waves away

After very little consideration, I am declaring that my 40th New Year was my best ever. No doubt there are some fun ones scattered back among the foggy middle decades--the details of 1988 and 1989 on Orange Grove come into focus to take a close second place--but 2012-13 has offered a whole new game to play. At sunset on Monday we went back down the hill to Poipu Beach Park , under downy pink ribbons of sky. Several more folks than usual wandered down with us. The noise from the beach rose as the light faded; it was the melodious electric racket of a 3000-person picnic. We rounded the bend and saw across the first cove a mess of tent canopies, white floodlights, zig-zaging grown ups and kids, sporadic fountains of rainbow sparks from roman candles. Live reggae music drifted across the water on a ruffle of wind. Barefoot, shirtless little scamps on the roadside flicked bang-snaps at us and the aroma of visiting taco trucks wafted around as if on visible cartoon squiggles. Here's P...

Ocean waves...they, too, are like snowflakes. They roll in like a live thing, like Wonder Twin powers--they arc themselves up and over into long bottle-green tubes, or they curl only at the thick edges and fall out in the incandescent middle. They shove forward like a dull razor blade or a snowplow, or spike into little cobalt triangles that slide playfully against each other. Watching them in relation to any landscape of rock is a feast for the eyes; it makes you feel vision itself is multiple senses. They hit a mesa corner at full swell and throw showers impossibly high up and over, or break before impact and just daintily splatter a lower rock face with foam. They advance in forceful succession like waves of intrepid cavalry; and then they disappear, the surface layers just shuffling conspicuously back and forth. The wakes they drag out behind them might be opaque sheets of milk, a mess of extraterrestrial turquoise swirls, a cauldron of stiff-peaked silvery froth. It's a co...

After my last post, we had a really lovely Christmas dinner at Plantation Gardens , from the kahlua pig mana puas to the delicate lilikoi cheesecake. I even had one big and excellent glass of wine ( Carmel Road pinot noir, Lara)--my first drink in four days; exciting! Thanks to that, I'm sure, I was well enough Wednesday and Thursday for wandering out West.   Up in Waimea Canyon we talked story for awhile with an old SoCal endless summer transplant. He was like a white buddha sitting cross-legged and shirtless on the grass at the mile-high overlook, selling home-made trail guides and feeding pieces of his apple to a loitering rooster. In Hanapepe we grilled gallery photographers, perused the cluttered shelves of the western-most US independent bookstore, and hung out with the local cats. Salt Pond Beach seemed different than prior visits; it was crowded. With both an unexpected throng of pasty, pretty obnoxious tourists and a smattering of locals camped ...