we let the bastards in, they took over, cleaned our clock, and they aren't gone yet.
It's been a dark time and I will have a lot of difficulty standing down from mistrust, trusting enough to cooperate, be willing to sacrificing personal gain for the commonwealth, and live in hope of a better world.
4Oct05
I just dropped Lief at the Airport at 6am on his way to Thailand aboard the 730 flight on China Air. It was a brief and interesting visit. For a person with few possessions, who uses almost no resources, Lief leaves behind a psychic wake - vibrations, a signal of passage. He flew in from the Big Island- Doris had left keys for him to get in. He had called me when he first got to the house - I offered him any food we had, the guest account on the computer, and some directions to the post office. Later when I got home, I found him sitting in the dark using the computer. Automatically, I turned on the light and a boy, a young man, clothes stained hard by dirt and wear, with the outward look of the homeless, greeted me with a big smile, clear eyes, not of the homeless, though he had no home. But what exactly, a voyager, a wanderer - quite a different thing. I asked him a question. Why Thailand? His answer; it is the best of all countries given a choice of all countries lying within 15 degrees of latitude from the equator. People are still friendly. Thailand has a king who advised his people to eat brown rice instead of white because it was more nutritious. Lief talked to many people who have traveled the region. A natural question - how will he live? Perhaps he will teach english. This I think is an answer designed more of a feint than the real answer, he will find a way to live, and without money, if possible. How long does he plan to stay in Thailand? Some years, perhaps seven. The phone rings. It's for Lief. My questions end. It's John and there is a letter for Lief in the mailbox which I retrieve while they talk. I talk to John briefly then it's back to Lief, a longish conversation. Lief a little quiet afterward for some minutes.
Lief I learn, is a devotee of fruit, or possibly of a specific fruit, the durian. Later when Doris and Kelly came home, he told us his story of durian, then a story of the two coconuts he brought with him, which he deftly slashed open with his machete, and which he shared with us as we ate dinner. He related a tale of the avocadoes of winter and the avocadoes of summer, of passion fruit, of the farms of Puna, Kona, Hana and elsewhere on Maui, of people who would give him fruit and of those who would not. There were wanderers he encountered, some of whom had passed through the Thailand in his future, their past. Lief, I learn, eats no meat, no fish, no fowl, no eggs or milk. The ocean offers little sustenance, except perhaps some limu. He eats no vegetable touched by fire, broiled, boiled, warmed, or otherwise altered by external chemistries and energies. He eats no rice, no taro, no poi. He will eat fresh fruit and vegetables that can be eaten raw, and as far as I know, nothing else. He uses little water, little or no electricity, has no use for fire. He has no job, no money, lives a life of one who has taken a vow of poverty. And survives. He mentioned no religeon or spiritual beliefs.
We had an early morning ahead and I needed sleep. I set up some bedding on the floor. Doris brought towels and offered the use of our shower (repeatedly) which he refused (firmly). I gave Lief a clean long sleeved shirt which he tried on, accepted then folded, and apparently took with him. He slept in the clothes I found him in, amid the small collection of his possessions, neatly laid out on the sofa. It seems that he has some tiny electronic devices, a thumb drive or camera, a knife, and a machete. He had a some money, a passport, a bank account. He carries no books. All he owns is in a 20 gal hemp bag. He lives by foraging, by design a way of life requiring little money. He sorted his stuff and culled a nylon hammock from his kit - too heavy, and left behind the photos John sent to him, adhering to his "no picture" rule.
On the way to the airport I thought of asking him why, not when, he would come back, but instead asked him how long he would stay in Thailand - what would make him leave. It would be because there was a better country, or that he would be unable to escape urbanization. He has heard that Vietnam is like Thailand prior to it's economic development. His goal would be to find a living far from the cities and encroachment of the global economy as possible. I observe that Thailand has some of the desirable characteristics because it has not been conquered in recent history. In my mind is the knowledge that conquest and colonization by Europeans left in it's wake deep cultural wounds and spiritual destruction of biblical proportions. I looked at the map and the equatorial regions of Earth - Thailand is a natural choice. The options quickly drop out. South America - uh no. Africa from the Congo in the west to Somalia in the East - awash in war. India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos Cambodia, Malaysia, ... Thailand.
