mermaid tears

With all the beautiful gemstones in the world, my eyes tend to gravitate to the simplicity of sea glass. While stuck in the torrential downpour during a Hilo Friday night market a week ago, I killed time at a local jeweler's booth until the sky seemed less angry, finding a muted turquoise sea glass necklace. The next day at the Hilo farmer's market, while meandering the booths, my eyes glanced upon something similar until I looked up and realized that it was the same vendor (and thus, same sea glass).

"I have spent many hours on the beach collecting sea glass, and I almost always wonder, as I bend to pick up chunk of bottle green or a shard of meringue white, what the history of the glass was. Who used it? Was it a medicine bottle? A bit of a ship's lantern? Is that bubbled piece of glass with the charred bits inside it from a fire?"

~ Anita Shreve 

Since reading Sea Glass, by Anita Shreve, I had the impression that sea glass was naturally made from the combination of colorful rocks and the chemical and physical intervention of the ocean. Rather, sea glass is made by man but refined by nature. It seems that sea glass can also be completely man-made by replicating what happens in nature, although it may lack much of the frosty covering. In nature, saltwater dissolves the lime and soda content (additives in glass production), resulting in the frost over sea glass, and the pulverization of the waves, salt and sand over 20+ years smooths the edges of broken glass.

Sea glass is becoming rarer as glass is being replaced by plastic. People, also, don't tend to bury their trash under the sand at beaches or carry their trash to sea to dump in the vast oceans like they used to. Still, with natural disasters and shipwrecks or the careless human tossing trash overboard or leaving them at beaches, broken shards from these discarded glass products tend to find their way to the shores of Australia, Italy, Puerto Rico, Mexico, northeast U.S., northeast England, the Isle of Man, and Hawaii. Although its genesis is one man's trash, because of its beauty and rarity, collecting sea glass is at times protected, with it being illegal at U.S. state parks.

* * * * *

Plantation circa 1935 (imagesofoldhawaii.com)

At the end of Mill Road in Pāpa'ikou lies a nondescript gate with signs warning of private property (ease-dropping) and not allowing dogs, fruits, soil, or vegetation (extra-terrestrial). We had heard about a sea glass beach where the estuary of the Kapue Stream meets the Pacific Ocean, of an old sugar plantation. The agglomeration of sea glass is a byproduct of the devastation of tsunamis in 1946 and 1960, destroying nearby homes and businesses.

Pāpa'ikou Plantation was originally owned by Charles Hinckley Wetmore, a missionary doctor whose daughter became the first female doctor on Hawaii, and Edward Griffin Hitchcock, the youngest of three sons of early missionaries to Hawaii and tasked with running the family plantation, later becoming the Marshal of the Republic of Hawaii, responsible for arresting Queen Lili'uokalani during the 1895 Counter-Revolution in Hawaii. It was later consolidated with the Pauka'a and Onomea Plantations in 1888 to form the Onomea Sugar Company, resulting in a property that is 6-mile long along the eastern shore and 3-mile deep, with water from Kapue, Honoli'i, Pähoehoe, Wai'a'ama, Kawainui, Hanawi, Ka'ie'ie, and Ka'awali'i providing the hydro power for electricity and flumes. 

Remnants of sugar mill structure

Along the trail, hugging Kapue Stream, glimpses of years gone by blended in with the surrounding foliage and glistening brook. The trail has been well maintained without any bushwhacking necessary. Onomea was widely known not only as one of the most beautiful plantations but also for its innovation. It was the first to use commercial fertilization and constructed 55 miles of flumes to transport the sugar cane. 

While it was one of the last plantations to hand cut cane, it also invented a special plow, adapted to the local topography to protect its soil. In a labor intensive industry, many workers were imported from Japan, China, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, with families living on the land and offered free medical services. Fierce competition internationally caused many of the sugar plantations to close as they could not stay competitive with labor scarcity and rising wages.

The estuary was a refreshing respite from the hike and heat, as nature's gentle massage to the body. At first, the beach looked like many of the other black sand beaches on this side of the island with tiny refined pebbles from lava rock. But catching the light, a twinkle in the sea of black unearths nature's gift back to man...frosted white, amber, green, turquoise, seafoam, teal, cobalt blue.

"The only problem with looking for sea glass is that you never look up. You never see the view. You never see the houses or the ocean because you're afraid you'll miss something in the sand."

~ Sexton Beecher ("Sea Glass" by Anita Shreve) 

saudade (part 2)

I don't know when it started but the beach has provided me solace for a long time. The deafening roar of the surf, the misty sea-spray of the crashing waves, the abrading grit of the sand, the glistening sparkles of the aquamarine water, the gentle whispers of the salty breeze and the songs of the local inhabitants in the air, land and see inundates all the senses.

