Copyright © 2005 by Blake Charlton. All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, reposting, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission of the author.
From: Blake Charlton
To: My Peoples
Date: May 8, 2006
Subject: Aloha, as ever
Dearly beloved you-guys,
As some of you know, to celebrate his successful struggle with cancer, my father decided to fly himself and me out to Kauai. I'm supposed to be working on my medical school personal statement and my book. But somehow writing down what I've seen seems so much more important. Little more than 24 hrs here and already so much to tell.
On the flight out, the crew played a 'half-way to Hawaii' game; they told us the number of miles, the true air speed, the jetstream velocity and vector. We're supposed to calculate, contemplate, consult a Ouija board, and come up with a estimate of what time we would arrive. Because we're geeks, dad and I inked calculations all across or complementary drink napkins, spent an hour arguing about the probable increase or decrease of the various forces and angles, came to an estimate down to the tenth of a second. Then to prove that we really aren't very good geeks, we tacked on five more minutes for good luck. Needless to say, we won--off by one second! The reward was less than spectacular: a box of chocolate covered Hawaiian nuts.
After unpacking in our room, dad and I padded up and down the beach. He took me into a tinny surf shop run by local highschool stoners. I rented snorkel gear; he bought a t-shirt. Best of all we befriended the kid behind the counter. I'm now signed up for the Po'ipu Surf School, first lesson tomorrow. I was so excited about swimming on Po'ipu beach that, after handing dad my shorts, I hoped right in from the surf shop and swam back to the hotel.
I can't tell you how wonderful Kauai is for a water baby. I swam and swam and swam--out to the drop off to feel to chill deepsea up-current swirl around me, then in to a boarder's cove to sprint in with the crashing waves. If you're going fast enough and hit them just right, the waves push you down and along with rollercoaster-WEEE-like speed. Then, when you're ready to bow out, you bend forward into a ball; the rip-curl pulls you under and you go rolling over and over in a maelstrom of sand and sea-foam. Out of the cove I swam to the breakers where most of the snorkels were 'dead-man-floating' and gesticulating at the bored but vivid sea-life: angle fish, clown fish, sea-urchins, brain coral, stag coral with the prongs broken off by greedy tourists.
I got a little too brave and wandered out to the surfers' break. More than once I had to duck-dive to avoid being paved over by a kahuna. On the way in, I passed a man covered in a wet suite and sporting a harpoon gun. His fins were long as streamers; a flick of the foot cast a rolling wave down the 4 feet of rubber and pushed him effortlessly through the water (yes, I know, I had fin-envy--what would Freud have said?). Behind him on a long cord floated a buoy with a red flag and net of skewered fish. I kept up with him long enough to see him dive and impale a hapless icthion.
While swimming back in, I watched the seafloor the seafloor rise until, with the bottom of my strokes, I grabbed onto rocks or sank my hands into snowy white sand and pushed myself along. I was enjoying the smaller sea life--tiny fish that became swimming silver shards flashing all around; miniature sea slugs with alien antennae; immature parrot fish hiding from the deep-water predators; giant, pale female legs that ran up into vast Mickey Mouse shorts.
The water was only two feet deep; I stood up and beheld a brunette Rubens-beauty wearing a black T-shirt with the laudable credo "THIS IS MY SATURDAY NIGHT T-SHIRT" emblazoned across it in dayglow pink. I was panting from my 2 hour swim and dripping wet. The Rubens looked me up and down as if she were a frat-boy and I were a freshwoman and says "Helllllllo sailor!" in a heavy Brooklyn accent. I ran…er…swam away. A few laps across the bay put the sun below the horizon.
When I came in, I found dad happily reading a murder mystery. We went to the gym for short spell and then to a famous "broiler" where we eat fish with names that sound like Polynesian poetry--ahi, oppa, mahi mahi. Sitting two tables over was the Rubens. She waved; I tried to hide behind my Mai Tai's umbrella.
Today we went hiking along the mountains above the Na Pali Coast. I had wanted to describe it in some detail but find myself exhausted by the above. I leave you with an unorganized manifest of today's images for your minds to piece together as they will.
Long streaming cumulus clouds impaling themselves on Kaua'i's peaks ; ferns, lots and lots of ferns; drizzling rain; flashes of sunshine; green Hawaiian Honeycreepers fluttering among the trees; more ferns; dad's formerly white sneakers moistly farting as he plods through the muddy patches of the red hiking path; ferns again; the distant sunlit ocean spanning every shade of blue from azure to indigo; deep valleys full of ferns; quiet copse floors covered by ferns; ferns in sunlight; ferns in the shade; ferns with rain falling on them; brilliant sunbeams slanting through the clouds; Jesus, more ferns!; a flock of snowy white birds winging through a canyon so far below they seem like specks; HOLY CRAP! IF I SEE ONE MORE DAMN FERN, I'M GOING TO… distant, waterfalls bounding salutatory cascades down a verdant cliff; the red mustang convertible; they long drive home; my mud-black legs running clean in the shower; the couch; this computer; this email.
Okay, now that I'm wondering dangerously close to meta-non-fiction, I'll stop the email and sleep now.
Aloha, as ever,
-blake