big hike, little island.

august and i have been planning this hike for weeks.

weeks.

we had finally determined that it would happen today or never. we drove down to waimea and made our way up to the state lodge, parked, and found a trail waiting a couple football fields-worth down the road.

the weather was terrible. it thundered and lightninged and rained in ways i'd not previously known were possible on kauai. the path was slippery when wet, which was essentially the entire way. at the end, the path was less of a trail and more of a stream. and by stream, i mean a rushing, miniature river.

but it was incredible. i mean, totally unbelievable. we trekked around 6 miles and caught this overlook (above). if you peer closely, you can make out not clouds, but the ocean in the distance. as with almost all pictures, it doesn't serve justice to the space, to looking around and not being able to understand how, in all of this vast expanse, you are standing on the tiny tip, of an inconsequential blip of land, in the middle of a massively small body of water that takes up less than a drip in the whole entirety of this galaxy. i have peered toward endless horizons since being on kauai, only to be humiliated by the weight of a rising moon that means more to me, than i ever will to it. how small we are.

we saw exactly four people all day, two of whom recognized my twins had and had lived in rochester, mn for a number of years, and had likely been my opponents on a rival soccer team during our high school days. how very, very small we are.

the best part

the middle bite of an egg sandwich
hitting send on the last email of the workday
first chug of water after a run
rainbows, anytime
the packers losing, anytime
waking up next to her
clean sheets
the last puzzle piece
the anticipation
the very middle piece of a pan of sticky buns
picking someone up at the airport
the milk after you've eaten all the frosted flakes
upper 90
the last car payment
the crust
one hour before sunset
returning
five minutes after you give a speech
the cookie-fudge part of an ice cream cake
opaeka'a falls out your window as your sleep sound machine
finding your lost wallet
North mankato, obviously
take-off
the journey
the first piece of pizza
payday
previews
concluding rite
the frosting
not knowing

history.

someone has to remember in case we all forget.

Let's Start at the Beginning.

it's the start of something big. i can feel it.

part of what i'm doing in kapaa is starting a printing company. an online printing company. for my bosses.

anyone who's started anything knows that it's all about the first step. going for a run first thing in the morning (or any time of day, for that matter)- the first step, the one that gets you out the door, is the hardest. the rest is cheese. you can set to run as far as you like, provided you take that first step.

my first step in getting our printing scheme starts at getting out the door and spreading the word. i accomplished this yesterday by giving myself a pep talk. i imagined where i want this printing company to be. i pictured success. i saw myself stepping up to the success plate and hitting a home run. i hit it out of the park. the packed stands erupt in sales. people are throwing money at me as i round the bases. i'm filling orders- banners, business cards, vehicle magnets. i'm manifesting pyramids of posters and golden statues of window clings. bumper stickers are the building blocks of my dreams.

i step into the bathroom of our warehouse and give myself a good, hard stare in the mirror. i shift my stare into something maniacal.

whoa, too crazy.

i soften my eyes and look submissive.

ugh, too feeble.

how do i sell this thing? do i go in there with guns blazing? i'm firing forecasts of bottom-dollar-savings. i'm making heroes of managers as they prepare to save their bosses hundreds with the simple swipe of cost-effective printing delivered to them on the sleigh of fortune i ride.

do i slide in low-key, keep my profile subdued and sneak-attack with my savings samurai sword? i'm slashing costs silently, killing my competition with cool, easy slices. i'm quiet, like a messenger you can't help but invite in, set a fire for and drink in his wild west tales- bagging bad business and riding into sunsets which guide him from one savings duel to the next low-printing shoot-out. i whisper my conquests, not needing to over-excite my client, inviting him into my gang, as if singling him out to join me on my next great printing coup.

i settle on quiet confidence and commence my pavement pounding.

it's not pretty. i've overdressed for the weather and it's hot. i'm sweating.

terribly.