Perhaps suggested from "Footprints in the Sand" as a child 'bussed off' to weekly Sunday School, I would periodically visualize walking along the shore hand in hand with a taller gentleman during code of silence (#sue, #secretsociety123), although throughout my life, the image would oscillate with me leaning back on some stronger, protective presence, his arms embracing me, with the rising or setting sun illuminating us. Touch...before learning the love language (full circle (part 9), modern love), it provided so much more, with the presence of safety, trust, nurturing and ... 'je ne sais quoi' ... everything. I felt a flash of that re-membering in a bubble of bliss.

During my travels, I have turned to the shore during moments that I needed a reminder and recharge of my energy and essence, sitting for moments with eyes closed absorbing the warm embrace from the coupling of the sun (masculine)/moon (feminine) and the wind as a gentle caress, visualizing touch. Despite my Virgo Sun (earth), Sagittarius Moon (fire) and Metal (Gold) Pig (face of the girl (part 1), trifecta) I have been told by various 'seers' that there is a lot of the flighty air in me and that it would take a partner that could bring me down to the Earth to ground me and balance that energy. While I always felt grounded after my moments on the beaches, I often times felt an air of bittersweetness...was that a trait of the Metal Pig or a precursor to saudade?

As noted in saudade (part 1), I was not prepared when Yoon Se-Ri (CLoY - Episode 4) found herself in the outdoor marketplace talking to friends who were no longer there, with the scene showing the first flashbacks to the young girl sitting on the beach with the setting sun and counting. The body has a way of keeping score and I found the tears well up and fall without initially understanding the emotions behind the trigger. Fear, loneliness, perhaps a smidgeon of abandonment...yet, when Ri Jeong-Hyeok raised his arm with a candle as a beacon of light beckoning the little girl home, the breath I finally released was quickly followed by incontrollable sobs. I had to pause the series to let my body release what the little girl had buried all these years.

I had known about the incident in elementary school when I waited for hours to be picked up from school, but it was a story with no actual memories (ftale, moments that matter (part 1)). As with safe haven, my body knew something my conscious mind did not. Over the remaining episodes, it unfolds that the little girl on the beach came with her stepmother and was instructed to wait while her stepmother went to find them something to drink. After a spell, she starts counting, trying to convince herself that her stepmother will be back by the time she gets to 100; however, when she gets to 99, she restarts the count. Strangers eventually find her passed out on the beach.

As with standing taller, Se-Ri's stepmother, much like my mother, was experiencing her own unhappiness, and struggled with a daughter who reflected someone that they were not and exhibited innocence and kindness that they didn't believe they deserved. By the time I got to the same scene in the marketplace the second time I binge watched the series, my subconscious had released snippets of the repressed memories of the little girl, who was at Southside Elementary and had assured the last adult to leave the building, perhaps a teacher, that one of my parents was on his/her way to pick me up.

As the sky turned darker, I also had told myself stories as to why no-one had come yet as I looked out at the empty parking lot, with my heart skipping a beat each time I saw headlights in the distance only to experience a dash of disappointed which I quickly pushed away when the car(s) kept driving past me. Like Se-Ri on her hospital bed after listening to her mother's recorded musings of regrets (CLoY - Episode 14), I have been able to reflect on the event from the perspective of my parents (full circle (part 8)), who as immigrants, were working overtime or going to night school in order to better their lot in life, and as with any other day, were banking on their children getting home via the reliable school bus, forgetting the extracurricular activities that kept one at school.

Be that as it may, who would that child be today had she experienced those moments from the perspective of the universe rather than that from a girl with all the hope, trust and love from the innocence of the womb, feeling like she had to apologize for being born, much like Se-Ri? Perhaps much of the tears were less for the memories but for the grief of a childhood that should have been.

pū'iwa

Baby cloud created by lava lake

On a whim, we decided yesterday to head to the Volcano area late afternoon for a change in altitude. My friend had stayed there with his partner for nine months after the California wildfires had burnt their home in Berry Creek a few years ago, and Volcano was a place of healing for them. It is woodsy and cooler like Tahoe or Berry Creek and after a spell, it seemed like we were up in the clouds, much like puffs of cotton and a taste of heaven, which has always been a moment of wonderment to me. The white vapors seemed to be all around us until I noticed a group of people congregating in the distance and expressed concern that the wisps of white were perhaps plumes of smoke instead.

Like a 'kid in a candy store', a giddiness overwhelmed me as I bounced in my seat, when I learned that they were smoke vents from an active volcano. I had previously overheard that there is a place on the Big Island with active lava but had mistakenly thought it was at Mauna Kea. I found myself explaining to my friend how I love surprises, especially in the context of new experiences (YUMmy and full circle (part 8)), although perhaps to a rational adult, my explanation still seemed disproportionate to my level of glee.

Offerings

Flare-up in the evening sky

We navigated to various lookout points around one side of the crater, hoping to see a flare up in the lava lake. A number of places were closed, including the museum and the lava tubes due to structural instability from the last eruption in 2018. By the time we backtracked to the Kilauea Overlook, I was beginning to think that Pele would not bless us with its ember glow as the lake remained as black as the black sand beaches around the island, from the cooled lava. The lake, once full of lava, was slowly inching up since it collapsed in 2018, resulting in lava erupting and oozing out in some of the lower regions. 

