"What if this is our one chance to put things back the way they were supposed to be?"

"And what about us? We go on living our lives as if we've never met?"

"All the misery that we've been through, we'd just wipe it clean. Never happened."

"It was not all misery."
"Enough of it was."

I'll never love anyone the way I loved you.



It amuses me, sometimes, when I think about sentiment like that. Deep, resonant, weepy feelings that used to emanate from inside the walls of my heart. I could find no flaw in you, no reason for ever wanting someone but you except, of course, for the fact that in the end, you chose someone else. Before your quiet, wordless goodbye, I thought that no other woman could be so perfect.

Initially I missed your voice and the light in your eyes upon seeing me. Next were your smooth lips, forever inviting me into a soft, breathless descent. And the way your heart beat madly against your chest, as if you'd run for miles, when I wrapped my arms around you.

I longed for those things, longed for you, months upon months upon months. I was a shadow of a man, a victim of my own false hopes, wandering aimlessly through a life lacking purpose. My conviction that you were the singular woman of my days - the love story of my life - was complete.

Then, without presage, and mercifully small moments of despondency, I stopped missing your everything, not because it meant any less but because I began to spy small hints of you everywhere.

The way a woman in the elevator would flush suddenly, scenting the air with a sweet, lingering note that reminded me of your neck before we made love or your glistening, warm shoulders afterward. Or the sight of a woman across a crowded intersection, wearing those same black slacks and blue, french-cuffed shirt that you wore just for me. And the way I'd notice a woman's flawless, glowing, alabaster skin, as I'll always remember your beautiful face.

Then there were the multitudes I followed along the downtown avenues who strode in that sexy, regimented sway that I'd convinced myself was yours alone, or whose hair fell neatly along their shoulders and made me remember your silk cascading in my fingers.

I could only smile at those things and more for it was clear by then that your perfection was far from unique. There were hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of others who carried parts of the woman I swore I'd love forever. I rejoiced in those reminders not because I'd been liberated from your ghosts, nor because I'd found an island of replacements.

It was, rather, that I'd fallen for all those beautiful things first...with you.

This journey to enlightenment was always going to be complicated by the fact that I can never resist the impulse to be the hero, the one who fixes the problem, fixes you, saves the day, makes it all better, endlessly, selflessly, without regard for consequence.

I've tried to stop, believe me.

The problem, though, is that I don't live in a world without monsters. In fact, there are reminders every day of hideous, evil creatures that walk upright in our midst, selfishly, thoughtlessly, violently taking advantage of the meek, the compassionate, and the peaceful. Just thinking about the callous disregard for other human life that they display is enough to stoke the fires of my own anger, that latent hatred for all things corrupt.

You probably know someone that fits this category, that person you tolerate or embrace simply because the moral choice would be too difficult, or perhaps you look on with pity or compassion because of a shared past that cannot be sundered. And truthfully, most of the time I simply look away after having flared white hot anger in the moment, surrendering to the Universal laws of suffering, karma, and balance.

But I look around and still see monsters roaming the quiet countryside, infesting the lives of good people, decent people, and it makes my choices more complicated and tortured. It's in those moments that I realize I may be forever conflicted between the visceral impulse to fight these evils and the universal guidance to simply stand down.

"It's raining hard."
"And you'll always love me, won't you?"
"Yes."
"And the rain won't make any difference?"
"No."
"That's good. Because I'm afraid of the rain."
"Why?" I was sleepy. Outside the rain was falling steadily.
"I don't know, darling. I've always been afraid of the rain."
"I like it."
"I like to walk in it, but it's very hard on loving."
"I'll love you always."
"I'll love you in the rain and in the snow and in the hail and - what else is there?"
"I don't know. I guess I'm sleepy."
"Go to sleep, darling, and I'll love you no matter how it is."

"You're not really afraid of the rain are you?"
"Not when I'm with you."

-- A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

I'm sitting on the balcony of room 9389, gazing out at the expansive courtyard below when I realize that - save for a brief return a few weeks back - I haven't really been home since Valentine's Day.

Since The Police concert, I've spent the last two months hopping from one time zone to the next, sleeping in airplanes and airports and hotels, planning for the future and also preparing for the end of days. Somewhere in my suitcase is a collection of name badges from the half dozen conferences I've slogged through, scalps to hang on my office wall as proof of my adventures.

The courtyard is calm, with perfect trees and rivers and fountains nestled nine floors below a magnificent glass dome that shields it all from the Texas sun. Stucco replicas of iconic buildings dot the cobbled footpaths, a calm artificial breeze playing over everything. Somehow the contrived tranquility of it all is lost on me.

A wedding party is huddled near the small lake taking pictures, the bride whirling in her stunning white gown like a dervish. Two days ago the same area had been filled with democrats on their way to a caucus room, blue campaign signs belying the redness of their anger towards each other. In the center of the courtyard, where the many winding paths converge, a cowboy plays with a rigid lasso, dancing and twirling a short rope over his head.

Like all the other stops on Tinker's North America Tour, the staff here are almost exclusively non-Caucasian. The exception was Oksana, who brought me a baby spinach salad, and Robert, the driver who picked me up at the airport. His grandson and I share the same name and, as luck would have it, Robert is a former Air Force mechanic who had been stationed in Hawaii for fifteen years. He and the wife still go to Bellows every three years. When I told him I grew up at that beach I became an honorary grandson.

I'm looking out at the one thousand five hundred rooms circling the courtyard, a faux oil rig to my right, lone stars and bullhorns set into the roof beneath massive steel beams. This is a small city unto itself.

I've been here in the land of barbecue and pulled pork, of beef and ranchos everything for almost a week now but my third eye still can't see a thing. I think of the Mexicans who lived throughout the southwest before the war, and before that all the Native American tribes, too. I wonder about all those peoples, driven out so that men in Stetsons could have all of this. Perfect little trees under a perfectly lit sky, with a giant glass lonestar shining down on everything.

A fountain to my left blasts water that smells of swamp almost nine stories high. A lone bellman hurries across a makeshift bridge. Near the tall lamplight, the lasso cowboy takes a picture with a group of giggling student nurses.

