SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 /
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30:

Sunday is to pack and run around. It’s mercury retrograde, and I believe it. I’m still spacey from conducting our 5-Day Professional Hypnotist Training that ended on Friday. The energy exchange with the participants is invigorating, but after a long seminar I’m usually only to be trusted watching Godzilla movies for a couple days. I lose my checkbook, do things backwards. After a quick trip to the office, I stop at Tower Records to pick up some music for the trip -- new Steve Earle and Chieftains CDs.

Our children Hunter (16) and Cheyenne (14) will be accompanying us on this adventure. We all manage to finalize our packing and arrive at LAX a little before 10 PM. This is the appointed time, although our French charter plane doesn’t leave until 12:50 AM. Check-in is smooth. The airport shops are closed, with the exception of McDonald’s and a sushi take out. Hunter and Cheyenne head to McDonald’s, I have sushi and Tara has green tea.

At the currency-exchange window, I buy $200 worth of French Pacific Francs -- a graphic reminder we’ll be entering French territory.

“No fighting with French people,” Tara says.

“Nah.”

I’m easy to get along with, but for some past-life reason (I’m assuming), the French push my buttons. They’re a test. That which you resist you draw to you. And if you can’t learn the easy way, that which you resist you become in a future life. I’m one-eighth French in this life and I do not want to come back 100-percent French in my next life. So if for no other reason than to live my philosophy, I will get along with them this time. (I’ve written about this testing in “With Your Spirit Guide’s Help.”)

The French won’t queue. Everyone else is willing to line up to wait for a bus, or to enter a theater or get on a plane. But some bourgeois superiority instinct arises within this nationality and they figure they belong at the head of any line, so they just crowd in. This, however, does not work when I’m waiting in the line. They also tend to yell at you if you can’t speak their language, or for any other reason they deem appropriate. Tara speaks a little French, so I let her talk for me and there is no yelling.

“No fighting,” Tara repeats.

I nod in agreement.

French Corsair Airlines boards the 747 late. We have four seats across in the center section. Finally settled comfortably in my seat, I prepare to listen to music on my Walkman and read a Tahiti travel book.

The French woman seated in front of me kicks my feet. She wants to use my foot space to stow her bags. “That’s not how it works,” I say. I proceed to nicely explain that she is to put her bags under the seat in front of her or in the overhead bins.

“NAH, NAH, NAH,” she yells and kicks some more.

I look at Tara who looks at me with that, “I can’t take you anywhere look.”

The French woman continues to talk very loud, telling everyone else who understands French that I’m a “bastard.” I do catch that word. This attracts the flight attendant who explains to the woman how things work.

The complaining stops, but I’m now the enemy and when the stewardess leaves, the woman gets her foot under the seat and tries to drive the high heel of her shoe into my toes.

The French are a “mirror” for me. The positive or negative qualities you react to in others are a reflection of the same qualities within you. While I never cut in line, there must be a part of me that takes advantage in less obvious ways. Mentally scanning my experiences, I find some related areas I’d prefer to ignore.

But what about this woman who jumps to the conclusion that my foot space belongs to her? A faulty assumption. I’m respectful of other people’s space, so I refuse to see a reflection here. Next, I explore the idea of jumping to inaccurate conclusions. I don’t have to search far to find some personal examples that relate. Damn! The mirror is probably the most frustrating human-potential concept of them all.

For over an hour, the plane sits at the gate awaiting a flight from Paris. More French people.

We take off 90 minutes late. I put on my sound-killing headphones and fall asleep about 3 AM. I awaken later to see an attractive French flight attendant standing above me staring. “You are a famous American actor, yes?”

“No.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, really.” I rub my eyes trying to reorient to an alien world.

“Be honest with me, yes.”

“No.”

This exchange has attracted the attention of the hateful woman seated in front of me who is now glaring over the top of her seat.

“Really, I’m not an actor. I’m a writer.”

“No, your series ran a long time ago.” She smiles a knowing smile and shakes her head. She knows I’m lying but changes the subject by asking if I would like dinner.

Dinner? It’s 4 AM. I know French people eat late, but come on.

By now Tara is awake and I can tell by the look on her face, she thinks I’ve generated another encounter.

We eat a chicken dinner. Cheyenne joins us. Hunter sleeps through.

As uncomfortable as it is, we all manage to sleep until 8 AM (LA time) and miss a breakfast of croissants and yogurt. Judging from previous French experiences, we’ll have plenty of croissants over the next week. After some humble begging on my part, a male flight attendant brings us oversized cups of French coffee. He says, “Ah ha, you really like French coffee better than American coffee, yes?”

