A Brave Man Admits His Mistakes

What started out as a week of grief and mourning ended in one for a completely different person.  My brother and I flew cross-country from the west coast to Key Largo where we were preparing to attend the funeral of a man who was a mentor to us both, most especially my brother. 

Suddenly, we received a phone call from another man who once held the place of mentor in our life.  Our father called us from jail begging for bail money for crimes we still had yet to discover. What we did not expect was twenty-five years of secrets and deceit to come tumbling out of the jail cell with him.  

When we arrived at the small county jail to pick him up, what we realized was that the man standing in front of us was someone with much deeper-seeded problems.  He was someone we no longer recognized. He felt no remorse for his mistakes and denied everything.  

We sought others in the form of friends and family for guidance and help in the situation.  Only the people who knew him best. What they told us was to caution ourselves, guard ourselves, and keep each other safe from our father.  We learned that trusting him was a mistake that we had continued to make over the years to perpetuate a lifestyle that we had grown so accustomed to.  One of complete instability, negativity, and victimizing.  We saw those qualities in our own lives and it scared us.

My father was brought up on several charges of dirty business dealings, something that was a trend from the past for him. 

Our first inclination was to protect our younger siblings and my own mother, who had been hurt so many times before in their marriage. 

After my brother and I mourned the loss of our friend and mentor the following day, we took another day to mourn the loss of another man that we had genuinely seen as a hero in our young lives.  What we realized was that now, as adults, we had to overcome that idea. Now it was up to us to be our own ideas of success. 

I have tried to do my part in seeking help for him by making arrangements with therapists and meeting with his family.  He has rejected my help and the assistance of others as well. In his own mind, there is nothing wrong.  And his legal trial is pending.

Although the mourning process has been coupled with mixed emotions and trying times, I have come out with a clearer picture of myself and my family.  When secrets are no longer secret and lies are smashed to pieces, the world becomes a much less foggy place, even if the storm clouds take a while to clear out.

It will take time to overcome the events that continue to transpire, but what I can say is that I do not want to perpetuate the negative qualities that may exist in my own personality from my father. Rather than blaming him, I see it as a necessity to grow past.

It has brought the rest of the family closer in realizing that the man we once knew may not be here anymore.  The reality is that all that he has done in his life is truly his doing.  His responsibility.  A series of choices that he will or will not take credit or blame for. 

The other reality is that in this ambiguous loss, I take responsibility for how I react to it all.  For how I respond and overcome.  And that, in itself, is empowering.

Deja Vu

The landscape is vast, blending purple, blue, and grey hues all together at once.  The stark, white snow dots the view-filling landscape.  It is one of those views that is so large, it takes several frames of view to see it all at once, to capture it all in your mind.  I try to peer out of the plane window to see the top of the mountains, but even as I strain my neck to an impossible position, it is plainly out of sight.  The bumpy road takes me and a small group of fellow travelers, none of whom speak my language, to a tiny shack of a home on one of the hills in the foot of the shadowy mountains.  

I continually have the same dream repeatedly and consistently, almost like it has happened or is going to happen.

I still dream of this seemingly unknowable, unthinkable place, but to my mind, it does actually exist.  For me, during the day, I let my mind wander.  In my heart, I know exactly where it is. 

Just because you have not visited a place, seen a sight, or felt a feeling does not mean that it is obsolete.  It is there. Find it, or it will find you...often on its own in a delightfully sneaky sort of way. It always seems to be a journey, whatever the goal. And who knows?  Maybe we really have been there before after all.

Icy Strait, Glacier Bay, Alaska

A Day in the Life

The cold wind rushes through my hair as I reach the bow of the ship. I tuck my face down into my coat and take it all in. The sun is already out and the Alaskan wilderness is awake at this early hour. Standing with my coffee cup in hand, a mixture of steel blue, blinding white, and sooty grey come into view to match the stark contrast of jade-colored water.  

Flat calm, peaceful, and powerful all in one, the glacial valleys take my breath away. Although it is a glacier I have seen many times before, this view feels unique and personal.  I return to the warmth of the interior of the ship and am joined by my friends with morning chatter over coffee. 

Later on in the day, I hop onto a small skiff with the same group of friends as we silently observe two bears in a stream fishing for salmon.  The older bear is successful early in the hunt, but is later joined by the younger, but still large brown bear.  They gently look back toward our boat, then continue to enjoy their meals.

Dinner is interrupted by a pod of orcas swimming under our boat.  They come so close that we can see their individual markings. The bull has a light white marking near his dorsal fin shaped like a Nike swoosh and the calf still has his typical light yellow markings from birth.  He is an able-bodied newborn, however, as he flips through the air, slaps his tail, and plays with the other calf. They continued to follow our boat for two hours.

Once asleep, I am awoken by an announcement from the captain of northern lights. As I bundle up in my cozy jacket and blanket, I climb to the top deck and take in the bright green lights as they dance through the sky like a ribbon, twisting and shaping, forming, and fading. Arm in arm with my friends, we all stand, exchanging gasps of excitement and amazement.  Just as I think they lights are finished performing, they return for another show, each one different from the one before. This is just a glimpse into one of my favorite days as a steward on board a small cruise ship.  Although there is six weeks straight of hard work in between, ultimately it is all about the crew mates who are like family, the guests who are new friends, and the moments that make me stand in awe that solidify this as the experience of a lifetime. 

To the Lover of the Wilderness...

It is 4am and the sun meets me at the window like an old, familiar friend. The mist and fog hangs not he mountain tops, indicative of the once volcanic and ice-filled valleys. 

My small life feels wholely significant among the mist and meanings this place holds. 

I want to leave here, yet I am drawn so strongly to it. 

Flying over the luminous clouds, I can see the islands, wilderness, and mountains, and snow all at once. 

So much nature begs me to stay. 

"I will be back." Says my mind. 

But my heart knows I will never really leave. Alaska never departs the wild at heart. 

It has stuck, become a part of me, inexplicable and completely clear all at once. 

A "Voggy" Day in Kona Town

I got truly lucky for my last day in Kona Town. My friend decided to give me a tour around the west side of the Big Island.  We started with coffee plantations, local farmers markets, ancient royal grounds, and local breweries.  On this day, the "vog" or volcanic smog created an interesting haze over the island, as is characteristic.

We walked from her apartment after snacking on our assortment of tropical fruits and goodies we had collected from the day down to the beach across the street for a pre-sunset snorkel.  The beach is well-known for being the starting point of the Iron Man competition, but on this particular evening, the only people there were locals.

On shore, after an active snorkel in the Kailua Bay (boasting some of the most pristine water I have ever seen),  I climbed out of the ocean, placed my snorkel gear next to me, and dangled my legs over the seawall for one of my favorite activities: people watching.  

A group of local boys played in the sand, burying one another and then running away from the one submerged friend. Groups of families argued back in forth exchanging plenty of colorful words.  The crashing waves continued to hit my legs and I looked up at the ridge line toward the snow-capped volcano, Mauna Kea as the sky turned a hazy purple and pink.  

My friend showed me some of the hula moves she had been learning in her classes, and we swayed our hips and swirled our hands to celebrate the sunset in the best way we knew how.

On the ocean, we watched Humpback Whales surface and knew that Sperm Whales were asleep just below the surface. Such an overwhelming sight for the senses, I was a bit taken aback.  There were moments of the day that did not even feel real, yet as a great contradiction, I felt quite at home.

To feel stressed out in Kona seemed an impossibility. To me, that would just mean that quite frankly, one had missed the point of the aloha spirit.