Life Power Now - for gay men

Yesterday, on another rainy day in Puna, Chris took me to the steam vents. A natural feature of the area, you just pull off the side of the road near the Steam Vent Inn, lock your car, and start wandering back into the Ohia trees.

There are lots of trails winding through rocky outcroppings of lava and lush vegetation kept moist (and sometimes blackened) by the steam rising from the ground. Here and there are large holes, some with ladders, into which you can climb and get the full steam room experience.

We stop and climb down one, put our clothes into plastic bags, and sit hunched over into a small grotto in a side opening. Someone put down some boards and stools to sit on amidst the smooth, red, candle-drip rock walls covered in green algae. A hole in the grotto floor exhales hot steam, rests a moment, then exhales some more.

When we've had enough, we climb back out into the cooler rain and towel down. From the top of the outcropping, the overlook is eerie with black rock chimneys, slick, vibrantly green trees and ferns, sprays of wild purple orchids, and wafts of steam mist drifting across the raindrops.

Such an eccentric landscape grows and attracts eccentric humans, too, at least by grid-ruled city standards. People drift, fray, and bend with the moving tectonic plate far below them. It's a Galapagos of humans: turtle-humans, booby-humans, gecko-humans; all adapting into island niches. Not so different from grid-people, but certainly eccentric by grid norms.

Some are looking for more space to express themselves, extending pseudopods in irregular shapes. Some seem taken over by their eccentricities, reveling in their quirks with impish glee. Others have a slightly astonished look on their face, as if they're not quite sure how they became who they are now. Like the beautiful variegated bark of the tropical eucalyptus tree a few doors down the street, people show the red, yellow, green, grey layers of their core personalities and seasonal growth.

Ec-centric: not of the center. A useful word, usually... but on the Big Island, the meaning of words bend and sway like wild orchids in the rain. And you begin to think that maybe they bend and sway everywhere, but you usually just don't notice it.