I smile and thank him, but do not tell him I hate French coffee, which is thick as tar, extremely bitter and usually served in a shot-glass size cup. But I’m grateful for any coffee right now. Tara and I drink it down. “Whew!” I don’t think anyone needs to wake up THAT FAST.

The female flight attendant passes out Tahiti Entry cards. She gives me a look that says, “You don’t fool me.”

We arrive in Papeete at 6:45 AM, three hours earlier than Los Angeles time.

The plane stairway descends to the runway. It’s raining and overcast, but the air smells of flowers and foliage. The island rises out of the turquoise sea just I imagined. The passport process and luggage retrieval is easy. We all receive gardenia leis and are directed to a bus that drives us across the island. Even Hunter and Cheyenne are outwardly excited at being here. I’m shocked. Teenagers never get excited about anything adults can relate to.

At the docks, we await a catamaran ferry that will take us to the island of Moorea. I’m about to ask one of the greeters and baggage handlers a question, when a pretty woman says something to him in French. He replies. She evidently doesn’t like his response, so she yells and decks him with a fist, followed by a slap. He violently shoves her away and a male separates them as they continue to exchange expletives.

I look at Tara who is standing six feet away. I know she thinks I have somehow inspired this exchange.

The greeter/baggage handler turns to me and says, “Are you going to give me grief too?”

Maybe it’s mercury retrograde, maybe it’s my karma. But I think it has more to do with French genetics. No resistance. No resistance. Peace, light and love.

The ferry is clean and the half-hour ride enjoyable. Once we’re a few miles out to sea, looking back at Papeete, a strip of ochre-colored smog is evident drifting several miles across the horizon. “Not here too.”

As we disembark the ferry, the woman who started the fight with the baggage handler gives me a long sweet smile. Tara elbows me in the ribs and whispers, “The mean ones always like you.” She snickers.

I choose silence as the most appropriate response considering how things have been going.

When the baggage arrives, one of Tara’s suitcases is partially open. (We find out later her case of CDs has been stolen. She laughs because most of the discs were our meditations, music and mind programming. “The Universe wanted someone else to have them,” she says.)

A bright yellow bus whisks us a quarter of the way around the island to our destination. Moorea appears to be the tropical paradise of my fantasies. The Hotel Kaveka (www.mooreaisland.com/kaveka) is as enticing in person as it looked on the web. Lanai bungalows edge the water. There is a small sandy beach.

In the hotel restaurant, Greg, the owner/manager, provides an orientation for the arriving guests. Fresh pineapple juice is served. In the lounge, CNN is playing in English on an overhead TV. A computer is available for e-mail.

There are no TVs or phones in the lanai bungalows, which are pretty bare bones by any hotel standards. Two twin beds pushed together form a double bed with a strip of wood in the middle. The shower is a tiled open area. The interior vaulted ceiling is palm thatching and permanently open slats allow the outside inside. Hunter and Cheyenne are in the bungalow next door.

Although the drizzly rain continues, we want to explore. The small community of Maharepa is a couple miles away and we set out on foot. Hunter comes with us. Cheyenne wants to shower and rest. On the way to town, we stop at Maria Tapas -- a tiny eatery featuring fish and chicken kabobs.

We spend nearly two hours sitting beneath a stick-roof enclosure, enjoying the food and atmosphere. By the time we hike to town our clothes are wet, but the temperature is so warm we’re not chilled. Cheyenne is catching cold, so we pick up more holistic remedies and mosquito lotion that smells like coconut oil. At the grocery store we buy Chey cheese and a huge croissant.

Hunter and Tara in the outdoor patio at Maria Tapis Restaurant shortly after arriving on Moorea.

In a shop, Tara finds plastic reef-walker sandals and mini pareus for herself and Cheyenne. Optimistically, Hunter picks out sunglasses. I talk with the shop owner who tells me the rain could last a week or two. I’m tired of water dripping into my eyes, so I purchase a floppy-brimmed hat with yellow flowers all over it.

“That’s the worst hat I’ve ever seen, Dad,” Hunter says.

At dusk, we sip Pina Coladas outside the restaurant on a deck over the coral reef. The rain stops and the sky clears to cast surreal lighting over lush green mountains that jut at severe angles into the orange sky. Palm fronds rustle as the breeze picks up. We don light jackets. (This will be the only time we wear jackets all week.)

Click HERE for the continuation
of Dick’s Moorea Journal

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