All in Time Due ((Part 5))

So far, I have discussed my life as a student, a lover, an idiot, and a musician. Of course, and as always, there’s gotta be more to life. You know, like Stacie Orrico says in the song (There’s Gotta Be) More to Life. I’ve heard this track MANY times, having growing up in a church. I spent my early days escaping a rough family life by going to the AWANA program across the highway. It was good to be around such positive people. Later, I would become an adherent to Pentecostal Christianity, through roughly high school. You know, the one with tongues and such. Fortunately, no snakes. I played on a flag football team at a more northern church in the county. Then, I wasn’t really religious anymore. No offense.

INSERT IMAGE OF GOD

Yet, and still, I appreciate the role that good Christians play in everyday life. Those that seek being saved through good works have my vote. They make the world a better place. The others, well, I can’t so much speak for those. Either way, this piece will be about my life as an adventurer. I have done many adventurous things in my life, have been twice as many places. In some cases, safety may have been an issue. But, I did it anyways. This is not to say that you should ever do the same. I am a BIG DUDE and so am not as befallen by the same things as yourself. That is, unless you’re big too. The mind is a whole nother song. One can be big, healthy, and flexible. And yet still be weak in mental fitness, stability of mind, and/or consistency. This kind of thing happens to the best of us. As such, some of you will know what I mean, even if your fight against mental health issues is only temporary.

Now, for the adventure.

INSERT IMAGE OF TIME

As always, I make no promises in treating time as a linear matter. To me, it never is. Let me begin, then, with my trip to Maui. With Austin and Vinh. I didn’t know Vinh before this trip. But, he’s now one of those people who wishes me a happy birthday. A real cool dude. By the end of this trip, Vinh and I would make the decision to kayak to a point way too far out, to watch some whales we never actually got to see. And while this represents the high point of this trip for me, especially in terms of excitement itself, there was certainly more to being in Maui. We backpacked through Haleakala, danced nude along the water-whipped shores, and made friends a plenty. These friends included a bunch of people working in Lahaina, a few chicks living on a farm, some other people living on the same farm, and, finally, some Canadian soccer players, both female, that LOVED Celine Deon. I too find Celine to be a great singer, in spite of my not being as French as these players. Apparently, they had just finished playing some important game. I mean why else would so many soccer players be in Maui? And so French?

INSERT: THE FRENCH REVOLUTION ITSELF

Still, we made some friends. We camped along the coast somewhere beyond THE Road to Hana. Some of you may know this road. It’s rough, and narrow, and a good way to have a good time. But, how can driving be fun? Well, go to Maui and drive the road. Then, you’ll know what I mean. Unless you already know. In that case, maybe comment about your experiences below. I’d love to see if you had the same kind of adventures as we had. In addition, to the camping and making friends, we also ate LOTS of Thai food. There are so many awesome food trucks everywhere there, all pretty damn good ways to get your daily mass of calories. And then some. The food is so good that I’m mentioning it here, in a write up about adventure. It must be good. Or I must be paid. I am not paid, and so it MUST be good.

CLIP– OF A GROUP WEARING::MONEY SUIT

The hike through Haleakala was a great way to spend down some of our life minutes, to pass the time along. The hikes there are something like being on another planet. I’m not sure which one, because I’ve never been on any other planet than this one. But, something about the place says: THIS IS NOT YOUR HOME. I AM NOT HOSPITABLE TO YOUR BEING HERE TOO LONG. And so the place was nice. Imagine being on the moon and being able to breathe. It could be cool. And all without the ego-speech of any astronauts. To wit, I can barely watch For All Mankind. The speech is WAY TOO egotistical. Still, the hikes of Haleakala are great. The soil changes SO often, the sights the same. Red, then brown, then volcanic black, then some other color words have trouble with. Don’t end a sentence on with. Piss off. And stay on task, man. Attention.

Defecit.

While it would have been nice to be staying in those huts near where the trails split, on the Southwest side of the National Park there, we were merely camping under the stars. On a tarp, we sat. I got drunk. I don’t usually get drunk. But, something about this scene said, you should be drunk, dude. I went, after everyone had decided to go to bed, out to a grass field and danced for something like two hours. I am one hell of a dancer. You might not be able to guess that from how I normally am, but it’s true. See: pretty much ANY photo of me from pretty much ANY wedding. Even Lizzy’s. Especially Lizzy’s. I was dancing, in Maui, to the sounds of an EP by Adjy. I love Adjy, and have met them personally. We hung out in Ybor one night, after I was granted guest admission to their show. For a while, Chris and I texted back and forth. Then, I got busy. And the thing died. When I got back to camp, I saw some headlamps near the wooden Porta Potty. Vinh, and several others, were-was attempting to save a nene that was stuck down in the shit-crap of it all. In case you’re not privy, this is a form of rare goose, I think. You’re always at liberty to look this stuff up.

Lord knows I don’t. I just live the stuff.

