The Birth of Captain Ladle

It was Friday afternoon, and I was making marmalade, when Iman Lizarazu, our February neighbor, came a-running and announced, panic-stricken, that there was an emergency at her house and I had to come over immediately. A quick glance at the clock told me it was 15.15 h. There was a crackling energy in the air, as if Mme. Pele was getting ready to lift our posterieurs onto glowing fountains of lava and transform them into caramelized crusts of human ham unless we cooperated. I was not sure in what, but the emergency seemed to have something to do with it. I turned off the fire and bade the bright green, yellow and orange citrus carcasses strewn about my jungle hut farewell as I stormed out the door, running after Iman. A few large strides brought me to the scene of the emergency. 

It was bad. The New Eccentrics were squeezing out whole battalions of oranges that had been apprehended at the citrus orchard. Tom Renegade was slicing open large cans of pineapple juice, and Iman grimaced at me, bloodthirsty groves distorting the edges of her wicked smile as she flashed the centerpiece of the emergency at me. Its golden-brown body was catching beams of sunlight, throwing them into my eyes like blinding daggers. Bright inspiration dazzled me like divine light, and sharp blades pierced me with diabolical cruelty. When my violated pupils regained their bearings, I recognized a large bottle of the finest Kill-Devil. 

Staring into the golden eye of the afternoon, a frown of dark, manly acceptance spread across my brow. I knew I had to tackle this demon before I could finish my marmalade. Eric and Aileen arrived out of breath, defusing my stare. They must have heard the echo of Iman’s demonic laughter as she had flashed the rum at me and understood their cue. In no time, the citrus blood was blended with pineapple juice and rum, and we were assembled around the table, toasting to this special occasion whose exhilarating name hit my ears for the first time just before our glasses erupted in suspense filled crystal dissonance, the opening chorus for ‘Aloha Friday’. It begins at 15.15 hours on a Friday, drags people away from work, and celebrates the coming of the imminent weekend. 

Sucking down the first sweet and spicy mouthful of Bumbo, I could feel the drink’s tentacles grab hold of my tongue and palate, work their way down my throat and clutch onto my soul with their titillating suction cups, sending shocks of intoxicating pleasure through my bones. Aloha Friday it was, I had to acknowledge, and there was no return. 

I labored to pace myself as I relished each sip with the sweet pain of half-fulfilled desire, and the knowledge that, once it was fulfilled, new temptations would start tugging at my soul. I bit the corner of my lip - a secret gesture I exchanged with my Bumbo to let it mingle with my blood - when an intense source of power hovering at about a saber’s length away across the table lifted my gaze, and my eyes met Sarah’s. Sarah was one of the two New Eccentrics, lover of costumes and textiles; merrymaker, beauty-tailor, and seamstress by trade. Our stares latched onto each other. As a command issued to our souls by the same captain congealed between us, her long, black hair flew back as if punched by a gust of wind, and for an instant, I seemed to detect the redness of glowing lava in her pupils. We held our gaze as our eyes grew cooler. The force of inspiration had unbound our bodies to serve its cause. We took a simultaneous breath that brought me images of a somewhat elegantly staggering pirate. ‘Do you want a costume?’ she asked. A costume. Naturally. I wanted nothing more than a costume. 

In a whip’s crack, I was wearing baggy green trousers with my striped shirt, a red sash was tied around my waist, a velvet jacket with gold buttons and laced, trumpet-shaped sleeves longer than my arms flew onto my trunk, and a juggling hat was outfitted with a hatband to speak of this Pirate’s vaudeville connections. The images in my head grew stronger. In fact by now the captain who had snuck into our souls was walking freely about my blood vessels: staggering, yet balanced. Camp, yet handsome. Sheepish, yet always superior. As he sailed his ship through every capillary in my body, humming a gay little tune sure of his pending victory, my eyes were lined with coal, a wild, asymmetrical mustache sprouted on my upper lip, and a patch was painted round my left eye. 

