Families

THERE IS NOTHING QUITE AS FUN AS WHEN THE FAMILY GETS TOGETHER!!!!!!!

Sorry.....I couldn't help it, this picture is priceless.

What I really wanted to express is how much over the years I've come to treasure my extended family. I remember just starting out in married life and everyone was wonderful and perfect. Then a few years latter, everyone had such weird quirks and ideas which could be irritating. Then several years after that, those strange traits were endearing and I realized I had as many or more strange traits as anyone. I used to become soooo frustrated when my mother would call me EVERYDAY. I was married and independent and a call to ask me daily what I was having for dinner seemed such an irritation. Now, I would give anything for that "irritation". Roy has wonderful brothers and sisters; I have wonderful brothers and sisters, and who we are in very large part is due to our parents. Ergo - our parents were wonderful. Our modern life somehow fosters the idea that if anything is inconvenient or less than perfect, from appliances to people, just get rid of it, make your life as easy and smooth as possible. But relationships are anything but easy, and the harder one works at a relationship the more valuable it will become. If we all foster patience, versus judging, our differences can be part of our strength. I've been too slow to really internalize these truths, and I'm sure I will still be challenged, but when the family gets together, you all look delicious to me, warts and all. I hope that big, old, giant wart on my nose won't keep you from loving me, cause I've discovered a real truth....you just can't have too much family.

Ruby Kat Moon

When I was in Hawaii Pat told me a story about an employee that had a horrible divorce, and at that time was allowed to petition, without legal battles, what her name would hence forward be, and she chose....Ruby Kat Moon. She then moved to Hawaii with her young adult daughter, they both got a job working on Pat's boat, and she is a fantastic amalgam of personality.

I just couldn't stop thinking about that name. It just rolls deliciously off my tongue. It has "great scope for my imagination," and I tried for days to come up with a better "life's just been shot to hell, so I'm gonna start over with an edgy sort of vivacity," sort of name. Tingles of excitement just burst around my nerve centers when I say that name...Ruby Kat Moon, Ruby Kat Moon, Ruby Kat Moon. Without a doubt, there is a Ruby Kat Moon deep inside me. A Ruby Kat Moon would wear hats, without self consciousness. A Ruby Kat Moon could say truthful and outrageous things, without feeling guilty. A Ruby Kat Moon would twirl and sing in a meadow with abandon. A Ruby Kat Moon could....oooh.....the list just goes on and on. Do you have a Ruby Kat Moon soul? And what is his or her name?

Paradise with Pat and Jess

It's been too long since I've been back from the Big Island, but it is and will always remain for me a runner-up to what Heaven has to be.

Whether the lushness of the wet side or the ocean's colors, beauty and life of the dry side, I just can't get enough.

And here is Patrick's own "A Bay" (Anaehoomalu) I just wish my cheap camera could have caught the real colors.

And my own Pat and Jess - the greatest treasure I will ever see or experience in this paradise.

The Roots of Life

When I was in Hawaii visiting Patrick and Jessie, everywhere I turned nature seemed to be speaking to me in metaphors. Anyway, life lessons seemed to pop before my eyes whether I was visiting the rain forest, or the beach or the volcanoes. Perhaps I was just in a contemplative mode, but I wanted to come home and write them all down. This picture of the tree with it's hundreds of roots pushing through the bark and heading deep into the soil spoke forcefully to me of my own "roots". Is every energy source necessary for my growth reaching for fertile soil? Do I struggle past the inconveniences or hardships to breakthrough and reach the rich nutrients awaiting me? And am I firmly, determinedly, holding on?
Saying all this is probably redundant, for you probably got all that just by looking. But, wow, isn't that tree a sermon? Now, for this tree...
Further on in my walk in the botanical gardens I came to the older more mature version of the first tree. I certainly felt this trees age. I felt like my roots had been struggling for soooo long, but sometimes they dried along the way trying to reach the deep soil. Some of my roots were brittle from hard lessons, or life just not turning out the way I'd thought. But, other of my roots were still just as vital and were reaching down from tremendous odds to stay firmly planted.
I guess you could say the first tree was me at 25; strong, assured and sure of my course and outcome. The second tree is me at 50; seasoned, broken in places, but still struggling. A kind of enduring sort of beauty, not particularly beautiful, but admirable.