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EDWARD JACOBS

Author: Ed Jacobs

  • Monday, March 16

    Monday, March 16

    Oahu, day 2

    No sleep last night.  Lying awake, I listened to the news…11pm here is 5am EST, so just a ton of bad news to hear and digest along with everyone else.  Europe in such bad shape just now. Schools being closed everywhere, here and abroad; restaurants closing, as well.  Then the market opened and completely tanked.

    Emails/texts from friends in NYC and San Diego came in: craziness, instability, uncertainty, anxiety, fatigue…everywhere, everything is so up in the air.

    A few hours into the day, now reading that the EU is working on a travel ban similar to the one the US instituted last week.  Then reading that our completely out-of-his-depth White House inhabitant told Governors to find their own respirators and equipment to deal with this pandemic.  Talk about up a creek; we have no one at the helm, at all.

    Although the National Park Service has closed the Statue of Liberty and a number of other sites, they have not closed Pearl Harbor.  Nonetheless, we’re not feeling good about heading down there, even though it’s likely empty today, so we’re sorry to miss out on that set of exhibits and memorials, but it seems prudent.

  • Sunday, March 15

    Oahu/Hau’ula, day 1

    Serious rain today, until about 3pm, kept us inside but enjoying the view of the storm from our perch on the 6th floor.  We slept well, a bit of a surprise given the bedroom is just big enough to fit the full size mattress.  But we were, indeed, comfortable, and grateful for that.  I spent the morning doing only a little writing, instead going down the rabbit hole of today’s news.  NC schools closing; NYC schools closing; France and Spain on lockdown; Ciaran wrote in an email that he’s had to close two of their pubs in Dublin; news now just in that NC is closing restaurants and bars.  Like a dystopian movie.

    [Really afraid that we’ll not get to fly on Saturday.]

    Was very glad to catch up with family via phone today.  Just plain good to hear people’s voices, to hear that everyone seems to be doing well in their respective spots in Boston, NY, Bloomington, Florida, and Albuquerque.  Not surprisingly, everyone’s working from home, and I’m glad we live at a moment when that’s actually possible for so many people.  Of course there are so many who cannot do so, and I just don’t know how they’re to get through the bills and expenses of living. When we were on Oahu in early January, we did not have a chance to visit Pearl Harbor, so bought tickets for this week/tomorrow well in advance, not wanting to miss out.  Now we’re really unsure of the wisdom of heading to a major tourist attraction in a large city (Honolulu).  We’ll see what tomorrow morning’s news brings…we really want to go.  At this point, with the news seemingly changing every hour, I wouldn’t be surprised if the site was closed when we awake tomorrow.

    Keeping it all in perspective, this video of Jackson (and Cristin) came through, though, and that certainly brings a broad grin to our faces.

    a blissful moment of relief.

  • Saturday, March 14

    Kaua’I to Oahu

    Leaving Kaua’I today, and a bit sad to do so.  We came to like these accommodations, and the island in general.  We liked the apt up here in Princeville, and the diving down south in Poipu, and really enjoyed our two weeks here.

    Our original plan would make today a trip to Oahu for our final week before heading back to the mainland.  Instead, we’ll be there for a week and then, as long as there’s no block on flying, we’ll head to Kona for a month in leiu of NC and then Europe.

    We found the Kaua’i airport (LIH) a little bit hectic, and were a bit surprised at some changes in procedures, however informal. Our check-in bags were not weighed, and i was simply instructed to “put the bag over there with others going to HNL.” For the first time in our flights since December, neither my carry-on bag nor I were subject to additional screening; on every flight over these past months one or the other was always re-examined/scanned/patted down. Nonetheless, everything and everyone was calm, and the 30′ flight went smoothly, without delay, and with good cheer throughout the experience. In fact, there were 40 people on our flight, a plane capable of carrying about 120 passengers; plenty of room to stretch out.

