Posts

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I am gall

I’m loathe to admit when I’m wrong. Especially when I’m wrong. I only used to ever see four in the morning from the wrong side. The sunrise is just as beautiful with heavy eyelids and a racing mind. Benign reflections and genuflection come easier. Sleep is easier.

For thirty years my mantra has been furtive pleas complaining of the difficulties of sleep. Endless nights of late-night television and Netflix. And when I say nights I mean years, mean life. I don’t make it to the first commercial now.

One of my favorite lines by one of my favorite writers, Gerard Manley Hopkins speaks eloquently of my recent epiphany. I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree bitter would have me taste, my taste was me.

I’ll encapsulate for those uninterested in poetic vivisection, i.e., most. Those sleepless night you blame on the Universe? You only need look in the mirror.

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Summer Program for the Enhancement of Basic Education

I went to SPEBE at UH and they treated us like college kids. Probably the wrong thing to do. I kept Strawberry Hill in my room refrigerator. This is 1986. My cousin came and we binge watched before that was a thing. We saw Top Gun. I feel the need. The need for speed. Then we watched Karate Kid 2 two times in a row. Peter Cetera. And it was filmed by my house in Kahaluʻu. Then I drank two bottles of that Strawberry Hill. Then I puked. Like really puked. Like the first time you drink puked. Like Linda Blair puked. And then Tūtū died that weekend. And the day I got back, I got 100 on my exam. The highest next was 96. So I’m at least four better than everyone else. I don’t feel four better. Yesterday, I was reading People Español. And I was reading it for minutes before I realized it was in Spanish. It took four minutes before I was puzzled at a word. Then i remembered slang. Ya me voy. I’m going. I met one person this week. One new person. I told her the Spanish story. She said that’s peculiar, I like peculiar people. I felt guilty. Because she liked me.

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Moo

You asked me what I was afraid of and I couldn’t articulate it at the time. This is that. That moment when you wake up to pee and she’s warm and asleep and beautiful. Not concidentally her mouth is closed. And you look at her and think, “Fuck, if this doesn’t work then maybe nothing will.” How do two stupid apes rub against each other and still not tell you about the time, “I did this and no one else can know?” How can we call each other the worst words we can think of for years? How can we be happy when those words actually work? How do I look at you in all your warm beauty knowing you don’t see I’m warm and beautiful too? That you’re here because we have this unspoken agreement. That if either one of us were strong enough we’d say maybe this hurts too much. Then I go quiet and think about my life without you. Wonderful, terrible you. And that pang makes me dial. And pick up when you call.

I don’t know why cows say moo. They just do

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The system is broken

This system is broken but not because we can’t see the symptoms; those are remarkably obvious. We ask the wrong questions. We’re so busy asking what words to use that we forget to ask why write? Words are what makes us different from the other apes. Chimpanzees can drink ants through makeshift draws. They masturbate and cheat on their chimpanzee girlfriends and wives. The similarities. Modern humans are more eloquent, not quite refined; we have commandeered the larynx. Guttural groans eventually became poetry. But Shakespeare is not possible without the first caterwauls. The noises that sprang forth from that almost human. Cautiously translated to, “That one is mine.” Or, “I fuck her, not you.”

And now we go to the moon and fear death.

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Pā mai nei ka lā ma koʻu ili

I am fucking consumed with optimism, ambition, and a sense of purpose. And anger. I went to the heiau again, and the sun was drowning me in yellow rays of hope. Pā mai nei ka lā ma koʻu ʻili. Whatever isn’t forbidden is compulsory. Heads will roll, and storms will follow. But in this moment, I rule myself, and the world lies before me. And what I do next has to make a difference. Because until this moment, I have pissed on what was given to me. I make the same mistake over and over again. I know the wall is hard, but I can put my hard head through it this time. I miss my kids, and I love every single person I have ever loved. Aloha for me is not something that goes away. Not with betrayal. Not with lies. Certainly not with disappointment. Aloha means love among many other things. You don’t need to know ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi to know what it means. It’s that feeling in your chest when you pick up your daughter after her first day of kindergarten. It’s the smile that beams when you buy an unhoused kupuna a sandwich. I’m rambling, but my point is it’s all connected. Hewa in the right hand becomes hewa in the left. Aloha spreads the same way. You can’t keep it until you freely give it away.

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Animal fat

I’m going to sit here and listen to pop music. Blurred lines. It is mayonnaise. Bread is easier to chew with animal fat. She would say how does meditating bring an animal fat in to your mind? Why can’t you just breathe? Count down. Okay, 100. 99. 98. 97. 96. 68. Turn the lights on. I cannot. I cannot breathe.

You are not dumb. But you are not smart. What’s upsetting to me is that you’re not concerned about what you don’t know. You like being stupid. Not stupid, ignorant. You like not knowing the answer. For me? Never. I have to know why. You? You want a dark-skinned stranger to make the margarine flat on the bread. Me? I’m looking for butter.

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Kaumaha

So tired. So angry. So tired of being angry. This program exhausts me. The only thing I can say against it is that itʻs too much sometimes. When you preach to the choir, theyʻre listening already. Who is this for? Everyone in this class chose to be here. The way they say “white;” the anger is palpable. We needed a radical in 1993. It was so brave to say, ʻWe are not American. We will never be American. I am not an American.” I have hoahānau that served in the U.S. military. What do I do about that? I went home to Oʻahu last month and I bristled constantly. “Thatʻs not how you say that. Thereʻs a kahakō. That place is not Yokes. Itʻs Keawaʻula.” No oneʻs going to call it that. Part of me, when I watch this, makes the argument, “Sanskrit is dead. Latin is dead. Hawaiian is alive.” And if it is alive then Yokes gets to be a part of the conversation. Then I go to the palace. I walk those hallowed grounds so many times. I look out the window of that empty room where they kept her. Promulgate. I didnʻt even know that word. Iʻm getting angry again. Why didnʻt she listen to Charles Wilson? Arrest three men and take a gamble. I went to a gathering on Lā Kūʻokoʻa. What is ea? Ua huhū au nō. Kaumaha. So heavy. Sadness is correctly described in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi as heavy. I could write about thus until you say, “Stop!” Venezuela. Greenland. Ukraine. It’s all the same fucking day, man.

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Reason

Reasons are limited by their definition. Reasons make you have a reason. Don’t choke on what you swallow. That is the only rule. Live. It’s harder than you think.

Make enemies and see more. Love life and see how life repays you.

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God

What monsters are alive right now when god is not awake? The time is short. Spacetime is a difficult concept. Matter bends spacetime in a way that’s difficult to wrap your mind around. Matter moves spacetime. More matter, more movement. But your and my time is short. We don’t live in the capacity of spacetime. I mean, we do, but our capacity to understand can only see years. Minutes. Sometimes, seconds make a difference in our understanding. Time, as we speak about it, though, is a human construct.

We talk about what I would do if Hitler were alive. Read. Read. And then read. Know. They aren’t putting Jews in an oven. But this is what happens first.

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Go

The moment is so small that it makes bigger things happen. The moment has to happen now, so it has an advantage. It insists on being like a second on a clock. It says, “Whatever the fuck you want.“

I love pace. I see why it matters. I love compulsion. I see why it matters.

I love the parts that are compelled to go, “Go go.” And I love the parts that have the self-control to say, “It will be better tomorrow.”