today, i visited my grandmother's grave for the first time. sad, isn't it, but i hadn't made time to visit her in all this time. then, today, after picking up my wife from work, and having a bit of time to kill on the drive from waikele to mililani, i just decided to visit the grave at mililani mortuary.

i had to search a bit for it. after i spotted umahichi uyeno (my great grandfather), i knew i was in the vicinity, and not long after, my wife spotted my grandmother's grave. while the kids walked around and my wife told some stories about grandma, i sat in prayer, speaking to her. it was somewhat cathartic.

time passes relentlessly, without pause or remorse. the death of someone so significant happens, and the calendar pages still flip, time passes "like clockwork," with no allowances, with no dispensations, with no evaluation. i suppose that's my excuse for not coming sooner. "i've been so busy." isn't that modern life? so busy stuffing our time with emptiness. not taking a moment for the true things, the things that really matter...

***

today, willow performed for a second time, this time at the neil blaisdell, for some holiday craft show. unfortunately, the pueo strings and the choir sang in a separate room, on a separate stage, so i'm afraid there wasn't much real "exposure" (the only people in the audience were probably mililani ike parents). it's okay...

i saw a face from the past, and had thoughts about adolescence, about illusions. although i do entertain many fantasies, in my working, every day life, i am a pretty efficient dream-killer. i can edit away any "missed opportunities" with the brilliant reality of my present. i can trace the false story lines to their necessary dead ends and inconsequential consequences... but for the empty moments, it's nice to remember fragments of when i was young.

isn't that what people are preoccupied with these days? trying to hold on to a fragment of some mythical apex of life... i too am caught in that preoccupation. maybe life is by definition a holding onto the living moment that is long gone, or is yet to be... some people, whether aware of it or not, use such false illusions as the sustenance for real accomplishments. what's the harm in that? maybe i see too well, or too darkly, for anything living to arise out of my dreams. and perhaps that is why i am starving for new dreams to dream.