I don't know about you, but I missed
me. After having done so weekly for about six years, three weeks
have now passed since I've written here. My decision to scale down
the blog from weekly to monthly was ostensibly to allow more time for
other writing projects. But, except for a couple of postcards, the
additional writing I'd envisioned is, as of yet, unwritten. My usual
writing days have been spent in Hawaii and then in a dental chair
having some teeth yanked. Despite having good excuses it does feel
weird not to conclude each Friday by posting a piece of writing.
I bring a manuscript about my family on
the plane and get through about a hundred pages of a final edit.
I've done lots of piecework but it has been many months since I
considered these 160 pages as a whole book. When the plane lands at
the Lihue airport I feel the presence of my parents and sister more
than I have in a long time. Our trip is to join my niece Cari in
celebrating the successful completion of a grueling course of chemo
and radio therapy for the treatment of breast cancer. She has rented
a large comfortable house right on the ocean, and very eager to
please us, has carefully planned an itinerary. Cari is the daughter
of my sister Sheri. She was adopted and raised by another family and
came back into our lives about thirty years ago. She lives in Gold
Rush Country and we only see her and husband Mike a couple times a
year. Their daughter Marlene and Kevin join us in Kauai. Now that
both of my parents and sister are gone and other relatives have
drifted away, my kids, Cari, and Marlene are the only blood relatives
I have in my life. I step off the plane with the tale of my parents
and sister very fresh and then spend a concentrated few days with my
sister's daughter and granddaughter.
Cari and Marlene have felt like family
for a long time but it is nearly Gothic, how thrown together in a
big house this intensifies. How right it feels to be with people
whose mealtime conversation is devoted mainly to planning the next
meal. I am hard on my sister Sheri in my manuscript and the time
with Cari inspires some adjustments. Sheri loved to eat and she
loved to drive. Where I am more conservative and timid, like my Mom,
Sheri lived to have fun. There were many times she'd swoop down on
Fulton Avenue and rescue me. We'd have a meal and drive around. I
am a terrible car passenger, always pounding an imaginary brake until
my leg is numb. Sheri, however was an incredibly confident driver.
I was always safe when she was behind the wheel. I don't think I'd
ever driven with Cari. She's rents a ginormous van and takes us all
around the island. She maneuvers it expertly, just like her birth
mother Sheri. How grateful I am to have been able to sit in the
backseat and totally chill, cruising through some of the most
beautiful scenery the planet has to offer.
Himself has covered the Hawaii trip in
exquisite detail on his own blog so I haven't much to add except for
my own take on the epic kayak trip. We discover we've been enrolled
for a prepaid excursion. Himself, having always had a fear of
sunshine is stricken and in a state of grim resignation.
Anticipating that during five days in Hawaii, particularly as
house-guests, it will be difficult for him to avoid the sun as
assiduously as he does at home, I purchase Neutrogena 100 SPF
Sunblock for him. My beloved pessimist is convinced that the lotion
will prove ineffective and he will be hospitalized on life support
with third degree burns. Just to make clear that Himself holds no
hegemony on neurosis in our relationship, I have a lifelong aversion
to any physical activity other than walking on a flat, smooth surface
and also to wearing a bathing suit.
Our kayak trip and waterfall hike has
been advertised as fine for toddlers and grandmas. My niece Marlene
is more than a little pregnant but this too apparently is no
counter-indication. The kayaks are unloaded at the pier.
Instructions on piloting a kayak are delivered at a speed that would
have give a run for the money to that fast talking guy who did the
old Fed Ex commercials.
Marlene and I relieve our (pregnant and
old, respectively) bladders and some of the kayaks have already
launched when we return to the pier. Cari and Mike have already
embarked. Instantly, they capsize. The kayak floats down the river
and Cari and Mike, up to their necks, tread water. A staff member on
the pier muses, “Gosh, we haven't had one tip over in about six
weeks.” Marlene's husband Kevin reports, that for him, the image of
the calamity that's most resonant is the expression on my face.
Himself confesses to me later, that despite his concern about Cari
and Mike getting dumped into the river, he harbors a ray of hope that
now the whole mission will now be aborted. I am absolutely on the
same page.
Cari and Mike are intrepid and
undaunted though. I am not being hyperbolic and it has been borne
out by experience, again and again; I am the least coordinated
person on the planet. Himself, for all his intellectual nimbleness,
comes in second. Cari and Mike, who are at least cheerful and
enthusiastic about the activity, can't manage to stay afloat. We are
so fucking doomed. My inner voice screams, “Moron, just bow out now
and you won't die,” but we are guests and I am determined to be a
good sport. I am in a bathing suit (God bless Land's End for
designing a suit bottom that is closer in design to shorts, not one
of those skirt things that bisect your thighs at their flabbiest
point) and about to get into a kayak. We have been instructed that
the heavier person needs to sit in the back and take responsibility
for steering. Guess who that is. Every aspect of this situation is
tantamount on the humiliation scale to farting loudly at the
communion rail. Himself, who does not pride himself on his athletic
prowess and is still almost catatonic in the anticipation of fatal
sunburn, is equally glum.
