleep and a place to pee,
and plenty of cubbies to store all that stuff we don't need that we're probably going to bring anyway.

But Gary said no.
He said Vanagons are old and tired and have way too many miles.
He said it wouldn't make it up over the mountains without a mechanic.
He said we are not mechanics.
And then he laughed at my cubby-filled dream.

Honda Elements are pretty cool too.

When I googled "adventure vehicles" it kept popping up. I found lots of pictures of Elements filled with all kinds of equipment, and happy smiling adventuring people. People just like us. Only with bigger smiles. And probably better adventures.

But somehow we ended up with a Jetta. Gary has always liked Jettas. Once we decided to put it on the short list he went into his typical uber research mode. We eventually convinced ourselves it would be the perfect vehicle to roam the country in. But it couldn't be just any Jetta. There were only certain model years that were acceptable. It had to have a certain size engine and TURBO power. To make it up over those mountains. It had to have less than 50,000 miles. Because we are not mechanics.

A quick internet search turned up very few matching vehicles in Hawaii or on the west coast. There was only one in L.A. that seemed to fit the criteria. The urgency we felt was real. Because what if we flew to L.A. to start the adventure and there were no perfect Jettas to buy? What if we had to settle for something that had not been properly vetted? So we flew in on Monday, bought the car on Tuesday, drove it up the coast on Wednesday, left it in San Francisco with Gary's sister on Thursday, and flew back to Oahu on Friday.

While we were staying with our son in L.A. he kept shaking his head and saying, "You guys are crazy." My dad just laughed when we told him over the phone. Loudly. And not nicely.

So now we have a Jetta. It's waiting for us in San Francisco. Here are some things I know about it: 
- It gets at least 30 mpg highway. Which is better than a Vanagon OR an Element.
- It has the largest trunk of any car in its class. But no cubbies.
- It "only" has 40,500 miles. We are gambling that mountain mechanics will not be required.
- It has a five star safety rating. Which is better than a four. And way better than a three.
- It's sort of a "blend in" kind of car, so maybe no one will suspect we are on a grand adventure and try to steal all our stuff when we aren't looking. Because who would go on a grand adventure in a Jetta.

Here are some questions I have:
- Are we going to have adventure vehicle envy?
- Can all that stuff we don't need that we're probably going to bring anyway really fit in the trunk?
- If the trunk is full of all that stuff we don't need that we're probably going to bring anyway, where will the sleeping bags and tent and camping gear go? If we end up buying sleeping bags and a tent and camping gear?
- Is it possible to have a really most excellent adventure in such a serious and sober sedan?
- With no cubbies?

Maybe one day, after we figure out what we're doing, the Jetta will morph into an Element. Or a Vanagon. Okay probably not a Vanagon. Maybe something like a Vanagon. Only younger. And less mechanically challenged. The other day we walked past an Element in a parking lot. Gary studied it for a minute and then looked at me and said, "Maybe we should have gotten one of those."

In This House

My husband's father is in the final stages of dementia and the troops have rallied. A Tongan nurse has been hired. Papa's children have sacrificed and rearranged and flown in on airplanes. Helpers have filled up the house.

This is the beginning of our "adventure." It's the first phase of our grand plan to leave behind everything we have known for thirty years and find something different to know. This is where we want to be. But it's not always easy. It's hardly ever easy. Here in this house with all these grown-up people that are used to separate lives. In separate spaces. Grown-up goodhearted people trying to navigate each other's moods and egos. Trying to smooth out old resentments and untangle fresh injustices. Sometimes it's overwhelming. Lots of times it's overwhelming. But this is where we'll be for a while. Because this is where we want to be. For the father and his diminishing world. For all these grown-up goodhearted people. For us.

His world might be shrinking but Papa still wants us all to know he's here. When he walks into a room he'll tap on the wall or clap his hands to get your attention. He wants you to acknowledge his presence by giving him a sign. So he is given many signs. Like smiles and waves and thumbs up and shakas. And sometimes a sticking out tongue. And Papa gives back what he can. Like smiles and waves and thumbs up and shakas. And sometimes a sticking out tongue.

A tongue Papa uses to tell stories in stroke-garbled language that no one can understand. But everyone pretends. We all look at him when he speaks and listen to what he has to say. We nod and smile and laugh when he laughs. It's clear that in his mind the stories are complete. Sometimes, in the middle of all these words we cannot understand, a few will appear that we recognize. Like fuck. And shit. Which always make us laugh. Which makes Papa laugh. Papa still likes to tell stories.

