Hope

We had to fly to Honolulu on Tuesday.

It seems odd to write that.

We had to fly to Honolulu.

In my experience, most people rather want to fly to Honolulu. But it’s true. We had to. The Big Island’s small population cannot support the range of medicine one might wish for, so we had to fly to Honolulu to see an ear specialist.

If I had ever had illusions of an exotic island-hopping lifestyle, the trip squashed them pretty flat. In addition to the usual travel arrangements, I got a special dispensation from the Ministry of the Plague to be exempted from Covid testing and/or quarantine, with the understanding that we would go directly to the appointment and come directly back home, which was fine by us. We had to go. We didn’t want to, and a thoroughly putrid lunch at the food court across from the medical center sent us hightailing our way back to the airport, begging to be put on an earlier flight back to Hilo

The news from the doctor was all good. He was not fazed in the least by Rochi’s history or current symptoms. In fact, he said, “When these things happen…”

…and I fell out of my chair.

When these things happen…

After Rochi had had an endless series of ear infections starting in the spring of 2019, and because of the absurd situation with health insurance in the US, we had gone back to Japan last fall to seek treatment. Health insurance was granted without question and he received treatment from supposedly the best doctors in the best hospitals. But one after the other, they scratched their butts and said, “Gee. I’ve never seen this before. Let me pump you full of drugs and see what happens.”

As it turns out, that was the right thing to do. When these things happen, the only treatment available is antibiotics and steroids, which he received in abundance. And in time, they worked. The inflammation and infection both passed, leaving his body 40 pounds under weight and his head full of glitches and quirks. If he wasn’t so gosh darned stubborn, we wouldn’t be here, now, napping under a pile of sympathetic cats. But after months of treatment, in and out of three different hospitals, not one doctor ever gave us a clear diagnosis. All we ever got was a lot of sympathetic nodding accompanied by butt scratching in three part harmony.

When these things happen… The Honolulu doctor didn’t try to give it a name, but he also didn’t act like he’d just this moment started medical school and didn’t yet know the difference between a stethoscope and an enema bag.

When these things happen… The tender skin in the outer ear can get dry and then bacteria can get through, especially the kind that thrives here in the jungle. It makes its way to the inner ear and then hops an express train for points further inside the skull. The doctor gave us a steroid ointment, saying Rochi should apply a tiny amount to the external ear if it ever feels itchy and that should solve the problem. Also, he said that when these things happen, they rarely recur so there is very little likelihood that it will ever happen again.

Golly.

So if he had moisturized his ears, none of this would have happened? I am by nature wary of easy answers, but if dry skin was the culprit that led to so much misery, I wonder what that might say about Covid. If a butterfly in Harare hadn’t flapped its wings, or little Johnny Slobsky hadn’t dropped a Snickers wrapper at the corner of Main and Elm, or the whales had migrated east instead of south, or I had decided to have ravioli instead of lasagna, would Covid never have happened? Would the world be a different place? A better place?

I have no answers for unanswerable questions. Instead, I will leave you with this: Wash behind your ears, not inside them.

And this: Never give up hope, but don’t expect too much.

Tread gently into the new year, dear reader. Keep your heart and mind open to possibilities. Sometimes we have to, but if we’re lucky, more often we want to.

Going Green

After a mere seventeen months and a rather impressive stack of paperwork, Rochi finally got his green card. We were disappointed to find that it isn’t actually green, but let’s not quibble. The little card represents freedom for both of us. I no longer have to nag him to behave himself and he can get into as much trouble as he likes; I have the option to bail him out or let him stew. Either way he probably won’t get deported.

We had to go to Honolulu for his final interview, something neither of us wanted to do. It seems to me that the process should be more perfunctory for people who have been married as long as we have, but America is the Land of One Size Fits All Legislation (unless you’re very wealthy) so we both adopted a “Sir, yes, sir!” attitude toward the whole thing.

Two things I learned:

Judging by the limited bits of news I see, the official policy of the Tangerine-tinted Buffoon and His Propaganda Machine is that all foreigners including toddlers are highly suspect and America hates anyone who wasn’t born here unless she has very large breasts. But as it turns out, the official stance and the reality are different. The officer who did the interview was perfectly civil. Rochi didn’t have to sing God Bless America and I didn’t have to swear to what brand of toothpaste we use. The officer even showed some interest in us personally, which leads to the second thing I learned.

Japan has taken on some sort of mythical, mystical status here. Again and again, baffled faces have asked why we left Japan to move to Puna. My equally baffled answer has been that Tokyo is noisy and crowded and smelly; Puna is paradise. The immigration officer, of Okinawan descent by the way, went one step further, asking why we chose Puna instead of the razzle-dazzle of Honolulu. We both snorted, respectfully, saying, “Why not just stay in Tokyo? Last night, we went to sleep listening to Honolulu traffic. In Puna, we sleep to a chorus of coqui frogs. We were at the center of everything for years and years and both avoided the razzle-dazzle. Puna is exactly where we want to be.” I don’t think we convinced her, but if she drew the conclusion that we’re both a bit batty, she’s probably right.

