Te Amo & Broke in Waikiki

Cachaça – I still can still taste that Caipirinha sometimes, those nights it comes to mind...that sugar cane liquor, 80 proof but smooth and water-like, similar to the Honolulu-popular Soju that weʻd girls drink at the after-hour Korean bars. Went great with any juice, or just lime and soda water. Andre would bring it on days to impress or merely keep my girlfriends around. Grupo Pagode & Churrasaco playing “Chue Chua, Chue Chua...” on the backyard speaker those humid summer nights in Diamond Head. The barely clothed women dancing – quick feet switching forward and back between the fast beats, happy, carefree, colorful feel – like children. Maybe thats why I felt so comfortable with them. Cause four years is a long time, to be in a culture not your own. But then again, all those months, years, shares of liquor and pot-deep dishes, bed sheets, children at the beach bbq with us all become a part of the culture molded into “your own.”

Farofa or Yuca/Cassava was a mild bitter powder the Brazilians used to roll the pieces of beef into coming off the bar-be-que, warm from the grill. It coated the blood soaking-through in a bread-crumb-like essence, more coarse, more fiberous. They were healthy. Despite the all day drinking and heavy meat meals, the Brazilians i lived with had clear skin, thick hair, good vision, strong teeth and daily sex without the agressive tones like over-porned westerners Iʻve encountered.

Andre had that dirty blonde full head of hair, 6ʻ1, a slight beer belly but naturally buffed and thick-thighed when I met him right before I turned  20. We were fast to home base – way too early – caught me by surprise. Never thought heʻd get my heart – thought the beach bbq would end in a kiss at the most. Heʻd end up moving in a couple years later – domestically clean and sensitive to the energy, which is why I think we had a peaceful roomate like vibe (most of the time) yet so much unspoken differences. In those years, we fought hard, male ego, Aries + Aries loud, like brother-sister, one yelling in English and the other in Portuguese. Maybe it was the fact he liked reggae, dressed simple, had tattoos done the Tahitian tap-tap style like so many of the men here do, or maybe he just looked like a Haole-Hawaiian mix surfer boy - I donʻt know… but he was there at college graduation, there at the family events, held me when my parents split and I couldnʻt talk for a whole 3 days in my tears.

Sao Paulo middle class was rough. I could tell just by the way he stayed calm when blood broke or when cops came around. Party invites, weed sales, sex, homemade meals and alcohol exchanges were normal barter in those circles and that upbringing carried over from Brazil to Hawaii for many of the transplants I met. Iʻll never forget the cash stash he kept under the drivers seat in case a cop came by – I had to explain to him that would get him in prison here, not free.

Soccer. Or Footbol as I learned to say – was how he got here. Scholarships or endentured talent was the way he, at 19 and his brother, at 17 ended up in Corvallis, Oregon. Not a word of English, in weed-and-blackberry country, part Amazonian natives surrounded by upperclass white skinned blonde Christians. He survived because of 23-year-old woman – Morman-raised beauty who found his exotic rough-neck to be marriage worthy and he kept a green card because of that alone. Course, every young ego fails his duties to marriage when not given those needed years of wisdom and so he drowned his failures of that relationship in alcohol and a spontaneous plane ride with the bar tourist on a one-way ticket to Hawaii. I met him three years after that - when he was still being paid by small soccer teams to play for their hobby showcasing. He was semi-tattoed by then, blue eyed, tan, bout 190lbs, cleaning pools in addition to soccer payouts and gambling / bets, entertaining girls with bbq invites almost nightly. I did not take him seriously, especially cause he seemed to have no financial goals at first but hey, Iʻm down for new fun and a little challenge now and then. 

I guess we donʻt know how guarded we are...until we meet another just as guarded or more broken than us. Sometimes those players are safer because you donʻt have to tell your real life, your real thoughts or be strong for them. We all need comfort, companionship, peace – so we often say yes to the unfulfiling to make the week bareable, feel something, be anything but the emptiness it was.

 He was possessively jealous after each modeling gig I had and equally passionate all in the same breath. It drove me nuts. The FIFA obsessions and Mardi Gras commitments Iʻd end up in - had me exhausted for weeks but I do confess … Iʻd come home those years in Kaiulani Avenue to candle night dinners, handy-man fixes, a clean apartment, sweet picture albums, gas refilled in my car, massages and hand holding watching Planet Earth series on repeat. He showed up to every show, angry at me or not, paid what he had, clean cash or not, he was not a gentlemen, no. An academic? no. Yet he had a world education not taught in this land - with evidence of a plane fuled on water in Brazil long before the Wright brothers. He questioned if American media told the truth as he noticed the food made people gain weight and meds make them depressed. He believed the mind was stronger than body and scholded me for days id stoop feeling pain. He said Amazonian plants and chants heal men without surgery or long term medicine – since he had witnessed first hand during his youth. He scrubbed a toilet with a pumice stone and lemon juice, nothing else – hands and knees. So he found our expensive cleaning chemicals absurd and toxic. About hard work - he was humble, No inhibitions. But he was not the 9-5 type and I used to worry if weʻd make the rent and electric bill often. But the simple living, the way he made time for me…Something I never forget. Good looks, athletic, street smart - that does make a big ego for the men under fifty though…

On and off, we had lovers in between, and more fights than anyone else Iʻve ever lived with, pet turtles, plants on the porch, daily run work-outs and friends passed out on our couch every weekend... he didnʻt understand my dedication to college, my need to work three jobs, my absentness of our love life when a deadline hit. He didnʻt know why it took so much wine for me to relax, or why I loved reading historical novels instead of watching a movie, non-fiction documentaries over a fantasy. He thought it was strange we Americans circumsized men as he himself, was not, and therefore, more sensitive – pleasing yet least demanding in bed than many iʻve known. Heʻd dress me in green and yellow for sportbar Sundays of yelling “caralho” at the screens till Iʻd have to pry him home.

 I canʻt say I was ever the same after his minimalist way of living he had, his gifts of tiny thong bikinis and those cuddly mornings of “Meu sol.” Those hours at the hole-in-the-wall-bar playing bad pool, the braids, the singing, the açaí bowls after diamond head afternoons… Some people are a catalyst, the connecting lesson building your depth, resilience and belief for the fated to come.

Iʻve thought long and hard about how to explain him – because truely, he made no sense to the outside audience view of my life. I guess the years after you heal is when you can finally talk about the real shit. But Iʻve realized after a whole marriage later and lovers since, that often we are drawn to the people who we need at the time, who force us open, make our hearts shake to have to remember why we exist, evaluate our choices – with self forgiveness or guilt all the same.

Unlike other men Iʻve ended things with, this one called a few times over the years to make peace, despite the flames we ended in – he talked through the residue, the dreams we still had of eachother months later, the box of my things he still has at his place – now an island away, the sorries, the regrets, the laughter, the sex, nights of drunken fun, the nights of comfort and hand holding, the sober friendship that comes after the coals cool from the battle with your equal. This story is way longer than a five min read but for now, iʻll just say that life with Andre gave me a huge explanation of who i am, how I got here and itʻs a relationship I draw self-reassurance from years later as it prepared me for bigger battles to come, and forced me self-belief, self-trust despite misunderstandings and pain –

that faith is the universal calling.

If I met him 20 years later maybe things would have been smoother … language barriers out of the way, or the young-life-liquor-talk no longer an issue… but life seems to happen as it needs, not always as what we understand …

Tchau

*Please note that this read is meant to be entertaining, not necessarily factual

Earth Man knows Woman

Blood-crimson-red walls. His room was sparse and spacious, his bed a futon style - low to the ground, wooden dresser, Paia-bought sandalwood-incense quietly glowing ashes in the corner under those vaulted, open-beam ceilings. The four-paneled windows faced the full moon lit brightly in those no-street-light jungles past Five-Corners of deeper Haiku. The long-legged naked portraits he painted of lengthy, full-hipped, busty, thick-haired women of chestnut, chocolate and charcoal colored-skins filled in all the wall space among pieces of dreamcatchers, prayer beads, stone-carved figures, and leather sentiments from his many years in Africa. His red-tinted auburn hair was the thickest I’ve ever held and on days he didn’t shave well, I’d have harsh rash on my chin, cheeks and breasts even days later. Tanned-caucasian, fit from free-diving and yoga, a Virgo, around 5’10 or so, and a good 15 years above me. My father cringed when he heard the age difference but he’d end up marrying one 13 years below himself, later on and that perspective would change.

I met Marc at Borders Bookstore - where Barnes and Noble used to be - in what is now the empty Sports Authority off Dairy Road. There are a handful of characters I’ve met at bookstores (my weakness) in my life of whom feel like mind-soulmates and hatch long friendships deep in understanding. I mean, if anyone else is hoarding the ancient mythology tales, outlawed books of medieval times, native herbal medicine teachings, history of human origins and disbursements or trying to decipher Egypt’s Book of the Dead, then be prepared for my all-nighter wine and philosophy debates that lead to either a passionate argument or a make-out-session from my mind-turn-on.

What language is that?

Marc was holding a few freshly-bought Dalai Lama’s texts in the parking lot when I noticed him talking to his spotted pet-deer sticking it’s head out of his front-seat window. “It’s Gaelic,” he spoke out-loud, reading my perplexed stare. “I’m just trying to assure my fawn we are going home.” He saw my books in hand. “I’ve read a few of Edgar Cayce’s prophecies. It’s pretty amazing how many he healed.” … And so, I indeed took up his invite for dinner that night.

Spiny-lobster meat is sweet and softer than mainland lobster. The shell color has hints of bluish-indigo and some black. There is no big front claws - we eat mostly the tails here in Hawaii. I haven’t ever caught one myself but Marc would dive for them regularly and the ugly, tasty creatures would be beautifully steamed and buttered every time I came for sunset dinners those spring months of 2007 (before I’d move back to Oahu to continue college after leaving Vegas mid-semester from UNLV). If it wasn’t lobster, it was white fish, local shrimps, upcountry salads, fruits, rarely starches, and never pork or pre-prepped dinners. At the time I knew him, he made a living creating murals, paintings, and stone craftsmanship for private residences in Maui. Although he had not always been an artist - he had been a successful, mainstream model of London in his 20’s before he lost himself in the party-life and went soul-searching for a more meaningful life. He often talked of his father’s Celtic roots and that slight accent would pop up in certain phases he’d said throughout those weekly wine-night conversations but his mother’s South African upbringing seemed to have overridden any western way of thinking and is why he found Maui a familiar place.

“Wild,” he described the African women he had spent time with in those several years he wandered from tribes to cities throughout his mother’s home continent redefining himself. “The women there are more un-attatched, more rhythmic - the way they did chores, talked, the timing of doing things was slower and without shame of the body’s natural way. Sagging breasts and belly weight - Even sex is not shameful - it just is a need to fulfill and a feeling to act on.” He saw women as a part of the earth animal - not owned by a man or parent but as an animal belongs to nature. He never spoke down of women in a sexual way or of status, career or seemed to care how many partners she had. He saw women as a species to be acknowledged as its own and left to their own callings - not to be tamed… instead to adhere to.

Even though un-posessive, he was very masculine - his hands were firm to lead and to the point, his pace was steady but not forceful, not ever impatient. He’d smell my neck and hair, breath deeply, let sweat be, hold the last few notes of our rhythm until my heartbeat would calm and soak in the energy without words or questions. I remember gentle-chants and whispered poetry in between. Namaste.

There were never words of romantic love between us, and there was nothing expected, but his friendship was so simple and un-demanding of me that it left me questioning the modern way. What Natives (Celts, Africans, Hawaiians, the earth tribes) everywhere seem to find in their sovereignty may be the very thing that re-testosteronates a man… that it doesn’t matter what the skin color, age, background - that native connection to the wild, the earth, the simple may be what brings a man real peace and in turn, be able to let women be women, let women be just as wild and free - whether friends, lovers, or simple human to human.

