MOON OVER KAUAI

Hoo Boy.  I've run into a buzzsaw of dissent to my opinion of the prevalence of backside baring partial thong swimsuits here on Kauai (and everywhere beaches and pools exist, apparently.)

I posted on FB yesterday that I thought a bit of modesty might be in order.  I see younger women and barely teen young girls' bare bottoms walk by and many men's heads turn to watch.  It sort of makes my skin crawl, this objectification, this obvious sexualization in 'his' eyes of these women.

But I'm in the minority, at least from the comments I got on FB from people I trust and like, as well as comments received in person.  "It's the fashion." " It's not women who are fault, it's men."  "Once this becomes commonplace, no one will even notice anymore."   All true, I guess.

I just can't get past those male gazes and those younger women (girls, really) being the object of that gaze.  It's a good thing I didn't have daughters, I guess.  But I do have granddaughters and I'd have to follow them around with a friggin' Lucille bat* to destroy any man who looked at them that way. (Of course their decisions will be none of my business; they have parents who will sort that out with them!)

I feel like a prude.  I feel like my mom when she wouldn't let me buy a two piece swimsuit when I was 13.  I feel out of step and old-fashioned when I have traditionally been anything but.  This is definitely not the "me" I think I am, this woman calling for more modest beachwear.

At various times in my life I still ate meat, drank, smoked, did drugs, flaunted and used my sexuality for attention and validation, and swore like a sailor (sorry sailors). All we have left on that list is the swearing, and even then, toned down.  I have shed vices like viruses.  I like to think this is growth, a moving into a mature life of integrity and responsibility for myself.  Others see it as a prudish, judgmental, buzzkill decision to not have fun anymore.

I am trying to practice radical self-acceptance and radical self-compassion these days.  I like myself. I like who I am becoming.  It feels authentic.  I feel contentment within.  But when I put myself "out there" in public and try to fit in I often feel like the outsider: the one who scans the menu for paltry vegetarian options, so I eat a lot of mediocre salad; who looks for Mocktails at the bottom of the drink menu (always too sickly sweet, so I drink club soda); who says no to the apparent delights in the pot stores on every corner, "It's legal! Let's get high!"  (At least most sensible people everywhere have ditched cigarettes.) But now I have to add my "modesty" campaign to the list of "she's no fun" attributes.

It makes me sad,  how I am feeling prudish when I compare to others.  I've been told to lighten up, to not take it all so seriously, to live and let live.  I do.  I don't go around picketing or finger-wagging.  I just remain silent and do my own thing.  But it's a lot hurt-y and a little hard to be the outlier, lost and ignored in the crowd of our culture.   What I'm learning is compassion, I guess, for me and for those like me.  I'm sure I've mocked them in the past (hello, mom).  I'm sorry.

As for the rest of you, fuck it.  I gotta be me.

At least, that's the view from here...©

Photo Credit:  Some ad I found online to buy these.  (There was also an article about an Instagram page called Total Frat Move that features photos of young women in these bikinis.  Point made.)

*Lucille  -- Walking Dead reference to prove my "still cool" bonafides.

MARCH MADNESS & BALL SPORTS

Dateline Kauai:  When we arrived last week, we discovered "our" beach had been invaded by a huge number of very fit people -- very tall bikini-ed females and very 6-pack ab'ed males here for the 25th Annual Dino Beach Volleyball Tourney.  Dino, being short for dinosaur, because it's sort of a swan song event for "older" players who may have been pros, or at least very good players, at one point (Who knew?  Professional volleyball?), but who now play for fun with younger, currently pro and semi-pro stars of the sport.  Teams have to be a mix of ages, adding up to 80 years or over as I understand it.  I might have the math wrong, but you get the idea.  It's all in good fun.  There was a very mellow vibe of players, family, friends, and fans from across the U.S. gathered 'round each of the four "courts" cheering their favorite team on.  Tents with commercial logos were set up to sell stuff, vintage rock music was played, laughter and applause erupted on a regular schedule.  It was festive.

A couple days later we went on a hike along the water's edge at Shipwreck Beach and then up the cliffs towering above the water where one part of the trail skirts a championship golf course.  Another type of ball sport.  It got me thinking....

First, Disclaimer:  I am a sports fan.  I've spent most of my life cheering for a home team (Cubs, Sox, Bears, Bulls, Mariners, Sonics, Seahawks, Sounders) and for my athlete husband (even when still dating back in the day) and for my athletic sons.   So I am not here as an anti-sports prude.  I love sports.  I'm a great spectator and fan.

