Hanging Loose in Haleiwa

red earth

rust test

mark

Brenda

I hadn’t known about the red earth in Hawaii. I remember seeing distinctively red clay soil in places like South Carolina and Georgia, but if I’d thought about Hawaiian ground I would have imagined it rich, black, and mulch-like. So when Linette and I parked along a dirt road to go to a farmer’s market in Haleiwa, I paused after I got out of the car and crouched down to more closely examine the surprisingly orange-red soil. (Wouldn’t anyone?)

A car pulled up with two women inside. “Are you okay? Did you lose a contact lens?” the driver asked.

“No,” I said, “I’m just looking at the ground.”

“Whatever,” she said.

And it occurs to me that there in a nutshell is why I call this blog Still Amazed -- I most certainly am, and easily -- but there were plenty of other things to fascinate me at the market, so we wandered into the thick of it.

First we lingered at a flower stand, marveling at the orchids and sniffing tuberose, hibiscus, and wild ginger, and then spoke to a young woman who designs beautiful batik sarongs.

Moving along, we paid a visit to a beekeeper who gave us a sample of local honey and a lesson on the wonders of life among the bees. Linette and I were both in full-on curiosity mode, but this man’s epic enthusiasm was readily unleashed. (He lent Linette his favorite book on bees, from the Magic School Bus series.)

We stopped to talk to an organic farmer named Mark, a friend of Linette’s, who served up a bowl of delicious kale salad. (Recipe: chopped fresh kale with lemon juice and Braggs amino acid; a dribble of olive oil; garlic and pepper.) At various points we bought apple bananas, fresh bread, and the best version of shaved ice I ever had – in fact, the only one worth eating – made with sweet coconut juice and real pureed mango.

Linette spied Chris, another friend, and called out to him, “Can I taste your hot nuts?” a line which garnered giggles from us for the rest of the day, and that gives you a pretty good idea about our level of sophistication.  And indeed, Chris let us taste his boiled, spiced peanuts, which were amazingly good.

We hung loose, Hawaiian style, chatting for a bit; a friendly dog sporting a purple bandana wandered over for a pat on the head.

Then a guy wearing a straw hat and holding a machete beckoned us to the rear of the stalls and over to his rusty truck where he had a secret stash of coconut peanut butter, and it was heavenly. (He also pointed out a rust pattern on the side of his truck that he claimed was in the exact shape of the Hawaiian Island archipelago, a lot like those people who see an image of the Virgin Mary in the burnt part of their toast.)

Meanwhile a woman named Brenda was singing folk songs, largely ignored until she sang that old standard, “I’ll Remember You” and we moseyed over to talk to her. “I just picked up this Martin in Telluride,” she said, which seemed like exactly the sort of thing a folksy minstrel might mention along the way to nowhere in particular. She also told us in the space of five minutes that she was forty-seven years old, the youngest of fifteen children, happily married to her true love, and training for a long-distance swim she hoped to do in memory of her beloved mother in some Duke Kahanamoku commemorative challenge.

“My goal is to celebrate life,” she said, and she seemed to really mean it.

In the late afternoon we drove over to the Puu O Mahuka Heiau -- the hill of escape -- a sacred place on a ridge overlooking Waimea Bay. The site consists of three walled enclosures of stacked rocks, possibly constructed in the 1600s and used for religious ceremonies -- including, lest we get too starry-eyed, human sacrifice during times of war and political upheaval.  The temple was abandoned in 1819 when the traditional religion was abolished, and the area was used for agriculture, including pineapple cultivation up until the 1960s.

We walked the red-earth path (pictured at the start of this post) between tall grasses surrounding the helau, contemplating the past and admiring the views. It was lovely to be at this beautiful and spiritual place, but despite my constant yearning for the meaning of it all, I had no great epiphanies.  Leis dangled from a tree and a chicken sauntered by.

For now I will let Brenda be my guru: I'm just gonna celebrate life.