Kamehameha and My First Hawaiian Kiss

Last Friday was Kamehameha Day, a state holiday commemorating King Kamehameha The Great’s birthday and celebrating the cultural traditions he defended.

We were warned of traffic gridlock in Waikiki due to parades, festivals, dances, concerts, etc, associated with Kamehameha Day. Recognizing we would miss a cultural event, Mark and I decided to stay away from the throngs of people and pass on the festivities.

Friday evening, we needed to show up somewhere on the outskirts of Waikiki. We consciously waited for the traffic to leave the area of Ali’iolani Hale, (the building behind the statue of Kamehameha) and for crowds to assemble further down in Waikiki for the next promoted event of the day. We figured we’d drive slowly past the statue to see the draped leis done earlier in the day, then continue to our destination.

The streets were nearly empty as we drove up to the statue. A few dozen people stood, some taking photos of their family, in front of the newly lei’d King. With plenty of parking spaces, we decided to stop. We saw Guy Hagi, the local weatherman, reporting from the scene. About thirty men and women dressed in Victorian era clothing stood in front of Ali’iolani Hale, the former seat of government for the Kingdom of Hawaii. We stood on the outskirts of the paved circle that surrounds the statue as Hawaiian men and women paraded on the circular pathway, chanting; a few carrying torches, one waving a smoking ti leaf and nodding to a few in the crowd.

The woman standing next to me touched her hand to her forehead and bowed when the ti leaf waved our direction. I assumed she was Hawaiian, although here everyone is such a mix of different races and nationalities, it's difficult to tell.

Mark and I stood quietly trying to remain out of the way of the ceremony, but no one seemed to mind if we watched.

I whispered to Mark that I wish I spoke Hawaiian so I could understand the meaning of this ritual.

Near the end of the ceremony, the group around the statue sang a haunting, but beautiful, melody.

I quietly asked the woman next to me if she knew the name of the song.

“Kamehameha,” she answered. I didn’t ask her any more. Her eyes were fixed on the group. She started to whisper in English as the group sang. “I’m translating,” she said. I wish I could remember word for word what she translated, but it was about having respect for the king who unified the islands and how they will always revere and remember him.

Each in the group touched their first fingers to their foreheads and then pointed the finger at the statue. The woman next to me did the same. When the ceremony concluded, the woman turned to me and said, “That, what you just witnessed, was the spirit of Aloha. We are a peaceful people and we wish to remember our King who unified us. “

I asked about the finger pointing. “We touch our finger to the area just above our eyes, in the center (I thought of the Third eye) and send our highest respects to our King.”

I asked who the people were who performed the ceremony.

“They are Ali’i.” (Hawaiian royalty)

Astonished that Ali’I still existed, she sensed I wanted to know more. The Sons of Kamehameha were the men holding the torches and wearing cardinal red and black capes over their suits.

I wished to know more, but I didn’t know what to ask and I didn’t want to take up this woman’s time.

Just then, she faced me, leaned towards me to touch her forehead to mine. She touched her nose to mine. Quietly, she said, “Breathe in the essence of the other person.” We both inhaled, then separated.

“That is a Hawaiian kiss.” She continued, “Have you noticed everyone is smiling here, even in Waikiki with the cars and the buildings and the tourists?”
We nodded.

“We are a gentle people, docile, and we keep getting taken advantage of, yet we continue to smile because we live in aloha.”

“Hawaiians,” she said, “are about aloha, appreciation and an attitude of gratitude.”

“Say ‘mahalo’ 10-12 times a day. We don’t just say it here, we mean it.”

She pointed to Mark, “Tell him 'mahalo' every day. Be grateful for him.”

“I am,” I said. “I’m here because he’s such a kind and caring person.” I hugged Mark and told him how grateful I was he brought me to Hawaii.

She told me of a queen, about May Day and the meaning of its celebration here, of the spirit of the Hawaiian people. I tried to remember it all and soon realized I'm not supposed to remember the facts, I'm supposed to live in Aloha, the way this woman was describing it to me.

Then, I turned to the woman, leaned in, touched my forehead and nose to hers, and breathed deep.

I stepped back, looked her in the eyes, nodded slightly to her and in sincerity said, “Aloha”.

With a light in her eyes, she smiled. “Yes, that’s it.”

I must have blinked taking in the moment, because after that, she disappeared.







Ua mau ke ea o ka 'aina i ka pono "The life of the land is preserved in righteousness."

Thunderstorm Witnesses

My mom and step-dad came to visit. We drove them all over the island and stayed at the Outrigger Reef in Waikiki. It's a great hotel, with friendly staff and all the necessities for a beach vacation.

My parents stayed with us before we checked in to the Outrigger. They experienced the same kind of thunderstorm I wrote about a few weeks ago. This time the lights flickered, but we didn't lose power. The weather service said four inches of rain were coming down per hour. The clouds parked over our building for a solid hour and shot huge lightning flashes in front of our living room window. At one point, I jumped out of my chair.