Sarah finished her work, and for a moment I sat frozen in place, intoxicated and numb, knowing the Captain was about to burst out of me, but unable to unleash him. He was holding me in a trance, and I had no choice but to wait for his next instructions. ‘Who am I? What is my name?’ he taunted me with a riddle. The renegade residence turned into a blur, but then a canon was fired in the recesses of my ancestral memory, and out of the rum colored haze rose the clear outline of a ladle. Without my doing, my right sleeve turned its opening towards me, and I saw that it was empty but for a fountain of thick, gushing blood that threatened to erupt in my face. My heart skipped a beat and I grimaced, but my possessed sleeve wasted no time and reached across the room for the ladle. As soon as it grabbed hold of it, the wound was sealed, and my lost arm replaced. Into the expanse of calm that followed, he asked again: ‘Who am I?’ and a sheepish, yet confident smile lifted the corners of my mustache. I knew the answer now. Raising my new right hand to hush the crowd, I introduced myself to the party: ‘I am Captain Ladle!’

Captain Ladle spent the remaining hours of Aloha Friday ladling his hosts’ delicious food into his greedy mouth and leaving its remains to rot in his tache, swashbuckling, fighting duels, and ladling out generous amounts of sailors’ yarn over a continuing flow of Bumbo. He was telling the New Eccentrics about Purple Dolphin Night, one of his favorite events through the centuries, and relishing the memory of sucking on the Purple Dolphin’s nose, thus exchanging a piece of his human soul against the Dolphin’s sonar sense that consequently sent him on one of this most illuminating adventures. ‘Shiver me timbers!’ he was saying, when, as if on cue, John came in, wearing a total of 7 purple dolphins on his body, 2 on his hat, and 5 on his T-shirt. 

John, the vegetarian, brought some tragic news: cutting back some branches that had encroached upon his living space with a large pair of garden scissors, Emilia, the kitchen cat had jumped between the blades as they snapped shut, and he had cut off part of her tail. Robin was now nursing her back to health. As he re-lived the event, all 7 dolphins shivered on his body, and water rose to his eyes. ‘All right, matey, we’ve got dolphin meat on the menu tonight. Join us?’ said one of the men, and the rest of them roared with laughter, sending John and his dolphins back out into the jungle with its wicked laws and its bloody encounters. 

At the end of the evening, loaded to the gunwalls, Captain Ladle staggered out into the night and left. When I woke up the next morning, he was gone except for a residue of nasty bristle on my upper lip, sullied with the remains of last night’s dinner. Disgusted, I washed his traces off my body but extracted a prayer from my heart to thank him for letting me experience the dimensions of his mind, fight with his prowess, and tell his tales, stories that had originated in times and places unbeknownst to me but for his lively memories that had unwound from beneath a filthy mustache, fueled by barrels of bumbo. 

I returned to make the bed. When I finished, a bulge remained under the sheets, and I sighed, knowing what it was before I exhumed the invasive object: Ladle had spent the night. Of course. The irresistible bugger. Forever sheepish, yet forever superior. Inspecting the ladle, I found traces of congealed blood around its handle, the hardened remains of our ghastly union. Images of forensic scientists’ rapid computer analyses flashed through my mind, but finding myself in the jungle, I ended the subject with another sigh, water, and a sponge, and stuck Ladle in the drying rack. 

The same afternoon, John came over to the jungle hut, and we chatted about this and that as he doodled on a piece of paper. John is a skilled artist who has decorated many a dwelling in this settlement with pictures of dolphins, juggling clubs, and other beautiful creatures. I was baking my 5th batch of waffles, still in the experimenting stage, and outlined my idea for a Saturday market waffle business. John encouraged me. After a while, he excused himself, wanting to check on Emilia. I gave him some waffles to take home, bade him farewell and proceeded to tidying up the table. 

I was about to throw out a sheet of paper when John’s drawing hit me in the heart like the point of a dagger. There was Captain Ladle, grinning at me sheepishly from his superior position at the center of the picture. He was raising his ladle in a pose of victory, waffle batter dripping from its edges, some of it sullying his tache. He was standing on a waffle-shaped island, his left foot elevated on the edge of a giant treasure chest filled to the brim with a golden load of the finest waffles. His elbow rested nonchalantly on the thigh of his elevated leg. Had it not been for his sheepishness, he would have looked smug. The drawing was lined with exotic fruit trees bearing oranges, papayas, and strawberry guavas, and its title was written in large block letters across the top and bottom: Captain Ladle’s Waffle Island. 