FORCIBLY INSERTED IMAGE OF A DOG

Vinh was THE goose-gentleman that night. He was doing most of the work, devising a plan to extract the goose from the poo. Eventually, he was successful. But, before that, a struggle ensued. Think about it: Do you know how to get a goose out of a toilet? That’s what I thought. Still, I won’t judge. This is a rare skill for a rare occasion, bird too. The nene is ONLY found in the wilds of Maui. How cool. I can’t recall every element of Vinh’s bird plan, but it worked. Eventually, the goose, covered in excrement, was freed. I believe they, those taking part in the safety of it all, also cleaned up the goose. Now that should be a phrase:

TO CLEAN UP THE GOOSE

Maybe that could mean being in a bad situation right before looking awesome in a regal place. You know, like a homeless man going to a wedding. It CAN happen, and probably does. Now, with the gooses free, everyone went to bed. The following day, we hiked along the small volcanic rocks that make up the trail we were required to take. Required, of course, by plan-routes. After watching Jen and her friend hike without shoes on, along the sharp surfaces, I too tried the same. Shoes back on. No thanks. What troopers. They listen to Regina Spektor too, so that’s cool, too. When we finally made a small wooden cabin, one that we had not planned on staying in, we found a friend. Mike was one of those Lahaina restaurant workers, who had grown tired of the US mainland, choosing, as a result, to live in one of the coolest places possible. He was staying in the cabin. That was his plan. Then, it became ours.

15 GUYS NAMED MIKE SHARING A SINGLE HOT-DOG

We spent the night with Mike, having a good time, before making the hike out of the crater. Oh yeah, Haleakala is a volcano. Is this the same as a crater? Probably not, but as always, I don’t care. This is about fun times. And NOT accuracy, precision, or/and any other highly statistical concept. The hike out was rough. It split Austin and I from the girls and Vinh. And, being adults, we didn’t so much mind getting split up. We were to meet when it was all done, when the hike was over. Then, after taking pictures at the trailhead, the scene was over. I often describe the things that happen to us in life as scenes. Think about it. When you meet a random friend somewhere, and then meet them again later, it’s never the same. You’re still friends, but the scene is over. SOMETHING has changed. Maybe it’s both of you. Maybe one. Neither too.

END SCENE

Now, having described this trip sufficiently, I am now in a position to describe what happened after Austin headed back to New York. Vinh and I, largely having no plan, made a few random plans. This included meeting up with the locals again, camping along The Road to Hana, again, and deciding to kayak to Molokini, under the constraints of a rented 2-P kayak. At first, we were out to watch whales. We were enjoying the waters between Wailea and the end of the Earth, itself. The waves were manageable if not confusing. We watched and watched and paddled and saw no whales. Then, bored by this lack of sight-seeing, we called an audible, amended our plans. We could see Molokini in the distance. We saw boats headed there. All of which clapped at our foolish bravery. They could tell that we were stupid enough to actually try it. And so we did.

TWO MEN, AMONG A JET, WATCHING SPACE WHALES

MARTHA STEWART AS PRISON-GUARD

Oh, and in looking at a map of Maui, it just dawned on me that Austin, Vinh, and I had surfed the “world-class” waters of the Kahului Bay. This is serious surfing, and it being only my second time trying to surf, I’d say it was a lot of fun, quite dangerous too.

But, back to Molokini. At some point, the waves separated, formed a sort of bifurcation among all that ever existed. I’m sure this, in strictly nautical terms, means trouble. As such, we rode the line between the waves, to that crescent moon at the end of our sights. All was well. The waves would become work, but we didn’t really have a problem with them. When we finally got within 100 feet of the islet, we decided that getting back into the water after actually landing there would be A LOT of employment. It would be HARD, man. So, we took some pictures and called it in. We set our sights on Maui herself, having gotten sufficiently close to such a crazy thing. This. This is where trouble began. If you’ve ever been anywhere near open waters, you know that things like the “Trade Winds” can be quite a tale. We, thinking like an engineer and a mathematician, took the shortest route back to the mainland. This would be Molokini to Makena State Park. Of course, the shortest path is not always optimal. And here it wasn’t. Within a half hour of leaving the islet, we experienced winds of something like 40+ miles per hour. We were splashed nearly blind. The waves themselves were something like 8 feet high.

AND I AM NOT EMBELLISHING AT ALL

Just ask Vinh. He knows this too. He was there. We were there, fighting the worst of the worst. We had to come up with a plan. We needed a captain. I became this captain. Immediately, I noticed that we would run out of energy if we tried continuously to paddle our way through these conditions. So, we chose to remain stable when the waves were whipped upon by the winds, then coming from the ocean herself, the south. Call it a civil war. When, periodically, the conditions improved, we pushed our strength as far as she too would go. And it worked. We were gaining ground, back to the grounds, of Maui. We could see from the closing of the gap between ourselves and the mainland, that we were, in fact, on our way home. And out of danger. The waves became huge, in swells, then diminished to ONLY slightly smaller waves. I can remember explicitly thinking to myself that this might be where I finally die. Like for real. Like ACTUAL DEATH.

