Connections

We've been on Maui for several weeks. Unfortunately, we didn't make connections with the couple of friends we know on island from past trips. But we connected with a wide variety of other folks. Some connections were only momentary but still memorable.

At the upcountry lavender farm we meet Deborah who just started working there again. We discuss the art work they have on display, the plein art painters and art festivals on Maui. She writes the name and contact info for one of her friends in the plein air group. I call his studio and he returns my call the next day. To tell me he had tried to send me the schedule but somehow had been given my email address with a mistake in it. He invites me to paint with the group any time I want. Unfortunately, it's near the end of our trip and the dates don't work for me. He sends me an email and suggests I join them next time we are on island.

On Valentine's Day we stop to share shave ice in Kahului. A couple who also are eating shave ice readily agree to take our photo with my iPhone: one of the nicest photos of us on this trip. They come to Maui every year. It's where they were born.  They now live in Washington State. Another man, also enjoying a shave ice, tentatively strikes up a conversation with us. His manner is reticent: he doesn't want to intrude if we don't want to talk. But we are happy to chat. He shares that he's a firefighter who lives in Hana. Spending a couple of days on this side of the island for SCUBA training. He describes some of the variety of rescues firefighters are involved in on island. He waves at us to end our conversation as he answers his cell. We hear his happy greeting:"Happy Valentine's Day." He misses his Sweetie on this day. Later that day we hear of a daring, successful rescue in Haiku by firefighters from Hana and Kahului of a young man who has fallen 40 feet from a waterfall. We wonder if the firefighter we met is among the rescuers.

Then there's the couple who share some of the shade from their umbrella during the Whale Day festival. And the tall Hawaiian man whose shade I stand in while waiting to buy Italian ice. He notices my pale skin and graciously offers to let me go ahead of him if I'm worried about getting too much sun. I thank him and say I'm happy to stand in his shade. The Italian ice seller, who despite the line of customers, takes time to offer me a sample of flavors and assures me all are gluten free.  No one in line appears to mind the delay. I've bought  a couple of extra "script": the young couple with a baby  graciously thank me when I give them the unused food tickets.

A little connection with the guitarist / singer who performs with John Cruz on the evening of Whale Day. We go to  the evening concert at Stella Blues. After getting cleaned up, I wear my lei from Valentines Day. From the stage the accompanist asks me if it is my birthday since I'm wearing a lei. I suppose that is the traditional decoration to wear on your birthday. I deny it's my birthday, just reusing the lei from Valentine's Day I say. When he and Cruz finish their performance and leave the stage, he gently taps my shoulder and says, "Happy birthday, anyway."

This morning I help a woman who looks like she needs a steadying hand as she climbs down a few rocks to the beach. She invites me to join her in painting. Maybe next time--we are leaving tomorrow. She gives me her card, tells me she is on island every year about the same time we are. She and her husband live in San Jose. That's the same city where we stopped on our way to Maui to visit an old friend from college. We talk about San Jose and staying in touch with old friends. Strange how you find connections.

Parrotheads and Polkas

Where have I been lately, you ask?  Well, not writing on my blog.  But the good news is I have a few adventures to write about.  For starters: concerts: Jimmy Buffet and Gillian Welch.  Different music different venues and different audiences.  But both lots of fun.

Buffet is loud, fun and all –round happy.  Welch is more melancholy and sweet.  Audiences for both are diverse and multi-generational. And we heard both in Cincinnati.

To paraphrase Jimmy, don’t try to describe a Parrothead concert if you haven’t seen one.  And the Parrotheads were out in full force at River Bend and surrounding parking lots.  Along with pirates and beach styles, and all the sorts of festivities you might expect at the infield of Churchill Downs on Derby Day, which is to say sort of a frat party with a beach theme. 

A couple near us, much older man and much younger woman with a youngster in tow, struck us as particularly unlikely Parrotheads.  The child in particular seemed out of place, bored and sort of miserable.  His sleepiness, despite the loud music and boisterous crowd, stirred a long-forgotten memory of accompanying my parents and their friends to German beer halls for polka dances.  I learned the polka as well as a number of other standard dances, twirling on my father’s toes until exhaustion overcame me. Then I and the other kids would find a pile of coats on which to sleep in a relatively quiet corner.  This child had no such luxury as there was no pile of coats or relatively quiet corner. Instead his adult parents/ guardians/ whatever, gave him various electronic devices to try to amuse him while they swilled beer and perhaps ingested other substances.

The Welch concert attracted a different but also interesting mix.  In the smaller Moonlite Gardens venue, mixed groups of multi-eras, some toted babes in arms or trailed toddlers.  The crowd sat at tables and in the balconies, and stood on the floor, clapping and participating in the music.  No less enthusiastic than Jimmy’s fans, the Gillian crowd did not come in costume, unless you count the young women in maxi- or mini-skirts, wearing cowboy boots. 

One young blond in tight jeans invited my husband to dance.  And all I could do was smile and laugh.  You see, she was very young, thirteen or fourteen—months, not years.  She toddled over several times, extending her hand to my spouse of almost forty years, and waited for him to twirl her around in time to the music.  All evening the sweet toddler had been exploring the dance floor, the tables, and everything of interest, followed closely by one or both of her watchful parents.  And just when I expected the toddler to drop from exhaustion she decided to pick a dance partner and start twirling. 

