Reflections From Hawaii, 2018, Off the Grid

Dateline Oahu, Hawaii
April 12, 2018

Off the grid.
The constant communications grid, that is.

I have electricity, cards, gas, water and the rest, but no television and the newspaper available like some sort of grade school thing. It is night once again. Night for you and me unless you are in Madagascar or Japan or one of those other sides of the world places. I wait for whales. I set up to investigate the morning leavings of whatever is going to come through that cat or dog door in the dark.

I’m leaving it open on advice from some on here. We gotta know. When dawn comes I will also be there to lay crumbs down to provide momentary life’s bit of temporary respite to the blackbird who drops by and gives me nothing back at all. Or do some of these close but distant creature in my bit of life here actually give me a lot more than I might think they do? What is it about animals, those living creatures, inarticulate in translatable verbal skills but so meaningful in movement and seeming intent? I don’t know, and in truth, If I wasn’t stuck right here, living a self-forced time out, the question might be framed by the movement of atoms and ganglion in my neocortex but never make it to conscious thought.

But here I am. Roy Orbison is belting out “It’s over,” as the post-Vietnam war stereo delivers with the heavy base and heavier amperage. I don’t think it’s over for me or mine but the song is cool in the background anyway.