Reflections on Maui

Arrival: The sky outside the plane looks elegant.  The clouds are flat up to the very blue horizon and only have small breaks and cracks in the surface.  They could easily be mistaken for a snowy tundra or a frost bitten field of stubble.  This contrast of white and blue must have been the inspiration for countless toothpaste adds.
My brain has the desire to contain only blank thoughts right now.  The world is shades of two colors today: cloud and sky.
I sit next to a man who has run a non-profit on the paradise of Maui for over 30 years.  He teaches high school age locals carpentry, as a useful skill as well as an artistic outlet, since many have no interest in the Hawaiian education system.  They build homes for the elders of their communities, learn to cook with variety using produce they have been taught to grow, and hope to one day replace the mass amounts of land used for sugar plantations with local farming instead.  I applaud this passionate man who has given me so much understanding in a modicum of time.  Like the world needs more sugarcane….

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First impression: My sister gives me the support I need each morning to write and keep this creativity satisfied.  The grooves on the mountain look so beautiful in the morning sun--like ancient rivers that carved their way down to create wrinkles of age.  I suppose the term mountain could offend these sleeping volcanoes of majesty.  An upset is out of the question.
Let us proceed with caution, support, and respect amongst each other.

Sounds: This place is alive with noise and melody.  The wind, through more than many palms, all rustle against each others rhythm.  So many birds.  
chup chup chup in the middle.   
coo coo-coooo-coo coo-coo-coo in evens.
a lone throat gurgle whoo-whoo.
All this is masked by the low and constant rumble of the nearby ocean, both comforting and foreboding.  It reminds us to always remember the possibility of destruction as it gives us such pleasures of the senses.  The unknowing possessor.

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Thoughts: She mutters, “My life is en---” “What?” “My life is enchanted?  It is just wonderful.  Don’t you think?”  I mostly agree because right now I can be in this place with you, but not sure if our reasons coincide.  

Morning:  A little boy is chanting/singing undefined in the pool.  I burned yesterday a misleading pink.  Trying to kick the floating daze this place has wrapped my energy in.  The whales are my companions.  They come here to give birth--the mothers starve for three months to give the calves the warm water they need, and to give inattentive entertainment.  

Summary:  The landscape here is unimaginable to a New England native.  The mountain faces are cliffs running into each other all in fuzzy green and brown.  It is the shape and texture of space with plants.  An invitation to climb, swim, ride, and explore, but just make sure to see.  A new world.  A new memory.  A new resource. 
My taxi driver tells me of his home here and the mixing of cultures and people from all over, once immigrated to the plantations of work.  This man is a mix of native, Philippino, Japanese, Irish, and Portuguese.  The last thing I will learn is that the ukulele was born in Portugal.  Like so many it has found a home on these calm islands of eruption.  

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