Friday

This morning I woke to the pink glow of the sunrise and a cacophony of bird song. The birds didn’t go silent, they are always there. I just started hearing them again.

I just took the dogs for a walk, they were so good yesterday while I edited this video. For my professional editing colleagues, if you decide to spend three minutes of your life watching this, please remember that I have a consumer camera that weighs about one half pound. Of course this comes with a mic that is permanently affixed to it.  Plus, it’s the first time I have edited on Final Cut Pro, and my first video in 14 months. I know, big build up!

Despite that, I like it. It took me back to the early days of my career and I think the music (from a local band) makes it fun to watch. Dan made some fantastic graphics for it and some great photos. I like his people shots. He gets some great smiles out of people who are usually nervous about getting their picture taken and he captures some intimate, candid moments.

I’m going to relax a bit today. Do some yoga and meditation, maybe watch some more tutorials on Final Cut. I’m saving the restaurant review for tomorrow. It’s Dans one day off and if I’m occupied he’ll have a chance to relax!

Aloha nui loa

Thursday

My ten-year-old came to visit this morning. She was hiding in her costume; a chocolate colored velvet flat hat and a dark purple jacket. She is a bully. Withdrawn and angry she pushes people away. She got into some fights leaving fifth grade and going to sixth grade, which was at a new school.

Her profile is silhouetted, she’s hunched in shadow. Closed. I tell her she is loved. I know she is the one who has a difficult time bonding with people, making connections. She drives me to keep busy, keep moving, keep going. I need to release her of this job.

I roll over and ask Dan for a snuggle to show her how much she is loved. She cries lightly. Overwhelmed by the thought that she is loved just as she is. Baxter and Lucy give her snuggles too. 

I thank her for getting me to where I am. For doing the best she can. I can see she wants to draw. I see her on her belly, legs kicked up in the air, her costume intact, happily drawing the hours away.

I tell her everything is ok, all she needs to do now is draw. She can take off the jacket and hat because we live in paradise. It’s warm here. I encourage her to feel the warm sun on her bare arms, the cool trade winds, the moisture in the air. Breathe deep. Fling your arms out. Tilt your head to the sky. Play! Fly! 

Wednesday

Wednesday

Tuesday morning I was driving home from a beautiful morning at the beach. My iPhone was charging and in the cup holder of the jeep. Baxter is sitting calmly in the passenger seat, all tuckered out and Lucy was laying in the back (we removed the back seat). I’m lost in KONG, our local radio station that plays a fantastic variety of music.

I look over at Baxter, mentally note the he doesn’t look to well, and reach out to pet him. My arm rests on the center console and it’s wet. I look down a see puke on the console, the emergency brake and filling up the cup holders! I grab my wet phone and set it on the seat, praying for the best.

When Dan comes home he pronounces it dead. Apple tells us we are one month shy or our contract renewal in which we can upgrade my 3GS to a 4G. So, we head down to the AT&T store to get a new phone. In the middle of going through our options, all depressing, I remember I still have my 3G at home. Last year when we upgraded we kept our old phones to use as iPods. The lady set me up and now I’m using my old phone. Happy ending although I am already frustrated at the smaller storage space!

Isn’t it funny how we fill space up when we have it to fill. All kinds; home space, computer space, phone, iPod, brain. Brain space is a tricky one for me. I notice myself filling up my time so there is no space for reflection. This moment is the crux for me. To balance income with life. We moved here to allow space for life to bloom. To sever the tap roots of work, work, work; fast, fast, fast; and take deep breaths of life.

Doing work we love helps because it’s too fun to seem like work. Today will be productive. Dealing with cleaning the jeep and my phone left no time or desire to write up the restaurant review. I have a shoot tonight at 5. 

I just created this Facebook page for our business. Dan is making our website, in his spare time, so I think this will work for now. The idea came to me this morning. A kind lady found me through the travel blog. Another sign that my dear friend was right, God sent me an email. She thinks she may have some work for me!

