take me back...

 

waikiki. wailoa. puueo. mauna kea. kona. HILO.

--

the colors, the breeze, the swaying of the trees. the peace, the ease, and the warmth of the water. i know home will always be there. and i know i will always go back.

here i go again...

things are always changing. we know this. though, it often takes a big change to actually get our attention. this time last year i was certain that by now i would be moved back to hawai'i and enrolled in UH manoa's creative writing MA program. it was the only program i applied to, the only place i wanted to be; it was the everything into which i had been pouring all my energy. the application, i thought, was the easy part. it was saying goodbye to santa barbara that would be hard. i spent the next five months saying my mental farewells; enjoying the last birthday i'd celebrate here; appreciating my final spring on the central coast; tying up the decade i had spent here.

then things changed.

i couldn't be sure it wasn't a cruel joke, as my mom read me my rejection letter over the phone. but it was true, i didn't get in. everything i had been planning for years had come to a sudden halt. and the saddest part, so did my writing. as the reality of my rejection sunk in, my desire to write sunk even deeper. no matter how i felt, i just couldn't find the words.

it's been about five months now since i've had enough motivation to step out of my writing rut. maybe i made peace with being in santa barbara longer. maybe my recent trip to hawai'i made me realize home would always be there.

maybe enough time had passed.

whatever the reason, i finally realized, if i let another five months go by without practicing the craft, i could no longer call myself a writer. and that was a change that i wouldn't be able to accept.

so here i go again, as i attempt to give you a glimpse of life through my eyes, with my words. for those of you who stuck by me, thanks for awaiting my return.

i write for you.

xx
lika

hunting eggs in joshua tree...

because sometimes there are just no words. hope you bunnies had a happy easter. 

xo

the city of art, food, and brotherly love

we arrived at 8 am and hit the streets. there was lots to see. we spent the morning exploring the vibrant colors and rich aromas of the italian market. on the way to south street we gazed at beautiful murals and mosaics, and finally stopped to savor my very first philly cheese steak.

it was a great start to the trip. next stop, LOVE park. and go figure, that's where we get pickpocketed. right in the heart of the city of brotherly love. i wasn't on the west coast anymore.

i never knew how hard i had to be.
all this time i was just trying to learn
to be.
hardness creates a shell
too thick to return to
the core within.
but i cannot forget. however long,
however far.
LOVE.
when you get too hard,
too drowned in concrete,
they just become letters.
backward they are
EVOLving
in the wrong direction.
a city is only as modern
as its forward thinking of love.
whether brotherly, otherly, sisterly,
you to me
and me to you.
my love, without love
i would just be me
and you would be
a cold, windy, just a little too hard
you.

--

as i look back to my week in philadelphia, the ups, the downs, the city, the suburbs, the family, the foes, the parties, the hangovers, and most of all the love--i see the beauty in the realness. it is truth and it is life. i can only be grateful for it all. mahalo to the bobbs for your amazing hospitality. and mahalo to philly--for showing an island girl how to swim in the concrete jungle.

unfinished business...

the way you hold my hand,
it makes me wonder,
do you see me?
do you feel the pulse beneath
my callused knuckles?
can you see the blue veins
of my roots flowing
as my great grandmother did
east across the pacific
and as my father did too,
generations later,
and with so much less to lose.
and because of those journeys
here i am.

now your hands glide
smoothly across mine,
through each finger
with such detail.
yet your eyes float east.
filled with a glaze.
maybe you cannot see
where i am from;
how deep my story runs.
so you cannot possibly see
how far i will go.

--

i don't remember when i started that poem, or where it was going...but i just found it and don't want it to get lost to my endless clutter. it definitely is worth revisiting and massaging into something greater. stay tuned to watch as this poem evolves...

some other notes i had from that day lost to my memory:

Rumi - harder place to start
"follow the golden thread"
"art for art's sake vs. the second level/deeper meaning"
William Stafford: "Down in My Heart"(years in prison for peacefully objecting to WWII)
take on a mentor, even though they are dead. she took william stafford on as her mentor, and from beyond the grave, he took her on too.
Most famous "Traveling in the Dark"

--

oh yes! all those notes were from my first talk with sojourner! my mentor telling me about her mentor.

a writer's work really is never done...

xo...lika

not beautiful or remarkable things...just things

my mentor sent me a writing prompt a few weeks ago: write down 6 things you see each day, then at the end of one week, compose a poem out of two of those things. the lesson being that poets, and artists in general, should strive to be "more attuned to the physical world and to find concrete things that possess a special vibrancy" (Linda Gregg, "The Art of Finding"), then incorporate these things into their craft.

over the course of a couple weeks, here is what i came up with:

july 11:

earrings
freeway signs
glass jar
turquoise
tea
sunflower

july 25: 

tests
stripes
my reflection
bangle
laughing baby
toes

july 26:

man sitting on sidewalk
new haircut
stress
style
leaves
relief

so i only did it on three of the days, but i did manage to use all the words in my newest attempt and literary creativity...

the things i see each day

as i drive along the highway,
i roll the window down to feel
the breeze of time passing.
a wild wind whips through
and my earrings sing a song
of pennies dropping into a glass jar.
freeway signs point to places
i'll never see,
fields of sunflowers
i'll never know.
white clouds paint stripes across a turquoise sky
as i cease to cease.

my reflection in the windshield,
a loose reminder
of what once was--
a laughing baby with squishy toes
turned adolescent with body woes.

and now i fight the tests of my twenties
by speeding faster
in search of relief.
i chase change with a new style,
new haircut, new shoes
a new bangle filled with jewels.
beautiful objects,
permanent as leaves on a growing tree.

when i finally exit
this whirlwind
wind of a road,
in search of a cure to my saturated stress,
i see a man sitting on the sidewalk.
living in his permanent present,
his sign reads:
a quarter for a cup of tea

...

interesting how the little things we see each day, ultimately paint the big picture of our world. what did you see today?

wanderlust

anyway you slice it, travel remains a wander-ful, lust-ful necessity. 

i'll be heading out on a 10-day nor-cal road trip in a couple days #solomissions. i hope to get motivated to go even further. to all the homies floating around our humble planet, just keep swimming. to those stuck in limbo, let this move you. 

the further you go, the closer you get to understanding humanity and yourself. . .all the while growing creative inspiration.

SEVEN IMAGES TO INSPIRE WANDERLUST