While waiting to get into our apartment, Will and I spent a couple of days "camping" out at one of the resort hotels in Kailua-Kona. It's luxury, for sure, and perhaps an unnecessary extravagance, but it eased the stress of a move during busy times for both of us. The hotels offer special "kamaaina" rates for local residents and we weren't the only local visitors to the hotel that weekend. My next door neighbors were a family in the process of moving from Oahu to the Big Island, and like us, were awaiting access to their new home. Our lanais were separated by a half-wall and so, in neighborly fashion, we became acquainted. I spent a long time "talking story" with the 9-year old granddaughter (Alicia) and her grandfather. They both seemed eager to chat with someone other than each other. I was grateful for the friendly encounter, as well. Our talk ranged over a wide number of subjects. The man was enjoying his success in picking "opihi" off the rocks just in front of the hotel. (I thoroughly enjoyed the enticing smells of his catch cooking on their hibachi - certain, too, that barbecueing was not allowed on the lanais but I wasn't about to report them!) The grandfather told me of his love for the ocean and of his own father's untimely death at sea. Alicia told me of her love for dancing the hula, retold a few choice and gruesome ghost stories and confided her shyness in making friends at her new school (I saw no evidence of such shyness!) This is how it goes; people share their stories, share their fears, loves and griefs and almost always there is at least one tasty morsel that stays with you.

Alicia's morsel for me? She asked if I ever see anything when my eyes are closed. "Yes", I replied, "I do. Sometimes I try to look closely at the 'vision' and when I do, it disappears." "Well", she explained, "When you see something with your eyes shut, that is your spirit."...


...out of the mouths of babes


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Here are a few blogs that I highly recommend. I consider each of them sort of like translators; translating into words and images that vision and understanding, that sense that exists when eyes are shut, that veiled space that can be so elusive....

http://quanceblog.blogspot.com/


http://arjunalight.blogspot.com/


http://ethnicallyincorrect.blogspot.com/