Kaui Hart Hemmings Quotes

Hey," he says.
I feel foolish for being out of breath and standing over him. The moonlight cuts a line down my chest. "Hey," I say.
"Checking on me?"
"I couldn't sleep. Scottie. She's in the bathroom." I stop talking.
"Yeah?" he says and sits up.
"She's playacting." I don't know how to say it. I don't need to say it. "She's kissing the mirror."
"Oh," he says. "I used to do some messed-up things as a kid. Still do."
I feel wide awake, which always makes me angry in the middle of the night. I'm useless without sleep. I can't get myself to go back to my own room. I sit on the end of the bed by his feet. "I'm worried about my daughters," I say. "I'm worried there's something wrong with them."
Sid rubs his eyes.
"Forget it," I say. "Sorry for waking you up."
"It's going to get worse," he says. "After your wife dies." He holds the blanket up to his chin.

I feel foolish" title="Kaui Hart Hemmings Quotes: Hey," he says.
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The beauty of cinema is that it can do some things that novels just can't.

We walk up the sandy slope toward the dining terrace. I see Troy sitting at a table with some people I know. I look at Scottie to see if she sees him, and she is giving him the middle finger. The dining terrace gasps, but I realize it's because of the sunset and the green flash. We missed it. The flash flashed. The sun is gone, and the sky is pink. I reach to grab the offending hand, but instead, I correct her gesture.
"Here, Scottie. Don't let that finger stand by itself like that. Bring up the other fingers just a little bit. There you go. That's the cool way to do it."
Troy stares at us and smiles a bit. He's completely confused.
"All right, that's enough." I suddenly feel sorry for Troy. He must feel awful.

Scottie and I walk down the hall. Her T-shirt says MRS. CLOONEY,

Setting shouldn't just consist of describing nature or a landscape, or of saying where something takes place. It is the world of specific people. It's not enough for it to feel vivid or credible; it should feel necessary.

Where's Sid?" I ask. "Why do I always

Nothing has changed that much, even during filmmaking for 'The Descendants.' I wrote. I took the kids to school. I cleaned the house. And I had dinner with George Clooney.

I look in the jewelry box where Joanie found the drugs. She showed me a miniature Ziploc bag filled with a clear, hard rock.

"What is this?" I said. I never did drugs, so I had no idea. Heroin? Cocaine? Crack? Ice? "What is this?" I screamed at Alex, who screamed back, "It's not like I shoot it!"

A plastic ballerina pops up and slowly twirls to a tinkling song whose sound is discordant and deformed. The pink satin liner is dirty, and other than a black pearl necklace, the box holds only rusty paper clips and rubber bands noosed with Alex's dark hair. I see a note stuck to the mirror and pick up the jewelry box and move the ballerina aside. She twirls against my finger. The note says, I wouldn't hide them in the same place twice.

I let out a short breath through my nose. Good one, Alex. I close the jewelry box and shake my head, missing her tremendously. I wish she never went back to boarding school, and I don't understand her sudden change of plans. What did they fight about? What could have been so bad?

I'd always dread this part of being a guest in the morning - the tentative yielding into the house's normal traffic.

After college, I moved to Breckenridge, Colorado, and went snowboarding every day. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew what I didn't want to do. So I applied to grad school for writing, and I just gave it a shot and took it from there.

I just try to write what I think would really happen, and with grief and tragedy, there are these naturally occurring moments of levity and humor and absurdity. I think that's what life is really like. Sadness gets interrupted, and happiness gets interrupted.

We continue to eat, the conversation easy and flowing. I listen to everything everyone says, an urgency to pay attention, to not miss these moments you don't know are moments until they're gone. I narrow in, trying to hold it all in place, even though I think that if you document life this way, the moments will never set. We don't need to remember. Everything just becomes a part of you. And then it's over.

We need to get home and put some ointments and ice on the stings. Vinegar will make it worse, so if you thought Giraffe Boy could pee on you, you're shit out of luck."
She agrees as if prepared for this - the punishment, the medication, the swelling, the pain that hurts her now and the pain that will hurt her later. She seems okay with my disapproval. She's gotten her story, after all, and she's beginning to see how much easier physical pain is to tolerate than emotional pain. I'm unhappy that she's learning this at such a young age.
"The hospital will have ointments and ice," she says.

