A Hui Hou

There's no way to say enough thank you's to Kauai--to Gay and Dean and Kim and Dasher and Mel, Vera, the Burneys, Shelly, Magna, Chris, Da'nae, Dan, Delpha, the people at the post office, Sierra Club people--the whole incredible island that really offered me everything a writer could ever need...They say that Kauai either takes you in and gives you everything, or it rejects you and nothing will work for you no matter how hard you try. I'll always consider myself lucky to have been in the former group.

I also have to say thank you to New York for welcoming me back again. New York has its own way of accepting or rejecting the people who come here. I could never have imagined having two such different islands both send their very different blessings down on me.

Finally, thank you, thank you to everyone for reading this. I feel that I've taken you all with me, in all my travels this summer--mahalo and aloha!

Brooklyn Sweet Home

Here's my building, for all the people outside NYC who are reading this. My building is the one closest to the camera, but I'm on the east side of the building, facing the courtyard between the two buildings, and it's night now, after midnight, which means that I'm getting hungry because this is when I ate in Kauai. Shouldn't the jet lag be gone by now? Maybe I'm hanging onto it a little, just as I'm trying to hang onto the spirit of Kauai. Right now, for instance, I'm listening to the community radio station I listened to there. (I'd been looking for the surf report--thought that would be a cool thing to upload to the blog, but you can't do sound apparently. And it's a good station anyway; I never knew what I was going to get, and otherwise it was mostly top 40s--from about six years ago. "Mr. Jones" was a big song for me this summer.)

Kim with Dasher

Speaking of generous Kauaiians...here is a final shot of Kim with Dasher, and the last of the roll of film. I heard from Gay (again, speaking of generous Kauaiians) today. She's back on the island, experiencing her own culture shock. Today she was going to the shack to work with the tree guy, John, in dealing with a tree they'd had to cut down. It was a beautiful tree, but I guess that species can be very invasive in Hawaii. Had they left it alone it would have eventually made its way downstream, affecting the native plants that already grow there, and in the National Tropical Botanical Garden. They cut it down before I arrived, leaving an enormous hole in the canopy, but hadn't figured out how to get the wood out, as the tree was at the bottom of the valley. I suppose that's what they talked about today. Just getting her email I could picture it exactly, and wished I was there to see their progress on the farm.

Interview with Marlys

I just posted an interview with my dear friend, Marlys West, on the About.com site: Just had to plug it because her poetry is some of the best, most original, funny stuff out there (I decided I wanted to be her friend after hearing her read her work). We started our novels at the same time, so we have the same relationship with our novels as women do when they have kids at the same time. Wouldn't it be great for our novels to get to play together in Barnes and Noble store windows all across America?

Oh yeah, and we both just had poems published in the same issue of The Notre Dame Review, so at least our poetry's hanging out together, even if neither our novels nor ourselves are at the moment. (I don't think you can click through to the poetry from the site, unfortunately. And don't worry, Mom and Dad, I have a copy for you.)

Kalalau from the Zodiac

I don't know that I'll ever hear the name, "Kalalau," without sighing. What a beautiful place. I think this summer I fell in love like a hundred times, with this valley, with Dasher, with this amazing island, with the view from the desk upstairs in the shack, and with all the Kauaiians who were so incredibly generous to me. What an amazing trip!

Hold onto Your Hats!

The Na Pali Coast

Here are a few shots of the Na Pali Coast. Right now it's fairly dry, but we could see the tracks of waterfalls that flow during winter. The captain maneuvered the boat under a few small falls, which is considered a blessing by native Hawaiians, and took us into an open-air sea cave, which was created when the ceiling collapsed some many years ago. We also dropped anchor in a spot where only 6 companies have permits to do so and had an hour or so to snorkel. The deck hand let Kim and I know where the green sea turtles hang out, so we snorkeled over and sure enough, one was there. We stayed still so as not to scare him, but he was curious about us and swam over.

Sugarcane Burning; Setting Out from Waimea

Clouds of smoke over the beginning of the Na Pali Coast: farmers were burning the sugarcane. Bad for the environment, great for the soil, and really kind of beautiful...(sorry environmentalists...)

Dolphins

A school of dolphins met us shortly after we left Waimea and played around the boat for a while before we set off for the coast.

Kim Steering the Boat

The captain, a marine biologist, was getting something for Kim, so she got to steer for awhile. We were on a Zodiac rafting boat with about 20 other people (Kim wrote the copy for their website and books events for them, and so was able to get us on for the day). It's a locally owned and operated company; they hire a lot of women and locals. And they really give you the royal treatment on these trips, with fresh melon, lunch, cookies, and hot towels when you dock.

Shrimp Plate Lunch

They have plate lunches all over the islands...for a set price you get a full plate of food, in this case, shrimp, cole slaw, and rice. These trucks are apparently rather new to Kauai though they are popular on Oahu, which is where this woman is from. She shows up every day and sells lunches until she runs out of shrimp. Gay's friend, Kim, brought lunch to the shack one afternoon, and then invited me on a boat trip up the Na Pali Coast, which I had just hiked.

Hanapepe, Artist's Colony

This was a cute little town up the road where a number of galleries have sprung up, in most cases begun by artists as a way of supporting their work. In the daytime it's pretty quiet, but they have an artwalk on Friday evenings that's pretty much the main event for the South shore on Fridays...Linda had asked me about it, being an artist herself. I'm actually about to ride my bike over to Brooklyn Heights to see her. Ah, Kauai...everyone's been asking me about culture shock and I've been in denial. Yes, I do have culture shock!!! Yesterday I had to go into Manhattan and I felt completely overwhelmed by the subway and the pedestrian traffic on 14th Street. Can't I just go back to Kauai for the weekend? It is a long one, after all!

Waterfall

I visited this waterfall with Steve and Dasher. Most of the waterfalls on the island are inaccessible by car, but this is one of the few that you can drive to.

Japanese Cemetery

This is an old Japanese cemetery on Kauai. As you can see, people still come sometimes to leave things, though it's generally in disrepair. I love old cemeteries, and took a lot of pictures.

Breakfast on Banana Leaves

I just picked up the last few rolls from the Walgreen's at Union Square. Very strange to look at them here in my apartment, where kids are yelling and doors slamming and Spanish hip hop is playing outside...hard to believe I was really there. Though I did stop by the farmer's market at Union Square, so the gorgeous fruit and veggies don't have to stop just yet, only now it's peaches instead of mangos. Following are my last few weeks on Kauai: this was breakfast with Steve. We ate on banana leaves; he said it saved doing dishes. You can also see flowers I bought at a roadside stand, and Depha's painted fish.