Back Yards and Front Yards

After being on the island of Maui for the past 3 weeks, I’m back on the mainland! Over the next few weeks, between NLP updates, look for stories here about my trip. Aloha!

When I was very young, I would go with my Granddad on early morning walks.

He would soundlessly wake up at 4 a.m. every day. He’d get his dog’s leash and his dog ready to go, and we’d be off, walking through his sleeping Albuquerque subdivision.

They had sidewalks. Some people had lawns made entirely of rock. There were evergreens of every sort. There were mimosa trees. Some people had a tiny patch of grass in their front yards.

Granddad knew everyone in the neighborhood. He would point out each house and tell me stories about the owners. He would tell me about the flagpole they installed and how they hit solid rock when they were digging the hole for it. He would tell me about the cats in the neighborhood.

He pointed out one house with a perfectly coiffed lawn and landscaping. There were steps up to the front porch, and the house was set back further than the other houses. They had a friendly St. Bernard and grandkids. They had suffered through diseases and disease treatments. I imagined that people like this must be very tall and stout.

We rounded the corner and were back at his house, ready for breakfast.

Granddad had a great backyard. He had a clothesline – something I’d never seen anywhere else. He had a small flat area, and then a terraced step all the way around the outside of the yard. And there was a shed with all kinds of tools in it.

The fence wasn’t a fence at all. It was a cinderblock wall about 4 feet high. You could easily see into the neighboring yards, with their extensive vegetable gardens and little dogs.

In one back corner, there was a staircase. Granddad was a woodworker, so he probably built it. It fit perfectly between the place where the two walls met.

If you climbed it, you could meet the folks who lived there. They had a beautiful back yard, with lots of plants to hide in and around if I wanted to be by myself. If I wanted company, there was a giant dog, or the kids who lived there would play with me. As long as I knocked on the back door, the tiny grandmother who lived there said I could come in anytime. We would talk while she rolled the dough for a pie and the oven warmed up. Sometimes her husband would come into the kitchen and talk, too.

One morning, I asked Granddad to show me where the tiny grandmother lived. He showed me the familiar house – the one with the perfectly appointed yard and the people with sorrows and a St. Bernard.

This is one of the many experiences I was hoping for in Maui: connecting with old and new friends in ways that helped me “forget” their front yards and the assumptions I had about them. I wanted to see their back yards by interacting directly with them – beyond assumptions – and get on with just being friends and enjoying each other.

While I was there, I met with a group of 15 advanced NLPers at Tom and Bobbi Best’s workshop. My mom was there. My good friends Mary Ann Reynolds and Virginia Brodie were there. There was a group of 4 Austrians there, too, including Daniella. And I met some people with the strongest Aloha I’ve ever seen. I look forward to sharing stories about these people and the beautiful place of Maui soon.

Mana and Maui

When you have a few minutes to really relax into what Maui is like, check out Mary Ann Reynold's post about mana. She made the trip in December last year, and we're in Maui together right now.

http://mareynolds.blogspot.com/2008/02/maui.html

Hana Aloha Festival Lu'au

While we're in Maui, enjoy reading about the first real lu'au we ever attended. The same Aloha Festival may be going on during part of our trip, if we're lucky. But dates often change due to weather and other community matters in Hana.

The Aloha Festivals are local Hawai'ian culture events that take place on all the islands, across different dates. In Hana, where we spent most of our time on Maui, there is a parade with horses, lots of kids and ti leaf floats. There is a lei making contest. And there is a Lu'au.

We happened upon it 5 years ago, and we were the only haoles there, besides the local herb grower. I will never forget watching the progression of hula dancers and the deep gratitude I continue to feel for the experience they gave us.

First, the keikis (children) show what they've been learning. Hula is usually taught by a teacher giving instruction and correction, and students listening carefully. Students do not ask questions. The keikis are incredibly cute, and considered a cherished part of the community.

Groups of students continue coming on stage, dancing, and then sitting near the stage to watch. They watch all the students who are older than them. By the time the older teenagers are performing, you're watching a very technically proficient group of dancers. Both boys and girls dance. They look like classic Hawai'ian beauties (indeed, they are!) and they can hula!

The real masters of the hula, though, are the grandmothers -- big, polynesian women in their 50s, 60s, and beyond, wearing long skirts that amplify every curve. They hold the Aloha for the entire community. When they step on the stage, even little babies are quiet for a moment.

And then, they begin to dance.

Their hula is beyond technical perfection. With every movement, they are opening your heart -- indeed the heart of the entire community. As you watch, completely attentive to their every movement, your heart begins to expand beyond your body, to the entire community, and beyond. This is what the people of Hana are about -- the spirit of Ohana (family) and Aloha.

Through the end of October, I'm twittering my trip to Maui: http://twitter.com/katieraver

See ya back here in November!

Last Walk

The last time I saw Granddad Raver, he came to visit my family where we lived in Keller, Texas.

He was healthy, and he still camped and traveled long distances. It had been two years since my grandmother had died. He brought his dog Jenny and slept out in his RV, hooked up through the garage.

I was 19. He was 84.

We went for a walk one morning on the nearby trails. The trails in Keller are remarkable, especially for a small bedroom community of Fort Worth. They wind through parkland and woods and little meadows, all smack dab in the middle of suburbia. If you know just where to step off the trail, there's a dry stream bed where you can lay on your back at sunset, watching the fireflies appear, one by one, against the darkening sky.

I don't know if I knew he was going to die, or just sensed he had important things to say to me. But I paid attention. He re-told some of my favorites stories, one by one: about how he and Granny Kate met, about his adventures as a road grader, about getting bucked by a bull while crow hunting.

He talked about how much he loved farming, even though he had left it behind as a young man for road construction. He'd take a big breath in, as if he were smelling the dirt right then, and say, "Katie Ann, turning the earth and smelling it, planting the seeds and watching them grow, there's nothing like it."

He even talked about the death and destruction he witnessed in World War II -- something he'd never told me about before.

At some point on our walk, we sat down under a blooming pear tree, pink blossoms floating all around us, slowly falling to the ground. He signed, and with a slow, gentle smile, looked right at me. "Katie Ann, when you're with someone for 50 years, you miss 'em when they're gone."