I can't feel the spirit of this place, perhaps because of all the things that were done to the land here. Maybe I could intuit something if I took a stroll along Lake Grapevine, just a mile outside this geodesic dome. But the water there is dark and gray, and I have no desire to be wrapped in plastic.

Perhaps I can't feel the Universe because, for better or worse, I've been a nomad now for six weeks, traveling from one sterile environment to the next. Perhaps what I need is to walk in the woods, breathe the salty trade winds or, finally, dip my hands into the Pacific again.

I think it's time to go home.

It's been a few days now, more than long enough for this city to show me its true colors, to disappoint me like so many others have with an initial seduction that ends, ultimately, in stark naked reality.

Maybe it's because I was already enamored of this place long before I got here. Had I taken the path to being a computer science geek, the one that was laid out for me with a full scholarship to Puget Sound University, I would have stayed after college and become an early Microsoft millionaire. Even then, I had no idea why Seattle called to me. Perhaps it's my natural affinity for places that are crisp but not cold, that are multiethnic shades of the place I call home.

Then again, this was all true of San Francisco, and we know that eventually its magic ran out.

Contrary to stereotype, the skies here aren't always gray. The sun appears regularly, interrupting long stretches of the blue hour. It's as if my favorite time of day - that blue dusk moment when there's a hush to the world and the light falls softly - lasts for as long as you want it to. There is rain, intermittently, and with it the need to swaddle yourself in fleece, hugging your own body with self love. It is the perfect modality for focusing on your heartfire and looking within.

I am sure that I could write many books here.

The city is clean, orderly, and doesn't startle you with audaciousness. It's a place that's confident in its sincerity but also indifferent to what anyone thinks, a perfect milieu of the young vibrancy of tomorrow with the storied, earthy reverence of the past. Its denizens endure higher taxes to pay for a cleaner kind of living; they work in high tech but worship high touch on nature's altar.

There are Russians here, and Hispanics, African as well as Asian Americans, too. But perhaps it is the quiet presence of the Native American population that stirs my old soul most. Though only a fraction of my blood runs Native American red, it is the part of me that has come most to the fore in these middle days of my life. The respect for the Universe, the bond with the planet, the serenity of knowing. Perhaps I've been to this place before, in another time, in another life. And, if I have, surely I was happy.

Still, despite the languid persistence of its charm, I challenged this city to show me that it wasn't perfect. That it was, like all the other places in my travels, nothing like home.

I wandered into an older part of the city with squat, solid buildings that had been erected for the World's Fair in '62. Along the clean, vacant sidewalk there were deciduous trees shorn of leaves, waiting for the spring thaw. A pair of blackbirds cawed overhead, settling eventually into a tall pine tree across the roadway. A light rain began to fall and I ducked into a small diner.

I ordered some breakfast - more than I could eat, surely - and took off my jacket. It was warm near the window and I watched as the world went by. A trio of Japanese nationals clad in Abercrombie and Hollister sweatpants entered. Amused, I watched as two of them snapped pictures of themselves while the waitress waited patiently. Soon the diner began to fill up but you'd never know it from the sounds of it all. There was a quiet deliberateness, almost a conscious effort on everyone's part to be respectful of each other.

As I left a woman emerged from the restroom corridor and we both paused; she acknowledged me and smiled, then moved past me to rejoin her family. That's when I realized what was missing from this place: that belligerence-held-in-restraint, the subtle hostility that pervades all the other towns in all the other states of this country, it didn't seem to exist here. While not exactly a brotherhood, there is still a unity and an acceptance. The people here understand that they must all live together, that only with cooperation can they make this a decent place to live. They accept each other as human beings and look beyond what's outside, they see past the bundling to the warm heart underneath.

There is an unmistakable, undeniable grace to this jewel called Seattle. It's a metropolis that still feels like a town, a city that still exudes its rural roots, a vision of what I would have dreamed my own future home to be.

It is unmistakable, and undeniable, that I shall return to this place again.

I think perhaps that I am a relic.

I must be, as there is no other explanation for the burgeoning disconnectedness I feel when observing how increasingly younger generations behave. They think they know everything, this Generation Whatever, blithely discounting those of us still young enough to worry about graying hair without having to actually cover it up. It is a collective of millions, most of whom have never been inside a library, never done research without Google or Wikipedia, and can't write a single page of opinion without resorting to message-speak. Theirs is a culture of gaming, gossip, and laziness. They complain about having less than their parents when, in fact, there's never been a group of kids who've had more.

It's through that lens, too, that they interact with one another, and how they define their relations with the opposite sex. The subtle, thrilling, delicious way that men and women used to flirt with one another, circling like electrons around the white hot center of their attraction has given way to a crude and garish world where everyone is a pimp, where preening camwhores spend hours taking just the right mirror shot for their MySpace page, where 15 year old Lolitas pass themselves off as 26, single, and living the high life when, in fact, their homework is piling up, a casualty of AIM and other such frivolities.

I was thinking about all of this over my holiday vacation as I watched the same scene unfold before me in an endless parade of restaurants, department stores, and ice cream joints. I watched one pretty young thing after another reach into their purse or bag to pay for the food or cologne or new underwear, while the beefcake thug or gangly goth boy they were with stood blithely by, arms crossed or hands buried so deep into their pockets you'd think they were mining for gold. There was never any pretext on the part of these men, never a faux attempt to reach for a wallet. They just stood there, blank and unaffected, saving their money for their own private plunders.

It was startling to me, for even though I believe in equality of the sexes, some things just don't seem right. I have a difficult enough time letting female friends pay for meals, but I couldn't possibly fathom ever allowing a girlfriend or wife pay for something like that. Even when I've been with strong and independent women, I just couldn't do it; you can be fierce and take care of yourself when we're apart, but when you're with me, I should be taking care of you.

Am I a sexist, then, for believing women should be equally capable and responsible for the financial costs of couplehood but never allowing the women in my life to do their fair share? Is there some part of me that really believes that women are weaker, incapable of shouldering the burdens of our modern world, or am I merely a traditionalist who yearns for simpler times, when men took care of their women in all ways?

If this is in fact a brave new world, if I must find the perfect mate via MySpace or Facebook, seduce her by text message, and then let her pay for our dates, the rent and my new pair of underwear, then I'm afraid that a relic like me will have a very hard time living in it.