Aloha nui loa

Tuesday

I am on fire! I spoke with the Hawaii Stream guy for about an hour yesterday. We got along very well—he even confided business things to me and said, “I can’t believe I’m telling you this stuff!” The website is a social media site and delivers news mostly via video. They need my help! The videos like this one—in which our Mayor opens the Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole Celebration that is happening all week—need me.

I think this is a huge opportunity (of course I tend to see opportunity in almost everything). I have a lot of energy and an entrepreneurial spirit and have been spending that energy with people who don’t have that same spirit. These guys do. They are a start up company and the two guys running it seem to be good businessmen. They are stretched too thin and doing everything, including the videos. Enter me.

Since they are a start up, they don’t have a lot of cash flow. They do have some and luckily for me, I make an all time low (I made more in high school). It doesn’t take very much money to make me happy now-a-days. I am going to shoot two videos for the celebration this week and see how things go. One is the “Taste of the Islands” and the other, an inaugural amateur boxing championship. Right now, the payment is getting out there, meeting people and getting into the events for free. But, I expect that to change soon.

I have a vision that in a year or so, my videos will have helped the website—I mean if your site is going to be driven by videos they better be engaging! I feel like I could be the local video person and I feel like this could be the work that sticks. What could be better? Working at an island style pace, going to community events (and there are a lot here) from art to music, food, mountain and ocean beauty, sports, fund raisers and Hawaiian culture; meeting people and getting to know the lay of the land. 

I want to be a contributing member of the community. For me, this means not only working but doing something that helps the community. It’s difficult to really know what people are doing here. A lot of folks don’t promote their businesses and mostly rely on the coconut wireless. This website is a way to connect folks and I hope to be a part of it. We’ll see what life has in store for me. It could be another stepping stone.

I am wondering about this extreme bounce back. I hope I’m not diving in too deep again and using it to cover something I’d rather not think about or feel. So I want to continue with the self discovery. I’m going to take the dogs to the beach after I post the coffee article. I’ll come home, make a nice lunch and write the restaurant review from yesterday. Then a little meditation and answering more of those difficult questions from Christena’s book. 

Aloha Nui Loa

Monday

“OUCH! Dammit Baxter!” I’m jerked out of a deep sleep as Dan trips over Baxter in the pitch black of 4 a.m. He was on my side of the bed and when Dan got up to go to the bathroom, he’d settled on the floor at the foot of Dan’s side. 

My mind seizes the negative thoughts lurking on the fringes of my half conscious brain. I start to feel despair. An illuminating thought pierces the black hole in my chest, cradled around my heart. Cracking open a sliver of hope, I can remember why we came here. For the adventure, for the unknown.

We took a chance on life, on ourselves. I can stay penned up in the treehouse, all sad and heavy, or I can honor our decision. The thought of being miserable in Kauai strikes me as ridiculous. I take a deep breath and feel myself relax as I surrendered to my higher self, my spirit. I will keep on keeping on and let life work out the details. 

Playing with Baxter and Lucy, singing them silly love songs, I share my morning state of mind with Dan. He feels the hope and is happy for it, he has been deeply concerned all week. I have several new avenues I can try.

First, I need to get out of the house and into nature. Nature restores me, it always has. Thanks to my father, who would take me on hikes and cross-country skiing, I learned to appreciate and crave it’s healing power. I make a vow to get out every morning this week. Today, I’ll walk the dogs at the dog park.

I have a restaurant review due, so I will finish that. I have a blog post for the travel agency that needs to be reworked and resubmitted—the one on the triathlon. I have a blog post due for world.edu, that one will be on Kona coffee focusing on the sustainable methods of shade growing and hand picking. 

I will call the web video guys back and see of the need an editor for hire and a writer for free. Then I’ll set up an interview with a local bee keeper for my next world.edu post. At 2:30 we are going to interview and sample food for the review that is due next week. 

I am going to post something everyday this week. I realize my last post was pretty scary. I’m ok with that. Sometimes life is scary and I think it’s necessary to look at all the parts, including the uncomfortable, scary parts. I want to share my climb out of the hole. Partly for the investigation of it, but mostly so my folks don’t worry. It’s easy to think that life in paradise, or living your dream is all “butterflies and rainbows” as the band Maroon 5 sings. I’m here to say it isn’t, and that’s ok—it’s just life. We have the choice of how we live it.

