Friends,
A year ago I traveled to the Big Island of Hawaii where I walked for miles across lava on the volcano Kilauea. I couldn’t get enough of that volcano. I peered into its cracks, lay down over its ropy surface, let its smell drench my clothing. I was staying with a friend who was housesitting near Pahoa in the Puna district for a few months. While I was hiking, he was trying to trap wild chickens, build a water catchment system, and sharpen his spear to kill feral pigs. We bought giant avocados and pineapples at the farmer’s market and at night listened to coqui frogs (invasive species from Puerto Rico) sing loudly. Not everyone on that side of the island was carrying a spear but many of them seemed to have run from something at some point. Nearly two weeks ago Kilauea started erupting. The lava came up from fissures and swallowed that house where we'd stayed. I called my friend and said, Pahoa is burning. He said he'd left an expensive hunting bow in the house. He couldn’t stop thinking about all the wild pigs. Where will they go?
A playwright I know is binge-watching Holocaust movies. As research. Meanwhile, too many people believe the atrocity never happened. The word "holocaust" means disaster from fire or burning. The playwright is writing about one of her Polish ancestors, a sausage maker, and also about a Polish woman who saved over 1,000 children from the Nazi camps by hiding them in suitcases and musical instrument cases. The playwright says she doesn’t know how to arrange the material. She loves monologues, but the industry no longer does. No one wants to sit that long to listen to anyone. She asks, It okay to also write about the sex lives of Polish grandmothers?
In Oakland, California, if you are Black, you can’t burn charcoal in a grill in the park for a picnic without having a white person get afraid and call the cops on you.
There are threats and there are threats.
On the Big Island of Hawaii, you might eventually have to run from lava. You might lose everything. But lava isn’t afraid or cruel. Lava is earth reinventing itself. Lava is a sensual grandmother. Lava is a child in a cello case. Lava is hundreds of Black people throwing a dance party--belonging--in that Oakland park.
It’s getting hot in the Sonoran Desert. Nothing is on fire, but the saguaro crowns are bursting with blooms. It’s going to be a ripe red harvest. Here’s my latest. Thanks for following and reading.
Blessings,
Kimi
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You made this far. As a reward, here's a little sneak preview of the Gila topminnow artwork. Come see the rest of her, and others, on the Loop in June!
