To the Sea

Rosina's Birthday, February 27

Hanalei, Kau'ai, Hawaii. I often seem to proceed not with a clear plan, but with a simple goal. A night of music, a dinner, some kind of gathering. With the help of improvisation, tenacity, optimism, and a lot of friends, we usually, magically, arrive at the destination. So it seems to be with delivering Rosina's ashes to the ocean here in Hawaii. The original plan was to go out in a boat into Hanalei Bay, but it's February, the water is rough and the wind was strong. It was considered dangerous, and I thought that on a boat, there are a lot of steps of unpleasant before you even approach dangerous, so that was out. No worries. There are no specific rules about this here. Rosina - ocean - Kauai.

Jake, Nina, Will, Sonia, myself, and our Hanalei friends, Gary and Theresa, and Andrea and Rogerio, headed down the road to Lumahai beach. I have a photo of Rosina walking down to the beach that she saw once and said most definitely, "That's me."

2003

But the surf there was huge. It's the beach in the top picture. It was a spectacular show but no one was going in. So after staring at it for a good long time, we headed down to the end of the road to see if we could go around Ke'e beach to an amazing spot at the beginning of the Napali Coast. But the trail was closed. It's a seasonal thing.

On the way there, I kept having the feeling that she should be in Hanalei Bay, so we'd head back there. But then we passed a spot that she always loved. It's a fresh water stream that runs into the ocean, and there's a pool where you can take a cold plunge. Rosina always searched these places out in Brasil - the mountain streams, the waterfalls - and she loved to stop here after being in the ocean and wash off the sea.


Rosina swimming in the same spot, 2003. Who could have imagined that we would be placing her there six years later as ashes? (enjoy what you've got now!)

So we started here. Taking handfuls of her ash and releasing them in the rushing water between the rocks. When they hit the pool, they spread out under the surface, looking like a spirt slowly moving with the current. They continued on downstream where after about a half mile through the woods, the stream meets the sea. Again, as it was in Rio, there really was a feeling of letting her go, and of her being somewhere.




After that we went back into Hanalei and walked down the beach.
Whenever we arrived there, we would go straight out to the beach and get into the water. That alone is nice, but then you stand up and turn around, and there are beautiful green mountains right there, with distant strings of waterfalls streaming down. Again we all added handfuls to the sea. Then I took what was left and waded out, first throwing some handfuls in the air, and then diving under with the rest of it. The water was active, turbulent, and happily took her right away.

Many times when we get to a place like this, and for us, specifically this place, one of a simple lifestyle and in communion with nature, we would look back at our lives in Los Angeles like we were cogs in a machine, staying busy, staying frantic, hustling along with the flow. I'd think about it and wonder, "Why all the fuss?" Again, I think in death, if we have conscience thought at that moment, it must be very similar, looking at all of us here, bothered and worried, bustling around in our bodies; "Why all the fuss?"


Our sweet girl has met the Atlantic and the Pacific, and may she float in peace.
xo
ph