    Arrival in Oahu (HNL) found a relatively empty airport. At the baggage claim adjacent to ours was a planeful of folks from Boston–and there were only about 50 people there. Our luggage arrived quickly; we were the only people on the shuttle to Alamo, our checkout there was less than 5′, and we were on the road from the airport about an hour after take-off from Kaua’i.

    The drive up the east coast of Oahu was pleasant enough, as we remembered it pretty well from the one time we’d done it in mid-January. We’re now staying at a place just a few miles south of the Polynesian Cultural Center, which is only about 9 miles east of where we stayed our first week of this Hawaiian adventure.

    Our stop at the grocery store for some provisions was interesting, as anyone shopping these days can likely attest. No toilet paper, anything with alcohol (cleaning wipes, etc.) was gone, as were any cold remedy sorts of things. We were just looking for food, so none of this was an issue for us, but it certainly made clear the zeitgeist.

    We made to our place, a lone high rise (9 floors) in this area. It’s nice enough, and will certainly be just fine for the (hopefully just) one week we’re here. We are really looking forward to a month in Kona, and hope nothing impedes those plans.

    We found the Kaua’i airport (LIH) a little bit hectic, and were a bit surprised at some changes in procedures, however informal. Our check-in bags were not weighed, and i was simply instructed to “put the bag over there with others going to HNL.” For the first time in our flights since December, neither my carry-on bag nor I were subject to additional screening; on every flight over these past months one or the other was always re-examined/scanned/patted down. Nonetheless, everything and everyone was calm, and the 30′ flight went smoothly, without delay, and with good cheer throughout the experience. In fact, there were 40 people on our flight, a plane capable of carrying about 120 passengers; plenty of room to stretch out.

    Arrival in Oahu (HNL) found a relatively empty airport. At the baggage claim adjacent to ours was a planeful of folks from Boston–and there were only about 50 people there. Our luggage arrived quickly; we were the only people on the shuttle to Alamo, our checkout there was less than 5′, and we were on the road from the airport about an hour after take-off from Kaua’i.

    The drive up the east coast of Oahu was pleasant enough, as we remembered it pretty well from the one time we’d done it in mid-January. We’re now staying at a place just a few miles south of the Polynesian Cultural Center, which is only about 9 miles east of where we stayed our first week of this Hawaiian adventure.

    Our stop at the grocery store for some provisions was interesting, as anyone shopping these days can likely attest. No toilet paper, anything with alcohol (cleaning wipes, etc.) was gone, as were any cold remedy sorts of things. We were just looking for food, so none of this was an issue for us, but it certainly made clear the zeitgeist.

    We made to our place, a lone high rise (9 floors) in this area. It’s nice enough, and will certainly be just fine for the (hopefully just) one week we’re here. We are really looking forward to a month in Kona, and hope nothing impedes those plans.

    the view from our balcony in Hau’ula, on Oahu. Rainy, but no less gorgeous.
    And from the road-side of the apt.

  • Friday, March 13

    Kauai/Princeville, day 13

    While the past week has really been one to remember, today brought us to pull the plug on lots of our travel plans and reconfigure the next weeks.  We’ll go to Oahu tomorrow, as originally planned, looking forward to some activities there, including a few days of diving.  But rather than return east via SF—was looking forward to a visit with Glenn in El Cerrito, as it’s been so long since we’ve seen him—we’ll take the quick trip to Kona, and stay there until mid-April.

    The most significant part of our planned travels during this period was a three month stay in Dublin.  We’d planned to begin the trip by touring Ireland, then enjoy short hops around many different spots in Europe where we’ve dreamed of visiting.  The generous offer to stay at Ciaran’s family home was to make that grand tour possible for us, of course, and we were so excited to spend time with his family, and in the UK and further afield.

    But the day’s news just seemed to make very clear that getting on more planes, spending time in busy airports travelling to Europe…just not very smart these days.  So, much of the earlier part of today was spent on making the necessary arrangements to cancel our original plans, and find a place to stay in Kona.  All of our original April 14-July 14 plan is postponed, and our original flights home through SF all needed changing/cancelling.  We do look forward to a truncated trip to Ireland here in the near future, i.e., a tour of Ireland, but it’s just too early to make a specific plan for that.