That said, most ball sports are rather silly when you get right down to it.  As I walked along the golf course the other day, I made a mental list of the ball-centric games I'm most familiar with, listing "silliness" from least to most:

10.  Croquet -- A sentimental choice for sure, but still a classic. My grandparents back yard; summer Sundays; all ages can play; colorful balls.  Wickets!!!  Slightly upper crust British origins that make one feel fancy.  No special clothing required -- suits to dresses to shorts to bikinis.  What's not to like?  Nothing silly about it!  Right?

9.  Baseball -- Ahhh....the Boys of Summer.  It is the most childlike of games.  You choose up teams, then put one of them in various positions in the "field" and give them a mitt to catch the ball so they don't hurt their hands.  The other team lines up and takes turns hitting a ball with a bat and then has to run to across 3 bases before reaching "home" back where they stood to bat in the first place.  The other team can stop this progress by catching  the hit ball and stepping on a base before the runner gets there and then the runner has to sit down and eat some sunflower seeds.  The big thrill is when a hitter hits the ball so far and so fast that no one can catch it and it's a "homer" and he gets to run all the way around while people go wild cheering and ordering more beer and eating another hotdog.  But there is also a lot of "down time" since it's actually very hard to hit that ball, so a lot of time the batter swings and misses or hits it a little bit, but it doesn't count, and during these times you can take a nap and not miss a thing.  Hub once pitched a no-hittter, which I am obligated to note here.  I have spent a lot of time at baseball games, from Little League to Mariner's season ticket holder, so while I admit to the silliness of it, I do love it.  Also, Ernie Banks. Also, Ken Griffey Jr.

8.  Football -- Legalized gladiators.  Big, handsome, athletic, charismatic players.  Game day is a party, state fair, march, rally, concert all rolled into one.  Rabid fans, perky cheerleaders, brats and beer.  One team has the ball and tries to get it past the goal line of the other team.  The other team tries to stop that from happening by knocking opponents to the ground.  War analogies are not off the mark.  It's rough and violent and players sometimes get seriously hurt.  Plus, the rules.  There are so many rules in this game that they have to stop after every play to sort out who broke a rule that time.  Sometimes many rules are broken at once and each team get a penalty.  It's a lot of go, stop, go, stop, stand around and wait, then go again before stopping again.  For some reason, it's the most popular sport in America, especially for those who drive big, rugged pick-up trucks.  Shamefully, I like it too.

7.  Basketball -- Hoop. Net. Ball.  Pretty easy concept. Back and forth, back and forth, trying to put the ball in the basket more times than the other team.  Rules are easy to understand though and it's played  indoors in winter, so it's cozy and warm.  The players are super tall people in great athletic condition, so sort of an exotic breed to me of the 5'3" don't-like-to-run persuasion.  Plus, two words:  Michael Jordan.  I was a super fan back in the day.  When he retired from basketball, so did I, so my fandom is dated, but I hear there are still good players in the game.  And every spring the college championship is determined with elimination tournaments called March Madness.  You pick a bracket of teams to bet on or something, which is a sport within a sport, so there's that silliness too.

6.  Soccer -- Son-Two, a huge fan, will hate me for this, but I still don't get it even after many tries.  I am obviously deficient in some appreciation gene, because I know "futball" is the most popular sport in the world.  Still, it's just lots of guys running up and down a field (in colorful outfits, granted) constantly kicking that ball around and occasional bouncing it off their heads but unable to touch it with their hands, which would make things oh so much easier!  During all this running, the time ticks away -- but not really because just when you think the game (OK, match) is blessedly over, you discover that "stoppage time" has been seemingly arbitrarily added on and they keep going!  Sometimes a player takes a dramatic dive to the ground and writhes in agony for awhile and you think they will need to be carted off the field of play, but no, suddenly they just jump up and keep going, which begs the question about acting classes being part of training.  Also, the game can end in a Nil-Nil (0-0) tie and you wonder why you were there.  For the singing I think.

5. Volleyball/Beach Volleyball -- PTSD for me on this one, since it was one of the Girls PE games we were forced to play in high school and at which I sucked (as I did at all of the games, but this one was particularly cruel).  There are servers and spikers and more than one person on a side has to touch the ball, either bouncing it up with their wrists or their fingertips (How many finger sprains?  Countless!) and then everyone switches sides and someone calls out the score so you actually have to keep track of that in your head and sometimes people are so into it they actually fall down trying to get to the ball, which, what?, who cares???  (Part of my sucking was not caring.)  Wearing a swimsuit is an advantage over the Girls PE outfit we had to wear that was something out of the 19th century, but I still see no point to the game, either indoors or out.