For now, me hearties, we have arrived at the end of the tale, but the end, let me tell you, is only the beginning. Find out for yourself. Captain Ladle’s golden booty will be ladled out every Saturday at S.P.A.C.E. market. Ladle ho! Heave to! 

Jungle Jabber

I am back in Hawai’i. Back on the Big Island, back in Puna. I am back at Bellyacres, our little community in Seaview. The sky displays varying spectacles: perfect bright blue domes, towers of white clouds interspersed with shocks of dazzling sunlight, grey squadrons of indefinable dark matter bringing almost daily showers of heavy rain, and often, rainbows. Rainbows also grace our outdoor showers in the morning when we rinse dream-soaked sweat off our tanned bodies, surrounded by large leaves, and squinting up through the giant palm fronds above to evaluate today’s weather prospects. The sea is a vibrant turquoise-green flaunting wild waves and white cusps of froth, filled with coral reefs and all shapes and colors of fish darting through them. The chickens give us eggs. The trees give us kumquats, avocados, breadfruit, coconuts, and other nutritious treasures.The two horses greet us as they chip away at their daily task of keeping the grass short and providing the ‘black gold’ that helps plants grow on the hard, volcanic matter we live on. The moon, the stars, and the milky way brighten the darkness of our nights.

Paradise? Yes. And yet, the jungle is forever rough around the edges. It is not like in the city, where everything is custom-tailored to human life. We need to rinse every little cut in our skin with hydrogen peroxide for fear of infection. We have to keep weeding and chopping away at the tentacles of the jungle as they constantly try to claim back the small islands we have carved out for ourselves. We have to keep jungle dwellers in check who will always regard every place they can physically reach as theirs. Rats, cockroaches, spiders, ants and geckos are daily visitors. We have to keep cleaning as dirt gets carried in from the moderately tamed road-free wilderness around us. Harvesting and processing fruit is work. We need to watch our resources carefully. Short power cuts are a regular occurrence, although they can usually be fixed with ease. We need to keep our water clean by adding monthly doses of hydrogen peroxide and sodium bicarbonate, occasionally cleaning the whole tank, or ordering additional water if rain catchment does not provide enough. We use large electrical appliances during the day, when it is sunny. Today, we vacuum, tomorrow we do the laundry. 

Next to the Ocean and the Jungle, Pele, the Goddess of the Volcano, the powerful, lava-spewing personification of heat, passion, and volatility, seems to be another factor that exerts a major influence on life here on the Island. I am finding it difficult to develop a structure. In the city, it is easy. You visit scheduled events, work according to deadlines, check your diary daily, keep your promises and appointments. I have never found this difficult. Here, on the other hand, even writing a coherent sentence is a major challenge. Trying to identify material for my first Hawai’ian blog, I spent hours recounting the events of my first week here, and felt overwhelmed after I had written ten pages and was still nowhere near the end. 

Days seem like weeks, and my arrogant preconception that life in the middle of nowhere might be boring was crushed as soon as I awoke and found that at least 5 corners I had meticulously cleaned the day before were now once again covered with the expansive artistic creations of local spiders. I had to readjust my thinking. It was not that I was living in the middle of nowhere. I was living in the middle of everything. As I reached under a bathroom shelf to clean it, I held a live gecko in my hand. Startled by the sudden sensation of another living being touching my skin I dropped him and watched his sides flaring in and out like a heartbeat, as if telling me: ‘You’d better get used to OUR rhythm. I for my part ain’t goin’ anywhere, bro.’ ‘Fair enough,’ I replied and helped the little creature outside, returning him to the cruel indifference of its native Jungle, moving on to the next shelf that needed cleaning. 

While struggling to establish a productive structure within this new rhythm, looking back at last week’s events results in a more promising picture. I did in fact manage to attend several scheduled events, I worked according to deadlines, and I even brought Captain Ladle’s Waffle Island back to the Saturday market without skipping a beat. I had planned to allow myself a few days of rest before resuming the waffle business, but as I was greeted with bright eyes and salivating anticipation at the prospects of more Saturday waffles, I was flattered into a new bout of Ladling without letting a single week pass waffle-free. Thank you my faithful fans. You are the soul of my motivation. 