While I have not been writing the last couple of weeks I also have enjoyed a visit from one of my sons and his family, complete with two beautiful young grandchildren.  And I had the fun of helping another grandmother take her toddler grandchildren swimming.  All of that exquisite fun resulted in my need to sleep nearly around the clock for several days to regain some semblance of strength.  

Dorothy’s Idea of the Day

While resting it occurred to me: If we could successfully harness a fraction of the toddler or child energy bubbling forth in our midst we would have no energy crisis.  Maybe we need to rethink the child labor laws.  And also consider which concerts are good for children and which it would be better to leave the children at home with a babysitter.

Tom Waits as Ghost Buster

As promised, the long-awaited (well, about a week) story of how Tom Waits dispelled some of my old ghosts.

When Tom Waits took the stage of St. Louis’s restored “Fabulous Fox Theater” to a sell out crowd there were ghosts lingering in the theater.  

The Fox is near the campus of St. Louis University, where I received a BA in political science many years ago.  However, it was not campus life at SLU, which sent thrills of déjà vu down my spine.  I have been inside the Fox Theater only a handful of times; but those occasions included my stage debut, at the tender of age of four as a tap dancer.  Two more performances on stage and I was relegated to a tap-dance dropout by age six. 

My next and last visit to the Fox prior to attending Waits’ concert was at the almost equally tender age of fourteen, wearing my first pair of “kitten” heels for the St. Louis premier screening of “Sound of Music.”  Navigating awkwardly in tiny heels, I managed to stumble and tumble down a long flight of stairs at the elegant Fox Theater, only to land in front of a group of my older brother’s friends also attending the movie.  Obviously, the dance lessons had not equated to grace.

Returning to the Fox resurrected shades of my first awkward stage performance in shiny costume and perky dance hat and my bruised ego from the teenage humiliation on the elegant staircase at the same theater.

Tom Waits took the same, though now restored, stage on which I had once tap danced.  Waits is not elegant but he certainly has class.  How is it that Waits can sell out thousands of tickets in a matter of minutes and yet not one friend to whom I mention his name recognizes his name?  

Maybe because Waits is in a category all his own.  First, he is an amazingly versatile songwriter.  His songs have been performed by singers as diverse as Bette Midler (“Shiver Me Timbers”), and Bruce Springsteen (“Jersey Girl”).

The diverse crowd of college students and senior citizens amiably mingled before the performance began.  Maybe some of them had their own ghosts waiting to be dispelled. 

As a performer, Waits is strange but mesmerizing.  With his porkpie hat tipped back on his forehead, Waits stomped on the stage to accent the music, at the same time, causing clouds of smoke to billow forth.  His gravelly voice invites comparison.  I like to think Waits has been ordering scotch on the rocks, every day for the last thirty years and gargling with it.  And, also, someone has been bringing him real rocks for gargling. 

The next time I visit the Fox Theater it will not be my own awkward performances, but Waits’ gravel voice and weird but compelling singing and strutting of which I will be reminded.

Dragonflies and Old Dogs Learning New Tricks

Do you ever have an idea or even a word, nestled so deep in your memory you can't retrieve it?  Often I do. In the last few years it seems to happen more frequently.  Recently, the word that seemed the hardest to retrieve, for some reason, was "dragonfly."  Not a word that comes up every single day unless you're a fly fisherman. Which I'm not.  But I do own a pair of carpi's and a sweater with embroidered dragonflies.  And every time I put either on, my conscious mind would root through the shelves of my memory as if the name for this insect has been lost irretrievably in the mess.  Sort of like how my desk or the contents of my purse usually look.  Perhaps "dragonfly" was misfiled under sci-fi instead of insect.

For some equally unexplained reason, the name of the insect now has returned to easy retrieval. Maybe I have moved it closer to the front of the cabinet. Or maybe wiht the hot weather and frquesnt wearing of the dragonfly capri's, I just have retrieved it often enough that the little neurons or whatever finally know where to look for it.

I've engaged in the  same struggle to recall names of character actors when they appear in a movie or TV show.  For actors I find their names come more readily on hearing their voices than when I just see their faces. Maybe actors' names are stored with auditory clues. Or with music and movies.  Who knows.

I go through some of the same type of struggle, only more so, to remember something new, like the  pronunciation of a strange wrod; particularly for a word where the spelling does not look anything like what the pronunciation would be in English. For example, the grain "quinoa" is pronounced "keen-wah," at least I believe that is correct. Quinoa is touted for its protein and healthy benefits, and, most important to me, the fact it is gluten free. But the word looks nothing like that pronunciation. So I struggle to remember how it is said in case I want to order it or look for it in the store.  I practiced saying the word aloud multiple times.  Finally, I now can look at "quinoa" and and say "keen-wah."  Unfortunately, I recently learned that is not the preferred pronunciation. There is an even more obscure pronunciation.

I won't say I'm too old to learn a new trick or pronunciation but if they have quinoa on the menu, next time I may just point and nod.