*Please note that this read is meant to be entertaining, not necessarily factual

Ewoks & Alphas

“E-W-O-K” or Easy-Women-Of-Kailua is what the shirts-off, tanned boys would chuckle over green glass-bottles and reggae bumping from the stereo, those humid nights in Kapaa Quarry – that dump road that connects the Maunawilli-Pali-side to Kalaheo High. The undeveloped, marshy forest back there is where we’d be off-roading in the day, my white cousin looking just as brown as the rest of the boys after an afternoon tossed out of that lifted-bed. Noa was a good driver – always kept control and was a mechanic by trade – luckily no one really got hurt but he’d drop off the girls to wait with the beers and gas-station-bought-bentos if he was taking the boys for a rough rider. He’d be the one to teach me to drive (biting his tongue the whole time at my jerking the stick and my timidness to change lanes) although I’d never remember his teaching on how to change a tire or even how to deal with oil (I still suck at that).

“That’s why I knew you weren’t from here, baby,” the shark-sleeved tatoo wrapped around the shoulder, “You were NOT easy and you still give me shit sometimes.” Big grin.

Fun seekers. Rebellious for show. Flirty and bisexually experimental – that’s more the term. Ewoks were what I would experience as extra- confident, soft faced, sporty, beachy-chicks with sexed bodies and that play-babe-manipulative minds. My cute classmates sneaking a little whif of powder in the bathroom from each-other’s clevage with eyes on me like candy - was a bit shocking for me that first week of Kalaheo High in 04. Definitely not what I saw during the school days at the private schools I attended in Maui. Nor the constant cops on campus. Students stealing car parts from the teachers that failed them, students gambling, the weed (which wasn’t legal at all then), but mostly those sirens that came for the broken bones and bloody faces the guys would give each other every week. The fights just for being born a race (yes, local vs white) were sparked at random but it was avoidable if you knew how to shut up and not look at the guy puffing his chest out claiming blood land. However, the fights for love – those were deadly. That chill rising on the back of the neck - there is no way to stop the animal possession that takes over. A Hawaii boy at 16 is often with weapon hands in Hawaii’s fighter culture.

“Dude, I just asked her for the notes from class – that’s it, I didn’t touch her – ” was all the freckled Oregon kid got out of his gentle mouth before his jaw was snapped and his body lay limp, fractured rib, and the broken arm bone sticking through the skin. Clayton, a charming, handsome, local surfer didn’t give a damn if you were his classmate, friend, cousin – if it looked like his girl might secretly have something for you – five seconds is all you had. And if you a white talking to a brown man’s chick in these islands, even cops might choose not to save you in time… dark blood runs thicker than white man’s law here. In fact, my parent’s generation had a whole “kill haole day” designated to it – light skinned, well spoken, not born and raised would run home from school to flee the beatings, the insults, the sexual humiliation that was common entitlement in many Oahu towns where “upper-class” white neighborhoods were mixed into the local middle-class public schools. And from this, the social survival skill arose – the uncommitted sexual playmate, the Ewok – making herself accepted and free from the wars of alpha military white, alpha military black, and the territorial local alpha males. Not that there is anything to judge at that point… some things are so subconsciously functioning that we just must…

womanhood…

Escalates in social arrest, in desperation, in the racial alliance pressure that can inpregnant (trap), educate (be bullied for), segregate (for family alliance) or empower (for good or for evil) when teens become EWOKs… sexually aware of their power/burden/beauty/painful fate of women hood…

*Please note that this read is meant to be entertaining, not necessarily factual

Bunked in Maunawilli

Konbu. Dark green kelp – that slimy one. That’s what grandma would put in the water. Dashi, the shrimp and seafood bits, the salts, that’s really the start of it all – before the miso base. White miso (which turns tan), usually, (but sometimes the red miso) pre-pasted, sits in the fridge in-between uses, a little bit sour and grainy-cream in taste by itself. You add to it, it soaks in and takes to protein well. It was comforting to smell, the gentle tang and minerally boil of the soup in the evenings in that two story Maunawilli house - made me feel closer to home. This grandma was not my own but she treated me kind and caring as if I was blood, with that same offer of soup and tea on days I would be home sick with her on watch.

Grandma Ellie, as we will call her, was a Japanese born in Oahu, married to a white, mainland-born man (Haole as we say) who raised a hapa son in Kailua and Maunawilli (the subdivisions along the wet jungle Pali leading into Kailua town). Her son ended up meeting a sharp, fiery, Cherokee-mixed 18-yr young-women in Big Island who’d birth five of his children by her mid-twenties. She was why I was living here – she meaning Grandma Ellie’s daughter-in-law, Roxanne, and her twins, who befriended me.

“Ten min of hot water in the shower – not more,” Alex, one of the twins, instructed me. Alex was the one who vouched for me when Noa asked her mom if I could stay with them for a few months. She was quiet but much more kind and observant than her tougher exterior said- she was trustworthy, loyal. Long red hair, slanted Asian eyes, 5’2 or so, white skin and full busted, she and her siblings were used to having to defend themselves in Big Island’s wilder landscape, racial and social extremes. She was dating one of Noa’s friends and had a soft spot for me being from outer-islands as well. Alex convinced her mom to take me into the very full house with her older brother, younger brother, twin sister, mom, Grandma Ellie and papa, in addition to her dad of whom I never saw come down from the upstairs loft.  

“You want the wall side tonight?” the seventeen-year-old twins let me alternate spots of the double- bunk bed we three shared. “Oh, and I borrowed your bikini top by the way, the pink one.” Devin, the younger twin pulled down her top at the dinner table, to show the pink ties. Sharing was not an option here, but I was not going to protest, I was just so grateful to have them want me there. “Ok, cool.” I nodded. We hurried to finish up the fried chicken cutlet, bits of sweet potatoes and rice before the strict bedtime approached. Meanwhile, their mom, wearing her sterling silver rings, black eyeliner, leather pants ready for a night out to kill her stress would be streaming visuals onto her computer screen from the Nasa granted telescope view of light clusters. “You applied to colleges yet?” She’d push me to go where i could get the best living situation and afford the school, instead of, go for best school like others would encourage.

Noa, of course, wanted me to live with him but both my parents and my second set of legal parents, aunt and uncle, forbade it, as I was still sixteen. Not like I really cared to listen to any of them at that point – I was tired of my aunt and uncle arguing, the late night wake-ups, the divorce threats, the random days there would be no money for my lunch amidst their financial power trips and me being stuck in the middle. Mostly, I just was tired of not having any say in my life and feeling so misunderstood. But, my father would for sure take legal action on Noa if he ever found me moving in with a boyfriend… so, I trusted Noa’s lead, and moved in with his former science teacher, a confident, good-looking woman who had actually put him in his place and gained his respect, had put herself through school while raising five kids, obtaining a Doctorate in Astronomy, and signed on to be my legal guardian in December of 2004, becoming…

My new “Mom”, Roxanne.

*Please note that this read is meant to be entertaining, not necessarily factual

Seat at Palestine

The border of Palestine - I can’t say what it was in January 2008. There would be that big bombing attack in February, a week after I left. I have no idea where we were – even if I could say the area, I’m sure the territory lines have changed by now. The blue sea in distance, the sun was glistening through crispier air that morning but it was warmer than the other parts of Isreal, where I had been touring with Aaron (or so we shall call him). Orchards of some kind lined the older, worn in road, grasses swayed, it felt like a mini countryside – quaint and erriely untouched in the few miles leading up to. We stopped at one point – guards checked our car. Guards would often check everything, everywhere - My purse in order to enter the restaurant, our car trunk in order to park In the mall parking structure, pat me down to get into a business building – it was the norm here.

Aaron held my hand in the backseat, kissed it as always. He was romantic for sure. Made love in the mornings, long, leisurely, liked to cook egg breakfast together, take in the newspaper over strong Turkish coffee. He hated when I’d leave early for a class or work shift. He’d give me a fight all day if I didn’t take time for a kiss and conversation in the mornings. He was handsome and polished. Tall, light eyes, white from his Berlin born mother but those thick curled lashes, slanted eyes and wavy hair that so much of middle east has – gave his mixed heritage away. We had only lived together six or seven months at that point but I had known him a couple years. He was part of why Noa and I ended. I hate to say that but it’s true. I was never so sick in my life as I was after that first night I spent with Aaron after Noa left for Vegas. It’s not that Aaron did anything wrong that night a-year-and-a-half back – it was just that I was still in love with Noa at the time and we were still together in heart even though he had left. I never thought Noa would forgive me for that. But I couldn’t hold it in – I told him within the week… could not stop crying till I choked it out. It’s why I moved to Vegas so fast – I knew I had to try to mend whatever I could or I’d never forgive myself. Yet, after all is on the table – I learned that even if you love, truly, deeply, years… some choices change things forever and you cannot force another to heal, you can just try your best to give it your all and the rest is their choice… so there I was a while later, after moving back to Honolulu – again, fallen for the exotic Israeli International Business major who seduced me into a life changing love affair and brought me to Israel winter of my 19th year.

Palestine of course is no easy topic. Israel and Palestine has been in tension forever and yet here I am dressed in a pink knit sweater, eyeliner and make up to cover our nightclub adventures from Israeli’s controversial party culture, wondering why Aaron and his father were taking me into a business meeting at the home of a prominent head in a town on the Gaza border. I was trying hard to get the poppyseeds cleared from my teeth before we arrived – I could feel them in the back still – Aaron’s family home is filled with edibles ready on the counter like poppyseed pie, that thick braided bread, figs, small sized organic fruits and vegetables, date filled pastry (I can’t remember it all). Natural sunlight flowed throughout the multi-story tiled home of the suburb. The design more European in style – like the showers having no enclosed wall, no lip for a water catch, high ceilings, a terrace like area with indoor plants, small coverings for the cars as the vehicles were also more of that small, compact European style. I wish I had pictures of that month there, but those Kodak prints are lost somewhere in boxes between the many moves I have had since Aaron.

“Look how they make their women do all the work,” Aaron pointed out the strawberry patch on the way. Three women with scarves draped over their head and coverings over their figure picked strawberries for customers while a dark skinned man uncovered, sat at the sale podium. “This is something I don’t agree with,” Aaron noted the tension between the Arabic cultures and Isreali culture. “What do you think about this?” he always wanted my “American’ opinion.  

“Well, I think it is just as bad that the sacred praying wall of Jerusalem segregates 3/4 th of it for males and makes the women wait all day to submit their prayers in the small section of the wall.” We had just gone to Jerusalem a week before and truly, there were five times as many women coming to give “God” or their belief a prayer, a wish, a beg for mercy or just a closeness they were hoping to achieve and yet these women were made to wait hours while men surpassed them with no wait.                                  

Silence.

“Yalla,” his father said, parking the car on the grassy front. Aaron’s father was a major architect and developer in Israel. I didn’t know how big he was until I was there and saw his name and business works in the cable news and local papers. I could not speak much Hebrew but the little bit I knew gave me bonding with his father over blueprints over mint tea in afternoons. Being my father was also an architect, he was excited to see I understood the drawings and basic elements of his work. Perhaps that’s why he thought to bring me to his negotiation with the Palestinians on developing the countryside in that argued borderline or perhaps I was merely an American card that gave a surprise factor – I’m not sure. They could have left me with Aaron’s sisters that day but they didn’t , nor did they invite the sisters to come along either…

There were a few women relaxing in the yard, children playing, laughing, fathers looking loving and engaged with them. Peaceful. It felt comfortable. Warm. Family. Good. The women suddenly got up when they saw us, told the children to go inside, and said they would bring out food and drink. The men perked up and arranged themselves around the long wooden table there in the yard. Aaron sat me next to him. All the men looked at eachother yet Said nothing. I almost got up to join the wives in the house – instinctively. No. Aaron’s father put his hand on my shoulder to secure me.

“Mayim?” a women offered me water from a short embroided glass. She was not covered, not draped. She was beautiful. Natural curves showed through a simple top and skirt. She could have been from Hawaii – skin color, slighty slanted eyes, dark thick hair, shorter than me, kind.

“Toda,” I nod, though I’m sure my accent shined through with even something so simple as saying thanks.