Recounting the events of my first week back during this writing marathon whose finish line I can just barely make out now, I realized that not only each day, but each single event here deserves the space of an entire blog. I have therefore decided to postpone any detailed descriptions, including Captain Ladle’s comeback to the market, to the following weekly blogs, and limit myself to providing a brief overview this time.

During my first week back, I:

• attended the weekly campfire meeting held to discuss any issues in the community
• scheduled new aikido (Thursday 6-7 pm) and swing dance (Friday 7.30-9 pm) classes at S.P.A.C.E. for this month
• devised a delightful way of using chopped kumquats and tangerine juice as part of a salad dressing
• attended a potluck birthday party with a fully lei-ed out birthday girl, a view of the ocean, paper lanterns, a camp fire, tail-wagging dogs, and dancing green fairy lights
• harvested avocados, strawberry guavas, kumquats, lemons, tangerines, and pomelos
• attended the Wednesday morning aikido class with Barbara Klein in Hilo
• Saw a monk seal sleeping at Richardson’s beach 
• compiled a shopping list for the week and did the corresponding shopping in Hilo
• heard two fruit names for the first time in my life: ‘eggfruit’ and ‘jackfruit’
• spotted a large black pig digging by the side of the road
• attended juggling night with hat and clubs
• was invited to an orgasm workshop
• drove the car a few times (need some practice to get back into the driving business)
• went swimming at the warm ponds, did yoga on the lawn
• Cooked a load of citrus-kumquat marmalade for this week’s waffle topping
• taught an aikido class
• spotted a dead black pig by the side of the road
• attended a fitness class at S.P.A.C.E. that forced me to take up the hula hoop
• taught a swing dance class
• completed a proofreading project for a Japanese market research company centered on a fragrance-free CHANEL whitening cream for Japanese women
• Sold waffles at the Saturday market at S.P.A.C.E.
• did some brainstorming and sent off the first ideas for a comedy writing project
• visited ‘Vacation Land’ and the ‘Champaign Ponds’
• got a slight sunburn on my back
• attended the Sunday night potluck

While it is still difficult to detect much structure in this potpourri of activities, there are several scheduled events that will form constant pillars of my routine here at Bellyacres, several empty spaces that will be filled in gradually with more scheduled events, regular writing, work, and practice, and enough variables to guarantee a constant influx of adventure. I look forward to introducing more of these daily wonders, stories, and oscillating facets of weird and wonderful to you each week. For now, however, I have reached the finish line and am quite out of breath. Mahalo and Aloha, my friends.

Aloha, Rising Sun

A typhoon is raging outside on my last day in Japan, crippling umbrellas, keeping school children at home, turning the many rivers of Osaka into beautiful monsters, flexing and stretching their muscly bodies higher up the shores, racing towards the sea. Last time I left Japan, falling cherry blossoms accompanied my departure. This time, torrential rains and wild winds are caressing sun-burned shoulders and sweat-soaked hair, announcing the beginning of autumn. Even a thin sheet was too much cover till last night, when I lay down to welcome a dream, and realized I needed a futon. 

Spring and autumn are the best seasons in Japan. The best seasons to be here, the best seasons to leave. With an appetite. Cherry blossoms and autumn leaves. Warm relief from cold winters, cool relief from hot summers. Pink cupcakes decorated with salty cherry blossoms and stone-baked sweet potatoes. Transitions that remind us: life is beautiful because we are mortal. Because time passes and things change. I look up to the Rain and the River, the Wind and the Falling Leaves to help me through my own transition.

I’m going to Hawaii. Tomorrow morning, when the Typhoon gets tired, I will sing Her a lullaby and watch Her breath grow calm as I ride the bus to Kansai Airport. My song will contain words like ‘Mahalo’ and ‘Aloha’, and its melody will be reminiscent of splashing waves at Kehena beach, nocturnal koki frog cacophonies, crackling camp fires, holy shark skin drumbeats, and the laughter of dolphins. It will calm me, too, as it is always painful and a little disconcerting to pull your roots out of a place that has turned into a home, a garden that has nurtured your soul, and a family that has helped you grow into what you are. It will remind me that I’m going to another place that will do just that, another place that has Gods to turn to, seasons to live through, gardens to grow in, and a family to welcome me. 