If you can cultivate the right attitude, your enemies are your best spiritual teachers because their presence provides you with the opportunity to enhance and develop tolerance, patience and understanding.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

I'd gotten the call on Thanksgiving day, minutes after I had endured a gathering of Rhapsody's family where her ex (who I'd been unceasingly friendly to throughout the meal) had also tried to steal thunder with his turkey and pinot noir. I stood outside on an open redwood deck overlooking Honolulu, the peace of my temporary escape from the holiday meal overshadowed now by my vibrating cellphone. I had avoided answering my sister's earlier calls, but realized that if I didn't give in she would keep calling me until I finally did. Plus, the Cowboys had won their football game so I was in a bit of a charitable mood.

"Happy Thanksgiving," I said, bracing myself for what I knew was coming.

Without so much as a courtesy response, she breathlessly unloaded a whole mess of family drama on me; though I was unamused and wanted to say so, I was content to just listen. After all, it's usually the same old same old: disagreements with mother, crazy talk, and other assorted Big Island fun. When she started to cry about it, though, I realized that it had escalated to an entirely new level. With my mother gone - having packed her stuff and trudged off into the hills - my sister had been overcome by guilt and anxiety.

"You need to get up here," she said, pretending somehow that she could tell me what to do.

"And what is that going to resolve? I can't make anybody do anything." I had just told a confidante that I missed having people turn to me for answers and there I was, resisting the paramount superhero impulse. I was in no mood to rescue anyone, even if they were family.

"I don't care. You just need to come as soon as you can."

Yeah. Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.

With so much chaos going on at the office and all the intermingled travel over the past month, I was uninterested in flying to Hilo on a Sunday to use my one day of relative tranquility to do wet nurse work on a dysfunctional family situation. But I knew that, ultimately, even if I couldn't get anyone to do what they should to remedy this situation, I had to go if for nothing other than the fulfillment of my filial duty.

When I finally made the journey a week later I expected to find typical Hilo weather - overcast skies, intermittent rain - but was surprised to land under blue, sunny skies that persisted throughout the day. My sister picked me up at the airport and we drove for a bit, looking for somewhere to have breakfast so she could bring me up to speed. She seemed no less agitated over the situation but expressed gratitude that I had come so quickly. Her desperation for resolving the seemingly irrational decisions my mother's been making were also allayed by my direct and unwavering suggestions.

"What happens if we tell her all of this and she still doesn't do the right thing?" My sister asked as we drove to the rendezvous.

"Nothing," I said, calmly.

"What do you mean nothing?"

"It's my duty - our duty - to tell her that we think she's made a terrible mistake and that, if she chooses to, we will help her extricate herself from it. That we'll give her our love either way, but we can't and won't support decisions that are harmful to herself. After that," I paused, and sighed, "the choice is still hers. We can't feel an obligation for the consequences of her own choices. That's not our responsibility."

"I can't believe I'm hearing you say this. You of all people."

I nodded. "I know. But I've come to realize that I can't save everyone. More than that, I can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved. And I can't burden myself with feelings of failure or remorse because they chose to ignore all my attempts to save them."

I looked over at her and saw that she was smiling, a winsome look on her face, as if she were admiring something she'd never expected to find.

We drove to Waiola River State Park, an odd and vacant sprawl of flat grassland surrounding brackish water replete with ducks. Waiting for us at the water's edge was my mother, brother, and middle sister. As we approached they met us under a small gazebo where we convened this most urgent of family interventions.

At first all they could talk about was how much weight I'd lost, expecting either an insane (diet) or ominous (illness) explanation. I assured them that I had, in fact, been at this weight for almost three years now and their surprise was due solely to my new, slimmer clothes. When they refused to accept that I shrugged, simply, and moved on to the reason I'd been summoned.

I let each of them speak, explaining in their own words and from their intimate perspective what they thought about my mother's recent decisions and actions. None of them could resist interrupting the other, something I had to continually scold them for as I tried to put together the collage of viewpoints and chronologies. When they were done I launched into my soliloquy, an unplanned but reasoned closing argument for putting an end to the bickering, closure on bad choices, and steering them onto a better future path.

As I spoke, holding court there while ducks waddled by, I spied them each looking at me with that same look my sister had given me earlier. It was a mixture of wonder and understanding, of calm and of agreement, as if they'd gone to sleep ten years ago and awoke only to find that the boy they knew had grown into someone they still recognized but respected more than they ever thought possible.

It wasn't easy, but after a few hours we'd come to a consensus on what needed to be done. They may not have entirely loved the outcome but they at least understood that the alternatives were worse. I felt good, knowing that the mission had been a success. I'd brought not only a sense of clarity and order, but a calming voice to a situation that had been escalating out of control.

Before heading back to the airport we ate a late lunch at Osaka and were even able to get me some mochi from Two Ladies Kitchen, things I'd been unable to do the last time I was in town. I took that as a harbinger of better luck ahead.

I gave my mother a book to read, bid my siblings farewell, and returned to Honolulu. I was exhausted but also content in the knowledge that not only was the hero inside of me still intact, so too was the dutiful son.

You said hello.




In this vast Universe of ours it's often the smallest of things that carry the most meaning, the tiny details that, often overlooked, signify the vast difference between darkness and light. And for me, the tumult of everyday life is often so violent and unremitting that it's easy to miss the things that fall into that space between.

I'd thought that after the Annual Conference was over, I'd be able to take my bows and kudos, retreat for a few days of relaxation, then return to work and find nothing but a clear calendar through winter. I'd have time to catch up with old friends, finally paint my new office, perhaps ponder the Christmas shopping.

Evidently, the Universe had other plans. Since my return from vacation it's been a whirlwind, with trips to literally every neighbor island, every underserved community in this state. Between now and Christmas I still have overnight trips to Hana, Lanai, and Hamakua to make. I've barely have time to read journals much less post in one, and find myself wondering if I'll ever remember all the little things that come and go, the things I don't take the time to record for posterity.