The men began. It was apparent they met before. The language far too advanced for me to know anything they said. Aaron chimed in at times. I just stayed silent. Hot tea was served. About an hour in the host turned to me after not even a hello had been said to me.

“Miss,” he addressed clearly, looked me straight in the eye, hardly an accent. “I know in your culture it is normal for a woman to discuss business among men. However, here, we keep women away from the stress of business and that is why we do not speak to you here.”

Beat. Beat. Beat.

“This is why no one will speak to you. I hope you understand.”

Fuck.

Aaron… what???? 

Did I speak? I don’t remember. Life halted a bit. Was I for show? Was this a test? Am I in danger? Do they expect me to break through this barrier by being here? Was I a chess piece?

They served more tea. The women serving looked at me - I put my sunglasses on. The Palestinians were firm in their voices but much less argumentative than the Israeli cities. In the cities it was a constant back and forth banter of cost and delivery – like brother sister arguments in the home, but aggressive on volume.

The ride home was … like nothing happened. No talk of if I was uncomfortable and no explanation really for what was discussed.

We stopped for drinks and dinner on the beachfront back up in Tel Aviv. The beach culture was much sexier than I expected for a Jewish state. Girls showed curves, had boobs done, tattoos, long hair flowing free, spoke fearless. It was a night and day culture that lived here in the city of the young Israeli’s who had paid dues in war and modern life verses the older, traditional religious ones who still circumcised the females’ in order to ensure they stayed loyal and didn’t look for pleasure. To be a woman was far more complicated than I already knew it to be. Apparently a woman is threatening or too precious – one or the other or the same or why else all the rules? Whether in Hawaii or the other side of the world – a woman and her sexuality seems to be the common focus in family rules of tabo or undermining. Aaron was not doing anything purposely - I’ll have to explain more later, but it was the whole way of being that seemed ingrained. To have power as a woman means a delicate balance but especially there, I knew my soul would not last.

*Please note that this read is meant to be entertaining, not necessarily factual

Taste of Semper Fi

The Marine Corp recruitment office in Kaneohe was in the open-air strip mall (the one with Foodland and First Hawaiian Bank), right off the freeway going North. It had enough room for a standard cookie-cutter wooden-desk, a few chairs, a back nook and one-to-two recruiters to look inviting through that large display window. Kaneohe was usually overcast, humid and sunny all at the same time – the rain you got used to – that’s just how Hawaii is, especially the “windward” or the East sides of all the islands. My cousin made me go on her Marine Corp summer assignments for a few weeks before she got relocated – I was bribed by Genki sushi, Starbucks and escape from my new “home”, a grey-slate-tiled two story in Enchanted Lakes of Kailua, Oahu – that seemed a thousand degrees hotter (and louder with neighbors so close) than my breezy Maui home surrounded by cow pastures and eucalyptus trees. A few prospects a day would come in, mostly age 17-25 with some excitement at the attention we gave. Whatever professional interest one had, there was a path in military (so we told) and the free training/school, free room/board and travel is what usually brought them in. My script was minimal - I was there for show.

She was five years older than me, had done all the dangerous piercings no one dared – the tongue, the eyebrow, the entire ear lobes and I wanna say the lips at one point before her sign over… the nipples with the bars threw them were the most intense, for sure. She drove a beat-up, brown Ford pick-up stick-shift with Kiss and Metallica blasting the whole way to church. Her boots were the tie up kind. She had that half-shaven-head style with the bangs flipped to one side in the front. She was wild in ways no one believed were related to me. I thought her to be both fierce and childlike at the same time. It’s been an interesting relationship over the years but one I’ll get to later – she and I have some unspoken loyalty and were and are still extremely different to this day. I’ll call her Kris for now – Kris – a Scorpio, gifted in theater, drawing women portraits to the tee, poetry, psycho-analysis, containing secrets, puzzles, hunting, dog-whispering, soap making, good with her hands, jewelry, metal work, building, mechanics and now – a very dedicated, loving mother and wife. In my youth, she was both intimidating and unafraid. I saw her as hard. Different. Deep. Conflicting. Rebellious and attractive in an intensity that stirred all static. She broke molds. I was both fascinated and felt dominated by this female who’d one day dream prophecies of my life (that came true), take me skinny dipping everywhere, and be a support in times of need despite her irritation with my opposite ways. White, native American girl that would one day support Hawaiian activism and native rights – she’s a story on her own.

“You are on the jerk-off wall of the barracks next door to me, Sarah” Kris half-laughed through the phone. “My little-teen-cousin is in the bikini calendar taped to the mirror in the guys’ bathroom – what the fuck!” Her calls throughout the years were sporadic but always memorable. She’d end up sneaking me into her barracks a few years later to spend a few nights in her bunk. Her technical work on helicopter’s was far beyond me but those feelings of constraints, structure, adherents, the time pressure and black and white that take priority over feminine instincts, I cannot forget.

Bellows is one of the best (gorgeous white sand, crisp tourquiuse water) public beaches of Hawaii yet is treated as private for those coasties, airmen, and devil-dogs - meaning public access is not just given to just surf that famous break or walk that coast -you need a military ID to get on the best parts (a Native Hawaiian debate to go on for ages - another blog, another time). Summer of O4 made it clear I was not to consider the military though. While Noa was hoping I’d ask my other cousin, Kris’s younger brother, about him – I was at the Bellow’s beach in Waimanalo running laps with the new, young, eager recruits, doing my cuz a favor and looking cute to keep some incentive – took one for the team. My calves would be burning after just one stretch of beach runs - fine, heaps of sand makes your feet sink in a good 7-8 inches each step making a stair master seem easy. Those fucking jumping jacks and “Drop and give me 20” push-ups though. I just can’t do it the same as the guys. Am I a second late? Shit. Did everyone have to do it again because of me? Ooops! ...Sorry?

Me, 5’5 and 110 pound ballerina-raised body was not cutting it. Mostly though - it was my lack of enthusiasm for that life. Attempt to hold that rifle, aim, and hit the target at the practice hill? Hell no! At least I didn’t have to deal with the ego yet – that comes later – when the guys get the uniform and the rankings begin. Then the male domination mind begins, the liquor and notches on the belt. I swore I’d never ever date or be with a Marine after all I saw my cousin handle (bless her) not to mention the fact I come from military officers … and then shit, I ended up marrying one (and still trying to divorce) – like that default button. This kind of mindset stays with you. It’s indeed what they say - “Once a Marine, Always a Marine” and that trickles into everything, the marriage, the language, the work life and roles that come with that pre-positioned hierarchy - it’s hard to ever leave it once conditioned. And here i’m admitting its in my blood - distant but in the cell memory. I’ve struggled to find balance in it - in the domination/control structure that destroys so many families inner peace.

…all those privates and sargents i’d end up with way too many free drinks from… And the Kailua beaches filled with high-and-tight hair cuts, pumped up and clean shaven beer drinkers smoking killer BBQ were the normal weekends in Kailua, Oahu. Steady paychecks, a pension, USAA insurance, free living on base, that super cheap-on-base shopping, a man who can use a gun, save a drowning swimmer, bench press to kill, who still open doors for a lady, clean house, are organized, can keep public talk simple and those sexy manners are some of those perks many women go running after the uniformed for. So, don’t get me wrong – I have a lot of respect for the service (and they are fun). They work like fucking bulls – hours on end – determined minds that can bite the bullet with sweat and tears secondary to the goal of success, muscle like no other, beatings beyond the ring. I’ve heard men’s voice shake as the describe the explosion that threw them out of their belt into a metal ceiling, bloody faced, ribs broken, hearing gone for days, dead friend’s bodies to carry… Bravery, Resilience, Discipline is something our society lacks and this is a necessary old school teaching that military still holds. If we don’t have strong walls of protection, there will be a conqueror that comes and takes over (history says it over and over). I know we all want to believe everyone is kind in nature and that with regulation, people will be fair… but I hope my sharing gives some light on how human nature is always going to be ruled by emotion – which is not always talked about and not always predictable… and to embrace the unpredictable or that pain we hide is maybe the only way we can get through the insanity of being human. That to ignore the dark will not save us – that only in facing the dark, can the light and lovely be saved and human feelings can continue without complete death to the ironic experience of living.

*Please note that this read is meant to be entertaining, not necessarily factual

Hella Fine

She was hot. Everyone said it when she started 7th grade with us – the new girl. Was rare someone slipped into a non-entry year at the only prep school on the island, but hey, she was smart and creative and very confident. Aquarius of course, my kind of girl – apparently all my besties in life usually fall into a few consistent signs with Aquarius by far end up my ride or dies, at least for a solid portion of time before life pulls us apart. Must be the fun, rebellion they have – but also that unemotional response that seems to handle every grave situation in life with ease.

Already with mature hips hitting a size 5 in womens, sexy curves and size b/c boobs, a pretty smile and thick brown hair – she spoke Spanish way better than any of us did because of course, no one in Hawaii had really grown up around it. We all were just trying to pass requirements to graduate with one of 3 options for foreign language (Japanese, French or Spanish back in early 2000s) while she was born in Mexico, grown in California and therefore, way ahead of the game for Spanish honors. She was the only child , daughter of a golf-course developer, well read and sassy as hell.

I had never seen red-dotted Henna-lines on a body-up-close before her. I had never heard anyone call California “Cali” or say “hella” as she would soon rub off on me. She pulled me into choir, geek-debates in homeroom and home-made camcorder music videos impersonating virgin-pop-princess, Brittney Spears and R&B queen-of-the-dammed, Aaliyah. She was the driver of the relationship for sure and one of the most influential people of my life and as much as I want to give her full credit in naming her, I’ll have to call her Eva – just in case she gets famous and I get in trouble one day. (I mean, she’s got a huge following right now with these amazing feminist podcasts and a subscription workshop on female embodiment – so hey, she’s getting there).

“I can’t let you go out like this,” Eva glared at my oversized church branded T-shirt and Costco jean shorts. Not like there was anywhere to go out to at age 12 in Maui. But she had this fantasy that sneaking into Hapa Night Club (the only “nightclub” besides the upscale hotel lounges available) would fill her craving for the Cali excitement she missed.

“I couldn’t tell my mom where we were going though, and my dad would never let me wear anything like you – you know that.” I was totally risking a full month grounded. But Eva was so fun. Last weekend was the crystal ceremony in the backyard jungle, the weekend before was phone calls with the boys about boobs, the other weekend we snuck into the movies even with my little diapered brother in toe (I was always on babysitting duty but she didn’t let it bother her)… She fed me her mom’s home-made weed-brownies, all the PG13/R rated movies I wasn’t allowed to watch at home - she’d get for me at blockbuster. Not to mention she devirginized me by explaining in detail what a blow-job was and that fuck was a verb not a noun, the 1st time we hung out.  

“It’s ok, babe, I gotchu” she started pulling out crop-tops and leather skirts from her drawer. “We just gotta get rid of that bush too – all of them, the one on your face, your legs, that bikini - everything.”                wait ….            What?

Hair Removal. No one had ever taught me to pluck my eyebrows, shave my legs, and definitely not anything about a bikini line. My conservative 3rd generation (in hawaii from Japan, some would say I’m “yonsei”) Japanese family only filled in the full sized eyebrows - not ever “shape” them fashionably and they only shaved the calves- not ever up the thighs and no one dared change the 70’s full grown standard…except me. I was the oldest grandchild in that era - and the black sheep of many conservative things I’d come to find out those next few years.

She had me sitting naked on the toilet so she could reach both the tweezers and the shave crème, and rinse off the razor in the sink. Yep, she was grooming me – one leg up at a time, that pink foam, TLC playing in the background. I had a couple bleeding nicks but she was careful overall. I think the eyebrow plucking hurt more. The fresh white skin under the brows needed concealer to match the rest of my tanned face.

The tender gap inbetween the thigh and the cooch though – that is a hard spot to get on your own – peering over trying to see it is fucking hard. “Just give me the razor, Sarah.” Sarah – my name before Oahu and modeling for Japanese (who called me Naomi San) took over – she was so unbothered about sex, nakedness, swearing, like a true international. I’ll never forget the feel of her fingers pressing my then smaller, lips - away from the razor so she didn’t nick me down there, just holding my breathe, trying so hard not to flinch.