People are irreplaceable. Every single one of them. But the kind of self that grieves separation can be replaced with one that turns such pain into gratefulness and sends all love it feels to those who created it, preparing to accommodate new love, embrace new beauty, and grow new roots. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. This is why I feel attracted to Zen and Aikido, two paths born in Japan that have turned my initially unbearable stay here into one of the most fruitful stretches of my life. Both are systems that help develop the self through diligent daily efforts. 

One of the irreplaceable human beings I am leaving behind here is my teacher S., master of zen and aikido. He was recently diagnosed with cancer and had to have two thirds of his stomach removed. This was a more painful reminder of the seasons described by the Buddha: Birth, Disease, Old Age, and Death. And of another transition: the path knowledge, skill, and experience take as they are transferred from teacher to student. 

Talking about his own teachers, S. said a lot of the time we don’t realize how important something is to us until it’s gone. He reminded us to express gratefulness while we could and added: ‘There is a saying that goes Alive yet dead, dead yet alive. If you do not respect each passing moment with gratefulness and effort, your life is no more meaningful than death. But as my teacher’s spirit is still with me, and his teachings manifest themselves in my daily actions, I feel that he is still alive, even though he passed away many years ago.’  

Another important teacher of mine, P., who is much younger than S. and taught me the same discipline years ago in another place I called home, another garden from whose earth I extracted my roots, was attacked by the same demon and is still wrestling with its grip. In his case, the monster is inoperable. His reaction: he has started the ‘P. Death Sweepstakes’ in which he asks people to pay £ 2 and guess how many more months he has to live. Half of it goes to charity, half is the prize. He has penned a poem: 

There was an old man with a cancer,
Who had finally found all the answers,
To those riddles of old,
In the depth of our souls,
But he died before he could…aaagghhh

And he says the good thing about it all is that facing death has only made him realize that all he wants to do is keep doing what he has been doing all along. 

Watching my teachers look at Death like I am looking at the Falling Rain, watching them walk their paths unflinchingly in the open-jawed face of the ugliest monster, watching them maintain their gratefulness, diligence, kindness, and humor makes my breath quicken and my feet hurt. I have to run at the speed of light, and my feet need to grow by several lightyears to fill their shoes and help continue the efforts of their lives. They have transcendental skills in seed planting and root growing while I am still a toddler. I need to catch up. 

But my only hope to achieve this is to keep following their teachings with love and gratefulness while patiently adding the odd pieces that make my life mine and myself me. S. says while it is necessary to follow the old ways, we also have the responsibility to create our own. Once we have learned to walk steadfastly no matter what obstacles we encounter, we will leave a path behind that others can walk.

So what are the old ways my teachers have passed on to me through Aikido? 

Bow humbly. Keep your center. Initiate movement from your center. Be grateful. Connect seamlessly through touch. Blend and unite with your partner. Maintain good posture. Turn around a stable axis. To have somebody agree with you, start with love and acceptance whatever his stance, then grab his center with yours and make him spin with you around your core. Move together. Seek and create harmony. Work on improving your character in the presence and proximity of others, in cooperation with others. Test and polish yourself as part of a group. Send each other flying. Take pain gratefully from those who inflict it to help you grow. Keep moving. Move together to accomplish the same goal. Harmony. Bow humbly. 

These are the things I am taking with me. These will be my offerings to Pele and my new family. These will be the first paving stones on my Hawaiian path. 

S. says aikido in its most polished form becomes a dance. Dance is another center around whose strong attraction my existence has increasingly begun to orbit during my past few years in Japan. But this passion was initiated by another teacher: an American who is waiting for me in Hawaii. Our next dance will be dedicated to P. and S., two teachers who will stand at the end of everything I write as I strive with all my heart to honor the seasons, to keep the cycle moving and the core still, to live in the true sense of the word and never let them die. 

But before I get to dance on the pumping bloodstreams of Pele lit up by the countless stars over Puna, I have a Typhoon to put to sleep. It’s time to start singing my lullaby and send off a farewell letter to the Rising Sun, written with all my love and gratefulness. Aloha Rising Sun! 

P.S. May you shine on generations to come.