I look back on some of my journals and wonder to myself, What happened to that guy? Is he still in there, somewhere, simply biding time until the Universe's Next Big Thing? It's not that I'm unhappy, nor am I disaffected. It's just a burgeoning state of overwhelm, one which doesn't get you panicked but fills up the space and time leaving you so little of either to reflect, to ponder, and to dream.

And so it was that I found myself utterly exhausted after a trip to Molokai, the Friendly Isle, just over a week ago. I marveled all over again at the sleepy, country feel of the main town and its dusty, empty roads. In between meetings I wandered some tourist shops, absently fascinated by organic honeycombs sold whole, nectar still locked in the small hexagonal treasure chests of its makers. The shops were mostly vacant, with clerks passing time by idly chatting with you throughout your entire store experience. It wasn't desperate or lonely talk, just friendly in the extreme. I purchased some whole espresso beans (Mule strength), postcards, and a block of that honeycomb.

In the end I made my way to that speck of an airport near the center of the island, a commuter landing strip with barely a dozen flights each day and service that ends by seven. I didn't see you enter the security area, nor did I spy you near the gates. I was too busy talking to one of my colleagues about communication, pontificating about why people never seem to do it well enough to avoid conflict or disappointment.

I wonder now whether you'd hoped to avoid making any contact with me at all, having never healed those rifts in your mind and in your heart, conflicted still about whether to love me or hate me. Perhaps you were still struggling to reconcile those nights of passion and warmth and honey toast with the anger and tears and deception of those final days.

Or, perhaps, you already knew that a part of you would always vibrate in sync with me, a part of you that was submerged for so long, for over five years now, floating inside you, an embryo of what might have been.

I boarded early, taking my seat near the window and gazing out at the turboprop. I was still talking about communication and about dynamic change when I looked up, into the aisle, and caught a glimpse of your hair, still wispy and highlighted. I recognized your companion, too, and was not surprised that she walked by silently, nose in the air, her face a fixture of contempt. She, too, would have many reasons to hate me, none of which would be valid or justified but, then again, when have shrews ever been rational?

I could understand clearly when she said nothing, telling me more in silence than a perfunctory nod or smile ever could.

But you.

I watched you glance at me and blush, realizing that I'd been looking at you. Your eyes narrowed as you smiled, softly, then raised your hand to greet me. I pretended to be surprised and smiled back, noting after that you'd taken a seat behind me.

The flight was quiet and unremarkable, as one would hope all puddle jumps are. I heard you talking, for a moment, about the Big Island, but then you fell silent. I didn't delay my exit from the aircraft, nor did I bother to look back to bid you adieu. We'd already done that once in this lifetime, long ago when I had to wonder whether you'd erase me from memory and hold only anger in your heart.

Now, though, I no longer had to wait or wonder. I had my answer.

You love me, and hate me, all at the same time. But there is just enough there to keep you from pretending, unlike the others. After all, you still said hello.

Even after our goodbye.

Clark's gone.




It's taken a while for that to sink in, to settle deep into my mind, past all the filters of nostalgia and denial, to become, finally, more than observation. It's now fact, one that I live with.

I'd already decided long ago not to judge him, to accept the faults and weaknesses that made him who he was, to give to him that which he needed from me. That is, my unvarnished and unrelentingly honest advice, knowing full well that he would never listen, that he simply needed to hear the better choice, the wiser choice, the one he would ultimately ignore. It gave him comfort, I suppose, to at least fool himself for a moment into thinking he'd considered all options before choosing the one he'd already decided on some time ago.

That was our sacred contract - the Universal bond you have with the people who come into your life, seemingly at random, but who stick around for a while. You learn something from them, or they learn something from you. You help them discover truths, or they illuminate yours. Whatever the case, we all have sacred contracts that have to be fulfilled.

In some ways, I've been his Obi Wan. The mentor he never listened to, the one whose lessons he never heeded. And, like Anakin, he's chosen things out of arrogance but also out of love for his wife and children.

It's for those reasons that he decided to quit his position, the one I'd hired him for nearly four years ago. After I'd had enough and resigned in 2005, I'd encouraged him to follow suit, to move on to something bigger and better. But he wanted to prove to himself that he could do it all without me, that he could find his way out from being in over his head. Finally, after two years of struggle and anguish, after enduring punishing mental anguish and physical decline, he woke up one morning months ago and decided never to return to that job again.

What followed was months of listlessness, time frittered away by golf and the beach and alternately feeling strong for having the courage to move on and being depressed for having nothing to do but mope.

I did what I was always there to do, pushing him to get off his back, counseling him to fulfill all that potential.

He finally fled east, living with his parents for three months while trying to find work there. Before he'd left in early summer we'd had lunch at Kakaako Kitchen, watching the idle richies; him regaling me with stories of all the opportunities that the mainland had to offer and me, oddly, quiet and supportive of his decision.

Through those later months there were sporadic emails and a phone call here and there, often just quick updates on The Great Job Search. The pattern was clear, though, that despite all of the potential he'd thought was there, things just weren't working out. He had turned morose and taken to drinking, ignoring the fact that his wife and children were still here, in Hawaii, waiting for him to either call them to North Carolina or to tell them he was returning.

I spoke to him late one Thursday afternoon, after he'd finally decided that the search had been fruitless, the decision to move to the East Coast a wrong one. He spoke of what came next, of having to find a job here in Hawaii, confessing that he'd never really tried to before running away. I told him to let me know when he planned to return so we could get together. He said he would and seemed, despite his disappointment, relieved to be coming home.

Days passed and I still didn't hear from him, my texts also went unanswered. Then, in the quiet of a Sunday morning, I got the email I never expected to but should have.

Clark wasn't coming back.

At the last minute he'd gotten an interview for a store management position. It had gone well, he'd passed the drug test, and would be starting in two weeks. Now his wife had to quit her job, pack up all their things, and take the kids five thousand miles east to the land of opportunity. It's counterintuitive, I told him, for young men to head east for fortune and excitement. The creed has always been 'go west young man, go west.' He liked that he was bucking the conventional wisdom but then again he always liked to think of himself as a maverick, even when he wasn't one.

He did return to Honolulu briefly, though, to help his wife get started on the dismantling of their lives here and to see them all again after having been gone for so long. He'd be in training for several more months so it was more than likely that they wouldn't be following him up until the holidays. He never told me that he'd be coming back but late one Friday afternoon I just got a sense that he was in town, so I texted him.