4.  Racketball/Squash -- Something to do at the Y.  After work.  With the guys.  Instead of civilized classes like Zumba or Yoga.

3.  Rugby -- Just an excuse for playing in the mud and getting in a scrum, which I believe has homoerotic overtones, but I could be wrong.  Still...all that pushing and shoving and touching! Plus, where's your helmet???

2. Ping Pong -- Are  you over 14 years old?  STOP PLAYING THIS GAME!  Come up out of your parents' Rec Room and get a life!

1.  Golf -- Seriously goofy game.  It's very expensive to buy all the equipment and "green fees" (admission to the course) can cost an arm and leg.  It takes half a day to play.  You grab a big club and whack a teensy ball that seems to fly off into the ether, never to be seen again until you hop in a little motorized cart to go off in search of it.  It could be anywhere -- in the weeds, the sand, the water, occasionally on the grass.  Then you whack it again and again trying to get it first near and then into a little hole in the ground.  Puhleeze.  You must have a lot of time to kill.  I understand there is drinking to be done when it's over.  (19th hole - cute.)  I say just admit to wanting to gulp an Arnold Palmer without actually having to play one of his courses.

At least, that's the view from here...©

AIRBORNE BIBLE STUDY

And so starts another Kauai vacation.  They all start the same, as is necessary, with a plane trip.  It's the part I really, really don't like.  Fear of turbulence, a little claustrophobia, a bunch of strangers in close proximity, and just general impatience with the whole process.  And that's after I'm actually on the plane.  The whole logistical nightmare of packing, making arrangements for our vacant house, getting to the airport, lugging stuff around, getting through TSA screening, waiting around at the gate...Ugh.  But yes, I am beyond fortunate to be able to take this annual tropical holiday, so grousing about it is a bit disingenuous.  I know.

I wonder, did you hear about the Boeing 737 Max 8 Lion Air crash in Indonesia last fall?  The thing started into a dive just after take off  and boom...into the ocean.  They concluded there was some pilot error issue and everyone is sorry.  Then last week the exact same thing happened with a flight in Ethiopia.  Same result.  Same sorry.  But crack investigative reporters scratched their heads and said, "Hmmm...is this a pattern?"  And an open source log of similar reports was discovered from pilots from even within the United States (lest you think you can excuse the problem by pointing fingers at  those 'foreign pilots').  Their planes also took a dive and they had to switch off the auto pilot software and pull the nose up manually.  Scary stuff; still could be pilot error due to inadequate training, but what about that software???    I leave that to the experts but it was especially unsettling to hear nonstop reporting on this story on the radio during the one hour drive to the airport while trying to get morning rush hour traffic updates around the edges of the news.

Hub and I both like aisle seats so we generally sit across the aisle from each other.  I am not a chatty flyer, since all my concentration goes into keeping my anxiety disorder under control, so the few words we say to each other can be said across the narrow aisle.  But that also means I sit next a stranger in the middle seat next to me.  This time it was the woman of a couple who were on their way to meet their adult children for a family vacation.

They were very friendly.  I saw photos of their home in Alaska and of their new grand baby and of kids on the snow-covered playground of the school where she taught.  They both had books on their laps and we talked a bit about real books vs Kindle.  The woman shared that these days even in church, people pull out their phones to read the Bible!  She was fairly scandalized about this breach in church etiquette, allowing that really those people could be looking at anything, and who would know?  But she said the preacher's wife also did this, so she seemed to feel that was some kind of exoneration.  I thought maybe the preacher's wife was onto a way to get by with a little Pinterest study during the sermon.

We bonded a bit because we both admitted to hating to fly and I noticed her husband reached over and held her hand during takeoff which I thought was very sweet.  They looked "older" in that way some people can look just like my great aunt looked from about 40-80 years old.  Ageless in a weird way.  They wore sensible shoes and vaguely outdoorsy clothing, as if they were ready to be dropped into the bush on a missionary assignment at a moment's notice.  Her short, styleless hair would not be a bother should she need to bathe in a muddy river for a year or so.  After initial pleasantries,  I put my headphones on and that pretty much shuts people up who are inclined to chat away during the trip.

