Settling In Gently by R.A.Davis

Grace. We didn't talk about grace in the Mormon church when I was growing up. But the word has been rattling around in my head, banging pots and pans in my mind attic, trying to get my attention. Grace is, I think, the gap between who you want to be and who you discover you actually are. It's the gap between your potential and your visions and your plans, and the rough and sketchy road life drags you down. It's the map plotting the difference between the person you thought your parent was, and who they really are. It's the terrible equation to describe the  blank wasteland between who you wish you could be for your kids, and the paltry whatever's on hand you can provide. Crumbles, handfuls, castoffs. My living beating heart, all my love-blood. It's the creep of old age across unrealized dreams. It's the slipping of the mind, the stutter of the senses. It's the unreliability of the narratives we tell ourselves to soothe or shape the senseles...

Today at school, a 14 year old kid careened into his seat next to me, and announced non sequitur that his mom said that if he ever "turned gay," she would beat the gay out of him. "So," he said, "That's it, I can never be gay! Nope, straight forever!" Another boy chimed in and said his mom said the same. He acted it out: "Hey mom, I'm gay." "Oh yeah?? CRACK!!!" And he mimed a backhand across his imaginary face. I wish classrooms came equipped with pause buttons. In my still-frame classroom, I would have liked to consider the audience-- these are middle schoolers who still used "gay" as an insult until I made them stop, and so now they've switched to "retarded." I'm still working on that one... I would like to have stopped, looked up the relevant legal issues. Hawaii public schools don't offer sex ed; am I even allowed to talk about issues relating to human sexuality? My informal policy h...

I ran into an aqcuaintance in the Costco eatery the other day (finest 1$ dining on island!) and she invited me to come learn a hula with her church group for their upcoming luau. I really want to learn hula-- those slow-moving women of all sizes, eyes following their hands, the steady rocking rhythm, back and forth. But I've been too shy to just call a halau and sign up. So I was eager to give it a try last night. On the way there I had the weirdest sensation that I should just turn around and go home. But I felt obligated-- I had told this girl I was coming, she'd asked me several times. I didn't have anywhere else to be-- no legitimate excuse for turning around. So obligation and guilt won out over my intuition. Will I never learn? I got there and a large group of people were preparing food. I saw my aqcuaintance--Meghan-- she seemed to be in the middle of high-level negotiations about the state of the chopped onions for the lomi lomi salmon. I sauntered up to on...

Last night Sister Terukina and Sister Drummondo came "hallooing" at the door. They are two very tidy gray and efficient Hawaiian ladies, the last two surviving of their ten siblings. Sister Drummondo handed me a print-out and tapped it: "This month's topic is We are Created in the Image of God, and Certainly Not in the Image of Monkeys!" "Oh, I donno." I said, folding the hand-out, "I'm pretty monkey-like myself." They laughed politely. An idea struck sister Drummondo: "Do you know about Tutu and Me? At the Imiola Church? The preschool? Oh, you would LOVE it!" She patted my arm conspiratorially. "It's all haole ladies!" I must have reacted in some unexpected way. She explained. "Well, you know, everybody else is too busy working!"

The announcement said, Church Overnighter at Halau Kukui. Bring Food for breakfast and lunch. The theme was Pioneers of the Pacific-- a churchification of the unbelievably long-distance and delicate settling of Polynesia. Friday I spent the afternoon cleaning the kitchen and then making a huge mess: I made potato bread and salmon croquette sandwiches with chard, and scrambled tofu and boiled eggs and chocolate chip rice crispy squares-- I used every bowl and cutting board and knife in the kitchen. Why couldn't I just pack PB and J? Who knows. Baby and I jumped in the shower and realized to my horror that I haven't shaved my armpits for-- I donno-- maybe 12 years. And even though I go to the beach all the time and fasten my ponytail and hang my towel with nary a thought of my festooned pits -- suddenly-- at the thought of going to the beach with people I KNOW-- I was ashamed. And so with five minutes to spare, I found a mostly rust-free razor and a very rusty can of shaving crea...

I was browsing through the webiverse yesterday and stumbled across some very lovely talk-story accounts of the history, culture, and spiritual importance of Kawaihae . As I read it one thing stuck in my throat a bit-- the people interviewed sadly mention the vast influx of extremely wealthy mainland people into the community. They say the populations of local people are shrinking and vanishing as the haole come in , buy everything up, and then lock themselves in their million-dollar gated communities. Here's one bit: “Back in the old times, we had a really strong sense of community,” Pua remarks. “Now it’s separated. Everybody has their own thing. Everybody wants this and everybody wants that and nobody wants to come together, and make it work. ‘I want this, I want a park,’ somebody else wants this and everybody want, want, want, but nobody wants to do what it takes to make it happen. So, I say, that during my time of growing up, we were as one community and one family. Not today....

Last Saturday, the day before Easter, we got up and went over to the school gymnasium for the much advertised Community Easter Egg Hunt. When we got there, the place was pretty packed-- parents in the bleachers, and an impressive table of prizes: tall pink plastic wrapped easter egg baskets, heaps of pastel chocolates, and even a pair of new bikes. We registered at the front-- filling out a form that asked for our phone, our address, our full names, birthdays, and which church we go to, and how often. I was suddenly dubious that this really is a nondenominational community event. In exchange for all of our personal information, baby got a little green wrist band that let her into the 0-3 egg hunt at 9:00. It was still 8:30 and the place was filling up. A woman stood up in the front by the prizes and shouted into a wireless karaoke mic, "Hey everybody, ready to celebrate Easter??? Come on kids, come up to the front! Let's celebrate Jesus!" All the kids shuffled out to the ...

Last weekend we got to participate in a branding up on Mauna Kea. Our landlords' grandpa, Grandpa Bolo, works one of the beautiful 300 acre Hawaiian Homes lots up in the green plains up towards the mountain. The whole family comes. Horses, dogs, kids, cowboys and cowgirls, uncles and aunties setting out tray after tray after tray of food. Korean fried chicken, Luau, smoke pork, sweet potato, poi, salad (that's mac or potato), fried fish and steamed fish: Kole, yellow, and Moe, bbq ribs, and more. The cowboys and cowgirls gather in the herd with their horses while the rest of us sit silently and watch by the corral. Then they "cut" the cows away from their calves one by one-- it only takes them half an hour to sort the entire herd. The horses and dogs are a seamless part of the team. Then once they're sorted, everyone jumps in to help with the main project: one by one, the calves are roped, pulled into working corral, mugged (knocked over and sat upon, with one hoo...

So the first thing we did when we got to our new town was find a church. And we found it-- the same flavor, brand or whatever-you-wanna-call it as we have always belonged to. Our first day at church was familiar-- same songs, same formulas, same cast of characters: old ladies, staunch gentleman, a spattering of young families and surly teenagers. We were comfortable there but it seemed that the church wasn't comfortable with us. We stood out as the only malihini, and me especially as the only haole, in the whole congregation. About the first 3 or 4 months we went to the church, no one would talk to us, or even look at us. When we walked near groups of people chatting, conversations dried up. Attempts at small talk were deflating. We would not be deterred however, and decided to start small. I called to ask a nice-seeming couple over for dinner. I told the wife that we'd like to have them over some time. Her response was, "Why?" Eventually it got better. I elbowed m...