New Year's Steep and Rocky Path

Honolulu Star-Advertiser

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams."

– Thoreau

Copyright © 2022

by Ralph F. Couey

We measure our journey in one of two ways, by distance and by time. Every earth year, our world completes an orbit around its parent star. In that time, the planet actually travels 584 million miles. But, our sun is orbiting the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. In one of our years, that's about 4.5 billion miles. And if that weren't enough, our galaxy is racing through space, along with all the other galaxies, at about 1.3 million miles per hour. Since there's no fixed reference point in space, that actual distance traveled is kinda fuzzy. So, even when we stay at home, we're still on a journey.  

But New Year's is about a journey in time, 12 months of trial, trauma, joy, and hilarity. When we reach this day on the calendar, we are anxious to put the past behind us. This is especially true given what's been going on. Three years of pandemic misery merely leads the list of the existential load we've been carrying. It's a day when we try to resolve to change the things that gifted us so much angst. That can be any number of things from weight and physical condition, patterns of life, better choices. But the bottom line is a fresh start. New Years provides a convenient launch point for this new mission. In reality, a person can make a fresh start on July 4th just as easily, but who ever heard of Independence Day Resolutions?

Author Sara Ban Breathnach wrote,

"New Year's Day. A fresh start. A new chapter in life waiting to be written. New questions to be asked, embraced, and loved. Answers to be discovered and then lived in this transformative year of delight and self-discovery. Today carve out a quiet interlude for yourself in which to dream, pen in hand. Only dreams give birth to change."

Dreams are valuable. They are the scratch pads for the designs of your life. But dreams are useless unless a person is willing to undertake real change. You know, actually work on it. To make any kind of change we have to realize that what we need and what we need to leave behind. We have things in our lives that shouldn't be there and need to go. The toughest thing is coming to grips with the reality that there are changes we don't want to make, but restrict or block our ability to grow beyond our past. We have to be willing to take out our own garbage.

Vows Fulfilled

Copyright © 2022

By Ralph F. Couey

Christmas 2022 was a curious sort of event for us.  No visitors, and our only link to family was electronic.  Both Cheryl and I had some stressful days, she doing surgery, and myself at work dealing with a powerful Pacific storm that caused all kinds of havoc across the state.  And a dead rat that chose to expire and deteriorate beneath the deckplates of my workstation. 

I had two extra days off this past week while contractors were installing the rest of the new windows.  All the leaky, drafty jalousies are gone, save one.  Our home is as energy efficient as its ever been in its 60-plus year lifespan.  We didn't put much effort in decorating this year.  We bought a new artificial tree and had it lit almost every evening.  Cheryl made sure it was on when I returned home at work, a wonderful site at oh-dark-thirty.  But the rest of the ornaments stayed in their boxes.  With everything else going on, it was just too hard.

We've been watching, fascinated as the storms of December have swept across the country.  We had our share of snow yards deep in the mainland, and for those of you who were digging your way out, we felt your pain.  Here, it's winter, the time of year when powerful storms sweep out of the North Pacific dumping feet of rain blown by dangerous winds.  Even when the storms don't make it here, their effect is felt in enormous surges of waves that batter the north and east shores of our islands.  I remember the first time I witnessed 50-foot waves crashing onto a beach.  I was speechless; in awe of the ocean's power.  But it's also the time of year when the humidity is notably lower, and the temperatures become very pleasant.  In terms of comfort, it is the most wonderful time of the year.

The one thing about Christmas, the one universal truth is that people are better to each other.  Almost everyone has a smile and cheerful word, and kindness and generosity emerges from wherever it hides during the rest of the year.  The season brings out the best in people, especially in their personal relationships.  Families gather to share, to eat, to talk and laugh.  They catch up on everything that has happened during their time apart.  And if they can keep their politics firmly locked away, it can be a joyous and memorable time.

Pele's Dance on Hawai'i Island

 

Mauna Loa (USGS)

Copyright © 2022

by Ralph F. Couey

It was a relatively quiet Sunday evening.  There was no weather to speak of, no other event on-going, though we had been monitoring the earthquake activity at Mauna Loa.  About 10:30 PM, the monitor we have for the California Integrated Seismic Network sounded it's familiar alarm.  CISN monitors earthquake activity around the world, and sends us alerts, which happens several times during a watch.  Most people don't know what a restless planet we live on.  If an earthquake larger than magnitude 6.5 occurs anywhere within the Pacific Basin, we go to a higher alert posture until the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center evaluates the incident in case a tsunami was generated.

Local earthquakes are a different matter.  The Big Island, Hawai'i, is home to no less than four active volcanoes.  Mauna Kea, where all the expensive telescopes are, Hualalai, Kilauea, and Mauna Loa.  There is also an active volcano on Maui, called Haleakala, and one offshore of the Big Island, Loihi. This one is an undersea volcano which will break the sea surface in about 100,000 years.  All of the activity has been on the Big Island.  Kilauea has been erupting since September 29th of last year, the effused lava confined to the summit caldera.  

But the Big Island is a special case.  A strong enough earthquake might break loose the southeast flank of the island and send the Manhattan-sized mass sliding into the ocean, generating a tsunami. So, anything north of magnitude 3.5 gets our attention.  On the night in question, the first quake, a magnitude 4.5 came in at about 10:55 PM.  PTWC assessed almost immediately that there was no tsunami threat.  Then about an hour later, another earthquake rumbled, this one a magnitude 4.1.  Shortly after that, we received a telephone call from the island's Civil Defense, reporting that Mauna Loa was erupting.  

Although my watch team was due to leave at midnight, we stayed to help the midnight crew handle things.  It was a long night, as we didn't leave until things finally calmed to a manageable level at 4:45 AM.  The state Emergency Operations Center, an old artillery bunker in Diamond Head crater, went to full activation, which is where we've been since.  Sunday will mark two weeks since the eruption started.  At first, the eruption was confined to the summit caldera.  The next day, the eruption moved into the northeast rift zone, probably the safest direction.