March 2, 2014 Sunday

Imperfect Paradise

It’s a cold winter’s evening. I am wearing socks, my old fleece jacket from San Francisco, and my head awaits the ski cap for bedtime. Either Mother Kauai is suffering from global climate change or I am just getting old.This month, on the 21st, I will be 57 years old. Nothing compared to geological time, but shockingly old to me.Twelve years ago, Mom died at the age of 84. She was born on October 12,1921. Doing the math is easy now. I too am a lot closer to my time of death than date of birth. I remember Mom running around the restaurant from the kitchen to the dining room announcing her 50th birthday, shouting gleefully ” I am half a century! I am half a century!”

I was just a kid thinking Mom is nuts and really old, ” Are all old people nuts like my Mom?”. Raising 5 children on her own and running a restaurant did make Mom nuts and people loved her for it. I don’t remember any kind of special birthday party for her, but Mom celebrated in her own way. Too busy cooking food,baking pies and arranging parties for her customers, Mom danced and laughed alone oblivious to the staring eyes and crooked smiles around her.

This morning I thought about her a lot. It has been raining for weeks and it was still raining at 6:30 am. My co-worker Alicia, my best buddy from the Pie Shop, was standing outside the store with me. We stopped to buy some dramamine for motion sickness. She listened and waited patiently while I hugged the old metal toy rocking horse.A nickel a ride relic of nostalgia. Alicia is my budd. Even after driving in the cold, dark rain for almost an hour (which is a long drive here) she lets me ramble on about my childhood.The old general store had been renovated and updated,but the rocking horse ride was still sitting there.

The new-old store was open really early selling typical local products like papaya, rice, fish and poi. The updated aisles were filled with items like ice cream from Vermont , European chocolate, energy bars,and dramamine. The shelves stocked with products from around the world accommodating visitors who can fly directly to Kauai from major US airports and of course,indirectly, from anywhere. All unimaginable when I was a kid. Just getting a hula hoop and a small plastic cup of chocolate ice cream was a big deal back then. The chocolate (just plain, not Belgian/ 60% cacao) ice cream cup had a round paper cover you pulled off and licked on the inside before dipping your paper wrapped, wooden spoon shaped ,stick into it. If I still had an extra nickel then I could really have an adventure riding the toy horse and eating ice cream at the same time, pretending to be someplace else. The   50th State is not so isolated anymore. The population has tripled since I was a child. Today traffic starts early and so does the shopping. Hula hoops are still available.

Too old for hula hoops, Alicia and I buy our dramamine and drive to the boat harbor to meet our co-workers, the Pie Lady and her mother, Pie Mom. The Pie Lady, Susan, now has a Pie Shop/Bakery with a staff of 5 employees, including myself. Can’t believe it’s the 4th year with the Pie Lady. Time flies when you start getting old. Cliches have become part of my language because now I know they’re true to life. “Live and Learn” my Mom always used to say. I find myself saying it now that I am over half a century. Still here and still living and learning from Mama Kauai. I stopped listening to my Mom when I was a teenager. I didn’t respect her cliches and uneducated manner. All the costly years of education she worked so hard to give me did not sink in until much later. Mama Kauai is making sure I respect and remember the past. She is also reminding me to get some dramamine for myself, Alicia and fellow co-workers. Today is our adventure sailing tour with the Pie Lady and her mother ,who is visiting from Wisconsin.

The Pie Lady has become a great success within the last 4 years. She can afford to treat all of us employees and her Pie Mom to a fun New Year adventure. Although its closer to Chinese New Year than January !st.The holidays are way too busy for an outing with the pie crew. So we all eagerly awaited our yearly, late, yet merry holiday bonus surprise. This year is a 6 hour cruise along the southern coast watching whales, dolphins and snorkeling with turtles and plenny fish. It’s cold, gray, and drizzling but the sea is calm.The high surf is on the north side of the island, so we go south. It’s cute to see Pie Mom, so happy in her shorts, tank top and flip flops. She’s smiling,standing next to her daughter, who is bundled up like the rest of us in our jackets and long pants. We complain about the endless bad weather. Yet all of us are happy because we get to hang out together and pretend to be “Visitors” (no one says tourists anymore).

