I’ve been here in Hawaii long enough to start to know it’s distinct moods and tendencies. I know Lanikai, with its often written about world class sand, and the Mokes at its horizon. I also know its residents; rich, often insensitive (ask me about their floats on their New Year’s parade sometime), and resistant to tourist traffic, both cars and people.
I know that the base beaches somehow carry their uniform, institutionalized feeling to the very shores of the clear water. And I know Waikiki, crowded, turquoise, and rimmed by skyscrapers and stores where I can’t even afford to look at the price tags.
And we have found that among these many places, beauties and bases, our hearts belong in Waimanalo. With its run down houses and the large families that come with tents and barbecues, the smoke occasionally wafting down the big stone steps and settling on the sand. With its occasional turtles and never ending spots of coral, and it’s old black stone walls and steps that guide you down and through its bright waters.
The people that come here are not the giddy, bouncing tourists, who bring an energy that can be sustained for only a few days. They are also not the ones who have forgotten what lies before them. They come and they sit and they breathe, because this, this swath of blue and green before them is how they get through their days, months, years. Where I grew up, it is the small town breakfast diners where the farmers gather that gives the same feeling. This is how they have always done it, and this is where they will always be.
We come to be a part of these people who have lived here, and do live here, and will live here. Because of these long standing stone walls that block our children in and the big waves out, but that let in fish and crevices for multiple fish catching crabs.
We also come, because on days when we forget our children’s swimsuits, they can play in their clothes, with them, and without them, and no one wonders at them or us.
Some people want the glitter of skyscrapers and delivered beach drinks (it’s not the drinks I’m objecting to, just so you know), but we’d rather feel like we can survive here if we have to; that it is permanent and beautiful and that we can be sustained.
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