    I’m just amazed at the scope of what the travel industry, among many others, is trying to deal with and execute right now.  Airlines are eliminating change fees, offering credits for future travel.  They can’t handle the volume of calls, and are simply encouraging people to cancel plans online, and call back another day to reschedule.  Many hotels are offering refunds, though there are certainly businesses that are eating so much right now that they’re not doing so for pre-paid bookings; same with rental cars.  It seems everyone wants to be helpful, but I imagine that after a day of dealing with cancellations, watching all of their business go away for the coming weeks and months, it gets more than difficult to hold on to one’s grace and generosity.

    That’s just the travel industry; let alone all connected to that industry (restaurants, entertainment).  I’ve seen news pieces about people taking advantage of drastically reduced travel costs to get in some usually-expensive travel while they’re told to telecommute, and I wish them safe travels.

    And then there’s schools, at all levels.  Colleges and universities are doing a quick pivot to online teaching which, as has been clear for many years now, is neither easy nor terrifically effective mode of delivery, for teachers or students.  The idea of re-writing a half-semester’s syllabus, get that content online in a week, work out the technical issues of some sort of synchronous or asynchronous teaching, develop means of evaluating students’ work, etc., is all so daunting.

    And in the arts, where performance of one sort or another is an essential elements of one’s education and requirements, the ban on gatherings >100 ppl, and/or telling students not to return to campus, means the peak experience of many students’ educational programs will be denied.  I just don’t know how requirements/opportunities will be reconfigured for our students in the arts who are in their final semester, the semester that brings the capstone experience of their years of work to a singular evening’s presentation.

    The closing of public schools, and the pressure that puts on parents to find daytime childcare, the pressures on medical clinics, hospitals, and on and on, is making this moment in time at best  frightening, anxiety-producing, and stressful; at worst absolutely devastating to families health and financial stability.

    And here we are, able to prolong our time in a kind of paradise, hopefully somewhat isolated from this virus.  Lucky doesn’t even begin to describe our situation right now.

  • Thursday, March 12

    Kauai/Koloa, day 12

    This morning’s dive was with a fun group of divers.  A medi-vac helicopter pilot, former military, from PA, whose wife’s expecting (so she didn’t join us) was a super nice guy.  An American Airlines pilot who, together with his friend of many years, was a hoot always ready with a good one-liner.  His friend, likely well into his 70s, learned to dive at 60 (I guess our learning in our late isn’t so odd), and has now broadened his CPA life to include being a scuba instructor.  And the final person on the trip was a gent from Humboldt County, CA who’d been diving with Fathom Five for decades.  He was the serious photographer on this dive—almost every dive has one, it seems—and was a nice guy to round out the day’s trip.

    Tons to see re this trip, so posting videos with captions rather than lengthy explanations.  This was really a very pretty dive, and the visit by a baby whale made it all the more memorable!

    Some gorgeous Elkhorn coral
    More Elkhorn coral, with the arch behind it (which we dove around/through)
    Lots of blue-striped snapper on this dive–an invasive species here
    A very large Crown of Thorns–not to be toyed with!
    A view of Poipu from the water
    A view from our safety stop ( staying for 3′ at 15′ to clear some nitrogen from our bodies); the bubbles of our fellow divers
    And a baby whale came to visit us!

  • Wednesday, March 11

    Kauai/Koloa, day 11

    Unsurprisingly, another wonderful dive day with Fathom Five down in Koloa.  As the world’s anxiety-producing news swirls around us, and it is absolutely getting more alarming every day, we headed out for a morning shore dive at Koloa Landing.  A small group of four of us enjoyed this fabulous site, a horseshoe shaped reef; the left side on the first dive, the right side on the second dive.

