Wetness upon Wetness

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Dear Feed Store Zealots,
Raining, raining, raining… at least it’s warm, about 70 or so and slowly rising as the sun rises over the ocean. It is pretty early, about 6:30 and everyone is still sleeping. The grandkids, Maya and Adam slept in my room last night so Momma Dawn could drive over to spend the night with my son Matt in Kona.
Kona is the dry side of the island, resplendent with white sand beaches, as opposed to the black sand on the wet, Hilo side. Matt’s installing a large industrial solar array on a white metal roof: he came home this weekend dark brown from the neck up and the forearms down… classic working man’s t-shirt tan. It takes about 2 and a half hours to get over there, but after days of rain it is a fantastic break, even for a day.
Everything is wet here: the ground trying hard to soak in the daily rain, the trees clean and shining, the mold and mildew softening furniture and clothing and skin. My skin has taken on a warm glow, the wrinkles in my face easing with the moisture and the tonic effect of rain and sea water. Not drinking so much, or smoking, and sleeping 8-10 hours a night, I feel calmer and more peaceful and want to start working out again, get in shape.
Uncle Dave just arrived with little cousin Muffata in tow, telling stories about spear fishing for Opakapaka and having to swim hard against a powerful undertow last Saturday. I was at the favorite beach, Richardson’s, that day, too, and I experienced the undertow while swimming in the little bay. The waves were 3-5 feet coming in over the reefs, surfers everywhere farther out, catching the waves about 400 yards from shore. Between the reefs and the lava-rock beach there are coral formations and a lot of tropical fish and sea turtles.
I had swum out with ease, aided by the tide, and was rising and falling like a leaf floating on the incoming waves. A few other swimmers and snorkelers were out, but not many, due to the warning signs posted on the beach. The lifeguard watched casually from his perch, longboard resting against the base of the tower. I am and always have been a good swimmer, used to compete when I was a teen and later was a lifeguard and competed with other lifeguard teams in LA. I was fairly confident, but knew I was handicapped by my bum shoulder.
After about 20 minutes I was cooling down below my (narrow) comfort zone, and getting a little tired. I had drifted farther out than I realized, probably 50 yards from the reef-surfers, and could see the other swimmers much closer to shore than I. Breast-stroking to keep my eyes on shore, I started back in. But every stroke forward left me pretty much where I started, and I could feel the sucking of the undertow on my feet when I stopped to rest my shoulder which was starting to ache.
Hmmm… I thought, this is going to be harder than I thought. I looked to the beach where my friends were hanging out, drinking beer, barbecuing, chatting and tanning. They weren’t concerned about me, knowing from past experience how strong and stubborn a swimmer I could be. In years past I would have swum out past the reefs and jutting volcanic peninsula to the open ocean to call dolphins and turtles, and swim in the cold blue of deeper water than the tepid inner coves. Today, without flippers or glove as last weekend, I was much slower in the water, and already running out of steam.
I rolled over onto my back and just kicked for awhile, letting the forward motion of the waves carry me to shore, but when I rolled back over to check my progress I realized I still wasn’t getting very far. Last time I tried swimming unaided, I found that my weakened left shoulder made me swim in a big circle if I didn’t compensate somehow. That was ok then, but now I needed in.
I slid over onto my side and began the classic deadbody tow, striking hard with my right arm, supporting my left on my hip, and frog-kicking like hell, trying to stay as high in the water as possible, sliding along the surface like a skidding saucer. Slowly, but surely I made headway, finally reaching the innermost cove where the newly arrived Midwesterners and little keikis played in mellow shallow water. I dragged myself to the rocky shoreline, winding my way half in and half out of the water through the submerged trail between the rocks to where my friends were partying.
Moonbunny, who had been watching apparently, flippers in hand, ready to come in after me, looked relieved, but a little pissed off. “Next time…” he said, indicating the flippers, “don’t do that again without telling me.” I felt idiotic, huffing and panting, out of breath and shaky. “Shit, Bunny, I forget that I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“Age has nothing to do with an injured shoulder.” He passed me a teriyaki skewer, Corona, and plopped a hat on my head. “You are nothing if not stubborn.” A doob came my way, and I gladly drew down the sweet, green smoke and gazed at the sea, getting silvery now as the sun started to slide behind Moana Kea to the west, knowing the Kona skies would be lighting up in vermillion hues while the purple bruise of the Hilo sunset would soon be upon us.