School Days Post Script

Based on a dear friend's concern, I thought I’d add a post script to my previous post. Often times I feel hollow writing posts that focus on everything great. Because in reality, even though some remarkable things are happening for us, chasing your dream is sticky business. Instead of only posting the good stuff, I wanted to include the sticky bits as well.

I am an honest person, so I wrote honestly. I don’t know how to sugar coat things although I am getting better at it. I feel like it’s necessary when dealing with people you don’t know. After all, who wants to hear dreary thoughts upon a first meeting? People, including me, want to be around upbeat people. People who are happy in their life, moving forward, striving to be the best mother, father, waiter, chef, scientist, yogi they can. So, even though small talk can be hard for me, sometimes you have to sugar coat things.

I am going though a tough time right now, it’s true. As my dear friend reminded me—a man who has held a full time job, taken loving care of his wife who had a near fatal accident, started a photography career on the side and put extra hours in at his full time job resulting in a management position—”keep moving forward.” It takes hard work, a lot of unpaid work, but eventually when you have given up “The phone will ring and it’s God offering you an opportunity.”

Even though this doesn’t feel good at the moment, I know it will pass. I know I will move forward—the consequences of not doing so are not places I want to go—I will learn from this, get stronger. A couple of years ago, my dear friend turned me onto author Seth Godin. Today I was reading an excerpt from his new book Poke the Box. 

He talks about taking risk, putting yourself out there, getting embarrassed, failing and trying again, failing again, trying again. The point is to DO something that moves you toward your goals. That failing is necessary because you learn along the way and at some point you expect to fail and it doesn’t bother you anymore, you just keep trying and eventually, it will all pay off. I know this, I have experienced it in my early 20s when I started my video career.

I think the reasons for my current tail spin are an expectation of money sooner than later. Also, since we got here I have been putting a lot of energy into “promoting” myself. I have been constantly putting myself out there, following any idea or suggestion that feels right and not seeing any income from it.There have been so many efforts with no financial gain that I can’t even name them all. I just do my best, put it out there and forget about it. Believing that if it comes back, then I’ll follow that thread to wherever it goes. 

This is part of the journey, I know. Please don’t be scared for me (mom and dad) I’m not going to do anything crazy like kill myself or become addicted to drugs. This is part of life, it’s peaks AND valleys. It’s about the journey. I just need to rest, be easy in my life. Be grateful because like my dear friend said, all of our bills are being paid. Plus, I have a wonderfully supportive husband, parents and friends. It’s just growing pains, which is what I wanted.

As an aside, I printed out the college application and learned that for summer it’s $248 a credit hour! In the Spring and Fall, it goes down to $97. So, I’ll be waiting until then. Who knows what can happen by that time!

I’m good. I have the strength of Dan’s love, family and friends to bolster me through this time and I will come out of it! I’m a fighter baby!

School Days

Second Place winner and my favorite shot

I learned about an inaugural triathlon while having lunch at Tutu’s Soup Hale. I thought it would be excellent to cover the first triathlon on Kauai and dreamed of submitting it to Triathlon magazine and Senior Living because the man putting it on was 65 and competing in the duathlon. 

Sunday morning we woke at five and got to the Marriott by six. Dan had a wonderful time shooting the competitors, who were pretty much all men, and mostly locals. He quickly garnered their respect and was happy to be included in their ohana when the title bruddah was addressed to him.

First place winner

I, on the other hand, had a difficult time getting any useable information form the founders wife. She spoke on and on of the minute and in consequential details of their lives that only they and maybe family would care about with a tendency toward exaggeration. “Oh, my lord yes,” she said in a Texas accent, “he has competed in triathlons for years. At one point he did one every month.” “Triathlons?” I asked shocked of the possibility. “Oh well, you know 5k’s, 10ks, relay duathlons.” Totally different, but I could use that information.