“Why do we have to shave me there anyway? We aren’t going to the beach or anything, right?” My extremely sheltered upbringing screaming innocence. The red lipstick puckered in that sass as she chimed, “Just in case we get a boy tonight.” She was truly trying to give me the upper hand although I would have no idea what she was talking about for another year and a half or so,” I want you to feel amazing and beautiful, like we should. And you don’t want it all itchy like that anyway, shhiiieet.”

Knock.

Her mom was ready to drive us - she’d be the one to give the ok to the bouncer to let us in (they used to let you in if you had a “parent” to vouch for you). The drive to Kihei a full 45 min from Haiku hill. Her mom was passive to her, let her change the radio as she pleased. Eva finished me up in that car ride - dusted bronzer on my collarbone and in my very small cleavage gap (barely there) peeking from the tube top she had dressed me in. Hapa’s Club was NOT at all what Eva expected – the reggae bands, the weed-smokey, dark, one-room “club” was nothing like what Cali could sport but it we still had fun. Our roles switched a bit – she was suddenly the tall white girl in an slanted-eye/ brown skin territory and her city clothes with Ralph Lauren perfume stood out against flip flops, tshirts, and the plumeria smell from locals wearing the flower in their ear.

“Drop your knees, Eva,” I instructed her. “Then pop up like this, kinda swing,” I showed her the slow-skank. “Skanking” was the only way to dance to the 4 note beats – island style. You’d only know if you ever saw it, otherwise, it’s impossible to describe. She was a hit. Local guys were trying to dance with her – and she was taking it in, open minded, fast learner. No one seemed to know what to do with a white hottie like that, red lips, red nails, 12 going on 22, full jewelry in heels with height beyond every part-Asian there.

So, we didn’t end up “getting a boy” (or her number getting asked for) like she hoped. I loved being with her though, she was worth it all - I could care less about a boy… I savor those days - because one day I DID choose boys over her and I’d never make another tight-skirt-slutty music video with her again… one day I did finally learn why she shaved my bikini line and legs and my innocence would leave and so would those Romi and Michelle movie nights with her… those half-sad days that girls start to become women. I’d never forget her though… those intimate days in life where you find what you are capable of and what people are like in their most naked experiences- it’s what fuels us the rest of outer lives… those strong bonds, those times of vulnerability, testing, learning, teaching, touching, tasting - in my mind I’ll always remember those early days of periods and crop tops as Hella Fine.

xoxo

*Please note that this read is meant to be entertaining, not necessarily factual

Prep to Public, Sex Rejects

“Did you get a photocopy of the chapter yet?” My fit, middle-aged local-Japanese teacher for American History asked that second day at Baldwin High. There were not enough books to give each student to use, so most of my classes gave me photocopied sections of the text books or materials. This was March of 2005, there were no kindle reads or google docs. If you didn’t have a handheld text, if someone gave you the wrong papers, you failed. “Not yet,” I answered, stepping into the classroom of 1930’s-style-design of early Hawaii architecture with single desks attached to chairs.

Hawaii public schools are mostly open-window, concrete-brick-wood structures with no air conditioning, open-air buildings, built in the late 1800s through 1950s before the annexation (when Hawaii’s monarchy became subjected to becoming a “state” of the U.S.A). They often have grassy courtyards, concrete floors, are 1-2 levels high with Island-Spanish style brick roof and colonial structure (many don’t know the influence Portugal and Spain had on our islands for some time). Baldwin was nothing close to the renaissance detail of many Oahu schools (like William McKinley High in Oahu) but it was the same school my mother and all her older siblings went to, so it already had a familiar history in my life.

A guy stopped me outside the classroom as the bell rang again, “You’re the new girl from Oahu, right?” Trick question. What is his motive. “I asked about you,” he continued despite my silence. We will call him Kea, for the sake of protecting real-life integrity. “I heard you went to Seabury before Kalaheo – you are smart. You are supposed to be in 06’ – but you ended up in my year 05, right?! That’s cray.” I just continued to pack up my backpack. His sleek haircut, perky and nearly full English sentences gave it away.

“Where did you come from?” I asked.

“Kamehameha.” The pride steaming through his high held head.

“Kapalama? Boarded?” I asked.

“Ya. How you know?” the cocky grin.

“You aren’t stoned. You talk fast and you have a clean hair cut but you look Hawaiian and you are interested in the fact I came from Oahu and private school. No one else cares.” I admit I was a bit blunt for most to handle. 

“Ya girl.” He followed me out into the hallway. The dirty grass-mildew-like smell of weed seeped in slowly. Young couples held eachother everywhere, kisses, hand holding, public affection was a normal thing. Everyone shaka’d, smiled, girls and guys both shout that “cheeeeehhhuuueeehhh” across campus. Baldwin was way more peaceful than Kalaheo – it was a nice change. I knew a few kids here already, it wasn’t like starting completely over like 9 months before.

“What you get kicked out for?” Kea’s voice height right at my left ear.

“I didn’t get kicked out of Seabury. Why’d you think that?” The rocksteady type singing was loud in lunch hour. Deep soothing male voices filled the hall in slow, long-held-note melodies about love, food and the waves from artists like Beres Hammond, Ka’au Crater Boys, Gregory Issac, and Fiji.

“So why you left, den?” Pigin coming out now from the prep-school-Hawaiian.

“My parents didn’t want me to have a boyfriend.” Here we go again.

Kea laughed, “Wat, they walked in?” Ukulele started strumming, some of the seniors were busting out all their jams.

“No.” I voiced over the falsetto Hawaiian mele starting to hit. “We told them we were in love. My boyfriend asked for my dad’s blessing and my dad told him no and sent me away.” Why was I telling this guy? I don’t know. Kea’s scrunched eyebrows showed his compassion. He wasn’t done prying, “I heard about your old boy from friends up at King Ke. Heard he a good guy. Hapa (mixed race), Pastor’s kid? He’s going pro in golf, right? I saw him in the papers plenty times.”

“Yep.” Everyone knew of each-other. It didn’t matter if it was upcountry or “town” as they called Wailuku/Kahului side, welcome to outer-island life. No point in hiding. “How about you, Mr. Kam Skooo?”

Kea’s cheeks were still boyish. He was around my height, toned-traps pulling nicely with his posture, clean cut, tan skin, nice new sneakers. “I got kicked out of school – not by my parents,” he was no-shame. “The school found out we were making porn with some classmates.”

Bingo.

“You the kids on the news, huh?” It was a huge deal. VHS tape or DVD got out. Talk about it was on every news station. Parents were flipping out. One of the biggest private school legacies with a public shame – way before facebook – everyone knew about this.

He nodded, somehow still able to look me in the eye. Calm. He found what he was looking for - equal rejection status – the different, rebels, odd balls somehow find each other and have an understanding. “Welcome back country-girl. Don’t be a stranger now.”

 *Please note that this read is meant to be entertaining, not necessarily factual 

Hustler Mama Jo

Mama Jo was a little tiny thing. Cute full-Filipino chick around 4 ft 5in, 26 years old. She made more money than any of the other hostesses at the restaurant and she had a spice that no one ever dare cross. Her 2-year-old daughter looked nearly half her size, no one could believe she birthed a child – her blazers were from the tween sections of department stores. She smiled sweetly and always held your hand when she talked to you seriously. I was working day shifts at first, alternating my online summer semester around the hours they gave me. Noa had an in at the front desk, so naturally, I tried to stay close to him being we shared a car, cash and I was scared to be too far away from him in that City of Sin.

The striped-dressed men in the gondolas drifted by me every hour and the Italian opera playing throughout the hotel was calming in compared to the Treasure Island, Paris or Ballys right around it. I really did not want to move there. The dry air, the ugly billboards with boobs popping out everywhere, tar ash lined ceilings, used car dealerships left and right, it was real life Pinocchio and after awhile … the new thick skin I grew felt normal.

I thought we’d be there a summer max, but it ended up 9 months before I couldn’t stand the casino life anymore. What’s so funny is I never learned to gamble or play cards really, despite all that time there. I was only 18 so I couldn’t play anyway, could not really make money like I would have if I could cocktail or serve - plus, I was juggling work, college, cooking and cleaning for two and of course all the affection duties of a full time girlfriend. But, at least I got some life lessons - I learned that first off, the desert is fucking hot in summer and shrill dry cold in winter (first winter I ever used chapstick every day) - although the mountains in the middle of the desert, the pockets of life, the orange sunsets have majestic beauty unlike anything I had known…more important, unlike the Aloha State, I learned most people in the big bad world are NOT your friend, everyone wants to live a fantasy to escape something, that you can’t really trust anyone, sex is the Ace card in the world by far, and of course, cash is King.

“Ok, Mama, you’re up,” Jo said to me as a larger freckled man wearing a dark blue blazer walked up to the hostess podium. “Hello, sir,” my sweet voice timid, “Do you have a reservation?” The family of adults standing off the to the side seemed impatient.

The 50 or so year-old man politely said no but pointed to the 6 top in the courtyard still without anyone seated on it. I started grabbing some menus, as we had no big parties on the books for another couple hours – Jo stuck her hand out to stop me, “You see his watch? He got money. Do like this, mama, watch my face.”

Sweet cheap cigar musk floated in enclosed, fake-outdoor courtyard, as Jo stepped up to the podium and flipped through the reservation sheets without letting it angle towards the red head – she made sure he could not peer in before she bluntly stated, “I’m sorry we have a reservation coming in. It will be an hour wait.” He glanced at the many open tables and very short line, obviously annoyed. Before he could even complain, she cocked her head confidently, “I can help you out if you can help me out.” She stuck out her hand gesturing a return-shake from him. He looked at her a whole long minute as Jo just kept her hand out, ready. Finally, he pulls out a folded $50 bill from his pocket and slips it to her with the handshake.

“One moment,” Jo sweetly smiled. She motioned me to continue with my menu grab and gently sticks the bill in my pant pocket as she whispered in my ear, “Do another ten like that, mama, and we (the manager nods at me from the corner) will give you more night shifts.”

 I have to admit I was a bit surprised at that move - being from the friend-discount-family-kine-favor-broke-808-state, I felt a bit guilty the first few times. So, Jo stepped in a little more for me when I lost my nerve, reminding me that if You don’t ask for what You want in life, your opportunity will be lost to someone else who does ask, does demand and doesn’t get cold feet. Hold my ground, that’s all I needed – she was a good teacher, hence she was the true “Mama” of the floor. I wasn’t always pulling in $50 each handshake – sometimes it was only a $5.

Regardless, I working way more nights by that next shift schedule.

*Please note that this read is meant to be entertaining, not necessarily factual

Noa

Wintergreen mostly, with a little chalky sulfur. That’s what he tasted like. Kools. That blue short pack. Never the regular tobacco taste. Maybe that’s why I could handle it as the non-smoker. His teeth were still an off-white - still pretty in that brimming big smile regardless of the few packs a week. Almost a foot above me. I’ll never forget how thick the width between of his shoulders were, even 18 years later. The linebacker body spoke for itself, could not miss the guy in a crowd. The Polynesian, Caucasian and Latina mix grew a mane thick with chocolate brown waves pulled into a low bun. Definitely not what anyone expected for me.

Pretty, sweet, simply-dressed, innocent good-girl is what they described me as all through my youth and riding in that lifted Toyota boy-toy with the local alpha was not what my parents thought I’d take a risk for when they sent me to Kailua in 2004. I actually had no interest whatsoever in dating nor friendships those first few months. I didn’t care who anyone was. I missed home. I missed my younger siblings, sophistication. I missed art shows and fine dining, the Haiku 2-acre-yard, the horses next door, and people who read Homer and Socrates and appreciated it. I missed the boyfriend back home whom I never got to hug goodbye- I still kept the promise ring on my finger, snuck phone calls when I could. I didn’t recognize this half Samoan, tattooed, confident guy from my cousin’s graduation where the whole school stood up and screamed for him walking towards his diploma. I didn’t remember him stripping off his gown on stage to reveal a malo to the crowd, either - he had to jump my memory me months later after his ego was a little shot that I was so unimpressed by his local childhood fame.