And Papa likes to go for walks. Endless shuffling circling walks. When he decides it's time to stand up and move there's always someone there to go along. If the daughters are in charge they make a train. One of them will be in front holding her daddy's hands and walking backwards, so he can see her face and know he's not alone. The other daughter will be behind him with her hands on his waist, ready to catch him if he falls. The walking train will circle the house, up and down halls, in and out of rooms. Sometimes Papa is soaking wet when he's done, and there's always someone there with a towel or a fresh shirt. If Papa wants to walk no one says no, they walk along with him, and wipe away his sweat.

They wipe away other things too. There are rubber gloves involved. Somehow they have all gotten used to it. When the children are on duty for the night they set their alarms and wake up at regular intervals. They have perfected a rolling over and whisking out routine. Papa and his sheets are always clean and dry in the morning.

There are other routines. Dinners together at the dining room table. Saturday nights in the living room singing Hawaiian hymns. Giant breakfasts of omelets and sausages and waffles. There are drives around town and McDonald's ice cream cones. There are hugs and kisses and constant singsong assurances of I love you Daddy. Sometimes there are flashes of clarity when Papa will look into the face of one of his children and make all the connections and say the correct name. And that named and grown-up child will smile with brimful eyes.

But tears are less common here than laughter. Papa loves to laugh. Sometimes he laughs so hard he cries - his eyes squeezed shut - his mouth open in a giant O - cracking himself up with his own private jokes. His burps make him laugh. And boulders smashing cars in commercials on tv make him laugh. I don't know how or why - it seems impossible - but Papa can still be amused.

Who knows how long his sense of humor will last. How long any of this will last. Papa needs help to make it through the day. Soon he'll need more help. Someday he won't be able to stand up, or walk on his own. Eventually he'll be bedridden and forget how to eat. But these grown-up goodhearted people will still be here. Doing what they do. Stretching out their hands.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Papa is standing in the family room next to the open sliding glass door. He's trying to decide if he wants to go outside. It's Father's Day. Dinner is over and everyone wants to go sit on the back patio. Everyone wants Papa to come too. But he's just standing there in the doorway uncertain what to do. He looks out the door and sees his wife beckoning to him and calling his name. After what seems like an eternity he picks up his feet and steps outside. It has taken more than twenty minutes. Nobody has lost their patience. No one has forced him or hurried him or raised their voice.

Once Papa makes it outside he finds his own place to sit. He chooses the old sofa from Molokai that used to belong to his mother. Many hands help him. Papa has on shorts and a warm thick coat for this cool and windy Hawaiian evening. Once he's seated his children cover his bare legs with a soft white blanket. And then he looks out at the view - the red gingers in beds next to the patio - the rows of mature Ti leaf along the fence. Does he know what he is seeing? Does he remember the countless hours he used to spend doing yardwork out here?

Papa likes to watch the planes in the sky behind the house. He'll look up and point and make comments. He used to be a pilot in the Air Force. Is there still some kind of knowing deep in his brain? The lights of the planes are hidden behind clouds tonight. Papa is looking out into darkness from his spot on the old couch. He appears to be enjoying himself. He looks at his wife sitting next to him and really seems to see her. He smiles and gently puts his hand on her arm. His hand stays there. He is calm. His children and their spouses are scattered on the dark lantern-lit patio talking and drinking wine. Everyone is watchful and alert. The focus is on the father. Everyone engages in "conversation" with him.

When Papa starts to slump to one side two people jump up and bring cushions to prop behind him. When he's upright again Papa leans back and smiles. He says something no one can understand that somehow makes us think he is grateful for the pillows. And then he starts to sag again. His middle daughter jumps up from her chair and sits next to him. His bride of 60 years is on his other side. Papa sits there on his mother's couch as if he is on a throne. He seems to be at peace. The breeze is blowing and everyone's faces are glowing in the candlelight.

And then Papa gets restless. He leans forward, dusts his hands together, and says very clearly, Well. And a little while later, Okay. When he tries to stand up his entourage helps him. Adjustments are made. Doors are opened. Paths are cleared. It's quick and efficient. Papa is steadied. And then he walks. He's the only one that knows where he's going. The rest of the family follows along, holding him up the best they can.

The couch from Molokai.

This is my blog?!

It is called "Wandering Awed" because it seemed appropriate. It seemed appropriate because I really like this quote from Annie Dillard:

"I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I've come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty beats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them, under the wind-rent clouds, upstream and down."

It also seemed appropriate because that is what I am going to be doing in a few short weeks. Wandering that is. A lot. I assume I will be in awe a lot as well. At the world in general. At the fact that I am wandering in it. At the goodness and light and wonderment and joy that I hope to run across.

That is all for now. This is my blog.