Respecting the past like respecting the sea can be easily forgotten when your daily life is spent literally going around in circles on this little island. Like most working people in Hawaii, including middle class professionals, I work 2 sometimes 3 jobs,(Hawaii has the lowest salaries and highestcost of living in the United States) but today I forget about work and enjoy play. Like the whale jumping, spouting and spinning on the misty horizon all of us “visitors” are excited about our day beginning. Humans are migratory creatures, like our fellow air breathing mammals the whales and dolphins and our nomadic reptiles the sea turtles. The sea turtles need only one breath of air at the surface then can dive and stay underwater for 5 hours.The captain of the luxury catamaran educates us while he sails. There are about 20 visitors aboard. His crew includes a chef and servers preparing for our grilled lunch with beer and wine.

It is humbling to remember how hard my mother worked in the days before luxury sailboat tours and the GPS maps guiding visitors (not tourists) to Port Allen ,the harbor which neighbors Hanapepe.It is 7:30 am, the catamaran leaves the harbor, a whale jumps up on the horizon, spinning as if in slow motion then a big pod of dolphins approaches us.There are many more of them than us two legged mammals aboard ship. The captain says this is unusual.Dolphins generally travel in smaller groups called pods. We are lucky today, the sky is gray but the sea is calm and the rain has stopped. A baby dolphin wakes up before her parents, leaping out of the water. I sleepily applaud. It feels dreamlike with Mama Kauai pausing, fast forwarding and rewinding today, tomorrow and yesterday in my sleepy head. In a way it does kind of feel like a super, mega,deluxe 3D-IMAX,15 feet tall screen, air-conditioned,surround sound, dark and very damp movie theater .Perhaps its the sea going breakfast buffet with its combination of dramamine, hot coffee, warm,sticky cinnamon rolls, and sweet fresh pineapple playing with my sensory perceptions.Did I drop my 3D glasses in the ocean? I hope its biodegradable.

For Pie Mom, from Wisconsin, its a warm summer vacation. For the Pie Shop crew, its our cold winter holiday. The captain says the dolphins are swimming quietly, not jumping and splashing because they are still asleep (except the baby). Half their brain is asleep, while the other half navigates and swims. I have migrated home to Mama Kauai with my brain half asleep for about half a century. I begin to remember the intelligence, beauty and patience of my mother, who died when she was 84 years old. I awaken to Mama Kauai’s guidance and grace. Mama Kauai is alive and well. She will remain long after the rest of us on board this boat are all dead and maybe even after we as a species have driven ourselves into extinction. The whales will sing songs about our unfortunate demise,odd sea vessels and teeny,tiny brains of which only 10% was used. They will sing in huge choruses all over the planet, relieved we disappeared first.

Mama Kauai is only 60 million years young, says the captain. She is the eldest of her sister islands, yet still just a geological baby rising out of the ancient sea. The island chain of Hawaii is the most isolated bit of land on planet earth. Kauai is the oldest and northern most island in the chain of 8 islands. She is the eldest sister and her highest mountain top,Mt. Waialeale, has the most rainfall on earth.

This morning the rain has stopped temporarily and I am enjoying the company of all my fellow migratory creatures.The captain stops the boat at a place offshore where several turtles are surfacing. We clumsily dive in with our snorkels and fins. I think to myself, the turtles must find our lack of intelligence and poor skill in the water amusing. They quickly disappear from us, so we’re probably more of an annoyance. It was fun anyway.We all climb back on board feeling very satisfied with our fleeting encounter. Maybe our primordial cellular memory recognizes our original bond to the sea. The birthplace of all life on earth. I grab a hot cup of coffee and leftover cinnamon rolls from our morning buffet breakfast. The dramamine is working fine.

Wow,I wonder. Have we progressed as a species? Are human beings beginning to evolve beyond our aggressive, violent, self destructive nature? Is our ignorant human species starting to redeem itself? Too much coffee, sugar and the close company of more intelligent sea creatures is freaking me out in a good way. Am I redeeming myself? Am I finally maturing? Is dramamine addictive? ” Time will tell “, the old saying goes.