I brought up a favorite topic of mine, that of human-kinds origin in africa, and how we people spread. Lief, familiar with this, added that was about 50000 years ago. Some thousands of years later the people reached N Europe. It's known that the aborigines of Australians have been there about 40,000 years. We would still be in Africa but for the young - and suggested that Lief may represent another wave of migration. I also mentioned that the wave of homosapien followed an older migration of homo-erectus, and that in the course of our antecedants migration, homo-erectus walked the earth no more. He didn't know that. Migration is old old old and it maybe part of our genetic programming. Since the beginning, mothers and fathers watched their children crawl, then stand up, and walk away into the wilderness in search of a better life, never to be seen or heard from again.
Somehow in our conversation to the airport, he told me of his belief that when you earn money, you take it from someone else. Of course, compelled by the instinct of the older males of our specie, and by way of providing him an alternative to consider, I in turn told him that we choose to be predatory or not. It's our choice that determines the harm in currency. I reflect on the turmoil created by the pressure of a money economy in Thailand, it's legendary sex trade, but say nothing. When we parted, I wished him luck, call if there was trouble. He looked me in the eyes, smiled, thanked me, twisted the carrying strap of his hemp sack around his shoulder and walked off into the wilderness of the airport.
Cell Phone! Yes I have it on me. Called Doris. She's not available. Joel. Nobody home. Kelly! Yes, but she can't help me, or contact Joel, who went surfing. I leave him a message - call me back NOW. He could be anywhere. Doris is my best bet. OK could be a long wait. Must wait. Dejected, I decide to go into the bakery, which exudees a worn and sparse, un-air conditioned old town fen shui, and where I have never purchased anything in the over 20 years I have lived in Aiea. I sit down at the counter fronting the short order grill manned by a Korean and a Filipino lady. There are no menus in sight Pretty soon I strike up a conversation with my stoolmates, who warn against the chopped steak. Once, a haole man complained, declaring he "could not eat it!" Everything else, however, is good. Even the breakfast steak which they reason must be the better of the steaks served; the lesser specimens they figure, are sliced up for the chopped steak. I say "I've lived in Aiea over 20 years and have never eaten here." They look at me, wondering about what that means. I say I live on Kaonohi Street. Oh, OK. They know, as do I, that what is now Kaonohi Street is not really Aiea, or even a neighborhood, but a former cane field. I order breakfast. We talk about Aiea, how it has changed over the years. My companions compare notes on where they live, which streets have changed, how they have been forced to move because of develoment and property condemnations. I volunteer I'm from the Big Island and that old Aiea reminds me of where I'm from. Where? Kohala, I say, but my parents live in Hilo now, except, well, my dad just died. Oh sorry. Where in Hilo? I explain where. One guy kindof knows where that is and nods. Working through our breakfasts at different rates, and the younger of my companions has got to go. 85 year old Masa and I continue our conversation while we gradually tuck away our meals. He was a soldier who went to France and Germany during the war (you know which one), then was a fireman working for the "federal" for the navy for 23 years until his heart attack in 1967. He was a jouneyman carpenter, that is he was paid as a journeyman, but knew only how to nail floors, and a retired pest exterminator, who still has the shed he once stored poison, which is now filled with his junk, his kids junk, and the junk of his grandchildren. We visited old Aiea in days of sugar, he'd been in the tunnels under red hill where fuel tanks 150 feet deep and 100 feet across were hollowed out of the rock, I hear his account of the flood of '37 in the gulch that was probably where the Pearl City junkyard is now, which killed someone he knew and wiped out rice patties and crops in the area, taking with it a way of life. He mentioned that this was where he had searched for his daughter - a story I didn't get to hear. I didn't hear my cell phone either, thus missing all of Doris' 5 attempts to answer my SOS. After getting out of her class and powering up her phone she got my message. ! She called me. No answer. Again. No answer. She drove back to Aiea after her yoga lesson, called again, not there. Tried some more, walked around the shopping center. My car is there but I'm not, and I don't pick up the phone. She drove home thinking, "maybe he walked home", but I'm not there.
Meanwhile I think, Doris! I look at my phone which reports I received five unanswered calls. A little stressed I call her. She's like, "where are you?" I can explain. She comes back with the van key. So ends my story of locking my keys in the car and hanging out in the bakery next to Times Aiea, awaiting rescue.