This storm was more severe than the thunderstorms I witnessed when I lived in Washington, D.C.

Oh, and I took my mom to the Bishop Museum where I snapped a photo of the Fishing God statue.

Peace, War and Nature

I’m not sure how to explain the past two days.

Monday evening we went to the Hawaiian Lantern Festival, a festival promoting peace and harmony and organized by the Shinnyo-en Buddhists, whereby lanterns are set to sea by people wishing to commemorate lost loved ones. The priest (a woman, but they called her a priest) spoke.

“Lights of the lanterns are lights of hope which extend our gratitude to our ancestors.”

She also spoke of the lanterns as a communication vessel “between souls seen and unseen”. She shared how the kindness of America in helping Japan after the tsunami and earthquake wouldn’t be forgotten.

I saw lanterns decorated with the Japanese flag bearing the words, “Remember Japan". Others said, "To Auntie” and "My Beloved Son". Many wrote to grandparents describing how the family thinks of them everyday, and one with, “PFC (first and last name), Persian Gulf War”. On the other side, his date of death and a photo of the soldier.

Forty thousand people stood on the edge of Ala Moana Beach Park. It was quiet enough to hear the conch shell being blown at the festival stand on the other end of the beach. We watched as over 3,000 lanterns bobbed in the gentle waves and floated to the edge of the bay. All those lanterns represented lost loved ones. It was reverent, solemn, peaceful.

At the end of the ceremony, everyone sang a song in Hawaiian. (I believe it was “Aloha Oe”, but I’m not sure). An elderly, petite Asian woman stood in the sand holding her cane in one hand and her daughter’s arm in the other. She sang as loud as she could in her frail condition and held a smile large enough to light up her face and expose the tears in her eyes.



Today, I found myself at Hickam Air Force Base staring at the walls of buildings riddled with bullet holes from the Japanese attack in 1941.

The Doomsday plane was parked on the field. I don’t know why it was here, but the thought of the plane being developed for use in case of nuclear attack left me somber.

After Hickam AFB, I stood on the grounds of Pearl Harbor Naval Base, peering through a chain link fence, across the bay, to the Arizona Memorial and the USS Missouri.

Reflecting back to the Lantern Festival last night and then to the images before me at Pearl Harbor and Hickam, I wondered about human nature.

As we drove out Pearl Harbor's gates onto the freeway, a rainbow appeared covering one end of the land to another, reminding me there is more at work than human nature.

Surfer Van

Driving home from the beach, we stopped at a stop light. A VW van pulled up behind us with a young (20ish) surfer girl behind the wheel. I was telling Mark how nice it was to see the casual surfer still in existence in a van driving home from the beach, when a guy on a motorcycle pulled up next to the van and told the girl, "I don't want to scare you, but your car's on fire."

She jumped out of her van. I turned the car around the corner. We pulled over. Mark ran to the intersection to see if she was okay and then to direct traffic. I pulled out my phone and realized by the time I reached a local dispatcher on my (415) area code phone, the car could explode.

Instead, I started to run towards the intersection. Why? Because the Fire Station was RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET!!

A guy on a scooter had already driven up the grass to the front of the station. Fire fighters ran across the street, pulling on their gear.

Two lessons for me.
One: If I'm going to have a car fire, do it across the street from a fire station.
Two: Time to get a local phone number.

(In the photo, the van is around the corner to the left and the fire station is on the right.)

A Cat and Fish

In Ireland, there’s a stone that sits just to the side of the geographic center of the island. It is believed the Goddess Eriu, Eire, or Erin, was buried under this stone. The Irish call it the Cat Stone, because it looks like a cat.

I was reminded of this stone while walking through the Bishop Museum here on Oahu. On the first floor of the main hall sits a stone with a face. I swear it was staring at me. Really. It has eyes and a mouth and leans forward slightly. Since I was in a museum, I didn't take photos. If you Google, "Kaneikokala" you'll find the stone.

Early in the 1900’s, a native Hawaiian continually had dreams of this stone whereby it was telling him he wanted out of the cold. This man followed his dream. Buried under dirt and grass and lying in water, was the stone, recognized as a fish god.

The Bishop Museum took charge of the stone and anchored the fish god into the floor with cement. When renovating the museum in 2006, they tried to remove the stone and place him outside in a more revered spot. After digging and digging through cement, the stone wouldn’t move. Finally, they left the fish god in the main exhibit hall, where he now stares at the entrance, safe and warm.

A Sacred Place

Have you ever stepped into a space and knew it was sacred?

Our friends from San Francisco were here on vacation. We took them on a drive around the island to show them the sights outside of Waikiki. Our morning started with an unexpected place where friends gathered. At this gathering place, our San Francisco friends ran into old friends of theirs who used to live in the city by the bay. This group filled us with hope for the new day and sent us on our way.

We planned to drive straight to the North Shore so our SF friends could see the famous surfing beaches. We stopped along the way which detoured us from the main road we had been on.