Scott still stares at Sid, then turns to Alice and hands her the Scotch. "We're going to go see Joanie today," he says.

Alice grins. "And Chachi?" she asks.

Sid bursts out laughing and Scott turns back to him, then places a hand on his shoulder, which makes me fear for his life. "You be quiet, son," Scott says. "I could kill you with this hand. This hand has been places."

I shake my head and look at both Sid and Alex.

Scott lifts his hand off Sid's shoulder and turns again to his wife. "No, Alice. Our Joanie. Our daughter. We're going to give her anything she wants." He glares at me. "Think about what she would want, Alice. We're going to get it for her and bring it to her. Bring it right to her bed."

"Joanie and Chachi," Alice chants. "Joanie and Chachi!"

"Shut up, Alice!" Scott yells.

Alice looks at Scott as though he just said "Cheese." She clasps her hands together and smiles, staying in the pose for a few seconds. He looks at her face and squints. "Sorry, old gal," he says. "You go ahead and say whatever you want."

"It was funny," Sid says. "All I was doing was laughing. She has a good sense of humor. That's all. Maybe she knows she's being funny. I think she does."

"I'm going to hit you," Scott says. His arms hang alongside him, the muscles flexed, veins big like milk-shake straws. I know he's going to hit Sid because that's what he does. I've seen him hit Barry. I, too, h

She looks at the Dictaphone in my hand.
"Are you recording this?"
"No, Alex, I was summarizing a deposition."
"How can you work?"
"How can you see a movie? How can you have a friend over?"
She looks away. Half of the room is bright from my lamp. The other side is dark, the sharp silhouette of the mountain framed by the window running across the room. The image always reminds me of a panoramic picture.

If Joanie dies before me, I wonder if I'll ever be with another woman. I can't imagine going through all of the preliminary stuff - the talk, the chatter, the dinners. I'd have to take someone places, explain my history, make jokes, dole out compliments, hold back farts.

I've never gone back to the stacks after my book's expiration at the front of the store. Not because I'm above it or anything, but I'd be mortified if someone caught me looking for my own book.

Adults appreciate the flavor of wine, its nuances and such. And we have major problems and stress.

I tell Esther she should ease up on lard. There's no need to mix lard in with Scottie's rice, chicken, and beans. I tell her she hasn't read the blogs. I've read the blogs. I know what Scottie should eat.

We're just kids growing up on an island, doing bad things in pretty places.

My God," she says. "I feel like I've gone through a car wash."

I laugh, or force myself to, because it's not something I'd normally laugh at.

"What about you?" she says to Scottie. "How did you make out?"

"I'm a boy," Scottie says. "Look at me."

Sand has gotten into the bottom of her suit, creating a huge bulge. She scratches at the bulge. "I'm going to go to work now," she says. I think she's impersonating me and that Mrs. Speer is getting an unrealistic, humiliating glimpse.

"Scottie," I say. "Take that out."

"It must be fun to have girls," Mrs. Speer says.

She looks at the ocean, and I see that she's looking at Alex sunbathing on the floating raft. Sid leans over Alex and puts his mouth to hers. She raises a hand to his head, and for a moment I forget it's my daughter out there and think of how long it has been since I've been kissed or kissed like that.

"Or maybe you have your hands full," Mrs. Speer says.

"No, no," I say. "It's great," and it is, I suppose, though I feel like I've just acquired them and don't know yet. "They've been together for ages." I gesture to Alex and Sid. I don't understand if they're a couple or if this is how all kids in high school act these days.

Mrs. Speer looks at me curiously, as if she's about to say something, but she doesn't.

"And boys." I gesture to her little dorks. "They must keep you busy."

"They're a ha

A sea of red lights, and I slow down. My job now is to gather everyone together and tell them we have to let her go. I won't tell anyone over the phone, because I didn't like hearing the news from the doctor that way. I have maybe a week to handle the arrangements, as the doctor said, but the arrangements are overwhelming. How do I learn how to run a family? How do I say goodbye to someone I love so much that I've forgotten just how much I love her?