“I can’t believe how honest you are,” he told me in the first conversation we had on the road a few blocks from Kalaheo High. “Most people never just say it point blank, especially a good-looking female,” he charmed, Tupac playing from the car-stereo CD-player. I was so cold to his efforts. “Sorry if it offends you,” I said still keeping my distance from his open-door offer for a ride home. “I never heard of you nor have seen you before and no, I’m probably not going to party tonight.”

Students driving old stick shifts, low-rider pick ups and two-door asian-made second-hand vehicles screeched past us showing off, whistling at me, hooting him on - the classic young boy hollar. My 18-year-old cousin was “late” to get me and the only guy “allowed” to take his 16-year-old cousin home was his former classmate, then helping me into the passenger seat, Noa.

I realize its risky saying it all like this. But some relationships are so honest and real that there’s nothing to hide or be ashamed about. This was one of those. Two and half years beginning the roller coster of my life, he stayed, my friend, my confidante and the stable in what my therapist would deem a very unusually challenging life. Young yes, but some souls are born old, and old souls just know each other somehow.

He was persistent. Patient. Made a deal with my aunt to do her dishes, take the trash out, help clean and drive me to school if it meant he got to stay late into the night at my cousins house, my legally appointed guardianship home. He sang oldies while he challenged my cousin to sparring matches, won poker pretty regularly, fixed the cars after body surfing Mocks, read the magazines left around, whistled when he cleaned.

I think it was a whole three weeks of him sleeping on the couch before I even let him have a chance alone with me. This is pre-smart phones mind you - when the entertainment was limited and house phones were the normal way to schedule a visit. There was no way for him to have contacted me otherwise, not with the extreme strict rules of no-male connections allowed for me, whatsoever. Yet, somehow he charmed his way through the cracks of the family plan for my nearly-arranged marriage. After seeing him consistently paying dues days-on-end without ever making a immature comment or glance to peep-Tom at me, I finally broke and planted myself in pajamas, cross legged, onto the living floor after everyone was asleep. “Ok, so you obviously want to know me,” my face didn’t flinch.

He smiled in relief, sat up from his sprawled out, half asleep position on the couch and said, “Yes, ma’am. Are you ready? I’ll wait.”

*Please note that this read is meant to be entertaining, not necessarily factual

2021

A year. It’s been a year since I wrote about my life. I’ve been writing a lot - but for everyone else, work, kids documents, the web content that has become the head honcho in Covid…

I moved back to Maui last April. I, meaning, me and three children - April, meaning during the shut down of Honolulu.

I couldn’t talk about it for the longest time… i had to let everything settle. die. tenderize. so you can cook it through and digest it instead of let it infect you and kill you in time. Isn’t that what we do with pain? we let it sit. we wash over that stiff tightness in our chest and smirk with sarcasm to get through the days..until one day it no longer seems real or something else saves us?

Where does the alternative life go? the other reality we spent so much effort to become … when we let it go - it becomes like a series of movie clips arriving at random moments of familiarity… the smell of garlic, like they used to always start the sauté with, the ring tone that woke us every morning at that irritatingly early pre-dawn hour, the grey and blue linen covers that used to represent comfort and safety for so many years… i don’t think it truly ever goes away. i think it just becomes a softened scar tissue etched forever in our beings…bringing us a sickness and nostalgia all at the same time. 

What’s crazy is how long it takes to cry. not cry like it hurts - that happens continuously…but… cry like it died. saying goodbye to what will never be again. that … takes bravery. a bravery some never will have. I don’t really know if I’m brave but I know it’s taken everything in me to try to be.

I missed it here. The rain, the chill, the cow pastures and the quiet neighborhoods. no coqui frogs or crickets like big island now has everywhere - thank god, maui has kept its serenity in the mountains like i knew in my childhood. 

It’s been 16 years since I moved away from Maui. I’ve been back every couple years but usually just for a couple days or so to catch up with family… There was no Target or Lahaina bypass or even paved roads in some of the areas sloped on Haleakala. It’s still where kids ride bikes in the neighborhoods, doors stay unlocked, the mailman talks story with you, the local market has the favorite handmade baked goods from the grandmas in town. Everything closes early - I got used to the 2am bar life but in Maui, you are lucky if a place stays open till 10pm….

16 years living in a city had me running the fast lane but nothing has been more healing than being here again… remembering how to feel people without job titles, still muddied and no jewelry on - but with the 6th sense that city life masked away…

Crisp rain just heals sometimes. I forgot how much i love the flannels and need for a hoodie. Sometimes nature calls you. Sometimes your past calls you. I knew it had been calling me awhile - sometimes pain is the greatest teacher - forcing you to let go and believe in more…

Imperfect

Just a little more cabernet in the glass. Kids are sleeping soundly after a day at Ehukai on the North Shore. Their dad has been staying up there - at his sister’s place in order to respect the distance I’ve been desperately trying to balance out peacefully between our messy passion and many intwined responsibilties the last few months. I’m getting brave here. Please keep this between us… these feelings I’m letting out on through the tips of my fingers onto the keypad… vulnerable. A word that plants you there in the depth of unknown when naked is all thats left. I can’t quite get naked yet… but I’m getting close.

Love is scary. the ultimate fear of most people in surveys across the country say public speaking is the greatest fear. However, speaking intimately in the face of rejection, to the people you seek the most reciprocation from is perhaps the fear that no one actually has the balls to test except a few lucky enough to have lost and therefore know there is nothing else worth it in life. The heart wants what it wants. listening to what is heart says verses what our environment taught us however, that is the real test. 

This talking out-loud thing - it’s a gift i have, people say. It’s also something i held in for so long that it is bursting out the seams. All I can collect safely here, tonight, is that truly, we draw to ourselves what we need at that time to enforce the path we have chosen, or opposite, be the wake up call that plays the alternatives out for our warning. 

Selena’s sultry sweet adulterated voice streams through my apple music “What hurts the most is people you know can go from people you know tp people you don’t.” I’ve been obsessed with her new album, Rare. I haven’t been so hooked to something screaming female emotions since Adele debuted.

If you didn’t know me when i wore overalls and no makeup in hippie, cow pastures and waterfalls weed county of Haiku, then you wouldn’t know that I was raised with no television, no nail polished allowed and very Christian… like I had memorized all the verses of the old and new NIV version of the Bible. Heck, maybe NIV is no longer the fad that was the favored translation in the 90’s. There’s been a battle with me and the God I was raised with for quite awhile… I mean, I haven’t joined a church by choice since age 16 when life moved me to Kailua, Oahu from the merely 3000 population in the jungle I had known. I love Kailua… no, I was not an EWOK, thank you. But I learned something about God and faith and the fight of good and evil in the having had a few long term relationships, a few flings, a few crazy times and some I’ll never tell you… hey, I started young, what can i say…

You cannot fight what you feel. That internal pull will win. Heart and head are not the same. Pleasing the heart might loose you everything else, but it will allow you to continue … verses becoming sick and angry by listening to the voices purely of the mind. I think the scariest thing to discover is that perhaps the idea you invested yourself into might not be the platter you ordered… it might even straight deceive you… and yet, if you still feel something after all is said and done, it has a reason to be there. that to be human, is to be… imperfect. But that what SURVIVES the pain of humanity, the confusion, the movies we play out can only be from your own inner knowing … knowing this day, this hour, this experience is what you need. Need. What is that. Not want. Not have. Not choice. But, will be inclined to impulsively seek it out in the place you yourself cannot logic. Need. And where is that God that was one to love throughout it all to soothe us? … in that moment of surrender, thats where you find that warmth and pleasure and…Home.

the nights like these. the wines that pair perfectly into that quiet, after dark evening of privacy, towel wrapped nakendness, chores forsaken, half hour of release… onto the pages, into the sheets, out in a breath, sometimes a cry, into the open, into the other, into the unknown… trusting the god we don’t see outwardly… trusting that animal, that tug, that … 

vulnerable. 

And so here I am, after “surviving crises” as a few therapists have said. “It’s no coincidence you are here. You somehow have found peace in the chaos, order in the uncontrollable, because something in this is real. You have a love that is real, Naomi.” 

Imperfect. Broken yet puzzled back together. string strums and unrehearsed acoustic. That’s where we are. 

Vulnerable. Unknown. Release. Love.

Don’t know if that is indeed what I am looking for. But I guess I need it. 

Mana

Gray. Shades of grays. that’s what life becomes the more you see of the world, the more people you love, the more pain and laughter you have… what starts as black or white becomes measures of gray. And grays are what even the most basic of pictures come down to.

That’s what you see for miles up there. Lava faded from the sun into charcoal pools swirling layers across barren terrain. Hilo’s muddied skies still lingered over parts of the mountain which is why i probably didn’t come back down with sunburn like many other said they did. I can’t say that its wrong or right - instead, i can just say I’m glad we went to thoroughly feel through it all… Emotions? Is that what is pulling people up there? … I’d say its something more intense. Like a needed obedience to your parents or respect to a grave… that’s what it felt like. A memorial. A ceremony. A church Sunday. A remembrance of whatever is left of the “beginning” and more so, the accumulation of inner burning form the last few centuries that must come out now.

It wasn’t the reason we were going to Big Island actually. But it ended up a full day of our trip.

Such an unplanned, random, “we are going to Big Island” announcement from Makani is so typical - Windy is his nature indeed. Sometime strong and torrent, sometimes gentle and relief of the hottest day, sometimes the fuel to the fire, sometimes bringing the needed rain to the most thirsty. Never still. Never purely in one direction unless caught in a channel and even then, uncontainable. 

“I’m not bringing work with me,” he pretends as he pushes his own laptop away from my packing. I should have just ignored him and packed his laptop anyways because low and behold, 5am on our first day of “vacation” he is nudging me awake continuously asking for my password to get into my laptop, of course. Capricorns. Work is their life. Getting him to let me “sleep in” to 7am ever is nearly impossible or more specifically to be quiet and leisurely beyond his 5am auto clock is nearly impossible. Damn Marines. His son has the same gene as he is up running wild at 5am naturally asking for Bacon and Sausage unlike us girls who can stay quiet and gracefully move without waking up the rest of the house. But then again - we are just opposite. I’m the one up after hours cleaning up the kitchen and doing all my best work in that 10p - 2am peak. I’ve always been happiest at night, writing, cooking, do yoga in dim light, or filling out all the forms and millions of documents that come with children. I missed my night owl alone time - i couldn’t manage to stay up that late or stay up at all through the breast-feeding years (the whole 2012 - 2018 years)… That’s why i haven’t been writing in awhile - the best stuff always flows out night when no one is bothering you, there’s no longer errands to run or people crying that they missed the toilet and the entrepreneur is not in the busy mode or on the phone with a client. 

“Oooops! Sorry!” He winces innocently at my one eye open. “I forgot it wasn’t my computer so I just assumed all these people were friend requesting the Fly-Fishing Account, not you!” OH GREAT. NEW FACEBOOK STALKERS. A whole 50+ mostly male Facebook friends with some profiles throwing gang signs or with all arabic titles that I can’t read are now blowing up my shit, passing all the family pics going straight to the bikini pics from 2011 and before …. yep - brrrp! Brrrp! There goes my FB Messenger app vibrating off the wall from the “Hey Girl” messages I’ll now have to screen through for the next hour to unfriend any potential hackers or child perverts. Ugh. Good morning. 

“Baba!” Haea, the 2 year old moans from her waddle of baby blankets. A warm bottle of milk is still her go-to comfort. yes, letting her still have her baby bottle a couple times a day just cause I haven’t had the energy to deal with the fits and scream episodes that happen when you start taking away the comfort habits from a stubborn child (she’s more strong willed than Kanai). One step at a time - that’s my advice to all you new moms, just introduce one new struggle to conquer at a time. The emotional storms will be less overwhelming if you space out the changes every few months. 

