A Study in Contrasts: Hawaii

A Study in Contrasts

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
(Christina Rossetti)

Miss Conley was older than God, and I’m pretty sure God did as Miss Conley said. So when Miss C. demanded that the congregation of our tiny Methodist church in the Shawnee Hills learn this haunting, bittersweet poem/hymn, we did. The grown up me is eternally grateful.

You thought I was off on yet another blathering treatise on the glory of poetry, but this one is about finding summer in the middle of the bleak midwinter. We have just returned from a trip to Hawaii. It was fascinating, and beautiful, and full of contradictions.

Tourism is an odd thing to base an entire economy on, but that seems to be the case, at least on Oahu, where we were (Waikiki Beach). We toured the North Shore, home of the big waves Hawaii is so famous for, with an angry young man who resented the intrusion even while he valued the job (and the tips). His monologue was interesting, equal parts local lore, history, and bullshit. But we saw a sea turtle and several endangered birds, coconut palms and tilapia ponds, Jimmy Buffet’s house and the Dole “plantation”. I loved the banyan trees with their Tarzan vines to swing on, and was disappointed to learn they aren’t native. Neither are the amazing rainbow bark eucalyptus trees. And neither are pineapples, according to our not-too-trustworthy angry young man. The “plantation” was a few fields and a maze and a huge tourist-trap gift shop. Inside you could buy just about any sort of stupid island-flavored piece of junk imaginable. Yep, good ol’ Yankee capitalism at its finest: Buy your crappy little souvenirs here in Hawaii, but we’ll grow those pineapples to garnish your $12 Mai Tai somewhere where labor is cheaper, somewhere where the prevailing wage is somewhat less than starvation level. That $12 Mai Tai seems somehow symbolic. Though we had a wonderful time, it felt like the “real” Hawaii has been smashed under the big handmade shoes of powerful white men.

We spent most of our time on the beach, within easy walking distance of our hotel, indulging—gorging—ourselves on the sensual feast the ocean offers. Nothing on God’s green earth smells or feels or tastes or sounds or looks like the sea. There is healing there, and power. Grace. Life.

The shelters in the parks along the beach are made from intertwining trees that completely engulf metal supports, for a protective cover that keeps rain and sun out. One particular shelter seemed to house a colony of happy homeless folks who smoked funny Hawaiian cigarettes by day and made music together by night. We learned about Duke Kahanamoku, Hawaii’s “Ambassador of Aloha” who won some Michael Phelps-like number of Olympic medals over a career that spanned most of his life. He is also credited with bringing surfing to Hollywood. But his best accomplishment in our estimation was the restaurant that bears his name. The breakfast buffet at Duke’s was a highlight of our trip. We ate like Olympians, or at least like the wild pigs that roam Hawaii’s countryside.

I didn’t actually see any wild pigs, but I spotted several whales on the horizon as I walked toward the base of Diamond Head. I also saw a couple of mongooses (remember Rikki Tikki Tavi?), some odd looking bird with a bright red head, several wild chickens, and a lighthouse that has been lit for several hundred years.

The Pearl Harbor memorial, despite distracting construction, remains a moving tribute to the 2400 sailors and civilians who died in the attack on December 7, 1941. As the daughter of a World War II veteran and career sailor, I found this part of our trip very meaningful. Daddy wasn’t at Pearl, but only because he got lucky. So many were not. One display in particular struck me. It was the uniform and personal effects of one of the sailors killed there. His uniform, dress blues. His watch. His wife’s picture, a lovely, lively brunette. A high school diploma. He was 20. Except for a few bars, his uniform was identical to the one Daddy was buried in last year. The U.S.S. Arizona, hit broadside, suffered the most damage, and the remains of the battleship still ooze oil on the surface of the calm harbor. The wall where the names of the dead are recorded is a sobering reminder of the hell brought on by power-hungry nations at war.

Hawaii is the most remote place on earth, with its nearest neighbor island 2000 miles away, and the nearest land mass 2400 miles off. So how in the world did the original settlers get there? With canoes. That’s right, these guys ROWED to Hawaii, in about 900 A.D. And I think I’m hot stuff when I “row” three sets of ten on the rowing machine at the gym?

Waikiki offers great people-watching, too, from the homeless hippies to the Speedos to the designer-clad dames. I was astonished at the number of young families there—how on earth can these people afford Hawaii?? And I was equally astonished at the middle-aged women whose multiple cosmetic surgeries rendered them improbably, unnaturally “youthful”. I’ll keep my lines and jiggles.

It’s 5 degrees outside tonight. Bleak midwinter, for sure. But we’ll always have Waikiki.