A’a i ka hula, waiho i ka maka’u i ka hale, but, ku’ia kahele aka na’au ha’aha’a. E hele me ka pu’olo…am I right?
It’s been a memorable week in Kauai. Our first time on the Garden Island. This year it is just the four of us on summer vacay, sadly. Vacationing without the Yus and Tais is like having ribeye without the three-olive martinis and creamed spinach. Still freakin’ delicious. But not as satisfying…
We’ve been staying in Kapa’a, on the east coast. For a week or so. While here we’ve been trying our hardest to get the most out of our short visit. We’ve been as vacationy as possible. Two nights ago we went to a wonderful Luau at the Smith Family Farm. (Imagine the Arboretum but with a Luau.) Upon entry, they boarded us on a tram that took us all around the farm in what can be considered breakneck speed, in Hawaiian standards. The tram never went slower than ten miles an hour as the driver quickly listed all the foliage that whizzed by — my kind of garden tour, because I super dislike looking at plants and flowers. It’s almost as bad as doing a math problem for fun. They get it. And I appreciate it.
”SMITH?” Charlie asked, armed with an eyebrow jacked into a mile-high arch of collegy accusation. That eyebrow was actually asking, “Is this yet another example of the white man sublimating the Hawaiian culture for his own profit?!!!” Well, the owner of the farm came out for the pig-pulling-out-of-the-ground ceremony and guess what? He explained that Smith was a name used to keep it simple for the tourists…which was the second instance of this phenomena that we had encountered – the first being earlier in the day when we learned that the ABC markets were named to…you guessed it…make it easy for the tourists to remember the store’s name. Thus, no appropriation…THIS TIME. Only business savvy Asians… so Charlie can once again feel comfortable with both sides of her bloodline…FOR NOW.
Anyhoo, Luau. Open bar. Endless pork and poi. Most excellent hula show afterward, complete with mini pyrotechnics and a fire dancing show which seemed to awkwardly be cut short due to what I could only guess might have been a singed body bit during a dramatic twirl. But no harm, no foul. The crowd was happily liquored (A Mai Tai’d Missouri woman behind us kept performing the cliché cowboy and Indian patted-mouth battle whoop whenever one of the hula dancers performed their dance yelps…) and the fire twirler came back out and impotently waved at the last minute as the crowd was getting up just to let everyone know that he was A-OK….Mahalo.
Soon it will have been a full year since Charlie left home for NYU. For New York. To become a New Yorker. Charlie leaving for New York was very tough on me. I had a total of three very public breakdowns before she left. Oddly, all at Vons. All while standing in front of Vons employees as I was paying for stuff. I now try to use the self-pay aisle whenever I can. But at this very moment, she is in our evil, repressive grip. In Hawaii. In Kauai. She spent the summer at home in the Arcadia gulag under our totalitarian rule. With a paid internship. In boring assed, nothingtodoville. Charlie has counted the minutes until her return to New York. Counting the seconds, literally. Check her Instagram page. But the countdown is nearly over, and she will be celebrating that anniversary, and her birthday, back in New York with her friends. Vons employees can rest easy, no nervous breakdowns from me this time around. I think I get it, now. The “it” relating to my first born leaving the coop. By the way, that “it” is a moving target. So just because I get “it” today doesn’t mean I will understand “it” tomorrow. And that’s parenthood in a nutshell. That’s why parents of one year-olds look so fresh and bright, and parents of college kids look so fucking chewed up. There’s a lot of rough road mileage in those years – and that’s if everything goes wonderfully! Okole Maluna. Anyhoo, the day after we return from our tropical stay Tiffany and Chase will travel to New York with Charlie to deliver her into the welcoming bosom of the Big City. But for right now…well, she’s still stuck with us. Mahalo.
Two days ago we went on a sunset cruise to view the Napali Coast. Dolphins swam along our 65 foot catamaran, “holding fins” as it were as we saw parts of Kauai that can only be accessed either by a multi-day hike or by sea. It was absolutely beautiful. Tiffany didn’t get sea sick and the girls took a lot of pictures, and the sunset was one to remember.
I don’t know why that particular sunset meant so much to me, but I found that it did. Tiffany and I stood on the front of the catamaran, plastic cups of champagne in hand with the girls beside us as the captain pumped Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s over-used yet sublimely superior version of “Over the Rainbow.” Was it because it was a rare, quiet, peaceful moment? In a rare, heavenly place? And we four were all experiencing it together? Was it because somewhere in the back of my head I know that our journeys as a unit are growing ever-so finite? Charlie is a young woman, now. No longer a little girl with a missing tooth angling for a purse made from a coconut. Chase is young woman, no longer demanding to be carried up the dormant volcano. Only three more years of high school for her, and then who know where her path leads. Is that why I felt as I did, standing next to my partner in crime, sipping bubbly, watching our closest star slip into the horizon? Or was it because nature has a way of reminding us how connected we are even when we kid ourselves that we aren’t? I don’t know.
