The purposeful walker

The purposeful walker and I have exchanged more syllables than words over the past few years. There was for a time an old dog, and a husband who walked the dog while his purposeful wife strode through the cemetery. She wears ear buds, listens to podcasts (I suspect), has a silver cross around her neck. Always leans over to scratch Lilith and offer her a good word (almost as good as a treat). Then off she goes. But today, she stopped, took our her earbuds, took the card advertising my book, inquired about the protest at the capitol a week ago. Her brother had worked in the embassy in Baghdad with the military. He'd told her about all the waste and fraud. She thinks of that now, but also thinks of the way Kamehameha Schools got "reformed," when "Mrs. Lindsey" fired so many staff members. "They got no respect," she said, "and people need that. They need their dignity." She'd worked at Kamehameha in HR, she said, a sheepish look on her face. Couldn't do anything about orders from above, but they could help people leave with dignity. And now social security and medicare. She's worried. Her husband's more hard-line, but she's thinking about her grand baby. What will happen there? Will they need to home school her, what with all the DOE cuts? "I'm Susan," I said. "I'm Janice," she said.

 

Protest in Waikiki

 

Protesting in Waikiki. A woman in a blue Punahou shirt standing on a hill in front of the beach, thrusting two third fingers at us and yelling. A woman who asks to have her photo taken, because she "disagrees with everything we're doing." A friend who goes ballistic on the trump supporting couple that attends all these protests. She carries a sign that reads, "talk to me, I'm friendly." When the police intervene, they cross the street to fly their trump flag. One policeman strides toward us. "I know that dog!" he exclaims. He's a neighbor, one who supported Trump. But he gives good advice on how to better attach Lilith's sign, which keeps sliding out of place. A young man handing out Socialist bumper stickers from a tray rather like a cocktail waiter, who asks if I taught English at UH. Says he was in a 200-level class of mine in 2007. Doesn't remember much about the class or my name, but does recall that we talked about Marcus Garvey and I grilled him about reggae music, which he loved. I did remember that kid! He lives in Seattle now. Lots of thumbs up from tourists, along with the "they're f-ing idiots" from others. I like marching through Waikiki, because it's where Ohio meets the Pacific in the midst of capitalism's dark splendor. We stopped at Tesla for a few minutes. I had to take off Lilith's DOGE (with E crossed out) sandwich boards because they kept falling down.

In the dark days

"That was another part of my life," he said, then paused. He'd just said he wanted to donate to Lilith's and my walk to prevent suicide. Two or three steps later he said he'd been in El Salvador "during the bad times," teaching three young women how to make latrines for their village. He'd left for a weekend. When he came back, they'd "Jim Jones'ed themselves." The army had come to the village and raped all the women.

Lilith manbarks

Lilith went manbarking today. Up at the top of the cemetery, a man waved us away, wanting to park where we were standing, as I talked to a fellow walker. (It's not as if there weren't miles of parking available.) When we got back from the top, he was putting trash into a container many yards away from his car. He smiled when he saw Lilith, This man with short-cropped gray hair and a sports jersey whose provenance I didn't recognize smiled at Lily. Moved to pet her. She barked. Tried again. Barked again. I told him she sometimes does this to men, though not always. Farther down the hill, we saw the man in black wellies who used to work at the cemetery and is somehow still there on Sundays. He greeted Lilith, who barked at him. Tried again. Barked again.

 

What is it that makes a Lilith walk? This is not one, really. I can't leave out part of the narrative, because that would require me to know what I was leaving out. I'm Lilith's narrative animal; she walks, and I write. But her first year or so is a mystery to me, perhaps to her as well. I imagine she's barking out of that first year of experience, the one I can't write about. But that's presumption on my part. A Lilith walk story needs a turn, a volta (as it were), a haiku-like surprise at the end. This one, insofar as it is story, has none of that. It's a mystery story without the evidence necessary to prove the case. I'm a detective with no looking glass, no fingerprints, nothing but my ears. She barked.

 

Back at the guard shack, Uncle K leaned over to pet Lilith. She was happy to let him.

 

Name into verb

The mortician, Paul, dressed in dull blue scrubs, said he's really tired, they all are. I asked if a lot of people die this time of year. He said yes, they've been partying since Halloween, poisoning themselves, and "the chronic illnesses just drop." I handed him a card advertising _More Lilith Walks_ and told him he was in it. Thanked him. Said that Lilith and I are walking this month for suicide prevention. "I guess you get some of those, too," I said. He nodded slowly. "I'm afraid the rate will go up now," I said, "what with people losing their jobs." He agreed. It's not just jobs and the country, he said, but the world. "I'll have to look into that book," he said.

 

Along the way, S drove by in his John Deere cart. Raised his thumb high. We also ran into the tour bus driver who wears Kansas Chiefs gear, including a #15 jersey. I looked into his bus, said "I guess Jalen Hurts."

A member of the resistance

"I like your shirt!" said a woman with ehu-colored hair, about my age. This month, I wear suicide prevention teeshirts, but those were stinky, so I'd pulled on a psychedelic Harris/Walz shirt. She proved to be something of a despairing optimist, had taken on three issues, all of which are personal to her. Autism, education, trans-rights. She'd worked toward a ph.d. in American Studies at UHM in the 1990s before her marriage broke up and she moved to the mainland, where she worked in seven Barnes and Noble stores. She'd organized the opening of the Kahala Mall branch back in the day, and had also worked at the Ala Moana store. After a while, we exchanged phone numbers and agreed to stay in touch. "Keep wearing your shirt," she said. It's important. I have no idea if this is a Lilith story or not, but it mattered.

Lilith and I are walking for suicide prevention

 Lilith and I are walking 50 miles in February to prevent suicide. If you're on Facebook, you can find our donation page here: https://www.facebook.com/donate/959122402350482/959122432350479/

If not, feel free to give directly to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention: 

https://afsp.org/

After one walk, Lilith enjoyed a kid bath:

ICE cold

"It feels like 9/11 every day," I said to a like-minded walking friend, retired airplane mechanic, today. "I figured out what happened to the plane in Philadelphia," he said, out of the blue (I thought). "It was ICE." "Because the passengers were from Mexico?" I asked. "No, because it was so cold out." He was talking about ice.

 

Whose land is our land?

Lilith and I ran into S. getting out his John Deere cart, holding a flag. He was about to put it up the pole at the cemetery. Spotting me, he said, proudly: "Trump claims this land!" "I think you mean Kamehameha," I said, noting that the flag was Hawaiian (or at least the state flag).

 

"Do you know this guy?" I asked Uncle John, showing him the photo of the MAGA supporter who repeatedly yelled "You're a shit!" at me the other day. "I had a bad encounter with him over his cap." "No," said John, "and we don't condone that behavior. Everyone has a right to their opinion. America will gain prominence again!" That last to get my goat. I have so many of them, and John knows them well.

 

I told him that Lilith and I are walking 50 miles this month in support of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention). "Oh, he said, it's been a thing for a very long time on this side of the island, all the way to Kahuku. I've had friends who killed themselves, and I was there once." His daughter's boyfriend's dad recently killed himself. "No one suspected a thing, because he was so happy, so outgoing, would do anything in the community." I asked him to refer people to 988, the suicide prevention hotline. He knew it already.

 

Lilith and I logged 3.1 miles today.