Maui retrospective: Small

My Date and I spent last week in Maui, the Pacific crashing on the rocks below us each day, humpbacks breaching right and left in the channel between us in Napili and the dark island of Molokai, and a blicky February in The Beav a marginal memory.

But I feel small — because we spent a day at Haleakalā National Park.

Let me put it succinctly. Haleakalā is where you go if, like an insignificant flake of human lava dust, you want to stand in the palm of time.

And we all need to do THAT once and awhile, don’t we?

Just sayin’ that looking into a (kind of) volcanic crater puts a few musty things into perspective. 

First, we humans are small peanuts in the large scheme of things. Duh. Sure, we can slap together 

skyscrapers and nuclear warheads, but over thousands of year, only the forces of nature can create an enduring, mystical, other-worldly environment like Haleakalā — so large the island of Manhattan would fit comfortably in its crater. Think about that, NYC.

And mysticism itself: I am drawn to the early Hawaiians who believed Haleakalā would protect the

remains of their dearly departed AND the future integrity of their children. (Of course, the latter was

achieved by depositing umbilical cords into select pockets of the crater so rats wouldn’t make off with them. Because if THAT happened, your child would most certainly be consigned to a life of thievery. Think about that for a moment.) 

So back to mysticism: As I watched Haleakala’s micro-weather world suck in marine cloud banks, swirl them around its ageless peaks, then gently kiss them away — sometimes in a matter of minutes — I realized I am small. . . but also with the potential to be mighty.

Like Haleakela.

Postscript: I am back. Thanks to a meet-up with an old high school friend a couple of weeks of ago. She published a book about three years ago -- and then stopped writing.  We got to talking about that phenomenon: We-loved-to-write-but-then-stopped-writing-wondered-why-we-stopped-writing-made-a-few-fitful-starts-writing-then-stopped-writing-then-wonderered-why. . . well, you get the picture.

The truthful answer is a cheesy one: Life happens. . . aging parents, kids in town, grandkids in town, new friends, new adventures -- and unfortunately we forget. . . and neglect. . . to share (whether you want to hear about or not.)  

But the itch to write is back  (if I don't kill my aging MacBook in the meantime).  And next time -- we're going over the top -- of Maui.