Tue 30 Jun 26: Got an inkling to get moving early this AM... but for whatever reason, time seemed to fly by -- almost to the point of needing rush just to keep up Ever have a day like that? Noticing it happen a lot more than when I were on mainland. Maybe the greater pace in \ around big cities just default to a higher speed, so a bit more isn't as big a delta. Granted, pace here is somewhat glacial at times... but I'd say driving here esp is much more stressful than on the Kitsap Peninsula, even with 4 seasons thrown in. probably just a faster flow as the normal... My brain isn't getting any younger either -- tho tbf, the days times seemed to slow down vs. speed up, are more numerous by ~2 - 3x. If time seems to slow down, means your perception, your frame rate of perceiving the world is faster, like a Harold-Edgerton-esque ultra-slow-motion capture. At the dojo, they trained you to increase yours, with a rather Stone-Age teaching device: a log, on a rope, suspended at temple (of head) height. Any way the log spun, one side would nail the daylights out of you, right in the ear. So starting at equal distance to your head, your senior would swing one side hard to hit you, which you were supposed to block with a bokuto (木刀, wooden sword). Problem is, if you hit the log too hard, the other side would karang the back of your head, and down you went, clutching your aching melon. Do that enough, and the consequences basically taught the Way, tough-love-style. Sasuga Japanese way of teaching martial arts My mentor, whilst training at the same dojo (and learning bodywork from the founder of Zentherapy), was asked to continue to confront this training device, until he could do it. Said it took several weeks, but eventually he stopped ducking the punishing log He'd said that after this exp, was asked to tend the big long multi-level kiln the temple's pottery were fired in, during a 7-day, biannual intense meditation retreat known as sesshin (接心), where you do nothing but sit in meditation, and manual labour. Exhausted with the 24-hr-a-day nature of tending the fires of the kiln... he'd noticed his perception start to change, things had 'slowed down a lot'... even if the pace of work demanded exactly the opposite, relentlessly. At the end of sesshin, those who're training as monks are interviewed by the Zen master, in order to see where they are in their quest for enlightenment... and Mentor said that waiting in the queue and hearing the bell announcing the next candidate, he felt weightless, like everything in his body reverted to the form he was born with. And going to see the Roshi... was rejected. But Roshi did say later, he was only a hair's width from the goal. That had to hurt I'd never even been close to that sort of realisation... but oddly whilst in boot camp, things did seem to slog along, esp during moments where the DIs were in everyone's third points, teaching us to negotiate an obstacle or take a hill in squads, in the ticks and chiggers of the SC forest. My memory of this being the most obvious, was in the gas chamber. Story for later... Today... decided again not to do the mall laps, mostly because intuition were nagging this wasn't a good day. Sure enough, there was a big Local farmer's market happening, so even walking the upper floor would've been disruptive. So decided to walk the mall's perimeter instead. Had never walked all the way around this mall, esp recently. Knew the whole way just from walking portions of it in many versions of the mall, and of course driving around it. But a walk isn't like a drive, as before... Took the path through the mall itself on that ground floor... and got yet another glimpse at how far this mall had sunk in the last 20y. Incredibly, f***ing Zales Jewelers were still here. How the f*** does a jeweler stay in business, at this mall? No idea... but they've been at this location since the refit in '94, easy. The old anchor store Sears -- long my only reason to visit this mall, moving here in 2010... shuttered for years now crumbling under the weight of covid. Now cheap plywoods boards are nailed to cover up holes where the plaster that used to abut these pillars around the door openings, fell out and smashed onto the sidewalk. One of these failures was fresh... well, if a few months left as-is, can be called 'fresh'. A shame, loved that store, grew up in it, really... A smaller parking structure, long where the stinkies piss all over the stairwells and do meth, has oddly been relatively quiet in the past 3 or so years -- used to be in the local news regularly. So decided to check out the top floor, as had never been there. Here are some pics taken at the top: The 'Mountain'. Haleakala is 10029 ft... and may not look it, but that summit you see, with the white observatories, is 18-miles+ away fm this vantage point. It is a rather big boy for a shield volcano... and its caldera collapsed away another 3 - 4K ft easy in prehistory Not happy the weather's so nice, actually -- could've warshed the car Right after making that executive decision... the big threat of a low pressure system supposedly sending rain... turned north and f***ed off. Who knows now, but have to wait until Sunday to warsh again -- The opposite direction, towards the West Maui Mtns (WMM). Looking at the tops of the factory which used to process sugar and ice, but has changed hands more times than I can remember -- part of the complex may be owned by one of the big soft drink companies, but the rest are all Local businesses of the sort who inhabit old hulks like this; auto repair, tour operators, gyms -- And the skeletonised mall, teal ribs naked to the sun, already turning powdery with age and exposure. Normally would be covered by sails of filthy off-white 30-yo canopy... but as confirmed in my walk thru today... no intention to replace it. Can't even replace plasterboard when it falls off the Sears bldg, good luck replacing a million-dollar canopy -- more when clients are done