brow-beads grow at the base of my (recently receding) hairline and fall under their own weight. keeping cool and collected, confident, proves difficult under the tyrant rule of the hawaiian sun. i'm afraid i come off looking over-worked and pathetic. heavy, exhausted swells of confidence escape my lungs with every humid, tortured step forward in the baking sun. i stumble into the cool oasis of local shops, one after the other, for escape from the unseasonably warm weather. i've had better first days of school than whatever humiliation i might call this.

my sales pitch turns into a sloppy shlep of nonsense. i'm not collected. my focus drips down and pools at the base of my back from tributaries whose headwaters are at my mullet's base, clamming up against the back of my neck. i'm a mess.

the end of the day finds me drinking in the tales of a man calling himself billy who claims to have run the second largest printer on the mainland, grossing over $28 million annually. i do all but build him a fire and invite him in to drink in his tales of the wild west- printing for crazy artists, hundreds of employees, 8-color printing processes, the academy awards! he looks me over, takes in a slow, deliberate, sturdy breath and brings me near to him as he quietly confesses to me in that perfectly confident and underspoken way- you're barking up the wrong tree, kid. kauai's a dry market and this can't work.

i look him back right in the eye, smile, and shake his hand- pleased to have made your acquaintance.

little does he know, he's my first step.

the rest is cheese.

valentine's.

May I always live in a place where the nearest flower shop is my backyard.

Whimpering dogs and halo-ed dreams. Moon's wake, birds yearn, the sound sets. A rest, the day.

shit.

terrible tuesdays

have no place here. sometimes i really can't wait to get my day started.

365 Days of Posts. Aaaaaand... go.

today starts my first day of 365 days of blog posting. i've been inspired to do it since seeing a friend of mine do a similar thing on his photography blog, whereby he would post one new photo he took each day.

it's a daunting task. i've convinced myself it's somehow good for me. i'm both ignorant enough to think i can keep up with it and narcissistic enough to believe that anyone in the world might care enough to stumble upon it and check in. i think if there's a person dedicated enough to check every day, i'd be happy to meet that person. happy in a sympathetic sort of way. the kind of sympathy you feel like when you're dog is pooping and has a dingle-berry hanging from her butt because she ate one of your girlfriend's hairs and it's attached to both a poop she's already expressed AND a poop she's still trying to force out and you want to help her, but you have no interest in getting poop on your hand and there's no leaf immediate enough, nor large enough, with which to assist and help a girl out so you stand idly by, hoping she's got what it takes to expel the other part because there's no way in the history of histories she's coming inside with a poop-hair hanging from her rear. yeah, i'd be curious to meet such a person.

i've not required of myself a length, nor substance, standard for my posts; only that i write daily. i'd like to keep them short, but i haven't wind enough in my mind to breeze upon these digital pages much worthy of attention. this is really an exercise more for myself. i need to prove that i have the stick-with-it-ness to accomplish a daily activity that demands more of me than the opening, then closing, of my eyes and consciousness.

so onward and upward, then. here goes 365 days of something. luck.

tools of the trade

baking cookies with a dinner fork is about as fun as it sounds.

presently, my cookies clumps are somewhere between raw and melty as they make their way toward who-knows-what in the oven. my forearms are burning. both of them. because when one got so tired from mixing with my fork that i literally could no longer grasp it, i had no choice but to switch and mix impromptu with my non-dominant paw until it, too, wore itself out.

i'm admittedly cursed with a napoleonic stubbornness. i understand napoleon's dogheaded-ness was equal in opposite to his diminutive stature- and look how far it took him. my sights are much narrower than his, as i look to conquer only my kitchen, right tools or not. additionally, i'm quite comfortable with my height, whatever that may mean for the fate of my kitchen.

i'm on cookie quest because shannon's been at work for the last 16 hours.

on her day off.

on our anniversary.

as an o.r. nurse, i have some significant concerns for the safety of patients under the care of a nurse in her 16th hour of work. the hospital may be a worthy opponent to napoleon and me. in any case, the pressure's on. these cookies have to conquer, in the least, an exhausted body.

we often find ourselves in situations without the 'proper' tools. our success is solely dependent upon our ability to improvise and push through. one of few answers to debilitating days is cookies, with or without the right tools.