a beautiful rainbow stretched across the sky while we were down in the garden grilling fish...

 
Paradise was right across the street from where we stayed in Maui
 
The view from the balcony where I sat with my laptop computer...talk about a beautiful "garden!"

 
Sunflower seeds are planted in our garden and we are excited because we’ve all got our own designated spot of land in the garden which stretches out behind the flat we live at on Second Avenue.  The back yards are like a whole alternate universe from the front of the house – separated by wooden fences which we’d climb, some fences taller than others – a complex world of rectangle and square plots of land – some of the land all grass, some filled with flowers, some overrun by nasturtiums and weeds. 

 


 
Our garden was kind of a magical place because the couple who lived downstairs from us made it so – they lived in what was called the garden apartment because it was a small apartment that overlooked the garden – much, much smaller than our flat.  Mr. and Mrs. Fentley lived there – and Mr. Fentley was a mad scientist who had a lab up near U.C. Hospital and was always doing experiments out in our back yard.  Like one time he brought home a sheep skull and put it out in the yard to see what kind of fly larvae would grow on it and then he’d write about it on a clipboard.  Mr. Fentley would show us all the different bugs on the bushes that we didn’t even know existed, like the “spittle bug” that would literally live inside what looked like his own spit so that nobody would bother him – and all these different types of beetles that lived on the plants as well.  He didn’t like snails though because they ate all the flowers and leaves, so he’d pay us a nickel for every snail we’d find and smash against this one side of the fence.


 

Then for a while we had two white rabbits living in our back yard as well.  We kids named them Herman and Big Mama even though later we found out they were both male rabbits.  Those rabbits ate anything and everything that was green in our backyard leaving a sort of barren wasteland…so finally the rabbits had to go away.  Mr. Fentley said they went to a farm someplace, and we all liked to believe that was true.  Mr. Fentley got me my first pet guinea pig and even built a cage for him.  He rang the doorbell on my birthday and when I answered, only the guinea pig in the cage remained – I never forgot that.  I loved Timmy and found out later that Mr. Fentley had all kinds of mice and guinea pigs, etc., at his lab.  Supposedly they were on vacation there.

So after the bunnies left, the yard began to turn green again.  My brother brought home three nasturtium plant seeds – those green plants with the round green leaves and the orange flowers that spread like wildfire all over parts of Golden Gate Park and Sigmund Stern Grove.  Those three little leaves spread through about a quarter of the back yard, but it was good because we could pick the orange flowers that grew endlessly in the yard now.  There were fuchsia bushes and sometimes we’d pop the buds because we liked the popping noise, and that bush that had those huge flowers that we found out later were called chrysanthemums.

So, Mr. Fentley decided to give each of us a plot of land – me, my brother and sister and David and Barry around the corner.  We marked off our land and even put name tags on it.  Then he gave us sun flower seeds to plant – imagine that, sun flower seeds.

So we all planted our seeds, and every day we’d run into the garden and see if our seeds had grown, and soon enough we saw the green shoots pop out of the ground – we were so excited!  Those green shoots grew into huge stalks that were taller than us – and huge yellow sun flowers with sun flower seeds galore in the middle – the guinea pig loved the seeds.

Maui was like one huge garden – with flowers and luscious fruits growing from trees.  You don’t have to go far to find paradise in Maui, and you don’t have to spend a lot of money – because Paradise is right outside your door there.  All I needed to do was cross the street in my flip flops and my bathing suit to the ocean, and feel the warm water brush against my feet and hear the music of the waves and swim way out among the surfers and the snorkelers…one with the ocean.  I thought I’d seen paradise in San Francisco.  But Maui is what San Francisco used to be – with people sitting on street corners playing guitars and ukuleles and singing…the way it should be.

Leaving Maui

It was with great regret that I reluctantly trudged through the security gate at the airport in Maui last night, saying good-bye to the most special, magical place I’ve ever been to. I could hear singing and ukulele and guitar ringing through the airport, saying good-bye…music was everywhere in Maui – it seemed that everywhere I went, to Hana up in the lush green hills overlooking the most amazing part of the ocean I met a girl people in town call “Ukulele Donna” because she always serenades the people who come through town, either on their own or via tour – playing and singing. She showed me a few ukulele chords and she showed me her small four-string ukulele, which she plays left-handed and upside down even though she’s right-handed because she’d watch her Grandma play and mirror her…

She also laughed about how Grandma went through a lot of ukuleles because she sometimes smashed them when she got mad – and you had to watch out or Grandma would hit you with one of them. I laughed and said it sounded like something a rock star would do or something… She sang beautifully. Then, there were the dudes sitting at a picnic table overlooking the ocean, singing in harmony and playing guitar and ukulele…

We were constantly surrounded by the beauty and the music, enveloped…it was so hard to leave… and sometimes things don’t work out the way you plan it because I had to take a plane from Maui to Salt Lake City, Utah, then another plane to Seattle, Washington, change airlines and then catch yet one more plane down to San Francisco – the plane was late and they put my luggage on the wrong plane. I’d already been traveling all night, so I didn’t need to have to wait an extra hour and a half at the airport for my suitcase to arrive… so the backup plan was that Jeremy would have to leave and come back to the airport, and I’d just get as much done as I can before heading off to New York late tonight on the red-eye…right now I’m so tired I feel as if I could just lie down and fall asleep…but there’s places to go and things to do.

And the reality of life has hit me in the face. Last night at this time, I sat at a picnic table looking at the ocean…and I swam one last night and rode the waves and felt the warm water lap against my feet – one more time. I’ve vowed to get a ukulele and learn to play it, so I can just whip it out wherever I go and sing along… like those kids at Ioe Valley who sang to bless the water before they swam in it…

 
 


We got up at 5:30 a.m. yesterday morning, 8:30 a.m. California time – it still seems like a dream that I’m actually in Maui, in Hawaii – with its beautiful beaches and beautiful sunsets, and well, it isn’t exactly how I imagined it, but quite beautiful and special – even better than what I’d imagined.  I’m staying with my friend Heidi and her husband Richard in a one-bedroom condo at one of those resorts (you know, those “timeshares”) and it’s quite nice – I think so.  Much nicer than just a regular hotel room because there’s an actual kitchen.  The balcony looks down on to a wonderful pool with waterfalls and all colors of flowers growing on trees and bushes, red, purple and yellow – with the palm trees swaying against the dazzling blue sky above.  Well, when it doesn’t spit rain. It’s beautiful here even when it rains.