We are guided into the kayak and handed
an oar. The little bit of instruction we were able to absorb is
mostly misheard and I have the impression that only a portion of the
oar is to be immersed in the water. We are stuck in the bushes a
number of times. Voices are raised. A fellow kayaker instructs us
how to brake. Then, we brake repeatedly and are never able recover
any sort of momentum. Marlene and Kevin glide ahead of us. Very
soon the six other kayaks in the group have long passed and are out
of sight. Only Cari and Mike are behind us, under the close
supervision of the leader. They capsize two more times. Cari begs
to be allowed to swim and is refused. Mike ends up riding with the
leader and Cari and her kayak are towed behind. They are much
better sports than we would have been.
The plan is that the brief kayak trip
is followed by a short hike to a waterfall. The river seems endless
and when we finally reach the trail the other kayakers have been
waiting about an hour. The waterfall stroll is actually through
pretty dense jungle and requires wading over slippery rocks to cross,
what the same people who invited toddlers and grannies refer to as, a
“stream.” Again, we are at the end of the pack and require a
disproportionate amount of the leader's attention. The leader is a
native. She has no body fat that I can discern and is barefoot. I
hate her. I suggest on the ride home that anyone so buff and
beautiful must be stupid. I am corrected by Mike and Cari, who
having spent a lot of time with her as she propelled them up and down
the river, learn that by day she teaches Algebra and Music. Two
other things I suck at. My antipathy exceeds hated.
The waterfall trek is five miles round
trip. Due to klutz-related delays the picnic/waterfall swim portion
of the journey is abridged although I do manage to make it over some
very treacherous rocks and swim a bit under a waterfall. Himself
stays on the shore, drinks a beer and applies another heavy slather
of sunblock. The swimming hole risk is totally gratuitous and I am
emboldened by having taken the plunge. On the hike back to the river
I keep up with the pack by following a young guy and mirroring his
every step. Helen Reddy belts “I Am Woman” in the back of my
mind.
There are headwinds and the kayak trip
back down the river is arduous. We have learned however how to work
in rhythm and as exhausting as the return journey is, there are fewer
terrifying moments this leg.. We even relax enough to take in the
spectacular scenery. We remain behind the others and toward the end
fatigue sets in. The pier comes into view and by then we are just
too exhausted to steer. The rest of the group think we backed the
kayak into the slot on purpose but it is just dumb luck we make it
there at all. We never would have agreed to participate in this
trip if we'd known what was entailed. But having survived and
actually pretty much enjoyed the experience, is a memory I will
always cherish. Plus, the sunblock is 100% effective as Himself is
still as pasty as ever.
The rest of the trip is less dramatic,
having survived the ordeal we happily succumb to good food and
beautiful scenery. I return to spend two days in the office and then
travel to Loma Linda to have some teeth extracted. This is a few
miles from Joe College's college and he is my designated caregiver.
He drives me to my motel, fills my prescriptions and picks up
provisions for a liquid diet. I am acutely aware of the role reversal
and delighted by his graciousness and competence but I keep my trap
shut. The boy hates it when I blather on about stuff like that. I
spend two nights at the motel. One night actually would have
sufficed but as I am unable to wear a front tooth flipper for two
days so I decide to lay low. The second day the boy and I do some
shopping in Redlands where missing front teeth are less conspicuous.
I guess one good thing about not
writing so regularly is that there's more to write about when I do.
And when I was not writing I spent time with Cari and her family. I
am reminded that the turmoil and grief my sister caused shouldn't
overshadow what I loved about her. And when I was not writing
Himself and I rowed in rhythm and traversed the jungle, all without
sunburn. And when I wasn't writing I was nursed and cared for by my
own son. And when I wasn't writing I felt so incredibly lucky that I
couldn't wait to return to my keyboard here and express my gratitude.
Shabbat Shalom
Note: Himself is always scrupulous about crediting photos and artwork he uses. I am too lazy but I will note the photograph I used above, and so many other wonderful family photographs we've treasured over many years, was taken by the talented Mike Maginot.
3 comments:
I laughed aloud, for once if not more, to see us as characters in your own tale. Not a tall one, but as entertaining a one. Even if that sounds egotistical. Cari, Mike, Marlene, and Kevin patiently hosted and helped us and I thank them again for this gracious hospitality and a chance to see a place I barely knew existed even on a map. And, you for making the trip happen, sunscreen (reviewed by me duly on Amazon) and all. Now, I have wonderful memories. For the record, here's mine, if less humorous and more pedantic--with more of Mike's photos. Glad here and there to have remembrances and scenes of beauty (and one of terror?) stored from the Garden Isle. Aloha and shabbat shalom, xxx me
I could have totally swam the entire river with much, much, much more grace and style than I exhibited in the fucking kayak.
Kayaking up the Wailua was a memorable experience, but I took much more satisfaction in the family meals that you prepared for us because the table never tipped.
As the earlyrisers of the group,it was nice to share a cup of strong coffee and the sunrise while we surfed the web to our ritual sites.
I have only had time to blog a brief preface to the Kauai adventure. I'm still going through photos and mulling over two weeks of sensational sights and sounds.
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