You can't compare and rank heartache. Pain is pain is pain. There is no precise measurement. No quarter cup.

It's useless to criticize things that people love and something that speaks to them.

You've already said that," Alex says. "Why should I go?"

"You're the only person I have," I say. "And I want us all to be together. It will be good for us."

"Oh, so now I'm back in the picture again."

"Alex. Something bigger than you is occurring right now. I'm sorry about your unhappy childhood."

She glares at me in that special way of hers and Joanie's that makes me feel worthless and foul-smelling.

"So we'll tell Scottie we're going on a vacation while Mom is in the hospital?"

"It's for a day or two," I say. "Scottie's been in the hospital every day for almost a month now. She needs a break. It's not good for her. I'd like you to be in charge of answering any questions she may have. She looks up to you. She'll hang on whatever you say."

I'm hoping a leadership role, a specific chore, will make Alex act like an adult and treat Scottie well.

"Can you do that?"

She shrugs.

"If you can't handle things, let me know. I'll help. I'm here for you."

Alex laughs. I wonder if there are parents who can say things to their kids like "I love you" or "I'm here for you" without being laughed at. I have to admit it's a bit uncomfortable. Affection, in general, is unpleasant to me.

"What if Mom doesn't make it for two days?"

"She will," I say. "I'll tell her what we're doing."

Alex looks uncomfortable with this idea, that what I'll say wil

I try to think of it not as writer's block, but a time where you just need to live life and experience things so you have something to write about.

We've visited a lot, but being a visitor is very different from living in Hawaii, especially when you're going to high school.

I'll never be ready. Yet at the same time, you always want to reach the end. You can't fly to a destination and linger in the air. I want to reach the end of this thing, and I feel terrible about it.

Two days a week, I go to my office at The Grotto, a writer's collective in San Francisco. I get there at 8:15 and write until around 1 or 2 P.M.

I like to add props to render the specificities of place - paintings, food, clothing, signs, infrastructure, music, sayings and slang particular to the region and particular to the character. And props shouldn't just sit there; they should get used.

We don't treat each other very well, I suppose. Even from the start. It was as though we had the seven-year itch the day we met. The day she went into a coma, I heard her telling her friend Shelley that I was useless, that I leave my socks hanging on every doorknob in the house. At weddings we roll our eyes at the burgeoning love around us, the vows that we know will morph into new kinds of promises: I vow not to kiss you when you're trying to read. I will tolerate you in sickness and ignore you in health. I promise to let you watch that stupid news show about celebrities, since you're so disenchanted with your own life.

Joanie and I were urged by her brother, Barry, to subject ourselves to counseling as a decent couple would. Barry is a man of the couch, a believer in weekly therapy, affirmations, and pulse points. Once he tried to show us exercises he'd been doing in session with his girlfriend. We were instructed to trade reasons, abstract or specific, why we stayed with each other. I started off by saying that Joanie would get drunk and pretend I was someone else and do this neat thing with her tongue. Joanie said tax breaks. Barry cried. Openly. His second wife had recently left him for someone who understood that a man didn't do volunteer work.

I tilt my face up and inhale, willing my surroundings to enter me somehow and to remind me how small I am.

The sun is shining, mynah birds are chattering, palm trees are swaying, so what. I'm in the hospital and I'm healthy. My heart is beating as it should. My brain is firing off messages that are loud and clear. My wife is on the upright hospital bed, positioned the way people sleep on airplanes, her body stiff, head cocked to the side. Her hands on her lap.

I loved 'Belzhar' by Meg Wolitzer.

Why is it so hard to articulate love yet so easy to express disappointment?

I picture Cully tromping through that high, deep snow. That's how I feel physically from all of this. Moving through grief like it's a thick drift, exhausting but enlivening. It makes your muscles ache. It makes you feel you've inhabited your body completely.

I bet in big cities you can walk down the street scrowling and no one will ask you what's wrong or encourage you to smile, but everyone here has the attitude that we're lucky to live in Hawaii; paradise reigns supreme. I think paradise can go fuck itself.

I miss her despite the fact that she envisioned the rest of her life without me.

