GOOD FOR THE HEART

Dim sum, in Honolulu. I skipped the decadent potstickers in bamboo baskets for the medicinal ginger rice soup made-to-order, with a plate of translucent steamed Chinese broccoli donning tiny yellow blossoms for a cardio-sound breakfast. At first the intrepid servers didn’t understand the logic of my untraditional order, but when they saw me assembling my food, they were happily impressed (I got the feeling it reminded them of what the table looked like at this exact time in the morning in their home village, what I was doing they did back in the old county). One of them watched me approvingly and nodded a retrospective smile, as if I’m no longer a foreigner but a long lost kin, eating my vegetables with oysters sauce using chopsticks so well and sitting crossed-legged on the dirt ground. When she delivered the hair-strand thin sliced ginger I had asked for, she knew what I was up to with my congee: kick it up with raw spice.

The slow stroll after food on the boulevard under an umbrella to the art museum is also good for the heart in start of summer outside leading inside the galleries. I read a translation of an Edo-era poem from a scrolled inscription of ink, silk and gold saying that the gap between nodes of reed leaves at the narrow inlet was like time she would never give to courting. An O’Keefe green and white painting of Iao Valley, a summit scene of her waterfalls and grey clouds to bear. A small library after passing through the modernists hall I entered and where I read for a time, I was alone, and steeped my mind learning about Spanish-times weaving using pineapple fibers like chiffon fabric and embroidered fancily with filigree to make elegant gowns for first and second ladies of municipal governments during colonial 18th century Philippines. Islamic tiles bubbling fountains. A bougainvillea courtyard framed around a living clear blue skylight. My writing box. Waiting for the red dragonfly to land on the juxtaposed water garden of lotuses purposely designed I think to transcend, or escape the awareness for something more sublime. On the rocks Perrier I poured, and you give your heart a break. 

And this by far is the best for the heart. So, I was on the airport-route bus from downtown returning to Maui and I had packed a few food in my tote shortly after I had arrived in the morning and stopped by the Macau bakery in Chinatown for some tea cake, and across the street inside the wet market of food stalls followed my nose to the Vietnamese lady's window boiling peanuts on shells a buck for a cup, I got those and also a handful of fat lychees just picked with leaves, according to the madam. They were all in plastic bags and stowed in my bag for later consumption after the museum and that time came to eat them and I was at the very back of the bus with my feet up. I was zen minding my relaxed mind and body and enjoying my snacks, breaking shells, popping the legumes in my mouth, alternating with the fruits that were so ono refreshing juicy, when suddenly I remembered the madam at the stall going out around her station to weigh the lychees for me saying: "You only get this so little want more tha why you so sexy!" - all on my breath snide - and I started howling out a loud laugh-chuckle-gag remembering her statement while on the bus, it was an insane comment so inflected with a wonderful Vietnamese accent you would hear at comedy improvs from standups making good fun of accents (I remember a show in Seattle with this hip girl hapa talking nail salons stories - go to any one in America and you'll find nail associates there from Saigon) - she was mimicking them so realistically, and hearing the madam talked that way to me in the morning, it made my day converged with laughter, my heart was having a great time being alive pumping out for me all the meaning of life worth living for to release a cosmic happiness more than anything in the universe could satisfy, my heart felt like a cranking eternal sun piece wheeling with love... as long as a smile could give.