the only constant

The rooster was with me at sunrise. I actually woke from a restless sleep at 5 the first morning on Kauai, made some tea in the dark, and sat on the balcony waiting to see the ocean as the light very slowly bloomed. I first spied the rooster across an acre of rolling lawn, on the ridge near the old smoking bench. When our eyes met, he hopped his way to right under my balcony, looked petulantly up at me, and began a cockadoodledoo that would last, uselessly, until noon.

Things are changing in my Shangri La. The drive from the airport to the condo seems shorter and there is no more need to linger on the way. The resort property is under renovation so its splendid lobby and convenient poolside party bar, among other buildings, are hidden behind mesh fences that rattle in the wind. I wonder if years of construction gunk have poisoned the grounds, because the grass is patchy in spots and some trees are pruned past foliage or parched gray. Surveying the property on a walk the first morning, I found piles of crackling palm fronds behind withering hedges. And here, to wit, is the magic tree I fell in love with 15 years ago, under which I was later proposed to, then and yesterday:

The prime condos are harder to get, and the staff is less sympathetic. All over town more retail employees and locals in the street seem to be short with us, dismissive and even confused. Sueoka's store no longer carries cans of my favorite Oolong. Around town we also observe more graying palm fronds, and the flowering trees might be less flowered. I think I can't smell that inimitable perfume of the island air. Could I finally be so acclimated, or could it just be obscured by all the wind? It's been blustering forcefully, and almost relentlessly, for four days. For sure it's a comfortably warm thick wind, and the bits of rain it has brought have not been significant, but it takes some pleasure out of a long stroll, and it churns up the water so much that no turtles can be seen in the cove, and no whales on the horizon.  

Everything does change. Everybody knows this fact, but the weight of it is pressing heavier on me; that thick wind is making me chew on it more than much else so far this week. But this too will change. Every wave looks different. On Sunday evening, the tropical weather is beginning to shift, and I know this holiday will wear different faces before its over. So that's enough of the blues. As the great Tom Petty said, I'm just glad to be here, happy to be alive.

Our only accomplishments the night we arrived were gathering kitchen groceries and drinking a pitcher of pina coladas at Brenneckes bar. The next day we spent a stormy morning in the room, and went out to get a Chalupa's truck burrito and a Koloa Mill ice cream cone for lunch. We roamed the three local shopping lanes and checked to see if the Spouting Horn geyser was especially robust given the gales -- during the ten minutes we hung over the fence there it was not especially, but still a fun spectacle. We made nachos in the room for dinner, and sat in the family jacuzzi until it closed for the night with a couple from Lynwood and a dad with two splashing kids. Saturday morning we went to Hanapepe, and spent the most time we ever have strolling around its near-deserted main street. Most of the galleries as well as the Midnight Bear bakery were closed, but we enjoyed the zen patio of the Little Fish Cafe and had a nice long chat about local photography with the proprietor of an antique maps and curiosities shop. A beloved tree was still there, with orchids now growing out of its petri trunk. 

I found an old copy of Gulliver's Travels at the westernmost bookstore. Then we went to Port Allen, where I ate my favorite salad at the westernmost brewery. There haven't been nearly enough food pictures on this blog, and my amateur phone photography aptitude is not going to make that change today. But this beauty is bright green lettuce and red cabbage covered with pineapple, mac nuts, goat cheese, more than enough crispy onions (and you know there are never more than enough crispy onions!) and guava dressing. Please note this brewery also makes my favorite coleslaw, with peanut dressing. Phil had the Paniolo brown.

After the brewery we went around the corner to Glass Beach. Wonderful things there: a surprise monk seal, free of protective enclosures, just napping; the sun on my face and the surf on the hem of my super new beach dress; and hardly any other people there with us. Un-wonderful: all eight of the other people who did show up were picking up and taking away handfulls of glass.  

Back at base it was time to unpack in our new camp -- I had to get off that balcony and into the kind of first floor unit to which I've grown accustomed, where I can wake to better bird sounds than the rooster and step straight out the patio door towards sunrise. I situated the new digs while Phil napped, then it was time for photo downloads, email catch ups, and snacks, then a soak in the no-kids jacuzzi until bedtime. At 8 the next morning I went to the Island Orientation Breakfast, which is generously described, since what they serve these days is a bowl of donut holes and two decanters of coffee. But they still raffle two-for-one tickets for a few excursions and shows, which is worth sitting (by a pool under a palm tree) through an hour of the familiar concierge presentation (which is all just a ringer to get you up into the soul-crushing timeshare presentation) for. Worth it because, as usual, luck was with me here, and John the concierge drew my name for the Kilohana Plantation Luau voucher. This was a luau we had not attended and we happily booked it for Tuesday night. Then we went to a late and large breakfast at Joe's on the Green. It's five minutes down the road from our condo but we've never been there, and this second novelty -- -- proof all that was still undiscovered, aka proof of future -- along with the guava juice "Joemosas" and savory loco moco, set up a strong third day. We spent the rest of it on site, reading and writing in the breeze on the patio and then wandering around the miles of rocks that comprise the actual Point at Poipu. The coves were hurricanes of white water but we watched a few fearless turtles surfing in the turquoise wall at the breakers' edge. On the high west hill, known as the sunset viewpoint, Phil got the best pictures around 5pm, when the falling sunlight gushed through the sailing clouds and drenched the incandescent wave curls, which we saw in profile from this position, pulling striations of milky green water behind them like precious threads on a loom, then exploding into sparkled foam.

Those hours out on the rocks brought the place back into my skin. It was Sunday church. I'm still astounded, though, by how much my cadence here has changed. Or maybe by how many delicately different points I can occupy on this one trajectory.

    

I'm astounded by how much wind a palm tree can withstand. How pliant its trunk pushed into a 30° curl, how defiantly festive its head of palm feathers all pointing against the gusts, the front ones flat ahead, the back ones a cradle reaching over the crown. 

And what is it with me and acacia trees? They are everything. One alone in a meadow, a stand of a dozen with the sun filtering through, a dense grove on a hill in the distance...each is a flood of joy through my veins. Really. I must have been an acacia for a hundred years before all this.