The Beach Day

Some creative writing fluff I began on the plane ride back from Hawaii last week.

I’m more comfortable waking up in my grandparents home than I am waking up anywhere else in the world. This is where I feel most safe, most loved, most free to be who I am. In the house I grew up in, the house that will probably remain in my family for generations to come.

This is what I’m thinking as my heavy eyes start to slowly flutter open one morning.

It’s still dark. That’s my second, not-so-coherent thought. It’s still dark, and there’s a storm passing over the island. I can hear the rain on the iron roof, another comfort. It’s loud, sounding more like nails than water, and I can hear the periodic Splat! Splat! every other second as those drops hit the ti leaves outside of the bedroom window.

I fix my bleary eyes on the new alarm clock my grandmother purchased and put on the bedside table before I arrived a few days earlier. I have to squint to see numbers rather than just a bright fluorescent green glow; I don’t have my contacts on and am too lazy to reach for my glasses. Once I focus, I can see that it reads 4:07 A.M. No wonder it’s still dark.

I was hoping this would be a beach day, and it would seem that this storm had other ideas, but I know better than to make this call based on the fact that it’s raining at 4 a.m. on this particular side of the island. After all, when is it not raining at 4 a.m. on this side of the island? Comforted by this thought, and by the rhythm of the falling rain, I snuggle back down into blankets I don’t really need, and doze off.

I know it’s light out before I open my eyes again.

My first thought is that the rain has stopped. I can hear the mynah birds hanging out in the coconut trees in the back of the house, the new puppy my aunt got is digging and sniffing at something outside of my window, and the cars are already going up and down the street with quiet regularity.

I don’t open my eyes yet, it always takes me a while. Instead, I bring my arms over my head and yawn. That’s when I feel the bed depress at the footboard under some new weight. I feel that same weight move across the bottom of the bed and settle, slowly, between my calves. Testing, I stretch my legs out, bring my feet together, and come up against something warm and immovable. I nudge it, and am greeted with the familiar soft Meow of my blue calico sweetheart, my Mija. I open my eyes and she’s staring back at me from her curled position, waiting. Obligingly, I move my legs aside towards the edge of the bed and give her more room. Satisfied, she yawns, puts her head down, brings her paw up to cover her face, and falls asleep, exhausted, no doubt, after her evening of playing Queen of the Castle while the rest of the household slept.

Quietly, so as not to disturb Her Majesty, I slip out of bed and clear my fuzzy brain. I can hear the sounds of life on the other side of the bedroom door, and I mentally place my family. My mother is at work, she’d have left a little after 7:00 this morning to make it to the Pet Hospital in town half an hour away. My older sister and her son couldn’t make it to Hilo this weekend, so they’re not here. My brother in law, is in Iraq for his second tour. Little Sister, who’s home for vacation as well, is more than likely still asleep, sprawled across her bed in the next room. I look at the clock again: 8:45 A.M. She won’t be up for another hour, at the earliest. I can hear the laundry going, so my grandmother is probably out in the garage hanging clothes on the line to dry. On the other hand, I can’t here Papa walking around their bedroom, or watching TV, so he’s mostly likely sitting in his chair out on the deck. That’s everyone, all accounted for.

Turning around to find my contact lens case, I remember that I wanted to head to the beach today. Thinking this, I look toward the window and smile. There, visible above the banana trees and the roof of our neighbor Miss Kat’s garage, is the slice of blue I’m looking for. The sky hasn’t yet turned that bright, bold, legendary blue of Hawaiian fantasies, but the pale blue of the morning holds promise. I step to the window and glance out through the screen. Not a cloud in the sky. The 4 a.m. rainstorm has blown out to journey across the Pacific.

By mid-morning, I’m antsy. I sit outside with my grandfather, play cards with my grandmother, watch the old men of the village sit outside of the General Store across the street and sip their coffees, take note of the number of tourists in shiny cars heading up the street to start their mornings off with a hike around Akaka Falls, and wait for my sister to wake up. I’ve decided that it is, after all, a beach day. The sky has become a crisp, deep blue, and the sun is already drying the wet left over on the grass and the pavement. There’s a nice, cool, clean breeze coming down from the Hamakua Coast, and it doesn’t smell of the rain. Now, on most days I wouldn’t think much of these signs; what the weather is like on the Windward side of the island says pitifully little of what the weather will be like on the Leeward side. But I feel it today, a prickling on my skin, a knowing in my bones: it’s a beach day.

It’s nearly 10 a.m. when Little Sister finally peeks her head out of the screen door and I can tell her that I’ve committed her to laying around on the sand with me at Hapuna all day. She agrees with a smile and disappears inside to, I assume, choose which bathing suit she’ll use. She has the best bathing suit body, and it never ceases to annoy me. We head out for the hour-long drive before 11:00, armed with a cooler of sodas, some musubi, and a plan to pick up some fried chicken from KTA in Waimea on the way over.