A number of residents had recounted their personal experiences from the last devastation to me since I arrived. Similar to 9/11, some had to evacuate their homes for almost a year, with some temporarily relocating to other islands or the mainland. As the lava lake had increased by ten feet over the last three months, local residents came to pay tribute with offerings to Pele, in attempts to keep her temper at bay. It was with humbleness in my appreciation of the beauty of the vibrant red dance that Pele bestowed upon us later that evening, with the setting sun joining her in the dance, reflecting their union in the clouds with such warm hues of orange, red and all shades in between.

As I was reading about the collapsed crater in 2018, something caught my eyes at the top of the panel. The fact that it doesn't appear to have anything to do with the rest of the information caused me to pause a tad bit longer in disbelief. And just like that, the universe articulated it much more succinctly than I could, in the native tongue.

"Amazement; a surprise; a stupefaction on account of wonder"

~ "A Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language" 1865

saudade (part 1)

When he recommended that I watch Crash Landing On You ("CLoY"), a Korean drama, I really had no interest in K-dramas although my nieces are avid fans. I had a perception that they may be like the Vietnamese dramas where people are "nhõng nhēo" (quite childish), especially the female characters, usually with a whiny high-pitched voice. But a Gringo recommending it with a warning to be prepared to cry had me intrigued. After watching the first episode, I realized that I couldn't do my typical multi-tasking when I watch things as it would require focus not only for the subtitles but for the action on screen, especially since the male lead (Ri Jeong Hyeok, played by Hyun Bin) evoke many emotions without words. So it stayed on My List in Netflix for months.

With the Depp trial and TV spring season over as well as a self-enforced summer break from classes, CLoY seemed to beckon me and I ended up binge watching it over a 36-hour period. My first tear probably wasn't where it was for many. Over the next few days I binge watched it again. While the emotions from the first time around were more muted, I could feel shifts in my body and mind, as I had seemed to lose my appetite and often woke up in the middle of the night. In many ways, the series seemed to be my life in a parallel universe, but as he noted, there are so many complexities in the storyline that it is probably why so many connected with it. 

Luckily, I was dog-sitting Bella who gave me comfort and cuddles. The harder I tried to shake the feeling, the more it seemed as if there was something I wasn't quite seeing. I found myself going back to watch various clips, and in one such instance, something stood out that I had clearly missed all the times before...Seo Dan's mother was gifting the ladies of the North Korean Village Se-ri's Choice limited edition products that had their likeness illustrated on the boxes. For the English subtitles, the series was called Saudade.

Perhaps the other times, it just seemed like a name but when I decided to look it up to see if there was a meaning, it was a key to mysterious journey. Saudade does not have a direct translation into English...nostalgia doesn't do it justice, but neither does yearning.

They say that the energy of the Hawaiian Islands have a way of accepting or spitting people out, with each island containing its unique vibe. I've already felt more well rested since stepping onto her soil. Hopefully, Ka Makuahine will be instrumental to connecting me with the part of me that I sorely miss but felt I needed to leave behind (code of silence (#sue, #secretsociety123)).

weightless

It's always been cryptic in how information on his estado civil gets discovered, when it should be something to share and celebrate. The first time was a chance Facebook feed, upon which my access was soon modified by him to such restrictions as there was no point even being connected as 'Facebook friends'. That time left me shocked and full of 'what ifs'.

To my surprise, my reaction this time around was a smile at how childish and ambiguous his communication was, nothing like the man who was once direct and with very little words, we seemed to understand the other. I felt such a weight being lifted, like some burden had dissipated, almost as if I finally remembered to start breathing not realizing I had been holding my breath all these years.

It reminded me of the last time I saw him (the truth shall set you free, walking tree...new or old roots, and surprising inspiration) and how I no longer recognized him for the man I had admired all these years. Had he changed, had I changed or had we both undergone significant transformations, taking us on diverging paths? Or perhaps the lens in which I viewed him was becoming less 'rosy colored' as to what I created from my own imagination? Was it always an illusion stemming from a childhood dream?

Before turning down the bed, I felt compelled to let the Raven speak to me...ironic as it may be (bubble of bliss).

 

The crow lands atop a large pentacle once concealed by clouds. This spot provides a clear view of all the riches available to her. Because her desires are no longer blocked, the bounty this world has to offer from material wealth to spiritual knowledge is all within her grasp. The Ace of Pentacles represents a time of clarity and the ability to manifest your desires. Stay focused, the Law of Attraction is working. Keep a fixed sight on what it is you want to achieve.

~ Crow Tarot, created by MJ Cullinane 

While I am grateful for the role he has played in my life over the last two decades and all the synchronicities with him, guiding me in my journey, I am at a loss for words in how it feels to finally breathe in the crisp air piercing chambers of my lungs that feel as if they had been lined with cobwebs. The timing is apropos to leaving the door to shut behind me and ushering me through the suadade (part 1) series.