I see Dr. Johnston at the end of the hall, walking toward us. He stops talking to the other doctors and gestures for me to wait. He holds up his hand: Stop. His face is eager yet unsmiling. I look in the other direction then back at him. His steps quicken, and I squint, for some reason pretending I don't recognize him. And I think: What if I'm wrong? What if Joanie doesn't make it out of this?
"Scottie," I say. "This way."
I walk in the other direction, away from Dr. Johnston, and she turns and follows me.
"Walk quickly," I tell her.
"Why?"
"It's a game. Let's race. Walk fast. Run."She takes off, her backpack jiggling on her back, and I follow her, walking quickly then breaking into a slow jog, and because Dr. Johnston is my friend's dad and was a friend of my father's, I feel like I'm fourteen again, running from the patriarchs.

You're a dad-ass. Like a badass but older.

I let her go on with this fantasy, this belief in magical endings, this belief that love can bring someone to life.

Perhaps I did nothing because I don't have enough fear to be a good parent.

I hope she can't tell that I'm appraising her and that I'm completely worried by what I see. She's excitable and strange. She's ten. What do people do during the day when they're ten? She runs her fingers along the window and mumbles, "This could give me bird flu," and then she forms a circle around her mouth with her hand and makes trumpet noises. She's nuts. Who knows what's going on in that head of hers, and speaking of her head, she most definitely could use a haircut or a brushing. There are small tumbleweeds of hair resting on the top of her head. Where does she get haircuts? I wonder. Has she ever had one before? She scratches her scalp, then looks at her nails. She wears a shirt that says I'M NOT THAT KIND OF GIRL. BUT I CAN BE! I'm grateful that she isn't too pretty, but I realize this could change.

What's great about teen fiction is that it's all mixed up - there's highbrow and lowbrow!

My seven-year-old daughter knows old songs and how the neighborhoods got their names. There are little things: Businesses receive blessings from Hawaiian priests before opening, and everyone's kids have their debut luau. You can't really get through a day without doing something Hawaiian.

I can still love feeling so close to the sun and peaks of mountains, still love life at this altitude - it makes me feel like every breath counts.

Jonathan Franzen seems like the grumpiest guy, and he doesn't seem to like much of anything, so I really don't care what he has to say.

I felt like I haven't had the typical experience of a novelist whose book becomes a movie.

I drift off for a while. I don't know how long, but when I open my eyes, the Oscars are still on and Alex tells me that Sid has gone and this makes me a little sad. Whatever the four of us had is over. He is my daughter's boyfriend now, and I am a father. A widower. No pot, no cigarettes, no sleeping over. They'll have to find inventive ways to conduct their business, most likely in uncomfortable places, just like the rest of them. I let him and my old ways go. We all let him go, as well as who we were before this, and now it's really just the three of us. I glance over at the girls, taking a good look at what's left.

I lean down so that my face is right in front of hers and whisper, 'He doesn't love you. I love you.

Especially when I write, I want to get out of people's heads and have them speak and have them get dressed and have them go to work.

What are we talking about?" Alex says. "This is fucking nonsense."

The couple ahead of us turns slightly.

"What are you looking at?" Alex says to them.

I don't bother to reprimand her, because really, what are they looking at? I slow my pace and Alex punches Scottie in the arm.

"Ow!" Scottie screams.

"Alex! Why are we still on this pattern?"

"Hit her back, Dad," Scottie yells.

Alex grabs Scottie's neck.

"You're hurting me," Scottie says.

"That's kind of the point," Alex says.

I grab both children by the arm and pull them down to the sand. Sid covers his mouth with his hand and bends over, laughing silently.

"'What do you love about Mom?'" Alex says, mimicking her sister. "Shut up, already. And stop babying her."

I sit down between them and don't say a word. Sid sits next to Alex. "Easy, tiger," he says. I look at the waves crashing down on the sand. A few women walk by and give me this knowing look, as though a father with his kids is such a precious sight. It takes so little to be revered as a father. I can tell the girls are waiting for me to say something, but what can I say that hasn't been said? I've shouted, I've reasoned, I've even spanked. Nothing works.

"What do you love about Mom, Scottie?" I ask, glaring at Alex.

She takes a moment to think. "Lots of stuff. She's not old and ugly, like most moms."