Her husband, having finished running 4k of the relay duathlon (his partner rode his bike for 20k), didn’t have much to say. I got to interview one triathlete who gave thoughtful answers to my questions and I began to think I might have something. The athletes were frustrated because the course was not well marked and many of them ran farther than they had to, rendering their time useless and the event as an extended form of exercise. 

I also found out there were two other triathlons on Kauai. The first and second place winners, local boys, were modest and didn’t feel comfortable talking about their success. I learned a lot of lessons that day but the futility of it set me into s slump.

I tried to ignore it, push down feelings of failure. I wrote a post for the travel blog and submitted an article for the local paper. I have not heard from the paper.

On Wednesday, I knew I was feeling down so I prepared for my lunch with Christena by watching a motivating documentary that never fails to life me up. Afterward I got all dressed and made up and happily drove to meet my lunch date. Things were going wonderfully until she asked how I was doing. I played off the triathlon with a touch of anger. I bolstered myself by relaying the efforts I am making towards getting work. “Why do you always promote yourself,” she kindly asked. “Because no one here knows me and I need work,” I told her, proud of my industriousness. “I figure if I keep writing, someday someone will pay me for it.”

Tears of frustration welled in my eyes as we sat in a restaurant I frequent, who I have done a restaurant review for, whose owners I know. Embarrassed, I looked toward the door as she got me a napkin.

“How is that working for you?” she asked when she got back. “It’s not,” I said as more tears welled up. “As a matter of fact, my work has decreased.” Then she hit me with a doozy. “Why don’t you stop trying so hard. Stop promoting yourself. Stop looking for work. If your husband supports what you are doing then take this time to figure out what your experiences have in common.”

So, I am on reconnaissance. Her words rang true. I am flat out depressed. I know the only way out is in. I have to wander the murky depths of my sadness and release those negative feelings. 

The next day I laid on the couch, in a fetal position, curled into the dogs and cried. Napped and cried some more. When Dan came home he listened and decided Christena was right. I had permission to be sad and sit with that sadness. He didn’t judge me for it, try to make light of it or change what it was in any way. I love him for that gift.

Thursday Dan went to the North shore to give two computer classes, one was for Christena. She is an avid reader, a former English teacher and a writer. She had given Dan three books for me to read. I spoke with my friend Deb on the phone and soon we were laughing. She is having a rough go at life and I admire her will to keep pushing forward and her ability to laugh at it all.

Friday morning I felt heavy again, weighed down with sadness. After Dan left for work I curled up on the bed with Baxter and Lucy and cried myself to sleep. The phone woke me. I listened to the message. It was someone who wanted me to do a restaurant review. I called him back and easily put on my game face. He was energetic vibration was very high. A happy EMT, restauranteur, husband and father. We spoke for 30 minutes and by the end of the conversation I was lifted. 

I started to slip into a slump so after I meditated I cracked open Christena’s book Prosperity Pie, How to Relax About Money and Everything. Four hours later I had finished the book and took a nap. I woke feeling lighter.

Saturday, I worked on the book some, answering questions. The first assignment was to list all of my worries, anxieties and fears and take a break from it. After the break, I would answer the questions like I would for a best friend. I was feeling tired from it after eight (out of 33!) and decided to read a book for fun. 

I’m happy to say it’s working. I feel much better though I am not raring to put myself out there again, yet. Christena suggested I go to community college. I have wanted to get a degree for years. The other day Dan suggested I do the same. I told her I could only get a two year associates degree so it wasn’t really worth it. She replied that it was better than nothing and I could always finish up online. 

I am in love with this idea, the thought of it gets me excited. So, this week I am going to go down there and apply for the English 100 Composition1 course. After spending $500 bucks (!) on the dogs Monday, we don’t have the money for it. But, mom called earlier today and said her and dad felt like sending $200 I love you bucks so it’ll only cost us $48! I am definitely wealthy in love and friendships!

Ladies, enjoy the pictures!

Aloha Nui Loa

The winners

Local boys after the race

Casey, the triathlete was gave me a great interview

The founders of the triathlon

Casey said this guys is the fastest triathlete on Kauai!