About half way through the flight the pilot announced, clear as a bell, (with none of the usual static -garbled early announcement I actually want to hear, like how long is this gonna take and is it going to be a smooth flight?) that we were in for some turbulence and we should all buckle our seatbelts right away.  I never like these warnings.   My anxiety goes berserk thinking it must be really bad if they have to warn us!   Every little bump makes me wonder if this is the beginnings of the hellish ordeal sure to befall our airborne community in a can.

I glanced over at my seat mates.  She had gotten her Bible out.  Good sign or bad?  It had a well worn blue cloth dustcover.  Daily usage; well-traveled.  She also had a workbook open, the cover of which I spied:  Psalms.  There appeared to be short essay questions on each page.  She would read for a bit, ponder, and flip open the Bible.  It was the red word edition where Jesus' uttering are helpfully highlighted for ease of cutting to the Christ parts I guess.   "Verily I say unto you...."  But isn't Psalms in the Old Testament?  Hmmm... Must have been a compare and contrast open book test.

I am impressed she wrote her answers in ballpoint pen.  She was just that confident of her mad Bible verse skills.  I started to wonder if she's show-offy like that at church too....her with the old school paper page (or papyrus!) Bible.

All of this was a nice distraction while waiting for the turbulence we'd been warned about, but about 40 minutes later, with no explanation whatsoever, the seatbelt sign dinged off and we had had not one iota of turbulence.  This sort of made me worry even more...they really don't have a clue, do they?

Or maybe Jesus intervened thanks to my seat partner's studious attention to his red words.  Just glad we didn't wander into 23rd Psalm territory.  I do not like the "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death" part...especially when I'm on an airplane.

At least, that's the view from here...©

Photo Credit:  www.pixabay.com

MORNING MADNESS

I have become a morning person.  I wasn't in my younger years, but in the past 8-10 years, I am more and more at my best, most productive between about 6:00 a.m. and noon.  I hang in there for coffee with friends or whatever in the early afternoon, but by 3:00 I've lost my mojo and start looking forward to vegging out all evening with my TV shows, resenting when I have a nighttime event I have to attend away from home.

I am the person I used to ridicule.

Sunrises delight me. I bore my FB friends with frequent sunrise photos from my bedroom, my faves being of the 4 a.m. variety in mid-summer when our days are long (sunset at nearly 10:30 p.m. and sunrise around 4 a.m. -- not officially, perhaps, but with enough light in the sky to count as not dark.)

Each sunrise is like a gift...I get to live another day.  I feel nearly manic some days.  I'm up and out of bed, pouring my (half-caff) coffee while my mind races to all the things I will accomplish that day.  Like a cokehead, I am gregarious, bright, funny, articulate, invincible, and sure I'm able to do everything! No problem!  I have to believe there is some surging brain chemical at play but I'm not sure why.  My body is now a temple of clean-living (except for my wee little sugar cravings), so there is no snorting off a mirror going on over here.  (I saw it in a movie...)

More problematic than the energy boost, is the amusing change in personality.  Lately in the mornings I think I want a puppy.  I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT A PUPPY! But I have puppy fantasies and it seems like a most delightful idea.  I also think I want to go camping with Hub.  I HATE CAMPING!  I have had some nice outings, and some miserable ones, but I only recall the good and feel a huge urge to pack up the camper and go!  Then I think maybe we should head back to Europe.  WHAT?  I AM NOT AN EAGER TRAVELER!  But yes, I think we now need to get back to touring on the bus with the Rick Steves group and see some more countries.

I will give you a hint....if you want to ask me to do something or commit to something, ask me in the morning, when my chemical cocktail makes my brain say "yes" to things that later in the day I will regret.  I might follow through if it's not too abhorrent.  Just know that I rarely now make myself do things I really and truly don't want to do, so you may get a call from me later explaining that I was out of my mind and I really don't want to lead the Girl Scout troop on an overnight camp-out after all; I super do not want to climb Mt. Rainier; driving your obnoxious brother to the airport at rush hour just isn't gonna work out for me.

I think I was less vulnerable to this type of loopiness when I was a night person.   I wasn't sleepy, but I wasn't crazy either.  Those days are gone, however, since by 9:30 (sometimes embarrassingly much sooner) I'm dozing on the sofa and absolutely everything seems like just too much work to take on.

I'm sure these changes are among the many ages and stages age-related surprises I have noticed with each passing year.  Isn't it great that we get to keep learning new things about ourselves?  Why, I have a whole stack of books on "aging gleefully" that I plan to read -- tomorrow morning before lunch.

At least, that's the view from here...©

Photo Credit:  www.pixabay.com