Return to Innocence - Columbus discovers Dakan

I began this journey looking for a home. After three weeks on the road I’m wondering if home may be nothing more than Self love. Maybe I’m looking for lost personal parts - you know, bits of what started out as Self love that went wondering off and got lost in some scary otherworld . . . the otherworld of wounds that turn into loneliness or sadness, or feelings of abandonment and then fear, and so on. The underworld of loss . . . I think I lost my voice a long, long time ago. The voice that says, “this is who I really am.” I want to re-find, redefine my voice. My voice as a writer. My voice as a genuine human being. My voice as a communicator of the love I feel in my heart for all people, places and things.

I think my aloha got lost in the Kauai cost of living. Here I just give people plastic and don’t think about it. It frees me up to finally “live aloha.” With every passing day the people and places I see are more beautiful than ever. I’m running out of adjectives to define what I’m seeing. I need thirty more words for beautiful. You won’t believe what I now call beautiful - check this out . . . I got a room the other night in a Super 8, located in a little brand-name cluster f@#$%&* next to the highway outside of Louisa, Kentucky. I had a choice for dinner: McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Wendy’s or Pizza Hut. Hard decision since they all looked so beautiful (I’m mocking myself) and I could only guess on how my body would re-act, since I hadn’t eaten at any one of those in at least ten years. OK, Wendy’s because I like Dave. (the owner . . . in the commercial . . . ) Anyway, as soon as I got in the door two ‘fifty something’ big burly Kentucky rednecks looked at me like I was some sort of alien who needed crushing. I loved it. To me they were beautiful in their own way. Classic Billy Joe Bob’s. I wanted to take their pictures and interview them - find out about their world. Find out why they looked like they wanted to kick the shit out of me. But I forgot my camera and my tape recorder . . . and my fearlessness. BTW - the fried fish sandwich was gross. But she gave me a free baked potato - smothered with VELVEETA cheese. And the southern white girl said . . .

The Ki Earth journey I’m on is without a doubt my return to innocence. The hard-wired Self-love reconnected. The more I let go and let God, the more beautiful and wondrous, and divinely guided it all seems. From the beginning I had planned a trip to Montreal, but while in Detroit I decided to return to Seattle to get a more fuel efficient vehicle, before coming back East to Montreal, and down the East Coast. But then at the last minute this past Tuesday I was inspired to go South to North Carolina. So I planned my route from Detroit to Toledo, in Ohio's northwest corner, east over to Cleveland, and then down the picturesque east side of Ohio. But then, south of Toledo, I was guided by a rest stop helper to head straight down US23, in the west to central part of Ohio, through Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee, to my final destination - Asheville, NC.






So the day I would have been driving down the east side of Ohio there was a major storm there with 80 mph winds and flooding. Divine guidance? It was sunny and beautiful down US 23. In fact, except for an evening torrential downpour in northern Minnesota, the US has been nothing less than a land of sunny days for three weeks. At least from my experience. Anyway, this new route 23 took me straight into Columbus, Ohio - and the unexpected reason for this blog.

You thought I should be done with this blog by now? I’m actually just beginning . . .

Most of my life, before my father was transferred to Columbus in 1959, was spent outside of the United States - the Philippines, Japan, Okinawa and three years in Germany prior to Columbus. (we never stayed more than two years in one place before I was 12) Now I was like a new boy in America, in a new American house, and to make it all more shiny, I was entering 7th grade in a brand new freshly built and finished Junior High. Every kid was new there. Sure some kids went to elementary school together, but for most of us it was all about getting to meet new kids and create new friendships.

So, coming into Columbus for the first time since 1962, I set my GPS to Johnson Park Junior High, not knowing if after 48 years if it was still there or not. It was. Below is a picture of it today.




To get an edge on meeting new friends I signed on as the Panther varsity basketball manager. I loved helping the coach in that brand new gym. It was so big and perfect to me back then. On Thursday I walked into it for the first time, like I did my first time 51 years ago, and quite unexpectedly, found myself overwhelmed with emotions. It was old, but just as I remembered it. The current Principal was in the office and we had a wonderful conversation - her meeting and talking to a man who first entered her brand new school before she was even born. She told me Johnson Park was one of only two middle schools in Columbus that hasn’t been remodeled or rebuilt. Everything was the same.

Walking down the halls, so many memories flooded back into my consciousness. My first love Terry, (jumping forward to 8th grade) whose locker was over there, broke my heart for the first time, choosing the basketball star over me. The fool.

I was so, so innocent back in the fall of 1959. So green behind the ears that it was declared a national forest. I now remember that November day when this cute girl invited me to a party. I didn’t know the rules. I took a bunch of my well earned money, maybe a buck and a quarter, and bought a box of chocolates. I dressed up. I had no idea what I was doing. I was sooo nervous ringing her doorbell. She was really cute - accepted the candy - a bit embarrassed. How was I to know it was just a party? A party that turned into a bunch of cute girls and a few guys down in her basement playing spin-the-bottle. OMG! That was the first time I kissed a girl - four or five girls in one night. I was in 7th grade heaven.

I drove away from Johnson Park, looking for the route I walked every day for three years - almost two miles each way. I found it, and started recognizing houses along the way. Suddenly I was there - I remembered - turn right, then left . . . there it was: 4731 Dundee Drive. I think my Dad paid something like $16,000 for it in 1959. I thought he planted some trees in the front yard. I imagined it would either be gone, a ghetto shit-pile, or at least under big old trees. Maybe the siding changed, but it looked just like I remember it looking 50 years ago. I was beginning to think I entered the Twilight Zone.



It wasn’t long after I drove away when I realized that I was there to collect a few of those lost parts. Suddenly I loved the Army and my Dad for being transferred there - for being placed in a brand new house, in a brand new school, with brand new kids including more cute girls then I had ever seen in my whole life - all in one place! It was the most innocent of times when everything was brighter than bright and newer than new and everything that happened was more important than anything else in the world. Columbus, Ohio was the center of the Universe and I was the basketball manager in the newest most perfect Junior High in the whole world. Could it ever get better than this?

Today I say Yes. Today everything is again shiny new and beautiful - right here in the center of the Universe - in the room I’m renting for $100 a week on Happy Acres Road in Maggie Valley, between Asheville and Cherokee, North Carolina.

With love and blessings, Dakan