Kauai

Close up of the lei I was given yesterday

Honolulu from the plane

Kauai from the plane.

The sound of the ocean, the smell of soft, sweet air, my skin already softer from a swim in the sea - I guess, Toto, we're not in downtown Toronto any more. Penny and I have landed in heaven. Harriet gets a week a year in this timeshare - the Lawai Beach Resort - and this year, she gave that week to Penny, and Penny is sharing it with me.

We landed, got our car, drove around, had lunch, got groceries, got lost, found our resort, waited for the room to be ready, finally got in about 4.45 and went right away for a swim. Yes. Yes yes yes yes. And then had a glass of wine on the lanai - aka the balcony facing the sea - watching the sunset.

While we watched, hundreds of birds with long tails, like exotic swallows, flew past in huge swirling flocks and settled, squawking, in the palm trees.

Then we wrestled to get the internet for an hour and a half. But no worries - this is vacation time. After a long phone call to the Kauai geek, we are online. This sublime island, and the internet too. Aloha. (Translation in the tourist guide: "Aloha: Hello, goodbye, the feeling or spirit of love, affection or kindness.")

Honolulu

Where am I? And why did I for one second doubt the validity of travel? The sound of birds is deafening, the air is mild and sweet and damp - there's a tiny rainfall at the moment, barely visible against the greenery.

Chris and I had a bit of a frantic visit, as he'd forgotten another engagement and had to rush off. I got to poke around his stunning apartment. Here's one of his perfectly organized shelves:

Shelf envy.

A long but easy flight - 6 1/2 hours, and then at 12.30 a.m. my time, there I was greeting Penny and her friend Harriet in Honolulu. Harriet put a lei around my neck, so beautiful, I assumed the flowers were fake. But of course, they're not.

Harriet, who's Hawaiian and Japanese married to an Englishman, and Penny were neighbours in England many years ago, and when Harriet moved back to Hawaii, vowed to visit each other. Luckily for me, at last they're doing so. Harriet owns a time-share on Kauai, which is where Penny and I are going today, and in Honolulu, she owns a very small apartment in an old building her father bought decades ago. It's in the real part of town, no tourists here, a school right next door that starts at 7 a.m. Penny took a picture of me this morning on the porch:

Harriet is coming in ten minutes to take us to the airport. The next adventure begins. This is the life.

onward

Very civilized - having a nice glass of wine in a classy wine bar at the Vancouver airport, here really early as usual, less stress that way. I was going to walk in the park today but it was pouring this morning, so I just stayed in my room and stared at my computer, I confess, went out for a quick brekkie, then to Chris's with my two suitcases, the big one I'm leaving with him, the small one I'm taking with me. He and I had our usual intense talk and visit, and I got to stroke the beautiful Leon. Chris walked me to the subway which zipped me out to the airport. And here I am.

Here I am. Why am I here? I feel older. When I was young, I never questioned the why of travel - just because it was important to get out and see stuff. But now - why leave my house and bed and routine? Because it's just as important to get out and see stuff. Just harder. I am feeling rootless, solitary, a tiny molecule bouncing around in the universe.

An infinitely lucky molecule - with such family and friends, such interesting stories, and now more adventures to come leading to MORE STORIES. Who could ask for more? There was a haunting these last days, my past swirling around - though sometimes she seems so far away, that young woman - 24 when she moved to this city, 32 when she moved away, back east. I'm glad to be going to a place where I have no past and will be with my friend Penny who's from Sheffield, about as far from Kauai, Hawaii, as you can get.

A six hour flight ahead. After this nice glass, I might even doze. This molecule is on her way. Talk to you anon.

celebrating Canada's landscape

It didn't rain. I carted rain cape and umbrella all day, and it was glowering and grey as only Vancouver can be, but it was mild and dry - in fact, a lovely day. Much walking and talking and eating, which is all I've done here - walk, talk, eat. First to Bruce, who has lived in the same small rented apartment on Beach Avenue, right on the water, for decades. This is part of the view from his balcony:

Next year, when my teaching term ends mid-March and I take my 5 week winter writing getaway, instead of going as usual to Paris, I'm going to go to Vancouver. I'd already decided long before the Paris massacre, and after that horrific event was tempted to change plans and go instead to my beloved city, for solidarity. But I'll go to Paris again many times, and next year, I'm still going to come here. Bruce has very kindly offered me his apartment while he's in Italy. Usually we are in Italy together in April, as we were this year. But next year, while he's in Italy, I will be in Bruce's apartment looking out the window.

I played a little something on his piano - the Bach Aria I've been learning, which I play extremely badly - and Bruce the pianist helped me, pointing out where I was in the music. When I'd finished he said, Thanks for reminding me why I didn't become a piano teacher.

We walked to the Art Gallery to see an exhibit of Canadian landscape painting - beautiful. There are rooms of the traditional stuff from the 1800's, Krieghoff et al, and then suddenly there they are in a blaze of colour, form and feeling, the Group of Seven. I fell in love with this, by Tom Thomson:

 After the shot, I learned we were not to take pictures. But am glad to have this one. More lovely stuff, including Emily Carr, that brave pioneer. A very good exhibition. Bruce and I are usually looking at Caravaggio and Fra Lippo Lippi. It's good to celebrate our own artists, who celebrate our own landscape.

Lunch at the gallery with Chris, who met us there, and then we all did a tour around the shop, where Chris found some Christmas balls to his liking:

Said goodbye to Brucie, went for a long walk with Chris through downtown and Gastown and home by the water again, and then we rested and jabbered, while Chris admired his spectacular fish tank and cuddled his gorgeous cat Leon:

Leon sat on my lap for an hour while we talked - oh I miss that, a soft cat in the lap - and then I took Chris out for his birthday dinner to Bishop's on 4th, where we had champagne, scallops from Quadra Island and dessert with a candle for the birthday boy.

Everywhere in this city, though it has changed enormously since I lived here from 1975 to 1983, has echoes and hauntings for me - remembered people and places. As if to remind me of that, a friend sent this photo from that time:

 

So much happened to me here. Vancouver still feels like a second home. I wonder if I'll still think so after I live here for a month.

a damp grey beauty

A stunningly beautiful city, even in the rain. And the rain has come.

Walking and ferries yesterday - I adore the little ferries that shuttle across False Creek. I strolled a bit through Stanley Park and then went back to wander around Granville Island, then took another little ferry to the Maritime Museum in Kitsilano, walking along the beach to Tara's house. She is completely housebound and immobile, so I brought lunch and we spent the afternoon talking. She is not only a fascinating person in her own right, her husband is Canada's iconic scientist and environmental leader, and their house is phenomenal, full of First Nations artifacts from Canada and around the world, piles of books and music and fascinating things. It's not often, when you sit chatting with a dear friend, that she mentions her visits with the Dalai Lama or a tribe in South America. Riveting. Write it, I keep telling her. Tell the stories.

Heron's nests in Stanley Park

The West End from Kitsilano Beach

A plane tree.
An afternoon of talk watching the rain through the picture window, and then back downtown to Chris's cosy apartment where his electric fire was burning and we sat yammering endlessly once again. Bruce came over and rather than go out into the dark rain, we ordered Indian takeout and reminisced about the trip to India the 3 of us took some years ago. I laughed till the tears ran.

Today, more rain. The Art Gallery with Bruce, lunch with him and Chris, a walk if it's not too wet, then a special birthday dinner for Chris, my treat. Tomorrow - hard as it is to believe - Hawaii. It says 24 degrees. What means this?