INSERTED PICTURE OF A LIGHT-HEARTED ANECDOTE

We could not have made it out if Vinh was not hip to the plan. When I yelled “PUSH!” we pushed. I am still to this day impressed by Vinh’s abilities on the open seas. I would travel with him, by boat, pretty much anywhere in the world. And I mean THE RIGHT KIND OF BOAT. Not what we were doing. I wouldn’t do THAT again, with ANYONE. We truly risked death. And it was cool, and stupid. At times, the waves were so tall that their height didn’t matter. They could have been 25 feet all the same. Now, imagine that. Riding the tops of such elaborate waves. Peak to trough. Peak to trough. Stay alive. Get home and give momma a kiss. ANY MOMMA. I would have kissed Vinh’s mom that day. The spray of it all was blinding. No goggles. No internet. Just existence.

Then, beyond the bad, we made it near enough to land for the waves to calm down. Eight became six, became three. And this was good. We had made it pretty close to the aforementioned state park. We calmed down. Both we and the waves were happy to be out of the worst of it. People looked on in astonishment, presumably astonished at the glow-glistening nature of our ignorance. When our intelligence finally came back to us, we took the shore. We had had enough of the rough. So, back through everything between that first shore and the shore of the rented kayak. It was nice. The sun was hot but not too hot. The water felt like a dream. They felt like LIFE ITSELF. We waved to the safer others, they to us. Our vessel was sturdier here. I’m not sure how that works, but it were. When we finally got back to the correct shore, we did what we shouldn’t have ever done before then. We capsized. We fell, in a spin, and in front of a whole beach’s worth of people, into the water, in a spiral.

MARGINALIZED ABORIGINES SMILING IN ,,, AND AT,,, SPITE

We didn’t care. We laughed. This was ironic, if not funny. We had spent the whole time trying not to do exactly this, and then we did exactly this. Did the others laugh at us too? We didn’t care. At a point like this you don’t care anymore. Our nerves were shot. We needed to sit on a beach and bake into a magnetized state. I NEEDED a book and a week of SAFETY. When we pulled the kayak out of the water, it was already some two hours later than it was supposed to be. We had only rented the vessel for two hours, not four. Yes, we had spent four solid hours in the danger-waters of Maui’s bays. The dude who had rented us the kayak explained to us, as he did before we took off, that going to Molokini so late in the day was REALLY FUCKING STUPID. Well, now we could concur appropriately. We knew all about it. He also called us out for surfing on the “world-class” waves, but we had done that too. Once our story was complete, he gave us the most solid fist-bump ever.

And didn’t charge us for the overage of time.

THREE IMAGES OF

THREE DUDES, TWO FRIGHTENED, THROWING SHAKAS

END SCENE

He knew what we had just done, could tell from our demeaners that we had actually DONE IT. We had kayaked to Molokini, in a rented 2-P, never intended to make it. But, we made it. Now, my point here is not for you to go out and do the same as we did. That would account to something like abuse, CRIMINAL negligence. WE COULD BE AT FAULT, man. What I mean to say, here, is that sometimes you make decisions so stupid that you end up with nothing but a story to tell. We have no shells, no bottled sand, only a few images. And those I don’t even have. I didn’t bring my phone. What we DO have is something to tell our children, if we ever end up having such a thing. And, even then, we would have to be careful not to make the whole thing sound doable and fun. It was obviously both of these things, but, man, was this stupid. Adventurous. Call it viking shit.

A VIKING IN FULL BATTLE GEAR, USING THE BATHROOM

I believe Vinh left the next day or so. Then, I went snorkeling. I saw so many fish in so many shades, relaxed, read a book on the beach. I had had enough. No desire left for the extreme. I was over the extreme. Because, as Hunter S. Thompson once said,

“The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”

What an appropriate quote, from such an inappropriate man.

IMAGE OF HUNTER S. THOMPSON SLEEPING

I hope in reading this that you’ll do many things. Safer things than this. But, things. I hope you’ve gained a sense of what me and my friends are about. I know, that’s not how you say it. Finally, let’s hope that you find the courage to share your own stories, no matter how foolish they make you look. I have a former student of mine doing just this, by the words, I have typed into this blog, minus the foolishness. What a thing of beauty:

To inspire others by the inspiration of one’s self.

PS — That guy in the Nu-Metal band, Dirt Circus, is KENNETH. I remembered THIS while writing about the waves, and safety, and Vinh. Sorry, Kenny. I ALWAYS have so much on my mind.

Double Post-Script: Here are some words from that former student of mine, from LITERALLY just now:

“Yup, I am writing! And it seems to be giving me a purpose again. Substack is a great platform and I’m really enjoying setting up my profile and thinking of new posts. Thank you for the encouragement to start writing!”

You’re welcome, Mike.

Like I said, a thing of beauty.