The Wet Clean-Up

"We need a wet clean-up in front of the milk department, please."
That means I'm home, or whatever. The parking lot here at the Safeway
strip mall in Silverdale-the-Malltown is bigger than the airport in
Papeete, the Safeway check-out area is probably bigger than the Moorea
airport, can't say exactly because I'm not going inside. Penny is
shopping at the Texas Glad Rags store across the ocean of black
asphalt from Safeway. Cars, lights, black asphalt lagoons with white
stripe eels frozen solid on the surface, big shiny cars galore
floating on top, completely still with all sorts of signs and wires in
the background. At the Moorea airport they don't check ID, or bags,
they give you a number printed on a paper card, like "4", that's your
boarding pass. The flight on the colorfully painted little double
otter to Papeete takes about 15 minutes. That airport is looking more
like the real thing, sort of.

Most of the people I see are brown and other not white colors, all
sizes, some tanned beauties on vacation with their surfboards or large
wheeled bags. Like Honolulu, the airport is open-air and the big
Tahiti Nui and Hawaiian Air planes lined up at the gates are stuffing
themselves full with passengers going back to the landworld. Every
Saturday around midnight there are several big flights heading to Los
Angeles (Paris), Honolulu, New York, Melbourne, and Tokyo. These are
the meat wagons, hauling tourists and traveling Polynesians across the
blue water to the green and black land. Everyone arrives blurry-eyed
ready to begin a new day at their destination, for me that meant a 7
hour break where I squeeze down to Waikiki for some vacation sand
between my toes followed by another across the water flight, this time
the water is more gray than blue, especially as you near the
Washington coast.

I know there was almost nothing but clouds covering the ocean because
I really made an effort to check it out, but most passengers did as
told and blinded their windows so that the incredibly bad Disney movie
could better be seen. Crazy, all those clouds to look at, and the sun
was out there too. Only one person occasionally peaked up their
window to look out, I was stuck in the middle row of seats. At least
I had a nice Waikiki beach walk and quick swim in the warm water, no
lagoon though. Lots of tourists, gringos and Japs*, all cramming there
way onto the narrow strip of beach that I remember from 1962 when I
visited this place with Grandma Dentzel on our way to the orient.
There were no high-rises, the Moana Hotel was the biggest structure
and the rest was a palm covered field all the way to Diamond Head with
a couple of small one or two story hotels mixed in, not any more.

*please take this as you would "Brits" for Brittons, merely trying to shorten the words (sorry if it offends).

More than anything it was the cars and roads of Honolulu that shocked
me upon arrival; Tahiti is not like that, anywhere. The big concrete
and steel buildings, the business of empire all about really made
southern Polynesia look like a true boonies, only thing is French
Polynesia is on a more human scale. It's harder to get around, more
expensive to get things not grown or made locally, but calmer,
quieter, cleaner, lighter, slower, smaller, and far far away. Of
course the same problems found in the north exist in Polynesia, only
the vast amount of water surrounding every island and community makes
some sort of hard to define difference, the magnetic or energy or
cosmic balance is not the same as when engulfed by continental land.

Took a city bus to the ferry terminal, then another bus to the transit
center in Poulsbo, then Jefferson Transit to Port Townsend. Felt
pretty comfortable returning here, even though it is serious
carculture too, the scale is small, distances are small and there is
always the well known Port Townsend Time, similar to Island Time, much
better than Mainland Time. As expected most everything was the same,
just a little drier, not quite as green as when I left, they have had
a lot of nice warm weather this summer, actually there is probably a
drought going on right now. Still, here in the empire you can get
just about anything you want for a pretty good price, well monetary
price that is, the high price part of this deal is the lack of
serenity and constant competition for whatever, the feeling that you
must buy to have and to not run out. The bigger the house, the more
you need, well at least the more you can fill it up, and that just
happens naturally, just like smoking cigarettes, you naturally want
another one shortly after you finish the last one.

Looking around at roads and for sale signs sure gives one a bleak
prospect for the state of this planet in 100 years, what will be left?
Of course you can't put lines on the ocean itself, boundaries of some
sort yes, but more importantly the ocean is the final dumping ground
for almost every nasty thing that is humanly made possible, eventually
all the stuff will run there. So, enjoy the land of many islands now,
its days are numbered, whether it sinks below the future's murky water
or just suffocates from an anaerobic sea doesn't really matter, no one
seems to be slowing down on any of the basic problem making exercises,
if left to the military the planet will be a no man's land well before
100 years. This is the gift all people of the older generations are
giving to the younger generations, the excuse of not knowing does not
fly, it is known, but too uncomfortable to act upon. Sorry kids, you
do the wet clean-up, we're busy enjoying the last of the good stuff we
got a taste of before you came along. Isn't that the American way,
deficit spending?

While at the mall I notice a lot of people that look Polynesian, also
many other minority types. This whole shopping area would not be here
were it not for the military bases nearby. Lots of these people are
military, young people seeking a job, an occupation, an identity, a
life out of poverty. It must feel very good to be shopping here and
just be able to buy gobs and gobs of stuff, as often as you wish.
Cell phone booths, car dealerships, big box stores, every single one
of them, you know the names, cover the once happy green valley opening
up to the sound. It is not like this on the islands, it might take a
few generations before people realize that this is all a distraction,
do we have a few generations? Well, we have "now", that's about it.
Time to go to bed.

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