Settling In Gently by R.A.Davis

I left Hawaii. Not forever-- just for two months. Just the day school got out-- all my book shelves pushed into one corner of my classroom, all the partitions folded and desks stacked and supplies boxed up. I got on an airplane-- actually three-- and left Hawaii behind. I just got back Sunday. I learned a lot. Some of what I learned I should probably write about. But not today. Today, I went back to work. And the day sort of embodied everything that is sacred and amazing, and everything that is enraging and crushing about this rock in the middle of the pacific. I left the house at 4:30 am. I drove my truck through the dark-- down the mountain, along the coast. Just knowing the black ocean was right there, invisible and inky on the side of the road, lapping at rocks in the dark-- gave me chills. The ocean is big and powerful-- a force to be acknowledged and respected. Good morning unseen ocean. By 5:30 I made it to the beach. Many of the other teachers were already there, stand...

I came late to the faculty meeting yesterday. I walked in with my laptop and planner but the conference table was gone and everyone was sitting on the floor in a circle. Kaina, the Hawaiian language teacher and charismatic force of nature, was sitting shirtless at the front of the circle, with three large wooden bowls in front of him. At either side hovered a shirtless teenage boy. To their left sat our two graduating seniors. Ah. A Kawa ceremony. Cool. I mentally changed lanes. Last year's kawa ceremony was out in the school garden one evening, in the handmade hale, and was followed by a hi'uwai-- a purifying dunk in the ocean to symbolize letting go of the old and embracing the new.  Apparently this time it was in the social studies homeroom, on the carpet. I noted the three bowls-- one full of the stringy dried Kawa, one full of murky grey-green liquid, and one full of clean water with many little coconut bowls bobbing around. Kaina whispered to the boy helpers, di...