    The dive was an easy, shallow one, with lots of good viewing—particularly a pufferfish, a boxfish, a barracuda hanging above a bait ball, trumpetfish, and an extremely friend wrasse that followed us through most of our dive, coming very close and seemingly wanting to be pet!

    Pufferfish cruising
    Boxfish
    bait ball…
    …with a barracuda hanging around in the distance (he’s about 4′-5′ long)
    our friendly wrasse near the mushroom coral
    rich in coral varieties
    “mushroom” (Lobe) coral

  • Tuesday, March 10

    Kauai, day 10

    Still getting work done this day, but more and more distracted by headlines both financial- and public-health-related.  Emails and news pieces coming in every few hours from companies outlining their approaches to cleaning (Avis, Budget, Delta…) and expecting a note about rescheduling without penalties to come in any day now.  Undoubtedly our currently planned three week trip to Ireland (abbreviated from 3 months) will soon be rendered impossible.

    The past few days also noting that things back home are also clearly effected by this pandemic.  I don’t believe there are cases in eastern NC just yet, but ECU is clearly on the brink of following the lead of many other schools in eliminating face-to-face events.  Already feeling the impact re the NewMusic Initiative, as UCSD’s travel restrictions are making impossible Lei’s ability to come to campus next week to coach and prepare the premiere of his commission.  Cancellations happen, of course, and require rescheduling, coordination with lots of other parties, etc., but it never really gets easier.  In this case, of course, I’m in the back seat and Travis is ably handling all of this.  But I certainly hate that he’s having to deal with this.

    After a morning of getting some work done, we took the short drive towards where we’ll dive Wednesday and Thursday.  We stopped in for a drink at Mahiko Lounge in Gaylord’s, and were happy to make friends with a couple from Vancouver Island.  We ended up having dinner with them, hearing lots of stories about their travels adventures, their consideration of life after retirement—and he’s only 54!—and about the many islands right near them on Vancouver Island.

  • Monday, March 9

    Kauai/Princeville, day 9

    4am. It’s hard to not sink into deep fear this morning with the world news. 

    Didn’t sleep much last night, as I was listening to news through the night; between the Covid-19 spread, a ship with some 20+ cases on board landing in Oakland today (where we fly in two weeks), Europe’s cases spreading quickly, and the world’s financial markets crashing drastically on oil price manipulations by OPEC in reaction to Russia’s not propping up prices.

    Yesterday we pulled the trigger on a change to our original European travel plans.  We’re to arrive in Dublin April 15th, connecting the next day with Christine/Stephen, then touring Ireland with them April 18th-23rd, Pattie and I to continue until May 4th.  Then, instead of continuing to stay in Dublin and take trips through Europe until departing July 14, we’ll return to the US May 6th. 

    Northern Italy is on lockdown, we got a notice from Delta about increased flexibility in adjusting flight plans—we’ll have to wait to get a similar notice from United before we make further changes, I think.

    Now local Hawai’i news is reporting a 2nd case in Oahu, state officials trying to identify people on the same plane as him.

    Between the virus and the markets, It feels like we’re on the verge of a general panic.

    I wish there was a way to just stay put here in Hawai’I and avoid getting on a plane, going to crowded airports… I know we’re healthy and not immunocompromised, I know we’ll be fine, but certainly don’t want to play a role in the contagion.

    When the rains stopped for a while we headed out to explore some of the ‘secret beaches’ around here. Just outside our apartment we were greeted by a lovely little song…

    We stopped by several beaches but, in many cases here, the ‘public’ beach access requirement is fulfilled by putting in a parking lot with 3-4 parking spaces amidst all the resort parking with huge warnings of being towed. Alas, our first few attempts at accessing beaches were unsuccessful.

    But we did get to Anini Beach…

    Anini Beach…

    And then on to the “Secret Beach” (really Kauapea beach) which involved a bit of a muddy/slippery hike down to the rather treacherous waters. Lovely though the water is, these dangers of cross-currents and rip currents are very clearly marked on the pathway down.