I have developed a theory about the Hawaiian attitude toward Japan. In the late 19th century, waves of Japanese immigrants came to Hawaii to work the sugar cane fields. They thought they would make good money they could send back to their dirt poor families, eventually returning home themselves. The reality was that the guys were put to back-breaking labor for which they were paid pennies. But mostly they stayed, married and propagated, harboring memories of Japan as a sacred homeland where all men are equal and mice never raid the rice bin. Japan hovers just past the horizon, the gleaming ideal of all that is just and good. The bad things that happen here never happen in Japan. This is classic Japanese willful naivete, a cultural characteristic that hasn’t changed much to this day.

Vestiges of Japanese culture remain, mostly in food. By far the best supermarket in Hilo is KTA, started by a Japanese couple in 1916. It’s the best because it has a wide variety of food, American junk, of course, but also Asian and European and Hawaiian and almost any Japanese thing you could want, although it sometimes has a Hawaiian twist. They have kamaboko (steamed fish paste), for example, but it comes in a surreal shade of pink. (There are also sureally-colored hot dogs. Both make me a bit nervous.) There’s a nice selection of expensive European-style gourmet cheeses and meats in the deli section but in the dairy section, they have processed cheese and cheddar–only cheddar. This is just like KTA’s Tokyo counterparts, where most stores have processed cheese and Gouda–only Gouda. There’s also a Safeway in Hilo but it only offers bland Americana.

(I have discovered that Safeway has $5 Fridays. I was warned to stay away because of the terrible crowds. But being ornery, I had to see for myself, and when I did, I nearly wet myself with giggles. If that’s crowded, I’ll eat my flip-flops. Anyone who thinks $5 Fridays at Safeway are crowded has never been to a Tokyo supermarket in the final days leading up to the New Year holidays, when normally polite and gentle Japanese people turn into shopping maniacs foaming at the mouth as they fight over the last package of sweet beans or fossilized fish eggs. But I digress.)

I met a nice lady who works at Bank of Hawaii. I would guess she’s in her mid 60’s. She has a Japanese name but told me she’d never been to Japan and was very excited about her upcoming first visit. I returned to the bank a few months later and asked how the trip had gone. She sighed, disappointment written all over her face. “There was a lot of walking,” she said. I felt really sorry for her. Imagine the expectations she’d built up in her head, possibly based on stories heard at her grandmother’s knee, compared to the reality of modern Japan. A friend once said to me, “If you don’t have any expectations, you can’t be disappointed.” Wise words.

The long and short of all this rambling is that Rochi is finally legal. Ironically, this means he can visit Japan if he wants to, but he doesn’t want to and neither do I. Nor do we want to go back to Honolulu. Nor do we want to go anywhere, really. It’s just so darned nice here.

Day Six: Shoot!

Nothing happened today. Or rather, I did nothing today. Or rather, I didn’t do the stuff I usually do, which means starting the day with yoga or power walking. It was late–the bird concerto had already ended–and I was feeling a little out of kilter. So I spent some time on the stretch pole, something that bring balance, centering and calm.

Yesterday had tired me out. Rochi’s work permit finally came last week and that meant we had to go to Social Security and get him a number. That all went well enough except that I handed over the documents and the man behind the glass said they already had his application. Very odd. He spent some time fiddling his keyboard and then wrote the number on a Post It. Perhaps the same fairies who guided my tax return through the Japanese postal system (long story) had followed us to Hawaii. At any rate, that was weird and those thing always leave me feeling a little discombobulated.

Then we finally made a decision about the generator but realized we couldn’t bring it home. The store people would help us load it, but even if the weight didn’t send Six to Honda heaven, we wouldn’t be able to get it out of the car when we got home. So we paid for it and left it at Will Call to be called for once our beefy neighbor gets back from Kona.

So I thought it might be wise to lay low today. I made a turkey and bacon sandwich for lunch and then the mail came. Lo and behold, Rochi’s social security card arrived along with a summons to immigration for the interview where we try to convince them we really have been married for 30 years. I’m not worried about that; we can annoy each other very convincingly, but it will mean a trip to Honolulu. We’d both rather sleep on a cactus than do that, but 1) it should be the last step in making Rochi legal and 2) it will be so very nice to come home again.

I booked our flights and found a decent looking Airbnb then walked down the street to feed our neighbor’s cat and now we’re settled into leftover chicken adobo with avocado sashimi along with salad and a bit of brie.

See? Nothing happened today, not a darned thing.