The other two are already eating sweet bread. The 6 year old can reach the counter now and therefore helps herself (and brother) to whatever she finds before mom does. This independence defiantly backfires at home. At least here, the hotel doesn’t have the extra sugar snacks or treats laying around like your home does - the local sweet bread, fruit and cheese are the only snack options I brought for them. Thank goodness I bought that when we arrived into Hilo, I knew we’d need some food for the kids in case I was too tired to get them to breakfast right away. And between the week of the kids getting through a cold, the getting them through the airport and plane, plus that False Fire Alarm the went off in the middle of the night - ugh, I’m sooo tired. The entire hotel evacuated in pajamas around 1am early Saturday morning. The computerized voice blaring into the hotel room while disturbing did not cause the kids to panic until Makani’s drill sergeant voice took over from the dormant military-officer life autopilot that comes out in times of chaos. For sure you are safe with Makani when hell hits the fan, but the abnormally direct, loud broadcast voice that overpowers the sirens with commanding hand signals and straight, authoritative posture is not what the kids are used to seeing in Daddy so of course, Kanai jumps into my arms bawling in manic. 

And a few hours later, after breakfast, after overriding all other decisions (ehem), letting the kids jump in the hotel pool with grandma and making the stop at the store for supplies requested from the cousins camping up on the Mauna…we started the drive up. “Are we there yet?” was non-stop…

A village.

A TOWN. A whole town moved in. That’s how big this has become. There are stations. Medical Provision of all donated services and supplies. A community feeding kitchen of free, donated food supplies including a hot water jug with coffee and tea. A “shop” like tent of extra jackets and house hold items that is monitored by a volunteer who basically manages the borrowing and distribution. Impressive. All this done with no funding and pure volunteering, passion, self-accountability from family to family. it felt safe. surprisingly organized. And CLEAN. no wasted remains laying around - all were in recycled bins, reused for other things, minimal in quantities. No alcohol allowed. No smoking. No weapons. Live Aloha - the rules hand written on wooden boards. Classes were in process as we arrived. Kumus offered free cultural classes on who the Hawaiians were, what their connection to the earth and this land was, why they feel the need to protect that heritage and the land that comes with it.

And then the prayers.

12 o’clock was the next protocol. Everyone gathered with water, blistex, chairs or nothing. A formal volunteer walked around with free, communal sunscreen, water-bottles and answered questions along the way. And then the microphone went on. The drums, the crowd lining both sides of the paved asphalt strip. One of the aunties (we say aunty, uncle instead of Mr. and Ms. in Hawaii’s local culture) explained the schedule of processions, the daily times, the format of presentations, the meaning of the protocols on a spiritual and intentional level… 

Makani’s cousins offered us a couple beach chairs and pareos to cover the kids with from the sun. Being on the highest mountain top in the world, the sun rays are closer and stronger than our normal experience a few thousand feet down. The “Kumus” of the protocol lead the congregation in prayers, the many voices chanting with such vigor… The magnitude of the collective Mantra bellowing in the ground underneath us, trembling in the body, that OM in the pit of your belly, Echoing through the spine… the heart. Tears swelled. I couldn’t help it. Their voices were in me. I understood no words consciously. My daughter said a couple Hawaiian words in between the chants reinstating the little Hawaiian language she’s learned in immersions after-school, but I myself know only some basics and phrases here and there like many of us born in the islands…. 

But here, I KNEW this voice. I understood this voice. Beyond logic, there is something primal, something naked and fluid and raw. Something beyond right and wrong. Something beyond mine and yours, his and hers. Something powerful that we cannot control…

Mana. 

Perhaps I got it all wrong. Perhaps I am butchering the meaning that word originally entitled. I can’t speak for Makani. I can’t speak for the crowds. I can only speak for own experience. 

And what I know is,

We don’t have to agree on everything. We just need to know we belong in this place we call life. And that feeling, that pull, that resistance, that strange hunger to feel apart of something greater, regardless the result… that’s what I felt that day. 

It was not bad. It was not good. It was no side. Just powerful. It was like…

New Earth.

Old Soul.

No Words.

Just Sounds.

Wind from the belly.

Shaking from the navel. 

Song of the piko. 

Mana.

Bringing in Haea

We really can't fight nature. As a woman you know that from the day your menstrual cycles begin ... But sometimes we become caught up in the "schedule" of other people's ideals of life and find ourselves surprised or disappointed when it doesn't happen as we planned... That is especially the case I hear from others when the first child comes into their world - shakes up their worlds; proves the true winner is not the ego, but the steadfast heart. Some still hold onto their belief of self-super-heroism through those first couple years in denial that they must change their "habits" or "how they are" for this tiny, mostly unconscious, lesser being. But eventually something gives or else, the results years later yield no healthy fruit ... By the third child, you are ready. Ready for the chaos, the mess, the no schedule, the change of plans, the vulnerability, the lack of Independance, the giving without seeing any obvious return for months and months ... And this time, I'm at peace.  

Peace. Not a place I thought I'd be at. Preparing for the worse always makes the skies look clearer... They say the "energy" felt at birth is what shapes that personality, that relationship you have with them, that their looks and health stem from that seed planted on that day, at that time, with their backstory fertilizing them into the reality we become.  

The energy of this birth was freeing. This birth was healing. This birth was not something you could predict at all and yet it was the birth I felt the most security... It was about me trusting myself completely and feeling completely sure of myself when there was no one else to the rescue. And that's Haea. To breathe soverign life...

I had had been feeling contractions (that burning sensation deep in your tailbone and those deep squeezing in your groin and low hips - the uterus ) for over two weeks. No consistent increase to a steady pattern that could ensure a delivery was happening. And even though I was dialating and effaced over halfway since the end of March, I was still told be ready to race to the hospital at any time - every week that I had a check up, awaiting what I felt would come fast and strong. 

My sister was able to get a few days off of work to come help with the basics of house chores and physically lifting my preschoolers , lifting the boxes from recently moving (as lifting anything a little heavy can cause damages like back injuries, hemmroids, etc..), and help with driving (since the contractions would interfere with my ability to focus or maintain steadiness at the wheel). What was "surely my water breaking" ended up not being so, and so, the excitement of sis possibly seeing her first birth or meeting a day-old- baby came and went. When dialating, cervix thinning out more, and contractions still continued a week-and-a-half-later, my mom rushed to rearrange schedules and request immediate time off work in hopes of helping us with Elia and Kanai during my anticipated birth... But of course, only the day after she leaves did the contractions start increasing. A full day and a half after we have no more help coming from immediate family (as both sides live in outer island) is when baby decides to come. 

A friend had stopped over to visit that evening and casually joked bout what we would do if it happens in the middle of the night when we have no help, no daycare, and no midwife awaiting to rush over. Makani bluntly replies, "We are dropping the kids off at your house. " 😂 So, that was the plan - but of course you always need plan b and plan c - and if you've ever had labor pains, once they hit over 6cm dialated then you know you can't be dealing with a 4 and 2 yr old crying frantic and fighting you in their tired-tantrum when you uproot them mid-slumber to rush them into a house they've never slept at before...  so, a bit before midnight I felt it - like slowly increasing drums - that build up, that deepening pound on the ground, that crescendo for an hour. You can't sleep knowing it's coming, the drums pounding in your gut... I tried the sitter - (who was supposed to be busy in the early morning) and surprise she was awake, available, and willing to stay at our home throughout the next day. I had a feeling it was happening much faster than last time (was 10 hours with no medications for Kana'i, my second, and 16 hours for Elia - induced and with an epidural). So, I texted with her in her broken-English and sent texts to her daughter to translate into Portugese for her - directions to our new home that she had not yet been to 😅, where everything had been barely unpacked (from the recent move), what to do in the morning with the kids whom she had not ever Made breakfast for before, how to navigate our security system and codes around our home and how to access our wifi and that damn long access code. 😂 It was a test of faith for sure (Hand language helps 😉 ). And all while contractions are at a steady-every-five-minuets (I know you moms are cringing)... 

So, we got the hospital bags and water for me and a sweater for Makani as that hospital is cold and with no comforts for the dads. We stopped at 711 on Waialae to grab some snacks (spam musubis, of course)  - I mean hey, I am gonna work my ass off without any good food given to me once we check in so let's learn from the first two times and set ourselves up with some fuel before we go through hell 😀...

We checked in at 1 am. She was out by 5am. That's 4 hours of intensive labor. Nurse was surprised I was so calm and having contractions 3 min apart when we got there...  And even though I asked for no drugs, she kept offering pitocin to speed up the contracting - no. No. No again and we sure as hell didn't need to speed it up as it was already quickening (Pitocin causes more pain by the way if you Do take pitocin - I had it my first labor)... So I was sent walking in the halls since I wanted all natural - she thought it'd be a couple hours before I'd get the dialation speeding up (usually takes hours to get to 5/6cm and more to get to 7/8 when the "transition" really starts doubling in speed and pain). So I walked in that open-backed-gown, squatting through those cramping and heat burns - around and around for an hour and a half. Would keep going back to the check-in-room where I left Makani there to rest up before the home run (needed him to have energy to support me) to keep using the bathroom as you continuously do while you are in labor ... No one else was walking the hall (as everyone was getting epidural and the extreme numbing keeps you laying down in the bed to be safe ) but I wasn't lonely - I was actually able to relax more without anyone else around (unlike the other two labors that happened on full-moons when the hospital becomes extremely busy from "moon-chaos"). Sprayed myself with a mix of essential oils I made anytime I felt dizzy or naseuas - it's actually he only labor i didn't throw up in, thanks to orange, peppermint, and lavendar. 

A poor guy was standing outside of one of the delivery rooms as I walked by - he looked ghostly, tired like he hadn't slept in days, the skin sagging down his eyes and cheeks from the anxiety and insomnia - breathing deep in probally hours of shock ... He saw me smiling and looked like he saw pigs flying ... "First baby?" I asked. He nodded. Still in awe at me squatting the 48lb roundness - "It's baby number 3 for me. Don't worry - first one is really scary, it's long and it's shocking but it's normal. You are doing great." He nodded. Nurse told me later a husband of "another birthing mom" was shocked at the girl smiling down the laboring hall but that " she said its normal so it's gonna be ok. She's on baby number 3 so it must get better." Hehe... 😆❤️

My doctor or never made it to the birth (till the placenta was coming out 15 min later)... When I got back to the room and got "checked" (they stick their hand in to see how far your cervix opened) I was over 6cm. That means time for the birthing room. They also have to put in a mandatory IV in case your birth goes crazy and you need emergency Meds or something... Girl busted five of my veins and had blood spurting everywhere before she finally called an IV specialist (who put it in with one try no prob 🙄) - bruise lasted for two weeks. By the time we got through the IV horror and escorted into the big birthing-rooms - I'm at 7cm. You can't stay still at that point - not without Meds.

It was obvious this set of nurses I had (unlike last time) weren't used to all natural 😂😂 - the looks on their faces as I'm stripping off my robe and pacing frantically, breathing deep whoooooshy breathes, bending in all different positions to maintain through what feels like a steamroller juicing your insides every 5 seconds... They wanted to put a baby monitor strap on my belly that would keep me leashed and stationary to a pole (with monitor device). I asked them for the mobile one that has no attachments (I had it last time I birthed all natural) so I can move around since I'm not drugged and bearing the punches - took them 20 min to find one and by the time they figured out how to work it, I was squatting, butt-naked telling makani "I'm sh**ing out a baby right now!" They asks me to wait a few minuets for my doctor to arrive... Wtf - you can't hold in a 7-9 lbs bowling ball agaisnt Gravity, the god-damn squeezing machine (the uterus - god) with an open hole! 

...and that's what was kinda magical - that feeling like no one there really knew how to handle my animal self or my own knowing of my body, actually made me trust myself more, not less and ... Trust my spouse who totally showed his support amount all the chaos.