He replied: 'Your text is oddly timed as I just stepped off the plane from NC. Will be in town for five days.'
'Yes, the future I see. Lunch before you go back.'

We'd decided to meet again at Kakaako Kitchen but, as I should have expected, he changed plans at the last minute, forcing me to drive all the way out to Pearl City despite my busy schedule. He was relaxed, calm, though there still seemed to be a cloud over him, a monkey that he still carried on his back. He chose to talk more about gossipy things than about his new life, musing only at one point what people were going to think of him when learning that he was now a Wal-Mart manager.

"It doesn't matter what people think."
"Sure it does."
"Not anymore. It's too late to worry about it. Your decision's been made, Clark."
"Yeah, I guess so."


In the end, we said our goodbyes in the deserted parking structure. A group of teenagers was milling around the elevator, the afternoon had suddenly turned cool. We talked for a few more minutes about my book project and vacation plans and then, when the conversation had run out, I shook his hand, gave him a hug, and then told him what I've always said to my pupils when the future was never clear. "Take care. And good luck."

I drove back into town knowing that it was probably the last time I'd ever see my friend and, although I knew deep down that our sacred contract had been fulfilled, there was still a part of me that didn't want it to be so. There was still a part of me that knew I would always miss him.

I'm no longer in love, finding myself freed - finally - from the wispy, nostalgic, temporal dreams of what was or what one day could be.

San Francisco has lost, for now, its hold on me.

In hindsight, it's hard not to see the stunning potential of that fabled city by the bay, with its amazingly crisp, temperate weather, its concentration of ecologically-sound yet commercially-minded progressivism, and its vibrant, multi-ethnic society. It is, ultimately, what a city like Honolulu could aspire to be one day.

And it's that thought more than any other that frightened and repulsed me as I strolled for miles through the byzantine streets of San Francisco all last week during the American Psychological Association convention at the Moscone Center.

Maybe it's my own fault, the sucker that I am for romance and nostalgia. Since that first trip to San Francisco in the fall of 1995, I'd been keeping a pocketful of gauzy dreams alive, revisiting its splendor in my dreams and visions. Viewed now in the aftermath of a more serene but lucid experience, lacking in romance and magic, I'm reminded quite clearly of one of my favorite quotes of all time:

"We fall in love with a personality,
but we must live with a character."

No matter my feelings for her today, I did fall in love with San Francisco all those years ago, when it was still a city of fog and cable cars, of restaurants and wharves, of charming boutique hotels and cafes, of scarves and of sunshine, when the city still believed it could be a shining city on a hill. All those things that I wished Honolulu to be, contrasting the breathtaking beauty and serenity of our hidden Hawaii with the rich and vibrant core of a city where you can walk to everything you'd possibly ever need or want to do.

This time around, though, I saw San Francisco's multiple personalities laid out before me bare. Perhaps it was the residual effect of surrounding myself with psychologists for a week that had me focusing on all things neurotic. The city's stark contrasts and contradictions and its full schizophrenic depth hit me all at once and then over and over again as I made the daily trek from the hotel to the Moscone. Amid the glittering, monied storefronts that beckoned the wealthy and the tourists alike were the scores of homeless, destitute, and mentally ill street dwellers. Thronging outside the charming stone edifices were hordes of people bustling across intersections when the signals clearly cautioned them to stay put, horns blaring, the decidedly uncharming aroma of baking urine, spoiled food, and rotting debris wafting along with the strong ocean breezes.

I could have been standing in the middle of Manhattan, London, or any other metropolis and felt the same way. Unnerved, saddened, and wondering again why I ever wanted Honolulu to be like this.

There were wonderful things to be found, for sure. Nearly every place I went to eat bore an adventure. Late one night I popped into Betty Boop and had, despite its reviews on Yelp, a great burger and great service. The lunches and dinners at Sanraku, Hana Zen, and An Zu were all better than expected, but none of them ever seemed Japanese enough. The dinner at Crustaceans being the most obvious disappointment while I was there. Crustaceans is supposed to be a fabulous restaurant, famous for its crab and other seafood, but I found the environment to be seedy rather than elegant (I'm talking about inside the restaurant), the food was underwhelming and overpriced, and the waiter was a complete ass. Then again, he was French so maybe he had an excuse.

The greatest food find for me was a small out of the way sandwich place called Theatre Too Cafe, a little hole in the wall on a side street run by an immigrant family. The food was good, simple, and reasonably priced. Just like me. I'll make a point to go back there the next time I visit.

I did spend a night at the Asian Art Museum and, earlier, walked amid the expatriates who were celebrating their Pakistani heritage along the Civic Center Plaza. The museum was amazing, but then again all museums are jewels, aren't they?

As I reflected on my trip I realized that, absent the difference in weather, my own metropolis is just like any other. San Francisco and Honolulu have similar diversity in their food and culture and people. I walk among the homeless people every day here in paradise and have reflected on the similar dichotomy that I observed in NorCal. I also could walk within ten blocks of my Fortress of Solitude and find the same kinds of restaurants - Asian, Fusion, hole in the wall. I can even go to a museum or an ethnic celebration (like this weekend's Greek festival) if that's what I want to do.

And so, despite the differences - shorts versus sweaters, fog versus surf - there's not much that makes San Francisco a more magical place than my home city. Both have flaws but both are also rich with life. Like women, their personalities are many and complex, their mysteries shared only with effort and patience. Their illusions are only what you, the observer, make for yourself.

In the end, if there's a city that I should be holding a pocketful of dreams for it's my own.

There are taiko drums below me.

There are crowds and humidity, lights and commotion. Distraction and chaos, everywhere.

Yet, inside, there is an emptiness, a stillness in this room as I gaze up at you, through the camera at first and then, closer, intimately, through my telescope.

You are torn; half scarred, half pure, one side radiant, the other cold. I want to be away from these lights, this noise. I want to be closer to you. I watch you all the time, watch you appear like an angel and then, like hope, you float out of my life, disappearing when I need you most.

