March 24, 2005

A Beautiful Noise

A beautiful winter day, on Hilo Bay

There is a peaceful stillness here that we havent had on the block in a while. Its Easter Break (Three weeks long for the year round schoolers here) and the boys next door are running a full blown auto salvage yard in the front area and their friends are painting cars in their driveway down the way...(I kid you not... the stench is un believeable, I dont know how they cure it....) So we will be filing complaints once we are out, but today, they arent around and we have...

Peace.

We showed the house to some folks from Seattle who liked it really well and maybe maybe maybe... I dont hold my breath. Woody brought up the possibility of renting the place out and I think that is a good alternative... The renters might want to buy and its a way to garantee my right of return to Hawaii. There is no investment that will perform like real estate here so I think that other than the volcano inundating it with lava it a possibility...

I am writing penpals with a forwarding address and thinking about how I will pack for the great escape. I went to the garage for more trips down memory land but gave that up, I am pretty much done and Woody out getting a haircut said not to till he was here. Nice of him.

We have a strong breeze off the water and it makes my wind chimes sing and the small bronze bell that I have hung outside rings with the stongest gusts. I feel like I am typing this while sitting on the deck of a ship all that is missing is the lapping of the waves on the hull... perhaps the distant sounds of boom box cars will suffice...

We have had loads of wild life around today, I have bread and seeds out leftovers from meals that attract the mongoose. These golden rodents were introduced to "kill rats" but really prefere bird chicks and eggs and so do a lot of damage to the ecology, however they are the only preditor against the wild fighting chickens that roam about so they have a niche in the ecosystem here. Mak and Nani go wild when the creatures come to play and like the squirel, are full of mischeif and very inquizitive. Many type of birds some that I didnt recognize were about today. We have two pairs of bright Northern Cardinals nesting nearby I love to hear them sing....

The evenings here when there is less human noise are how I always envisioned the nights in the tropical jungles. The sky becomes a kalidescope of colors, pink and blue predominate. No sinking sun, we are east of the sun and the massive bulk of Mauna Kea prevents viewing sunset, but you occasionally get "Angel Fire" The brilliant glow that gives one the impression that the hills are burning with an unquechable flame... The clouds are a water color canvas of bright blue suffused with pink that turns orange and grey then purple then just befor dusk, bright blue and white. I watched this spectacle with the eyes of a soon departing visitor... it makes one ache the splendor of it.

There are the birds, Mynahs and Cardinals the cooing Zebra Doves which to me epitomize the sounds of Hawaii...

There are the Geckos. They churrup in a sort of happy laughing way. No wonder the Hawaiians think they are lucky and say that having one in your house is good luck. Perhaps that was our problem. Everytime "luck" came to our house, the furry four footed vermin patrol would catch and eat the luck....oh well....

And there are frogs. The noisy invader frogs are hated by everyone but me it seems. I think about not having them to sing me to sleep at night makes me a bit sad. I hope where ever we go there will be night noise and not the sounds of traffic and TV's uggh! I just love the little Georgia green house frogs that trill like a song bird. Not limited to evening I hear some enterprising young male frogs calling in the afternoon or anytime a cloud passes by... He'll get a prom date by sheer effort on his part as for me I enjoy his song. If there was too much noise of other sorts I would never hear them.

Woody agrees. He is somewhat hard of hearing, not sure why other than a lot of niose during his military service and he had mastoid removal as a child so there may have been hearing loss then. He says he is glad that he is not as sensitive to noise as I am but he knows that I hear... Well its like a lone guitar player vs a symphony orchestra, he and I. I tell him what I hear the good and the bad. And it is good.

The roar of the oncomming rains, and the silence that sometimes is freaky... like at two am the frogs sort of give up and go to sleep...(we laughingly say that the bar is closed fellas go on home! and they do..) It is my hope that for this child of the city raised near freeways and had the sound of trains cars and airplanes as background noise all of her life that I will have the beautiful noise of natures quiet sounds wherever God takes us...