Life Power Now - for gay men

...sometimes as a cooling whisper against the skin, sometimes as a hissing sound that gives you just enough time to get under a tree or roof overhang. Sun, clouds and rain follow each other and break up the day into episodes... in the morning I wait for a break before bicycling a couple miles to Kalani.

The road from the house winds down to the coast road - a steady decline that needs brakes and not pedaling. The coast road goes down and up, overlooking black crumbling cliffs and dramatic up-spashes of white water and foam. At the Kalani gate is a steady half mile climb in low gear to the open-air dining lanai and the cheerful clatter of breakfast.

My second week here has been more active - I've painted the interior of a cottage room, attacked (and was attacked by!) a mass of thorny bougainvillea vines, and traipsed the Kalani property with compass and measuring tape to find boundaries for some planned construction.

The jungle at Kalani is all vines and guava saplings with assorted palm, monkey pod and ohia trees. The footing on the dank ground is an unsteady mass of decaying logs and vegetation overlaying rocks. Rocks everywhere... under every plant is a rock, under every rock is another rock or two or three. Rock walls are made by bulldozers.... just scape the ground and the rocks all pile up!

In our neighborhood, a front or back lawn is likely to be crumbling ridges of black rocks. One beautiful house on the edge of the neighborhood is oriented to an open rock field. From inside the high glass walls of its rooms you look at a vista of black rocks with scraggly trees sweeping left up to a ridge, and down to the right to the sea. It feels like a terrarium, except that you're not quite sure which is the inside and which the outside.

Right now, I'm never quite sure if I have sufficient internet access, which means sporadic access and no pictures until I get it improved. Thanks for all the emails! I'll get back to everyone soon...

aloha,
paul