Toadee and Toadah Go on Vacation              4/11/17

The full moon is high in the indigo sky. It’s Tuesday night at 10 pm.Toadee and Toadah have decided to leave behind the rusty washing machine and muddy puddles of Hanapepe town. They also need a break from the windy, red dirt gusts of Hanapepe Heights. A long awaited vacation will soon begin. Tonight they are ascending to their celestial garden to rest among scented toad stools and amber moonlight. The stars shape themselves into candlelit lily pads floating amidst jade ponds. The lavender lotus blooms to the song of crimson dragonflies and golden butterlies. Tonight the full moon beckons them home. While the celestial garden prepares a royal welcome, I watch them rise upon a blue mist.

Today, at sunset, my own eyes were misty and swollen with tears from the sad departure of my friends Rev. Lani and husband Barry. Returning home from the airport and work, I made myself a warm cup of soothing chamomile tea. I sat outside at the picnic table. Barry had just repaired it before they left. Starting to relax, the sturdiness of the old picnic bench under my butt felt reassuring.

I began to appreciate their trust in me. Now, the caretaker of their old family home, I am living there alone, in the attached studio that was once part of the garage. Sitting with only the sound of chirping crickets and geckos, I watched the dark sky begin to brighten. Waiting for the full moon to rise, another revelation was about to occur. By the light of the moon, my dear friends, Lani and Barry,despite their human distance , reappeared in toad form. Continuing the role of guardian and escort of the evening sky, they allowed me a glimpse of their majestic celestial garden vacation. Alone for now, I felt safe and content.

It may seem farfetched and funny, however Mama Kauai’s terrestrial shadow stage is unlike anything, anywhere else. By the light and shadows of the full moon, Princess Toadee and Prince Toadah become REAL. Da story continues to unfold in myriad forms because of their noble perserverance, wisdom and humor. Please do not underestimate the power of what is usually perceived to be a lower member of da food chain. Whether you notice them or not, TOADS RULE!

Last summer, in Hanapepe Town, I first experienced the power of Lani and Barry’s transcendant Royal Toadness. Da story of our first meeting in Hanapepe town, in all their noble and mysterious toadness coincides with the beginning of our humble human friendship. Both these relationships, human and toad, connect on special nights of the full moon. This is the record of their royal toad vacation and their humble human migration.

This morning Lani, Barry and their beloved 10lb pet shitzu/maltese, dog/child left for Tuscon, Arizona via Lihue, Honolulu and Los Angeles. I drove them to the Lihue airport at 8am. In their humble human form, Rev. Lani and husband Barry appear to be a typical elderly couple, preparing to enter a new stage of retirement on the mainland. Both had long careers in education and Rev. Lani recently retired from a second career in ministry. Like many island elderly, they are choosing to leave Kauai and move closer to their adult children and grandchildren.

Their friendship, undying Aloha, ageless energy, loyalty, as well as their transcendent toadness helped me to observe and reflect upon the paradox of paradise. This paradox resulted in decades of struggle, success and eventual failure of not only our family’s business, but also our family’s health and spirit. Given time,by letting go, renewal of health and spirit returns.

 

Da story of migration is da story of Hawaii and all keiki o ka aina (children of the land). Da story brought my family to Kauai and is also pushing many families away. Life in the continental United States offers jobs and better incomes affording a future not possible in 21st century Kauai or the rest of the state of Hawaii. The high cost of living and housing, low wages and salaries are so staggeringly contradictory, half the population survives on government welfare. The ironic high price and poor pay in paradise creates suffering often ignored by the new elite residents arriving from the mainland and all over the world.

Purchasing a new home or even maintaining an old family home is commonly out of reach for the average local island family. Thus the new migration of wealthy home buyers to Kauai is spurring the migration of the older and younger generations of many local island residents to the mainland and beyond. More and more old homes and properties go up for sale to the highest bidder or remain empty, deteriorating, letting time determine its fate.

My fate, it turns out, rests currently between royal toad vacations and humble human migration. My friends, Lani and Barry have left the care of their lovely, old family home in Hanapepe heights to me. The heights, are the cliff sides overlooking Hanapepe river valley and the town of Hanapepe nestled between cliff sides, river and sea shore.

The wreckage of my old family home and the deteriorating family restaurant business, da old “Green Garden Restaurant,” was sold in Dec. 2016. At that time I was barely managing to live in what I respectfully call da old “family dump”, once our family home located in Hanapepe Town. After the sale of the family property, with the help of Rev. Lani and her husband Barry, (aka Toadee and Toadah) I was able to relocate to Hanapepe Heights and reside with them. Their old family home included an attached studio space available for happy habitation by me. They asked me to be the caretaker of their family home. I very gratefully accepted.

They were in the process of selling a newer home they built themselves 35 yrs earlier. The sale of their property would accommodate the move to Tuscon, Ariz. allowing them to enjoy their adult children and grandchildren within a much closer proximity than across the western United States and Pacific Ocean.

Prior to the sale of their home, they had moved into Rev. Lani’s family home. Her family home had been occupied by her 94yr old mother. Rev. Lani’s mother, known lovingly as Aunty Grace, died shortly after my sister Gwen died on Dec. 12th, 2015.

The ebb and flow of life and death moved dramatically during this period. It gave the forces of creation, destruction and transformation intense focus within much emotional chaos. Unbeknownst to me, the appearance of Toadee from behind da washing machine at da old Green Garden Restaurant would stir the beginning of a story yet to fully unfold. The extremely stupid idea to live in da family dump became the path to discovering deeper truth, beauty and friendship otherwise left buried under generations of crap.

So dear reader, if you are still awake and following da story, please keep reading. It continues to unfold in many directions. Like da many side roads on Kauai, they all do return to da inevitable circle Mama Kauai created for us to find our way home. In my own mixed up, messed up, misdirected, circuitous path, I can honestly attest to Mama Kauai’s faith in her children’s capacity to seek and find our way.