This morning at the breakfast buffet, I did something a little weird. After I’d emptied the rest of the sugar packet into my second cup of coffee, I filled the little brown package with salt, folded it in half, and tucked it into my wallet. That seemed a better thing to do than stealing borrowing the cheap plastic salt shaker, though I suppose I could have just asked the waitress, who surely has seen restaurant patrons do odder things in her time, for a dish of salt.… continued…

Auntie made one of her students pass over his song book to me. Now I have a binder with her playlist and the names of everyone who committed to show up at Anna Ranch to entertain us. I have a color xeroxed watercolor of a hale (house) by a bridge and I have a little return address label with Margie’s address.

I know exactly how this works. You line up a handful of likely people from your club or class.… continued…

Even though it’s pouring rain, all the windows are open and I’m barefoot. I am wearing a sweater over my tank top, there’s a cool edge on the air, but it’s just while I write, if I were moving around at all, I’d be too warm, pronto.

It’s our last morning in Pahala, a former sugar mill town on the south coast of the Big Island of Hawaii. I am packed and ready to go back to Kona, up early because of the roosters and doves and other birds I can’t identify singing too loud, too early, everywhere.… continued…