The drive from Honomu to Waikaloa seemed horribly long when I was a kid. Anything after Kolekole Beach Park, which is three minutes from Honomu, seemed like it took forever to get to. My sisters and I found ways of amusing ourselves on those long drives, and we still use those methods today. We wait for the passing of the three horseshoes – Maulua, Laupahoehoe, and Kawili gulches – we stop off at Tex Drive-in for some of their famous malasadas, we take a spin down to the Waipio Valley look out, we count cows in the pasture lands leading into Waimea, attempt to pick out paniolo amongst them, we stop at KTA for any last-minute necessities, then we hold our breath and hope that, once we get to dry-side Waimea, the weather is clear and warm.

On this particular day, we’re not disappointed. As green, grassy fields give way to the yellow-brown dryness of mountain slopes, and then the dramatic black and sapphire of sand-dotted coastline, the weather drastically changes from cool to blistering. The ocean is still today, thankfully. There are no white-caps, no thick bands of white wash along the beaches. The breeze that’s been blowing through the driver’s side window of my grandfather’s Dodge grows warmer and, in complete sync, Little Sister and I roll both cab windows the rest of the way down. She leans over to turn up the radio. Content with this ritual, I reach my arm out of the window, bring my fingers together, and let it rest on the wind creating wave forms as we drive.

The popularity of Hapuna’s fine white sand and wide expanse of sunbathing space, as well as the upscale resort sitting on its edge, mean that, as usual, the parking lot is busy and difficult to maneuver. Because we’re in the monstrosity known as the Dodge, we decide to save ourselves the grief of waiting for a closer space and just park in the far lot, where the rest of the oversized trucks have found homes. Climbing out, my feet hit the pavement and I immediately feel the heat of the black tarmac through my slippers. We grab the cooler, shopping bag, and our beach bags and head down the trail to the beach, passing bathrooms, pavilions, and frying tourists on the way. As usual, we lay down our towels on the left side of the beach, closest to the rock cliff bordering Hapuna cove, and farthest from the resort on the opposite end. Here, we may get a shot at some shade, should the heat become too much to handle. The only risk is that there are ants that live under the keawe growing nears that rock cliff, so we keep a slight distance to be safe.

It’s hard to explain what happens when my body hits the towel, when I dig my fingers into the sand, when I close my eyes and feel the muscles in my body relax one by one. I often say this when I step off of planes in Honolulu, but it rings more true here: it really is like my skin recognizes Hawai‘i. It’s the tingle I was talking about earlier. When the familiar heat warms my shoulders and cheeks, I feel most at home. There’s only a slight wind here today, and it carries on it the coconut of sunblock my sister is massaging into her arms, the deliciousness of grilled chicken and hot dogs from the pavilions near the showers, and that unique smell of the ocean I’ve learned I can’t live without.

The day passes in a relaxing haze. Little Sister and I leave our towels periodically to jump into the gentle surf and swim out until we can barely touch the sandy bottom with the tips of our toes. We come back in and collapse again, then enjoy the way the sun dries droplets of salt water on our backs. We eat our musubi, chicken and malasadas, and take a short walk down half of the beach, making sure we don’t crush anyone’s sand castles along the way. I fall asleep for a few minutes to the sound of the restless waves, the chatter of sunbathers, and the happy sound of families enjoying a beach day. We spend hours of this lazy Saturday this way, and sooner than it seems it should be, it’s time to go.

We trace our path home and pull into our long driveway a little after 4:30 that afternoon. My mother isn’t home from work yet, but my grandparents wave and greet us from the front deck where they’ve been listening to music and calling out Hello’s to other village members throughout the day. We step out of the truck and head into the house. My body is slightly achy in the places where I neglected to reapply sunscreen after making my way out of the surf. By the time I go to bed tonight, those areas have turned a slight pink which will last for exactly two days before fading into the brown that is my Native Hawaiian heritage. I shower gently, being sure not to aggravate my skin any more than it may already be, but the cool/warm water washing the salt out of my hair feels almost as good as it felt getting the salt into my hair. Replacing the smell of sunblock with the smell of my lavender shampoo is bittersweet, and I’m already calculating when is the next time I’ll be able to head out to Hapuna again. Before dressing, like any self-respecting local girl, I check out my tan lines. Then, in deference to my sunburnt skin, I dress in the loosest pair of shorts and a tank I own, and rub Aloe gel all over my back and shoulders. The cooling sensation feels like heaven.

It is much later, at 11:00 when I’m finally getting ready for bed, that I hear it: Splat! Splat!

I pause for a second in the act of throwing throw pillows on the floor. There it is, that Splat! Splat! again, followed by the soft sound of water falling on the iron roof, growing louder and louder as the minutes pass.

I smile as I fall asleep to the rhythm of the falling rain, with Mija curled at the foot of my bed. It was a great beach day.