I’ve known these friends for seven years. I don’t know everything about them and their beliefs, but I do know we believe in the same thing. Miracles. We believe in miracles because we’ve seen them.

Our detour took us to a section of the island I remembered from before. Sitting in the car, I said to Mark, “We’re near the temple aren’t we?”

When he affirmed, I asked our friends if they wanted to see the Valley of the Temples.

One of them had heard about it from someone and work. He remarked how he'd never get near the Valley because he had no car during his stay in Waikiki. We have mutual friends who tell us all the time, "there are no coincidences."

Excitedly, we turned into the valley.

We explained how each cemetery section was divided among all the religions of the island. The drive up the valley is serene, with rolling slopes of grass and flowers marking graves on each side. A cross on the left, a yin/yang symbol and a tiger on stained glass up ahead, a statue of the Virgin Mary on the right.

We passed a large family of at least three generations, sitting under a canopy eating and talking near their ancestor’s grave.

The road led us to the Shinto section with elaborate black headstones where we made the final turn to the parking area.

Halfway across the footbridge, my friend gasped. I took her arm as we crossed to the other side. “Oh, wow!” I heard them both exclaim when they saw the temple.

The Byodo-In is a non-denomination Buddhist temple which welcomes people of all faiths. Built without nails, it’s an impressive reddish-orange building which sits at the foot of the stunning cliffs of the Ko’olau mountains. The shadows kept changing the look of the entire setting as the sun shined, then disappeared, and reappeared to create new shadows minutes later.

I had been there before with a group of friends and many, many tourists. But Sunday, it was calm and quiet. We made a donation at the large bell and rang it for luck. Then we approached the main building where the large statue of Buddha rests. I slipped off my shoes and with the very first step into the structure, my breath calmed, my shoulders relaxed and all thoughts of things other than the golden Buddha sitting lotus-style in front of me disappeared.


Each of us lit incense and stood quietly. Mark took my hand and we bowed our heads in reverence to the calming influence sitting above us.

More reason to feel hope in a sacred place.

It's a Small, Small World

Mark's aunt read my post about the Hawaii Book Festival and promptly e-mailed me afterward. She knows both Jodi Belknap (Belknap Publishing) and Jamie Ford (Author of Hotel on the Corner Of Bitter And Sweet)


Mark's family is from Oahu and his aunt has lived here her whole life.

I guess Jamie Ford lived here in his advertising days. He and his wife came to visit "Auntie and Uncle" on their last vacation to Oahu.

Mark's aunt knows Jodi and Buzz of Belknap Publishing through working together on some projects.

It's such a small world.

(Reminder - "Mark" is not his real name.)


Tuesday, we played tourist and went to Waikiki. We sat at the Mai Tai Bar at The Royal Hawaiian Hotel and watched the sun set. There's a doctor's convention in town so we had to scramble to get a table. It was worth it to see the water and the sunset and to have someone bring us dinner and drinks.

Hawaii Book Festival

Desperate to find a writing partner and get back to a routine of writing, I attended the Hawaii Book and Music Festival at Honolulu Hale (City Hall) yesterday. A friend of mine from high school and college set up an e-introduction with his aunt of Belknap Publishing.

Set on the grass, under the trees that surround City Hall were the white booths of participants. I entered from a sidewalk path to find a Barnes and Noble booth. Sitting on the table at the corner of the booth were copies of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet . Since the author is a past participant of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers and a friend of a friend of mine from the year I attended, I took this as a good sign.

I walked past that booth to find the Hawaii Book Publishers table and met Jodi Belknap. She introduced me to everyone she knew who walked or stopped by her table. Mark had told me earlier that Hawaiians don't want to interfere in someone's life. In order to get help, I needed to ask for it. I actually said to one man, "I need help. I have to find writing partners and a writing group." This man gave me the name of a friend to contact.

It seems romance writers and poets abound in Hawaii, but not so with memoirists. I'm following up with everyone and am grateful Jodi is willing to help me get my writing life settled in Hawaii.

Jodi also introduced me to a friend from the Bishop Museum, who works in the collections department. I told them about the photo of my dad and uncle on Ala Wai Canal in 1938 and how my grandpa was working on the Lurline (a Matson cruise ship) during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Maybe I'm supposed to dig around the Bishop Museum for more 1930-40's artifacts. Are there Matson related photos and letters hidden there?

After visiting Belknap Publishing, I wandered the paths among the grass to the music stage and listened to happy Hawaiian sounds while cooling off under a tree. When I saw a stream of people walking into a dark tunnel, I wondered if I was missing a secret auditorium with guest speakers. No, it was the parking garage; underground and disguised as a green, grassy hill. You can see it in the photo. You'd never know cars were parked under the tranquil, grassy knoll where kids were playing.

Oahu has hidden collections in museums and underground parking garages. Now I need to find the underground memoir writers.

Later I'll write about the statue at Bishop Museum found through dreams.