Here They Come...

Two weeks ago on Maui, dark-grayish humpback whales began arriving in its waters. Likewise, barely-off-white North American vacationers commenced to fill its shores.

Winters of palm tree lined beaches, vine wrapped tropics, tank-top temperatures, and warm crystal blue and teal seas attract life from thousands of miles away.  An estimated 20,000 swimmers will play, slap, and perform sexual escapades in Hawaii’s gigantic lap pool from November to April.  And that’s just the whales.

Guides herd groups of twenty to forty tourists onto cruise boats to head off-shore.  There, she dips a microphone through the ocean’s plane, amplifying melodically soothing whale songs, serenading vacationers, validating each dollar spent to get here.  

Just the male whales sing, and each song is repetitive and unique.  Humans don’t know the why or the meaning of this testosterone crowd’s songs, not yet at least.  But research and speculation run rampant.

Female humpbacks give birth in the warmth of this lustful sea after almost a full year of pregnancy.  Then in this same winter’s playground, the female will most likely conceive again before leading her calf back to frigid Northern Pacific waters for a six-month multi-ton feast on fish and krill.

Last March we sailed this Maui sea with only winded sails pushing us parallel to a pod of whales.  Picture a peace so diametrically opposed to the hostility of Melville’s “Moby Dick.” No spears, no weapons, no need to eat, or use, or wear, these animals.  Curiosity and respect were mutual between sailors and swimmers.  And it all happened in silence.  Only the majestic and powerful ocean broke quiet’s enchantment by lapping at our boat, or reacting to a whale’s fin slap, or to an even more spectacular breach as a beautiful forty-ton being leapt out of then crashed through the ocean’s surface.

As for the newly arrived, barely-off-white North Americans, they are confiscating the entire inventory of carts at Safeway. (Like I am now ‘not like them’ for some unreasoned reason.) So this flip-flopped-me maneuvers through a bumper car ride of a grocery store with sandaled, black-socked and Bermuda short-wearing obstacles at every turn.  

And I am only into two months of entitlement as a resident of Hawaii. Who am I to move in then expect the grocery aisle to be mine, and only mine? I plead with my readers: I have suffered the cost of moving here. I have paid the price of admission.  Four times have I crossed the island because of confusing state requirements before I could register my car.  Five times have I traveled the Valley Isle to qualify for a driver’s license. The written test was simple.  The proof of human existence, excruciating.

What I do day-to-day this Maui November is a camping story in and of itself. Suffice it to say, Tom and I wake up each morning and force our selves off the floor and our makeshift air mattress bed; I go from reclined, to a down-dog yoga position, then eventually to vertical, after stacking vertebrae one at a time.

We eat our homemade meals on a patio table sitting on our yard’s red dirt.  Five days ago, our kitchen became operational.  Four days ago, our main bath.  Two days ago, our washer and dryer.  We keep our furniture in storage, away from the dust.  But it’s like Tom giving me the 12-days of Christmas in November, where I get something new each day. During construction we neglect why we moved here, and only plow forward.

But yesterday we took time off from construction to go to the beach.  It is on the beach where the barely-off-white vacationers remind us to be as happy as they are. 

The little things brilliant about Hawaiian life are so prevalent on these sands; a thrilling sea turtle swims by. A sunbather lounges and reads a book then pauses to glance up and out across blue crashing waves.  I look where she looks and think ‘yes, of course it’s beautiful.’  A father helps his two daughters build a sandcastle.  A dog gleefully runs into the surf to retrieve a ball his owner has thrown, and as I watch I anticipate the day five weeks away when we bring our little dog Chester here to also play.  

But the greatest reminder of Maui happiness is when we see a couple our age heading to the beach with expressions of incredible contentment and anticipation as they venture to enjoy one more of the seven all-too-short days of their island visit.  And I kick myself for even being in a bad mood, even briefly, over red dirt and a low-lying bed.