August 03, 2006
Images of the Familiar
beautiful Hilo Bay from the north curve. I still dream about about Hilo and this beautiful bay...
my seatmate at thisplace answers our bossman about new loads he has on his desk that he is trying to get carriers to pick up. The litany of names startles me into a new reality...of the past
We have loads out of Lathop CA for the following destinations
Whittier CA,
Santa Fe Springs CA,
Long Beach CA,
Terminal Island Ca,
4 for the plant in Los Angeles...,
14 for Fontana to be transloaded for shipment...By then I am gone...lost in images of the familiar...
Something I noticed early on as we settled in on the Big Island was the total absence of anything visually familiar. The streets and intersections all look the same and except for the fact that this was an island and there was one road in and out you could hardly get lost.
It was on a moonless night, New Years Eve, as Woody and I drove home from Hilo to our house in Pahoa, when I realized that I didnt know where I was... oh, I knew I was in Hawaii and going home, but there was this incredible disorientation, and the profound sense that I was detached from a reality that I spent building for 38 years.
I have moments like that here. The area that we live in during the summer becomes shrouded in deeply leafy green anonymity.I drive into the village and sometimes I feel like I am moving in a dream.
The dream extends to my home, where I am surrounded by both the strange and the familiar, with new belongings and treasures from my past. I feel more at home here in this house with my new, kind, neighbors, than I ever felt in Hawaii, in the hostlity of racially divided Pahoa, and an enviroment that I never understood.
As my mind wanders as those names are recited, I see in my mind's eye, Whittier's Old Town, and the redeveloped oil fields in Santa Fe Springs, wastelands that grew into new business developments and public parks... Places that I have walked and worked. Long Beach, my back yard, and Los Angeles, the the city on the horizion that fed my dreams...Freeways and byways, East LA, and coastline that went on for miles...
Freeways and streets with familiar resturants, (Oh, for an In and Out burger)Shopping Malls and landmarks that were a part of my personal landscape.
The truth is as much as I liked the good things about California, these places are no longer the way I remember them. Truth is home is where you are... and where you make it. I know that time will help me to feel less and less disorented. And as I spend time in and among the landmarks of a new and beautiful landscape, they will become more and more a part of my personal landscape..then and only then will I truly be at home....