Like the ocean, you bring me peace. Little wonder, then, that you are so connected to me. You are bound to the ocean, too. You draw it in, you push it away, a seduction without end.

It's different with me. You keep drawing me in, pulling me closer, shining that beautiful blue light, making everything around me, the chaos and the noise, all of it invisible.

But the strings that connect us, they remain strong and vibrant, shining in this cloudless night. The passion between us travels on moonbeams and enters me every month, every night, just like this. Close enough to feel, too far to touch.

Tonight, again, there are taiko drums within me.

It's been a strange month. This time last year, of course, is when I actualized everything, or the beginning of everything. The amazing state of my life today was created in the ups, the downs, the revelations and the discoveries that I was too close to understand then.

Looking back now, I see how much changed in those 30 days in September 2005, I realize how significant those days were.

When I looked out at the brilliant sunrise this morning, I wondered, briefly, whether these days have been significant and, also, what I would be thinking one year from now about these, the last days of summer 2006.

( Falling from the stars )


.......

It's hard for me to watch you with him, this new guy, hard to watch you with any of them, really.

I'm having trouble standing this close, trouble watching over you, because I see it happening all over again. I see you ignoring your senses and succumbing to your weakness, forgetting your history, purposefully, willfully, hurtling yourself towards the white hot center of his universe, the glaze of passion in your eyes, that flutter in your chest, all the while with blinders on.

Maybe it's the technician in me that understands it best, who sees the sine wave of your emotion and your fascination, the graceful, heady crest but also the sinewy, inevitable, guaranteed slide to something less than zero. And yet it's the poet in me who wishes for the best, who understands why you're on auto destruct. It's the poet who envies the freedom that liberates your soul and enables you to leap without looking.

All I ask, love, is for you to be careful. Whether you care about it or not, every time you do this, every time you break your own heart, you end up breaking mine as well. And I'm running out of poetry for both of us.

You're standing there, watching me walk toward you and your heart is bursting. I can hear it from here, the anguish, the love, mixing in the chambers and coursing through your arteries. You've never been happier to see me, to see that I'm here for you, but I don't have to listen to your heartbeat to know that you're also angry, disappointed, even. You ask me those questions, the ones I can't answer, not fully, anyway, because there really is no explanation.

You think I have choices but you're wrong. It's not easy, living my life this way. Being invulnerable to everything, and everyone.

But you.

You say things to hurt me, even though you don't want to, even though you still want to protect me, somehow. I would hope that you understand, then, what it means, what it feels like, to have no choices, to be forced by circumstance.

But you don't understand, because you have the luxury of thinking about yourself, and your feelings while I, on the other hand, have to worry about everyone.

Their hopes, their needs, their fears. I have to think about it all. Not that I mind. It's who I am. That anguish and that love for everyone, those are the things coursing through my heart. The one part of me that can still be hurt.

That first kiss was forceful, surprising, dangerous. Just like you, I suppose, and the way you went about infusing my life with the energy that had, up to then, been absent.

It happened during a morning session break while others mingled near the coffee and hardening danishes, as we sat outside near the bank of pay telephones and tall, sand-filled ashtrays. After two days spent discussing interest rate policy and the merits of price control, it was startling that anybody could make it through the morning without coffee. A small cup sat stained with your lipstick, balanced on the saucer between us on the low, padded bench. You asked me if I smoked, the unlit cigarette dangling from your mouth. I paused for a beat, unsure of what truth to tell. A buffet captain slouched by carrying a platter of freshly cut melons, grapes, and strawberry garnish.

As you struck the thin, silver lighter, igniting the cylinder between your lips, I said, firmly, "No, I don't. The smell bothers me. And I don't particularly care for the taste."

Your eyes narrowed and you exhaled, the smoke rising fast and forcefully from the left corner of your mouth. We'd debated for hours since the start of the conference, so this was nothing new, this diametric, pole-opposite view of the world and all its things. I was, after all, still a Republican then.

You turned your head a little and a lock of your hair fell neatly across your forehead. "How do you know what it tastes like if you don't smoke?"

Again, an assortment of truths shuffled to the forefront. "I smoked once," I offered, finally, revealing only that I'd done it for the wrong reasons.

You sipped your coffee, everything fluid and effortless. "So you wouldn't date someone who smoked?"

"I imagine, besides always smelling the smoke on their clothes, that it'd be like proverbially kissing an ashtray," I said, too quickly, without realizing that it probably sounded worse than I thought it did as it played back, silently, in my mind. The longer you sat, motionless, lost in whatever thought or emotion I'd triggered, the more eager I was to return to the session. That harried buffet steward emerged from the room, hands nearly as full as when he entered, but this time with the splintered remains of the early continental breakfast offerings. As the door swung close the hosts's voice crackled over the speaker system and we stood in unison. You buried the cig in the small circle of sand to your left and lifted your coffee from the bench.

I paused to open the door for you and that's when you moved into my space, your breasts pressing up against my chest. Your mouth was on mine, your lips pressing against me, your tongue slipping past the point of impropriety into decadence. I instinctively pulled back and found your left hand at the base of my back, holding me still.

After ten seconds, ten minutes, ten hours, you withdrew, again with that fluid, effortless motion, and you opened your eyes, unsmiling. "That didn't taste like an ashtray now, did it?"


Warning: Some content may not be suitable for minors
( continued )



.......

I'm standing outside the restaurant, arms folded in front of my chest, back straight, head tilted as if I'm watching something in the sky. My tie is undulating in the breeze, a reasonable facsimile, I suppose, for a cape.

I'm standing there deliberately of course, in a spot where she can see me but also so I can bathe in the dappled day filtering through the trees. I hear my name, muffled against the whispered wind, and I turn to see her, all smiles and prim in a cream skirt suit, hair pressed back, her lips full and burgundy.

We hug, briefly, and she asks if I've been waiting long.

"No, just a few minutes," I lie, like I always do when someone asks that question. Why compound their guilt over something trivial, like keeping me waiting, or confirm their presumption that I am, if anything, obsessively over prepared, even for the simplest of things.

The restaurant is quiet and spare, odd for a lunch hour, and we're seated off near a small group of office girls. Our waiter Dean is clean, fresh-faced, and devilishly charming. He flirts with both of us shamelessly.