    A nice little lunch at PV Eats gave us a gorgeous view over a golf course all the way to the water, then on back to some more writing.

    We’re certainly excited to travel south tomorrow, for diving Wednesday and Thursday with the folks we met at Fathom Five last week…and to put some of these travel concerns out of mind for a few days, at least.

  • Sunday, March 8

    Kauai/Princeville, day 8

    Daylight Savings Time!  Last observed in Hawaii in 1945, so no effect here.  Except that we’re now 6 hrs behind folks on the east coast, rather than 5.

    Yet another rainy/lazy day, and that’s just fine with us.  I’ve begun working on the setting(s) of Jim Brasfield’s Celan, to be a part of a larger set which will include Palladium, the poem of his I set a few years ago now.  Celan is quite brief, and enormously evocative for/to me.  I am planning to include several different settings of this poem within the set—1st, 3rd, 5th/last, with Palladium and Renaissance 2nd and 4th.   My initial concept is to use Celan to set the scene for the larger poem to follow, as it seems to do a fabulous job of articulating the nature of expectation.  So Celan’s several settings are next on the docket.

    I’ve also begun tiny sketches of solo cello music, simply inspired to do so by correspondence with a friend…hoping this develops into something I can send off as a surprise at some point, but this is right now a fun little diversion.

    It’s very clear to us that our time here in Hawaii is nearly over.  Having been here since January 11, it’s become quite ‘normal’ to wake up, write, have breakfast, write some more, go diving, nap, look over the day’s writing, sleep well.  Two more weeks of that, then back east.  We’re desperately hoping that Surf City will be inhabitable by then (still a complete mess since Sept, 2018’s Hurricane Florence), so that the routine can continue, perhaps with some diving excursions in Wilmington, NC. 

    We are to head to Ireland on April 14, and our return flight is currently scheduled for July 14.  There’s so much we’d love to explore while in Europe, but we’re now seriously wondering about that plan.  Today’s headline news about northern Italy essentially shutting down, well, doesn’t instill confidence in the wisdom of our travel plans in Europe.

    And, at the same time, everything we’re reading about the isolation of populations large and tiny for the sake of public health resonates enormously with our experience on Molokai, at Kalaupapa’s leper colony…

  • Saturday, March 7

    Kauai/Princeville, day 7

    The rainy day pattern of weather here has been very conducive to writing, and Let Them Not Say is now sent off for review by the conductor.  Undoubtedly, as is always the case, there will be corrections and adjustments to make—perhaps even some re-writing if I’ve overplayed the ensemble’s ability—but this initial complete draft is something I feel quite good about.

    The work’s poet, Jane Hirshfield, was scheduled to appear at a talk in Honolulu during our week there, and we were excited to go and introduce ourselves, perhaps find a moment to get acquainted.  I went online to purchase tickets for her talk and, alas, due to travel concerns surrounding covid-19 the event’s been cancelled.  I wrote her to say hello, let her know the work’s done, plant the seed of having her come to NC for the premiere, talk to English folks/poets…we’ll know better when the premiere’s scheduling becomes clearer.  She did mention a few other talks scheduled—Seattle, NY, Chicago—which haven’t yet been cancelled, although she expects they will be.  Seattle, especially, seems a focus of covid-19 right now, so that cancellation seems inevitable.

    We’ve another week here in Kauai—two more days of diving down in Koloa again—then a week in Oahu before heading to the mainland.  Neither one of us is eager to let go of the many diving opportunities here in HI, so we’ve just scheduled two more days of diving in Honolulu for 3/17 and 3/18.

    Pattie’s beginning to organize her purchases to send on ahead (to avoid excess baggage weight fees, which are much more expensive than sending home a small box), and it’s been fun for her to look through the clothes she so enjoyed getting here.

    No big excursions today, as it was really just a day to work at home, then make a frozen pizza for dinner, do some reading, and turn in.