"What

In putting setting to work, I like to think about long shots and close-ups. The long shot is the overall view of the place in which the characters live - the island, the town, the wide sweep of place. Then we narrow in. The close-up, the tight focus, makes the place different from anywhere else.

Tragedy brings change, and that's what I'm interested in most - how people plunge into change and try to fight, then eventually move with it with grace.

TIA OR TARA has stopped applying makeup to my wife's face and is looking at Scottie with disapproval. The light is hitting this woman's face, giving me an opportunity to see that she should perhaps be working on her own makeup. Her coloring is similar to a manila envelope. There are specks of white in her eyebrows, and her concealer is not concealing. I can tell my daughter doesn't know what to do with this woman's critical look.

"What?" Scottie asks. "I don't want any makeup." She looks at me for protection, and it's heartbreaking. All the women who model with Joanie have this inane urge to make over my daughter with the notion that they're helping her somehow. She's not as pretty as her older sister or her mother, and these other models think that slapping on some rouge will somehow make her feel better about her facial fate. They're like missionaries. Mascara thumpers.

"I was just going to say that I think your mother was enjoying the view," Tia or Tara says. "It's so pretty outside. You should let the light in."

My daughter looks at the curtain. Her little mouth is open. Her hand reaches for a tumbleweed of hair.

"Listen here, T. Her mother was not enjoying the view. Her mother is in a coma. And she's not supposed to be in bright light."

"My name is not T," she says. "My name is Allison."

"Okay, then, Ali. Don't confuse my daughter, please."

"I'm turning into a remarkable young lady," Scottie say

I love film and have taken a stab at a screenplay. I love writing dialogue and found it highly enjoyable.

your business," I say. "And you're not sleeping in

Fuck', I think. What a beautiful word. If I could say only one thing for the rest of my life, that would be it.

Reina sounds awesome," Sid says. "I'm digging her more and more."

"Were you there?" I ask. "Have you seen one of these movies?"

"No," Scottie says.

"Scottie," Alex says, kicking Sid in the ribs. "Reina is a fuckedup ho bag, and you need to stay away from her. I've already told you that. Do you want to end up like me?"

"Yes," Scottie says.

"I mean the earlier me, when I was yelling at Mom."

"No," Scottie says.

"Well, Reina is going to be a crackhead, and she's going to get used. She's a twat. Say it."

"Twat," Scottie says. She gets up and runs across the room, saying, "Twat twat twat twat twat."

"Holy shit," Sid says. "This is some messed-up parenting. Isn't it?"

Alex shrugs. "Maybe. I guess we'll see."

"I don't get it," I say. "I don't know what to do. These things she does, they keep happening."

"It will go away," Alex says.

"Will it? I mean, look at how you kids talk. In front of me, especially. It's like you don't respect authority."

The kids stare at the television. I tell them to get out. I'm going to bed.

The sun is getting warmer on my back, and I wish the air could stay the way it was moments before: the air of promise, the elements brewing but not quite cooked.

Don't pull out." "That's what she said,

When a place comes across vividly in a novel, it's often compared to a character. I can remember writing teachers who encouraged me to treat setting as if it were a character, to give it three dimensions, to make it come alive, jump off the page.

Stop it, Barry," Joanie said. "Get ahold of yourself. This is just how we work."
I agreed. When she told Shelley I was useless, I heard the smile in her voice and knew she was pretending to be irritated. Really, she wouldn't know what to do without my uselessness, just as I wouldn't know what to do without her complaints. I take it back. It's not that we don't treat each other well; it's just that we're comfortable enough to know that sarcasm and aloofness keep us afloat, and we never have to watch where we step.
"You are both so cold," Barry said that night.

Say goodbye to your mom."
Scottie pauses, then keeps going.
"Scottie."
"Bye!" she yells.
I grab her arm. I could yell at her for wanting to leave, but I don't. She pulls her arm out of my grasp. I look up to see if anyone is watching us, because I don't think you're supposed to aggressively hold children these days. Gone are the days of spanking, threats, and sugar. Now there are therapy, antidepressants, and Splenda.

Scottie" title="Kaui Hart Hemmings Quotes: Say goodbye to your mom."
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