Under the Sun
Summers sweetened
with doing nothingThe hibiscus bush in the front yard was the perfect hiding place. Its twining branches enveloped a space just big enough for a chubby child to sit cross-legged, its leaves dense enough to offer shade, but not so thick as to block an errant flutter of tradewind.
The dirt under there was powdery, a perfect medium for repeated doodlings and smoothings with a twig. I could rest my head in a fork and peer through the green at the blue of the sky, squinting at the sun to form brilliant, dancing gleams of light through my eyelashes. I imagined that no one knew I was there, holding still when someone walked by, making up stories about why I would need to hide. Eventually, though, the heat and boredom would drive me from the bush's embrace toward some other pursuit in summer days with nothing to do.
How marvelous were those seasons of nothings. I value that time spent without aim, to scratch my belly and prod my imagination, to visualize and calculate leisurely. I doubt many children today go through summers without an organized agenda to corral them. If they don't have summer school, they have soccer practice, ballet lessons or some such activity to keep them busy, a necessity when both parents work.
My folks worked, too, and at least part of our summers were occupied by Bible school or Japanese language classes. But save for those few weeks, we were pretty much free to do what we wanted. Of course, there were daily chores, like washing the clothes and hanging them out to dry. Once in a while we'd get assignments, like mowing and weeding the yard, but even those were sidelines for adventure.
Piles of grass cuttings were magnified in our minds into haystacks we'd seen in pictures of farms on the mainland. We'd climb the low roof that sloped over the furo and, holding an open umbrella, leap toward the flimsy cushion of the "haystack" to test the parachuting qualities umbrellas seemed to have in cartoons. (No one got hurt -- really.)
There were a lot of kids in our neighborhood, although about half of them were from our family, which came to number seven children. The large population gave us an audience for the skits we'd write and perform in the Lum's garage and for the "bicycle circus," in which my brothers and other boys would show off acrobatic skills while riding their one-speed pedal pushers. Having so many kids around assured there would always be another to join you in doing nothing, someone who would answer when you stood outside a neighbor's door, calling "can somebody come out and play?"
Most of the time, the freedom to dream up something to fill the nothing led to exploration and discovery. The stream down past the avenue captured our attention for days. We'd poke at the crayfish and tadpoles, fiddle with the algae and moss, dam the cool waters with river rocks, then release the reservoir in a splashing gush.
At other times, having nothing to do harvested thought and contemplation. In an unstructured atmosphere -- staring at the sky or lolling on the side of the road, tossing pebbles -- we'd twist through the whys and wherefores of our limited experiences with life, all the while wondering, wondering, wondering.
I don't recollect the color of the blossoms on that hibiscus bush, but I remember how we would pull the petals from the flower to expose the sticky, conical base of the stamen. We'd fix them on our noses and crow like roosters. Then we'd be off and running, ready for another whole bunch of nothings.
Cynthia Oi has been on the staff of the Star-Bulletin for 25 years.
She can be reached at: coi@starbulletin.com.