Makani trusted US. We both trusted US more than anyone else there. It was the first time He nor I were looking for guidance from anyone else during the vulnerable experience of birth... When the nurse busted my veins, Makani asked for a new nurse to take over the IV process. When a nurse took my blood pressure while I was mid-contraction and said I had high blood pressure, he told another nurse to check me when I wasn't mid-contraction. When a nurse kept offering me pitocin, I stuck to my wants and firmly said no and he followed... I went from 7 to 10 cm in 20 minuets - and the speed of that pressure on your body made me dizzy. When I yelled out for oil spray - he rushed over to spray me with, "Which one babe? Lavendar? This one? The mixed one?" Totally involved... He cleaned up the "mess" when the nurses weren't fast enough ... It was his voice that encouraged me through that 6 minuet push. That push felt like 7 hands ripping me apart from all sides of my crotch and he was right there holding me up, hands in, telling me how strong I was, getting bloody, getting excited to see the baby crowning ... While I thought for sure my tissues were severing in all angles...

I'll never forget that. Feeling it was meant to be. Feeling like there really wasn't anyone else there, but us. Our baby. Our birth. Trusting me. Him Trusting my lead. Trusting I was loved. Trusting this baby was doing what it's supposed to. Trusting God... 

Trusting Life itself.

and then...

its over.

the pain is over.

A wet bundle wiggles towards your breast and your body is still shaking, gasping breaths like you've been underwater nearly drowning, heart beating out of your chest... 

And I just remember Makani's voice, a hushed cry, "She's beautiful." 

It's all a dreamy blurr for those few hours afterwards - a high, laughter, a wave ...  

...Makani whispering to her in his arms still hasn't left me... And I still fell him holding my hand in the end ... 

The other births were not "bad" nor did they ever leave me feeling ashamed or weak or alone ... But there's a different experience for every child, every "person" and their energy that they bring in that day ... And this one was so much more pleasant than I imagined ... Sometimes the things that are most out of our control are the most beautiful of all ...

The Countdown

All of them sleeping before 10pm is a rare occasion in my life.

Elia, my oldest has always been a night owl since birth - sleeps solid straight through the night but will go all day without a nap and be navigating in the dark till midnight if you haven't worn her out. She's smart - that mind never shuts off - I mean, at 11 months old she would wait till we slept and somehow unlock our phones and download apps and games and the only way you knew she had been in there at 1 am the prior night was from her selfie record in your photo camera roll...

Kana'i is opposite - needs routine and consistent schedules to function healthy or its tantrums and colds. He is too honest and expressive to hide his secret plots (unlike quiet sis). He was always an early bird like his Daddy, up at 5am starving for meat - one of his first words was bacon for gods sake. He needs the nap in the day and the cuddling to fall asleep (unlike sister who pushes your arm away and sleeps alone fine) and lately, since he's talking up a storm now, he holds out his hand at the end of our nightly routine of eat, bath, brushteeth and hang-out time and says, "Mom (or dad), come. Hold me. Read story. Snuggle. Nigh Nigh. Say waoove you, Kana'i." Talk about a heart melt. This boy is so sensual with hugs and gently rubbing your leg and uses "Miss you," with puppy eyes at any sign of loosing chance... 

And here I'm about to get an entirely new personality in the mix. Another pull away from any moment of being able to pee in bliss or shower more than 3 minutes or have a phone call without screams for "MMAAAAMMMAAAA"...

Its not really the dilated at 1 cm that is the "oh ha," but the cervix lining being effaced over halfway that caught me. The cervix usually takes awhile to soften and thin down for labor to begin and that didn't happen on its own with my first - and was not this fast with my second either. But I hear the more you have, the faster they come. And it sure feels like I've had a hand sticking outta my crouch for a good couple weeks already. Lemme know if you see fingers. 

It's been heat cramping for a day. I guess thats the closest to the pre-labor cramping that I can remember. Everyone tells it different but I really didn't feel any "cramping" like people described to me with my first. I just notice some liquids escaping a few days before I was due without any real big moment - yet walked into my over-due-date appointment and they told me I was unknowingly contracting and loosing all my water. With my second, there was some heated pressing into my hips and groin now and then for a couple days and then boom, I woke up in the morning bleeding. And so now?

Tiger Balm. Icy Hot. Its like those muscle heat creams on fire with a thick handed man is squeezing your hips and pressing their thumbs into where your leg and groin meets for a few seconds at a time.

Pepper on your Tail bone. Like a warm drip straight in-between your cheeks started loosening your hips away from your spine - that was last night for a good ten minutes. 

This morning I had that urge to finish all the last pieces of the baby ready list - I had prepped baby powder (homemade - click here for recipie) and diaper rash ointment (homemade spray - see recipe to come) and stalked a few newborn diapers, burp cloths, swaddle blankets, mittens and socks into a basket. We set up the crib and playpen last week; I washed all the crib sheets. I bought a few breastpads (since I had a huge milk load that overflowed all day long with the first two) and made myself a recovery spray safe for those parts (see recipe to come). 

Today was the car - which I wish I could have video taped of my watermelon self having to rearrange things in slow motion and move legs around my belly constantly since I couldn't reach around this 45 pound belly nor see whats under it. And since we have a tighter garage space now, I had to drive and reverse in and out of the garage constantly in order to just get out of the car with a belly and hips (that don't hold tight at the moment) to be able to access the vacuum and outlet. Of course, Makani helped me finish once he got home but I was determined - which means it is close... that urge to HAVE to finish prepping, cleaning, buying for baby is REAL. It's a thing. And so thats what I'm doing now... up at ten pm when my body is at its max capacity with no naps on weekends when children are with me all day and having to use the bathroom every hour and then eat again while telling kids, no they can't have more snacks even though mommy can ... I am writing because I HAVE to - I HAVE to say that I finally feel like I can let go... 

Letting go. That's most of the battle right there. Letting yourself be slow, be less ambitious, be tired, be hungry, be big and balloony and be messy... Pregnancy is all of that. It's a force of nature beyond your control alone - anyone who has been pregnant knows its much more than it looks and that you are not prepared for the FEELINGS that come with it - whether during or post pardem ... Well, third time around, you know it's coming. Hence, I wasn't excited. But, slowly this baby has been accepted in my heart and mind and I have friends who have made it more exciting for me - thank you - telling me all the positive, the blessings, the comparisons that do make your mom days seem brighter. 

Ha'ea is all I've gotten so far. I saw a mountain range with meadows and sunshine and cool air. A happy place, with views and comfortable weather and plenty of room to grow - a free place. And then Makani saw it too one day - just caught in a daydream he saw a similar vision and called me saying, "you said it and I see it too - its her..." 

Ha - means breathe or breath

Ea - Soverign or Life itself 

Before I forget these days I had to  write down that its been ... bittersweet. Like, In the few days after finally getting most unpacked in the new house (moving in your last 6 weeks pregnant is a killer), I found myself listening to Adele over and over and crying quiet tears - somehow not sad tears but like you are watching the end of a romance movie kind of tears. Between the two, Moving and Having a New Baby, I definitely said goodbye to the "old loves" and filtered out my life - of worn out handbags and heels (4 inch strappys are my weakness), old work files and financial records, of expired medicines and cosmetics (and of course, the sale of all our major furniture) ... but most interestingly, I found myself reading through old diaries and poetry i wrote throughout the years and saw how unsatisfied I was until now... how much work it took to trust in love and family and believe in myself even though I always believed in others ... I was able to throw out items that acted like emotional insurance policies - those just-in-case-things-fall-apart-sentiments ... And so even though, yes, having kids back to back indeed dooms you for the heating-fire and especially a third unplanned and with the many changes it forces on you, your homelife, your finances, your romantic relationship, your family relationships, your self-esteem, your career, your physical health, your physical looks, your emotional control, your mentality... Sometimes fire purges and refines whatever is left into gold. 

So Ha'ea, I'm just trusting you are bringing me into the best of myself. Trusting that you will take me to that untouched mountain meadow and keep sunshine in my hardest days. That through the burning hours that you rip my hips from my back (coming anytime now), that I'll be in that better place with you - that we can indeed change, recover, grew and renew again and again... that cool air and free space will bring us all back to the true, simple beauty in having a breath of life. 

Amen

Secret Stress of the 3rd Pregnancy

Silence. It’s been awhile, I know. 

6 months pregnant  

Heat, Swelling, Blurry Vision, Headaches, Dry Throat, Hunger, Crushed Breathing, Constipation, Tears - at all things from Adele’s heart-aching lyrics to having no energy left to again wash all the pee-soaked sheets, blankets and pillows of my children’s double bed… That’s been the uphill battle until about a month ago. I finally could brush my teeth in the morning without throwing up once I hit 6 months pregnant. 

Groin pains - most women don’t talk bout it but let’s be honest, it happens in many pregnancies and it is sore. Doc says most women have more and more pains in legs, hips, back, and groin in their 2nd, 3rd, 4th pregnancy even if they had smooth sailing pregnancies previously. Your body gets worn in. Baby making is rough.  Your joints need 18months to 3 years to heal and I never had that time to recover... my veins are swollen and you can feel this pressure like they are going to burst. Advice is to rest and lay with hips up - which is impossible if you have diapered toddlers to run after. And you can’t take much for it - Tylenol can only do so much (and you can't take anything stronger as it damages the baby development). So its been Lavender. Straight lavender oil is what I started rubbing around my legs and belly and crouch because nothing else relieved that deeply-bruised feeling of that extra 22 pounds dropping into your groin all day…

22 pounds is what some women gain in the entire pregnancy but for me - at 22 pounds over my pre-pregnant weight, I was being told that the baby and placenta wasn’t quite reaching its growth mark for the 5 month “healthy fetus”…

In addition, I’ve been stressed about my kids teeth which, due to genetics of having deep grooves, are more prone to decay than the other kind of teeth apparently - and surprise, sugars are not the only cause of cavities but the amount of times a day food causes acids to sit in the mouth! The reality that my brushing and flossing and choice of “healthy” foods wasn’t enough to be decay free was such a huge blow to my already-depleted emotional strength. Searching for the right combination of diet became an obsession (turns out breads and pastas are a huge decay factor and calcium without enough magnesium and vitamin d combined, can make the absorption of calcium inefficient! Meats provide some of the best bone strength). Talk about going insane with research! I couldn’t sleep - I was up reading everything from scientific studies to mama blogs to ancient wives’ tales…

Recipe for "green cupcakes" without sugarcane coming soon... 

As if that’s not enough, I have been on the hunt for the right kind of preschool for my kids as this new baby will add a whole new dynamic to the part-time daycare/preschool life we have had. I had dropped down from working full time, to part time since my oldest was born, and was lucky to have minimized those hours to even less once my second was born (as I had two babies before my oldest was two year old). While part-time daycare worked fine until now - any mom who has had multiple kids knows that to have three kids under 5 years old is extremely difficult to balance without family help or a nanny and the stress of attending to so many needs of different children leave your own mom-body depleted of nutrients and rest needed to recover physically, emotionally and mentally… so, I had to make that decision of how do we do this? Full-time preschool sounded correct, yes - but then you have to think about the needs of each child and how they respond to that school and environment. Of course, my first concern is making sure they are not neglected or mishandled (especially when a child can’t fully talk yet, you are so nervous that they are being mistreated), but there are other important factors that come up as your child gets older. When a child is bored, they act up or become more dramatic in emotions, so being sure that they are stimulated enough or in the way that keeps them wanting to go the that school is important. When a child is around other kids, they pick up their talks, habits, and attitudes which can greatly jeopardize your teachings or your own parental values that you work so hard to enforce, so being in a setting that enrolls similar type of families is something that does matter. The cost of a school of course matters as well - especially if you are putting two or more children in preschool at the same time (as we are) … many people do not realize there are no public preschools - and a legal, accredited preschool costs anywhere from a few hundred a month for part-time (like 2-4 hours a few days a week) to almost a couple thousand a month for a standard 6-8 hour day five days a week. Then of course, there is the location of the school in relevance to you, your job, your commute route, or perhaps the quality of the neighborhood it is in (some schools have the problem of reckless homelessness around).