With families it’s always GO GO GO. It’s rare to just be calm and quiet with one another. Even more rare to find that peace without it being cheapened with the kids pressing their faces into their phones. It’s so unusual to just “exist” in each other’s presence. That’s why road trips have been wonderful for us. Same goes for the little mini road trips on this vacay, as well. In a car. Existing together. Sharing an experience – even if it’s silence. Standing on a beach together, looking at the waves. Sitting at a weathered picnic table, being circled by busker chickens, sharing a shaved ice with four kinds of syrup- one for each of us but for all to share. Eating every meal family style – even when that’s not the style of the restaurant. Standing on the edge of our condo’s pond every night, watching the traffic of sleepy koi, tadpoles, guppies and frogs. Winding around the red dirt flanked roads in our rented white Jeep (Which I christened “Vi’aini” – the Hawaiian cousin to our road trip vans of yore.) with the top down – which I discovered is a great way to get your kids to look up from their phones and around at the scenery – because the bright sun and wind prevents them from being able to see their phone screens!!! Point is there is so much in our daily lives that pull us away from what matters. All the sarcastic, tribalistic fuckery and main-lined outrage. And that’s just on top of the normal rat race. But to quietly exist? With people you love? I’m finding that it’s more important than I ever realized before.
We utilized an app called SHAKA GUIDE. It was THE BEST. A GPS based narrated driving tour that pointed out important placed and things to see, and related relevant historical facts and legends as well. It’s the next best thing to having a personal tour guide. Our first day we did the North Shore Tour. We love Hanalei Beach.
We found that the waves there are deceivingly tasty for body boarding, if you are patient. Chase became quite a body boarder this trip and we returned to that beach Later in the week for seconds! On a different day we took the Poipu & Koloa Driving Tour. And another we did the Wailua Valley & Waterfalls Tour. And finally, before our sunset cruise, we squeezed in the Waimea & Na Pali Tour. The tour also pointed out great hikes but we as a unit aren’t very motivated hikers…so…yeah… But what was so special was the cornball narrator of this Shaka Guide app. He’d randomly break into what I assume can be considered pidgin English whenever he wanted to add “local” flavor… I really enjoyed the feel it gave the tour. This app was so good that I want to go back to the other islands and take the Shaka Tours there as well!
During this vacation in particular I kept picking up on a theme in Hawaii… In general the culture is, of course, more traditionally, historically, in touch with nature, therefore also just more in tune with the cycles of life, than I am, at least. Seasons. Change. And I realized as I was driving along, listening to our charming, goofy Shaka Guide, that this is the exact thing that has been on my mind of late. Change. I feel like in my life I’m in a more dramatic state of change right now than I have been in a long time. It’s probably mostly due to my girls growing up in more independent ways. Ways that require less of…me. As sure as the waves wearing down the face of a million year-old cliff. The sudden streaks of independent rains that come and go. The rays of sunshine that bake the lava rock. The rise and pull of tides. The movement of life. How do you control a changing season? You can’t. You can identify it. You can examine it. You can name it. Give it a face. A personality. Even assign a god to it, I guess. But really, what I learned from thousands of years of Hawaiian experience, is that the best thing that you can do with change is you can celebrate it. Accept it. Make it a part of your existence. Know it is coming. Welcome it. Make it a thing.
So maybe this trip…no. Nononono…OF COURSE this trip was a celebration. It’s a celebration of the people we are becoming. A celebration of Charlie and her yearning to return to a life she is establishing for herself in one of the greatest cities in the world. A celebration of Chase – who’s razor wit and humor is as deceptive as those waves of Hanalei…although I think our constant re-enactment of Aria peddling fresh oysters in Game of Thrones was about to make Charlie jump into the ocean. And it’s a celebration of Tiffany and me. The original team members. My navigator. Not just in Vi’aini, but in life. Our work far from done, the course merely altered.
Look at me! I’m so optimistic! This is what Hawaii does to you. You show up still vibrating with the whack energies of the mainland…then you start to slow down and get that aloha groove on juuuuust when you have to get on the plane and fly back. You promise yourself you’re gonna bring Hawaii back with you. Wear that shell necklace a little bit longer. Try to keep the tan. Decorate the house with tropical stuff. And do you? Sometimes. Maybe for a little bit… what about that aloha groove? I guess we will see this time around.
So tonight we celebrated Charlie’s 19th Birthday – since we won’t be on the same coast as her on her actual day. We’ve come a long way. And it’s all to be celebrated. That is what Kauai gave to me.
E hele me ka pu’olo.