She trusts my menu instincts, smiling broadly as everything I suggest is given Dean's breathy endorsement. "That is my absolute favorite," he says, repeatedly. We learn, later, from one of the stunning girls in black who roam the restaurant that this is all of Dean's second week. Expertise, evidently, is acquired rapidly here.

We chat amiably for two hours, through four courses and dessert. I ask a lot of seemingly small, innocuous questions. Her answers reveal so many things I hadn't heard in the years since we last spoke. The level of change that's come over that part of the world is at once stunning and comforting. Though many have remained, a handful of my stalwarts have moved on, like effervescence, bubbling to the surface and disappearing one after another.

I keep the conversation on her, her new house in the hills, and all the old gang. She tries very hard to be perfect, to deliver on cue like she always has for me, to be the good little girl. I recognize, then, that though we were never lovers, nor friends in any conventional sense, my affection and my attention are what she's there for.

When prompted by her curiosity about my new life and where six years went, my responses are brief, and rehearsed, and sound almost too good to be true. It is, in fact, a good life now. I've found faith in the Universe and reason as my guide. I take her flattery as I always have, eyes downcast, that aw shucks half grin.

We part much as we found each other, a brief hug, a light kiss on the cheek. For hours afterward I'm left wondering why I feel oddly comforted yet wistful. Toward nightfall I realize that I'm not nostalgic for those times or the heady days we shared, but for the people we both knew. Past midnight, after a snack of cold peaches, I find her email.

It was wonderful seeing you again and you look so great! Thank you for the wonderful meal, and the company was even better. Please keep in touch and don't forget we have Mandalay Bay planned for late July.

Like time, these friendships seem transient and gauzy, drifting on the wind innocently, swirling in a tempest, and disappearing briefly. Unlike in childhood, the familiarity of friends isn't kept by the nightly ritual of saying goodbye when the streetlights turn on. Our friendships now are strung together by electrons, with text messages and email, frittered random cellphone conversations in between the busyness of work and play and commitments and family. As we grow older, as our lives ripen and we go through feast and famine, we reach that event horizon and recognize that true, absolute friends, are so very hard to come by.

They just don't make them like that anymore.

My sister and Rhapsody were trying to gang up on me the other week, when we sat over the remains of dinner at Kyo-Ya, talking about how far behind my sister's wedding plans are. I asked about the guest list, the invitations, the food, the venue, the church, the transport, the ring bearer, the program, on and on for almost an hour. Rhapsody apologized for my tendency to grill when it comes to plans and planning. "He's like that with me, too, when I procrastinate," she said to my sis.

"So how are you coming along with your cranes?" I asked, absently.

My sister's face took on a round, mirthful appearance. "I've got about 200 done."

I did a double take. "You've only folded 200? There're only four months left, three if you take out the time someone needs to frame them."

"Well, I didn't fold 200. I folded maybe 20. 30."

My eyes narrowed. "Are you trying to tell me that you had other people help you fold cranes?"

Again the sheepish smile, but this time with a silent answer. I shook my head.

Thus ensued the great crane discussion. Both my sis and Rhapsody were going on about how it was unfair to have the women fold all the cranes, that it was a sexist, outdated tradition. Lynn's fiancée didn't help much by intimating that it's a Hawaii-centric custom, one that isn't really passed down from the motherland. And all other things being equal, I can swing with the best of the feminists out there. When it comes to things like this, though, I believe that times can change but your standards must remain. The essence of tradition is that it fastens a bond from one generation to the other. Offspring will change everything about the world they live in, but it's the common roots we hold onto that keep a sense of stability.

And, silly as it may seem to maintain a tradition like this one, where the bride learns "patience" by folding an unimaginable number of origami, these are the things that define our culturalism. They are our olive trees. Simply because the custom runs afoul of expedient gender politics doesn't mean you throw it out by allowing a dozen friends to fold hundreds of cranes for you. What's the sense of following a tradition if you aren't going to follow it implicitly?

After a while I stopped saying anything. I'd said enough. "My opinion, mine alone. But to me, if you aren't going to follow the tradition, why bother doing it at all?"



+




On Sunday, Rhapsody and I had lunch at Ala Moana and wandered the mall for a bit. We started talking about next steps, and timing. We sat in Starbucks and talked about marriage and the future while watching shoppers straggle out into the exhausted afternoon.

Still later we found ourselves peeking into the jewelry shops, calibrating our preferences. After a particularly intense session with a saleswoman that lasted almost an hour, we sat outside on the cold stone planter in the final minutes of our time together. When we'd spoken earlier in the day it was in terms of a year, more likely two. Plenty of time, I suppose, to come up with an airtight plan.

She looked up at me, a smile in her eyes. "Does that mean I should start folding cranes now?"

I laughed, but didn't say anything. Even though I'm a consummate planner, there are some things I like to keep a surprise.

Better that way. What with tradition and all.

I look at you now, despite my memory and all that I've seen, to find you still incomplete.

At dawn you lay there, a starfish along the cold beach, abandoned by the promise, imperiled by what's to come. I don't know how you came to be there along the shore, with all the other sparkling starfish, but my archetype won't let me pass without trying. I know I can't possibly make a difference to all, but I try my best. As I sprint down the beach, tossing as many starfish as I can back into the water before the sun rises, I pray that those I can't save will forgive me.

At midday I find you as a baby turtle, upended and flailing against a world that always finds a new way to put you on your back. You struggle and spend yourself, fighting against unseen predators and the fear of being on your back forever. I wish that you could listen to the calm within, the part of you that understands that simply moving forward is just as difficult, and just as easy, as getting back on your feet and putting your world in order again. Accept the helping hand that turns you over without fear, for sometimes the best of intentions are simply that.

At dusk you appear as a firefly and I watch with amazement as your light, small and warm, pulses unendingly into the night. You look around to find the light of others, dazzling and distracting all at once, and your glow dims. You cannot see your own beauty amongst the splendor and you shrink, questioning all that you are. I wish you could see that even amid a galaxy of stars swirling amid the reeds, your inner light is still breathtaking, a marvel, a lumen of love. Turn a deaf ear to the buzz all around you and look within.