Trying to continue with swelling pains and the exhaustion that comes with pregnancy (it increases each pregnancy doc says), the demands of the other two toddlers, the housework, all the doctor appointments (1-3 times a month for pregnancy), a change in diet, obsessive teeth brushing (like I carried around a toothbrush for every after-snack cleaning with the kids ), the school appointments, while in holiday traffic and holiday lines with kids in tow and swallowing that fact that maybe something could go wrong with this baby (that's the worst feeling - you keep wondering if you could have done something different, if it's maybe your fault), had me dreaming nightmares for a few weeks.

Things finally started looking up these last couple weeks. Another ultrasound confirmed that the baby’s growth increased to meet par, I doubled my weight gain in one month ( I was tripping and banging my hips on everything for 3/4 weeks of intensive growth)… I found a dentist with a more holistic approach to dentistry which is almost nonexistent in Hawaii (I found out the hard way) and was able to get confirmation on my new-found research of diet, timing, habits, and genetics effect on teeth health and save my kids teeth from undergoing more intensive procedures recommended by other dentists! whew! It’s still a process, we still have decay to fix and stop from proceeding but it is much less invasive and horrifying than it could have been … And we found a school that offers the kind of pre-k program to keep my inquisitive daughter entertained and interested and my son guided into the “big boy” independence he so proudly displays. Now, it's onto finishing up the required vaccinations for entry and potty-training of my 2 year old (which, we need to do before baby comes in 9 weeks - as experienced moms know that will be hell if we wait till after new baby comes)…

So, I can breathe again. 

For now. 

A lot of people forget the chaos of childbearing once their kids are in elementary but for those of you still in it - Our lives are intense. I have to say you are not nearly as stressed about a 3rd baby coming - mentally, because you have already had two experiences to give you a very good reality of what is coming (unlike the naive 1st time mom). You also dread the third child because you have a clear reality of how stressful it is to have a new baby. And your body is definitely taking the hit 3rd time around, unfortunately. I heard that from a few moms of 3/4 children - but you really don’t know how much so, till it happens. So hence, I’m telling it all - because I wish people were more honest about motherhood instead of letting movies and Instagram keep it secret. We moms need each other to say that it’s not perfect. It’s beautiful, yes, but its crazy and draining too. You are not alone - I also feel stuck, tired, or unattractive some days … but most importantly - You will survive because I did! You will feel amazing again one day, because I was in your shoes, and I did! Thank you to all you mom-of-3-plus-children who told me the truth and kept me going…

On the positive, I got see my baby's face recently - I haven't ever seen my growing baby so far along in a pregnancy before because, if under 35 and a normal pregnancy, insurance doesn't cover ultrasounds (as you don't need them) after the initial 4 month anatomy scan. So, seeing a face so fully formed and a body so plump (as opposed to at 4months when a fetus looks scrawny) brightened up this trimester. She's a pretty one and very active I've been told...

All I can draw of the dreams I've seen of her

No full name yet, waiting for this one to tell me more about her as the other two did (See the other posts in this section). Now that the stressful climax is over, I feel more ready to hear her story. So far, I saw dreams of a mountain area, somewhere in colder air, and clean without urban dwellings near. I saw darker, straight hair and a more earthy girl (than the more princess type of person with wavy hair that I saw in dreams of my oldest) with a simple jeans and a t-shirt on. "Ea" I heard. Which can mean a few things along the lines of (wehewehe.org):

ea

1. n. Sovereignty, rule, independence. Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea, Restoration Day. Hoʻihoʻi i ke ea o Hawaiʻi, restore the sovereignty of Hawaiʻi.

2. n. Life, air, breath, respiration, vapor, gas; fumes, as of tobacco; breeze, spirit (Isa. 42.5). This ea, as well as ea 1, 3, 4, is sometimes pronounced or sung ʻea. Cf. eamāmā, eaolamāmā. Kaha ea, to deprive of rights of livelihood. Wai ea, aerated waters. Hoʻopuka ea, exhaust fumes. Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono (motto of Hawaiʻi), the life of the land is preserved in righteousness. He palupalu lākou, he ea hele wale aku (Hal. 78.39), they were flesh, a wind that passes away. Kāʻili ʻia aku ke ea o ʻAberahama (Kin. 25.8), Abraham gave up the ghost; lit., the breath of life was snatched away.

3. vi. To rise, go up, raise, become erect. Cf. aea, eʻea, hōʻea. Kai ea (Kep. 183), rising sea. Ua ea kona poʻo, his head was raised. Ke ea ʻana o ka ʻai, ka iʻa (Kep. 97), the obtaining of poi, fish.. ʻAʻole hoʻi au e ea maluna o koʻu wahi moe (Hal. 132.3), I will not go up into my bed. (PPN eʻa.)

 But there is so much more left to come I'm sure...

Baby #3

You would think I would have seen it coming, right? I mean, I got all these "signs " the last two times ... Why wouldn't I see the signs this time? 

I was soooo not ready for this one. We were so busy. Slammed. My summer days were early morning emails, website updates and corrections, reading papers, responding to inquiries, confirming deadlines and appointments, on top of diapering my one-year-old and attending both his and my 3yr-old daughter's constant need for mom. Did I mention constant checking of my husband's wardrobe and making sure his teeth were clean before he left the house to attend his completely packed 7am - 8pm seven-days-a-week schedule... The house was a mess. Like, more than the normal toys on the floor and laundry piled cause-you-have-two-toddlers-mess. Like, did we wash the sheets in those 8 weeks? Most of the food in the fridge was just sitting there going bad for weeks because we were only eating what could be made in ten minutes or on-the-go. I kept buying soap everytime we were at the store cause I couldn't remember if I had any under the sink or in the storage because we were that busy ... So how did we have time to get pregnant? That's what we both said at the end of August when those blue lines showed up on the pregnancy test... When? How? No way! In fact, I took two tests because I just could not believe it. It had to be wrong. It had to be. Makani, you bought a cheap one, didn't you?  😁

There weren't any recent dreams this time to warn me... Of course there was this ONE, a while ago but I guess I didn't want to hear it, huh? Can you blame me - 3 babies in four years? That's nearly a year pregnant, a year breastfeeding, a year pregnant, a year breastfeeding (which just ended in April), to be again, pregnant (by June) and again, breastfeeding ... Which means by the time I'm done breastfeeding this baby, it will have been 6 years straight of my body as a re-sizing, baby-building, milk-squirting, hormones-ranging, no-sleep machine. And the pregnancies are definitely not the easy kind for me... Doc says all women are different and I just am one if those that is naseus nearly all the first 6 months or more and this time it was PAIN in my seat, my groin, down the back of my legs... In bed half the day. For real. 

So getting excited for number three took awhile. We are finally feeling a little better the last week - I actually made it out to a dinner with a girlfriend and was able to get through my days without falling asleep every two hours. And, well, people have been telling me how happy they are to see us having more children which has been a huge help. Us moms really need that support. 

We find out in two weeks if it's a boy or girl. Everyone has been asking what I think it is - some think it's a girl because I'm so sick (girls give more estrogen which means double estrogen in your system), but I was much more sick with my son's pregnancy then my daughter's. You never know... But then I did have that one dream, a few months after the birth of my last one, Kana'i...

I was standing in the dirt driveway of a small farm. It was Hilo. Small, red peppers poked out of the shrubs to my left, palms towered, fruit trees and bush variations were abundant around, the covered structure on the right led to a barn. The snorting of the pigs could be heard; Makani used to fed, bathe, and birth pigs out of that same barn when he was a teen. It was Lohe's farm. (My husband's beloved Uncle Lohe with whom he spent his summers with as a child.) I had been to the farm once with Makani when my daughter was 10-months-old. Lohe was a kind man behind a guarded wisdom. He talked parables and with a fatherly tenderness.

A young boy appeared in front of me. Tanned from the sun, mixed in features, brown haired, strong presence. His eyes fixed on me. "If you want me, I'm yours," his little voice proposed. No smile. No charm. Just a matter-of-fact. 

"Not now," I said calmly, turning to walk away. I had just birthed a son 3 months before.  

"I have a sister, too,"  he voiced louder, as if to win a sale. "If you want her... We both will help you with your purpose, we won't be as hard as the first two." He was genuine. But I was exhausted with two in diapers already. I just kept walking. That's all I saw of the farm boy. A few months later, Uncle Lohe passed away. 

As we are due late April, the anatomy scan takes place in a couple weeks. If it is indeed a boy, I'm sure Lohe will be apart of his name... We could very well have the farm boy's sister - either way, I'm looking forward to what is hopefully, our last baby 😉. 

Surviving the Insanity of Infant Life

Many new moms call me to cry about the stress they feel - I get it. I have break downs too. Here is a little inside of my feelings coming right out of my son's first year...

I actually wrote this in January - It just took me forever to get this blog up with all the damn parties of my family and holidays. Get this: Kanai (my son) had his 1st Birthday party (of 225 people) November 7th, then was Thanksgiving, Christmas, my daughter (Elia) had a mermaid themed 3rd birthday party, then was New Years, and finally my hubby's 36th Birthday this past Sunday night. 

I made it back to my prebaby body which is a huge thrill (a whole 60lbs less back to size 1) but also a task to keep up with in sorting through clothes and shopping for new ones (that still allow breastfeeding, child play move-ability, and improve my “mom" confused self esteem) while dragging around two crying, fighting, laughing, wriggling out of the stroller and arms - toddlers. I also feel the post partum-hormone drops and that means some days I’m fixated on the down...

It’s such an insecure time transitioning out of being only concerned about keeping the helpless infant fed, clean, clothed, without anything to choke on, without anything to disturb it from its necessary sleep, concerned of eating the right things to supply the right breast milk while stressed of the need to be fair in emotional attention between him and my older baby, also in diapers, also needing food prepped and constant help with using household basic items, the adjustments in learning and growth – the ever constantly needing more than 2-hour-at-a-time sleep all while being consumed in the mess and demands of your diapered ones to the point of not knowing what day or time it is or when you last brushed your teeth… 

So now that Kanai can wobble-walk and doesn’t need constant carrying, and is no longer completely helpless to suffocation if a blanket accidentally covers his face, nor is as needing of full day breastfeeding, and is not needing a change in poopy diaper every hour – all of which mean I can get a whole five minuets of something done every so often (a huge win of time compared to before)… the current thoughts are constantly: what next?

I want to be around adults again, and yet I don’t want to regret missing time with my kids…I want to make money and feel some power again instead feeling at the need of my husband (who has done a wonderful job of providing in the hellish Hawaii costs of living but of course has gotten used to material provisions being his sole role enabling him to be feeling less responsible to relieve me of my 24hr child duty as seems a common trend among couple I've spoken to) and yet my absence from full time immersion of any commercial workforce since mid-first -pregnancy four years ago, means I will have to start at a lower end position without feeling secure in my abilities to meet par – basically relearning how to work as a company among adults who have no idea of how hard my past year of birth recovery, and family growth has been, nor aware of how consumed I already am still forced to maintain my full time obligation of mom to the continuous shopping of newer bigger needs of growing children, tantrum and learning pains that come with, the guilt I feel if I have no energy left from the work day to be able to laugh and play with my children for the remaining hours after traffic, preparing dinner, bathes, clean up and laundry… and the biggest one: the disconnect in my relationship with daddy due to having replaced him as priority in the last year (understandably, as all moms must) and pregnancy prior, as nature forced me to…that although there is no outward resentment from him, there are definitely signs of the gap and unfamiliarity of each other as lovers or even as friends as our identities have been lost to the love-hate role of parents. That we haven’t been to even have a basic casual conversation without being interrupted by a cry, feeding, mess to clean up immediately, or diaper change – let alone snuggle or share in foreplay…that sex has been minimal and straight to the point without any waste of precious seconds without the children needing us. And then of course there is the big noticeable debt of extra costs each added baby has brought…which is the whole reason the thoughts of working again seem to come in my mind even though I don’t feel ready for such…

Elia around 8 months

Hence, the reason for blogging... sanity and the need to connect to other moms...of course there is the good stuff too. Next to come.