I have spent a good part of this past week a little lost in memory, childhood memories of a visit to Honolulu. I remember three main things about that early trip, being swept along Waikiki in a current, hundreds of koi at the Pagoda, and crying for both sides at the USS Arizona Memorial. Years later I spent many trans pacific stopovers seaching Oahu phone books and flyers for a floating restaurant. I ended up rediscovering the Pagoda when I first exhibited in Honolulu. I found myself standing at the same spot I had stood 23 years earlier. It is a funny feeling to sweep over you. As soon as you stop looking for it, you find it. The Pagoda is a place caught in time. Somewhere in the late sixties to mid seventies. A comfortable, humble constant in a world of rapid change. I enjoyed my breakfast talks with Beverly and dinner chats with Roland who collectively had logged in 52 years working the tables there. They told me about the changes, while I saw the similarities. I did the math and calculated that Beverly was working there when I made my first trip. She spoke of the loss of so many koi, an illness that struck many years back. She sees loss while I see life. Hundreds of lives swirling in color fields of orange, red, white and black. Maybe I needed to remember the life, especially since this trip was to get some distance from the family deaths that seemed to never end. My child brain needed to see a flury of life on a bus tour between Punchbowl and Pearl Harbor, we all needed to see some life that day. Perhaps it is those sharp contrasts that make Honolulu so memorable.4.02.2007
Searching for the Pagoda
I have spent a good part of this past week a little lost in memory, childhood memories of a visit to Honolulu. I remember three main things about that early trip, being swept along Waikiki in a current, hundreds of koi at the Pagoda, and crying for both sides at the USS Arizona Memorial. Years later I spent many trans pacific stopovers seaching Oahu phone books and flyers for a floating restaurant. I ended up rediscovering the Pagoda when I first exhibited in Honolulu. I found myself standing at the same spot I had stood 23 years earlier. It is a funny feeling to sweep over you. As soon as you stop looking for it, you find it. The Pagoda is a place caught in time. Somewhere in the late sixties to mid seventies. A comfortable, humble constant in a world of rapid change. I enjoyed my breakfast talks with Beverly and dinner chats with Roland who collectively had logged in 52 years working the tables there. They told me about the changes, while I saw the similarities. I did the math and calculated that Beverly was working there when I made my first trip. She spoke of the loss of so many koi, an illness that struck many years back. She sees loss while I see life. Hundreds of lives swirling in color fields of orange, red, white and black. Maybe I needed to remember the life, especially since this trip was to get some distance from the family deaths that seemed to never end. My child brain needed to see a flury of life on a bus tour between Punchbowl and Pearl Harbor, we all needed to see some life that day. Perhaps it is those sharp contrasts that make Honolulu so memorable.
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1 comment:
Anna, another beautiful post. This medium is so perfect for you, you are the most evocative story teller.
I was popping over to say thanks for your emails and that I did reply to last weeks ones, but I gather from your recent one that you didn't get them. I sent them from my away-from-home email so they may be in your bulk mail/junk/spam box. Have a look to see if there is anything in there from Freecycle, that'll be mine.
If not let me know and I will head to my home comuter to resend from my normal email ( I avoid it cause it's freezing over there just now).
Cx
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