No matter the time of day, no matter what brings you down from happiness and peace, close your eyes and think of me, of the light I shine in all directions, touching you and everyone I care about. Close your eyes and see the starfish, the turtle, and the firefly. Close your eyes and breathe in the beauty that is so very much a part of your life, that is everywhere in the world.

Close your eyes.



The rest is easy.

I'm not McDreamy, but I do remember.

Not because I'm still living there, with those tachyons, and not just because I'm the MemoryMaker, either.

I know that none of you remember, because loving me or losing me, whatever the case may be, is something that you all probably worked very hard to move past, or casually discarded on your way to the next man. Whatever the case may be. I don't remember because I still pine for you, or it, or for the delicious feel of my lips - my soft lips, as you all would say - on yours.

No. I remember because that's just how I am. But you already knew that, didn't you?

It was just past five-thirty and rain had been falling since morning. We didn't talk for long, everything had been said the night before, at the park, when I bolted from my car. Now we stood on the porch, the one with the log rails, and spoke about the summer. You were wearing that long blue sweater, the one with the sleeves that ran past your hands and made you look so cute, and those old jeans you kept wearing because, you said, you were gaining weight at Cornell. I told you I'd see you in the summer, and you whispered something about an internship in D.C. I kissed your small lips and you lingered. We hugged. I put my hand behind your head, my fingers slipping into your soft black hair. And we were done.

We'd spent the afternoon crying on the floor of my living room, you with all that regret and me, with knowing certainty. You were wearing shorts and I kept marveling at your tan legs, how much I'd miss seeing your skin. Your makeup was running and I kept wiping the tears from the edges of your eyes. I breathed you in when we stood, finally, near six o'clock that night, to say goodbye. I wanted to remember what you smelled like, that sweet, almost raspberry flavor that lingered everytime you left the room. I walked you to your car, and we weren't holding hands. That's how I knew that this would be the last time. You got into your car, and rolled the window down to say goodbye. I leaned in and you put your hand under my chin, your fingers holding me there. I'd lost everything.

You'd been acting strange for days, probably because of guilt but also because that's what you always did when you were about to hurt me in some way. You'd start it off by pushing me away, like a prelude, a prologue, a soft hint of what was to come, and then I'd retreat some, trying to give you space, widening the gulf between us that would fill with silence and void. It was a Thursday night and we hadn't eaten dinner. You mentioned having to stop and see your parents before going home. Neither of us really said anything as you got into your car. It was very gray that night, nothing had any color. Not the other cars, not the walls, not even our clothes. That's what I remember most. I leaned in to kiss you goodnight, to kiss you goodbye, and all I can remember is gray. You pursed your lips, puckering up like how you'd kiss a child. It was short, and terse, and without any love left.

You'd had too much to drink that night. That much was obvious before we left the restaurant, all of us trying to figure out who'd go in what car and where. I mumbled something about heading home, that it was late and I was tired, even though you'd asked me to follow you to another joint. You were going with Lisa, in her small white Civic, and it was parked on the fourth floor. I remember the big blue 4 to my left as I walked you to the car, holding you steady. You were still so light. And your little black bag was on your hip, pressing between us. You slipped into the back seat and I closed the door, about to walk away and turn in for the night. You rolled the window down quickly and Lisa started the car. You called out to me and I turned back. Your head was resting on the sill and you gave me that look. "Please...," you said. I cupped your face with my left hand, the soft strands of your short hair tickling my fingers. I leaned in to kiss you on the cheek, to say goodnight, and you turned, your mouth parted. It was deep and soft and took my breath away. I would have followed you anywhere in that moment.

I am on my third scotch of the evening, having spent a full hour helping Christy make sense of the major changes in her department. I lent my insight, as always, tended to her emotional and intellectual needs, giving her comfort in a time of turmoil.

And then, as suddenly as she appeared, she was gone. Off to buy groceries for the house, supplies from Longs…, all the seemingly normal parts of a routine returned to and embraced. She has settled back into that life and doesn't even realize it. Or worse, realizes it and understands that it is now too soft to fight through. That we have, indeed, fallen into the quicksand.

I needed someone to listen to my issues tonight, …needed someone to just hold me and tell me that they would be there for me if I faltered. I'd not eaten much all day, and ended my afternoon in a four hour negotiation about the future of the company, the resolution of which could make me a Vice President within sixty days.

But as I sat in the meeting I wondered whether or not my heart was in it, if I honestly wanted to assume control of the entire operation or if, rather, I wanted simply to walk away and start anew somewhere else. It wasn't fear that kept me dazed throughout the negotiation. It was apathy. The accolades, the promise, the invigorating euphoria that should come with promotion and beginnings was lost on me. I felt nothing but emptiness.

I have to wonder whether or not it's because my personal life - the part of me that I've made so prominent, so utterly important to my well being - is in tatters, disintegrating like rice paper in my shaky, sweaty hands. No achievement, pending or otherwise, means anything to me. The totality of what determines black or white, good or bad, right or wrong, is caught up and reflected through this nebulous middle ground with Christy. I don't feel a thing because I see the world through the glass darkly.

She left, as always, yet never once asked me about my day. Perhaps it's because I've always been the strong one, she felt that if I really needed her shoulder to lean on, I would say something. I keep telling myself that that explanation is what prevents her from caring more about what I do or what affects my world. I keep telling myself that because I can't stand thinking about it in any other way. I can't think about the truth.

The English Patient Special Edition DVD arrived tonight, which means that the God of Irony is once again at work, mocking me. I watched some of it, hoping that the parallels would help leach away some of the sorrow weighing on my chest, my mind, and my heart. But tonight, I couldn't summon a single tear for a movie that, without fail, brings me to pieces.

I know what people will say. That I'm the foolish one for doing this to myself once more. For being the doormat all over again and that, simply, I need to summon the courage to do what's right for me. That I need to put a stop to this agonizing, devastating relationship. Easy to say, of course.

So I sit here, all over again, alone and too comfortable with the hurt. The tumbler is empty, and the last of the scotch is gone. I don't need for her to undo her mistake overnight, or create a drama larger than the one we're living through.

I just needed someone to take care of me tonight.
I needed someone to watch over me.