Musings: Different Start

Sometime in the night came the gurgle and splash, splatter and shush of rain, much-needed rain, rain that gave my garden beds a good soaking and caused the waterfalls to appear on the sun-kissed face of Makaleha this morning. Hmmm, is that a cloud, or a chem trail arcing off the summit?

I skim through my inbox: 24 hours to save farm land in Waianae; a whole slew of vacation rentals on the planning commission agenda at 8:30 this morning; action alert on Dow's 2, 4-D resistant corn; a forwarded update from John Hopkins University telling people they can help their bodies resist cancer by eating a healthy diet and keeping plastic stuff out of the microwave; anonymous comments for Kauai Eclectic, some of them thoughtful, one even quite funny (thank you, 11:17 p.m.).

It strikes me that this start to my day is not so very different than when I was the Kauai reporter for the Star-Bulletin, and I would rise each morning at 5 or 5:30 and call the cops, looking for some bit of gore or catastrophe or tragedy to dutifully report to the city desk, which would package it up into a newspaper and serve it to readers. Ugh...

What do people really want — need — to know?

I sit on my screen porch, laptop on my lap on top of “A Hawaiian Florilegium” so my thighs won't get burned, looking out at the sparkling raindrops, listening to the birds singing and cooing their own start to the day. The dogs are at my feet, Paele scratching and whining, Koko giving me the look that says, hey, there's a lot more to life than that silly computer screen, so let's go already.

And I know she's right and I'm about to indulge her, me, us, at least for a while, but before I do, it occurs to me that there is, indeed, something people want and need to know, so here it is:

You, me, we, are loveable, and capable of great love.