A soft rain began to fall, sending tourists and soft locals scampering to their cars. Those of us who know better pulled hats and towels over our heads, huddled closer under the sole umbrella, amused. Within minutes, the beach had all but cleared out, leaving us the run of the place. As I’ve said before, wait 30 seconds for the weather to change in Hilo.
As the sun returned, and the life guard climbed down from his post, the women dropped their bikini tops relishing the semi-privacy and sensual freedom of toplessness. I, of course, being the prude that I am wearing a conservative one-piece, looked on with curiosity. The two other women were forty and fifty respectively, golden tan from daily exposure, bellies and breasts one color. Clearly the Tahitian influence was embraced on this little stretch of sand. It pleased me to see them, so pretty and confident, and made me a bit jealous to be under wraps still, this haole skin still not ready for un-screened exposure, this grandmother body too soft and flabby to be seen by anyone but my intimate.
A late arriving batch of white-skinned, towel-bearing, bad short-wearing mainlanders wandered by, the women looking anywhere but at us, the father-husband looking nowhere but at the two beauties. The newbie women looked utterly uncomfortable, but I swear! I could hear the man’s thoughts: This is why I paid all this money to come here, and man am I glad. While his wife was thinking, goddammit, I knew I should have stuck to my diet! Stop oogling, Harry!
“Harry, Harry! Bring the chairs, Harry, for heaven’s sake. There’s no place to sit…”
Like the warm black sand and humps of rock aren’t somehow appropriate seats. Or maybe lowering and raising her considerable hulk to the ground would prove too strenuous. Or maybe she just needs Harry’s attention right now. He bustles over, yanking his eyes from Maya and Krista’s beautiful reclining bodies. His kids, in their early 20’s, maybe late teens, hardly notice, their eyes on the sea, the rocks, the outcroppings, the ironwoods swaying and singing in the moist, warm breezes. Taking it all in, all in.
We pop more beer, Douglas checks the hibachi, Bunny lights another spliff. The ladies recline languidly. I am rested and want back in the water, but know better. The ocean won’t settle down till the sun goes under, and I won’t swim after dark. Maybe tomorrow.
But it will be days before I can get down to the beach again, even though I know that somehow the liquid womb of the sea is exactly the tonic I need. Ancient Hawaiians, up till the past generation even, drank seawater daily as a cure all to stave off physical, emotional and spiritual depletion. If you relax and don’t fight the saltiness, it does taste good, and does seem to be a calmative and restorative. But then, we are mostly salt water, so it makes sense, except for the increasing toxicity from pollutants and the recent burst of microbes from effluent flushing out of Hawaii’s soils from urban developments.
Cuts and scrapes gotten in the ocean or in town or in the upland country require diligent cleansing and monitoring for things like necrotizing staphylococcus (‘flesh-eating bacteria’: a menace in hospitals that can kill you in 72 hours if not annihilated with a concoction of multiple antibiotics and transfusions) and other less-deadly but exotic bugs coming on planes and boats from all over the world. Drinking the seawater these days is a game of Russian roulette.
I doused scrapes gotten from the husky’s chain with hydrogen peroxide, scrubbing to get out any germs, remembering my last tetanus shot was here in 2005 after stepping on a nail at the preschool where I was an indentured slave for a summer. Then the wounds were tinctured with purple gentian, a powerful topical antibacterial, and then coated with Neosporin to keep out any airborne bugs. Three days later only one, the deepest one, shows minor signs of infection. We’re talking scratches mind you. Red, but not pus-sy, and scabbed over well.
Like I said, another wet day in Paradise.
Love and Aloha to all my friends in Brown’s Valley,
Celestial
PS: Maggie says Hi, but she’s cranky from a shortage of pool playing. I think she’s in withdrawal from snuff and Cope. Tables are too far away and at a buck a game, and a $10 (bad, warm) drink minimum, it’s a once-a-week-if-that habit now.