Under a Maui Moon by Robin Jones Gunn
“This is your yard?”
Dan looked pleased. “It is. This is the place. We call it the Garden of Eatin’. Are you a gardener?”
“Yes, a little. Not like this. This is really something. It’s beautiful.”
“It’s yours.” Dan swept his arm in a gesture of grand invitation. “Anytime you want, you come and enjoy it, okay? Or, better yet, come over and help me to pull weeds.”
Mano laughed. It was still surprising to hear such a giggly, high-pitched laugh come from such a large man. “You give Dano sum kokua, he be yo’ friend fo’ life.”
“What’s ‘ko-coo-ah’?”
“‘Help.’ Mano is always offering me his kokua. He’s such a good neighbor. Sadly, I can pay him only in bananas.” Dan pointed up as they continued around to the garden’s back side. A small yet imposing gathering of banana trees divided the property.
Carissa noticed two clusters of unripe bananas hanging from two of the trees. The pudgy fingers of green fruit pressed themselves close together and stayed tucked safely under the lazily flopping banana leaves. She lingered a moment, awed to see real bananas growing on a tree.
“This way,” Dan called. She followed him, and there, at the end of the path, was a fairy-tale cottage, Hawaiian-style.
A smile came. Despite that she hated being unsettled with Richard and that she had lost her job and didn’t know what was going to happen once she returned home, Carissa felt as if, for right now, she was safe. She didn’t have to struggle.
This set-aside time was a gift. Everything else in her life was in upheaval. But here, she could rest. This was a place of peace. Peace and safety.
The plantation-style bungalow was painted green with white trim on the shutters and around the door and windows. On the porch that graced the cottage’s front, two high-backed rocking chairs kept time, nudged along by the comforting breeze. An enormous fern hung from the center of the porch.
“Irene, our guest is here.” Dan reached for the doorknob, but the door opened before he got to it.
In front of them stood a diminutive woman in a pair of baggy pink walking shorts topped with a white gauze shirt. She wore a pair of glasses. Her short, salt-and-pepper hair was tousled every which way. Irene was leaning on a colorfully decorated cane complete with zebra print ribbons and several dramatic feathers.
“Welcome, welcome. Come in, Carissa. Are you thirsty? I put some iced tea in the fridge. The windows are all open. Would you like to look around? You must be tired. Dan, did you invite her to eat with us?”
“I did.”
“And is she? Mano, you’re eating with us, aren’t you?”
If Irene’s form of conversing was birthed from nervousness, it would have been irritating. For some reason, coming from her, it flowed with a sweetness that Carissa found endearing.
“Did you sleep on the plane? It’s not such a bad flight, is it? Five hours from Portland. We’ve taken that flight a number of times, haven’t we, Dan?”
“We have.”
Irene moved to the side and let Mano enter with the suitcases. “Do you want your things put in the bedroom? Mano can put them in the corner for you. I set up the luggage rack. Are you sure you’re not thirsty? You must be hungry, though. We can all go eat first. How would that be?”
Carissa was actually more interested in exploring the tidy, brightly decorated guesthouse, but she followed Dan and Irene back to their home. Mano was right behind them, as they retraced their steps. Only this time, they cut through an opening on the side of the yard with the banana trees and followed steppingstones in a diagonal pattern that took all of them to the large covered patio at the back of the house.
“We’ll eat outside here, on the lanai.” Irene tapped the patio table chair with her revved-up cane, while Mano slid the back screen door open and went inside as if it were his own home.
“Go ahead and sit, Carissa. We’ll bring the food out,” Irene said. “You’re our guest. You’re on vacation. I always say that, on the first day of vacation, you shouldn’t lift your fingers for any unnecessary reason. Or your toes. After the first day, you can put your fingers and your toes anywhere you like. But on the first day, you should sit. Yes, just like that. Sit and breathe. That’s all you have to do. Breathe.”
“And eat, of course,” Dan added. “Wait until you have a taste of this kalua pork. And the macaroni salad. You bought macaroni salad, didn’t you, Mano?”
“You know it.” He stepped out on the patio with the white plastic bags. As he opened them on the table, it appeared everything they needed was there, including paper plates, forks, small packets of soy sauce, and lots of napkins.
“Do you like sticky rice, Carissa?” Dan opened one of the plastic containers. “Oh, good! We have some chow fun noodles, too. Have you had that before?”
“I don’t think so.” She didn’t know what sticky rice was either, but she was about to find out.
“Good grinds,” Mano told her, taking off his sunglasses. He had the happiest eyes, round and glistening like two pieces of polished obsidian plucked from a mountain stream.
Carissa sat there like a queen as Dan dished up her plate for her. Without moving her fingers or her toes, she smiled while the friendly little luau began around her. This also wasn’t what she expected to experience when she arrived on Maui.
But she had no complaints. None at all.
6
“Ho’omana’o kakou iaia la
E ha’i a’e i na lu’ulu’u
Ina ‘eha na kaumaha
Lohe ia a ho’opau no.”
“O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer.”
PROPPING HERSELF UP IN bed the first morning in her island hideaway cottage, Carissa felt like a queen. She smoothed the quilt around her legs and took in the details of the lovely room.
The bed was made of dark wood with four spindle-style posts that rose to hold up a white gauzy canopy. The tails of the sheer canopy fabric tumbled over the spindles like waterfalls cascading to the aqua blue bedspread. Hand-stitched pineapple appliqués were arranged systematically across the queen-size quilt, completing the feel of tropical luxury.
Everything about the small cottage felt right. The bathroom that adjoined the bedroom had a wide mirror that helped to make the space feel open. On the towel rack hung bright-colored, striped towels that matched the equally bright-colored, striped shower curtain.
Carissa could spot Betty’s influence around the cottage in the strategic use of island colors, particularly the blues, oranges, and greens. The upholstered furniture, the floors, and the walls were all neutral colors, which made the colors pop in the tropical floral-print throw pillows, the paintings on the walls, and even in the pot holders hanging from a magnet on the refrigerator.
Waiting for her on the kitchen counter was a package of coffee. Irene made a point to tell Carissa several times that the coffee came from a plantation right on Maui. During their picnic on the patio the day before, Dan suggested Carissa go there, if she wanted to see how the coffee grew and was roasted.
They also recommended a number of other things for her to see and do during her visit. According to them, Maui had it all—beaches, waterfalls, volcanoes, snorkeling, sunset sailing, lavender fields, an aquarium, and museums. It was much more than Carissa had expected and far more than she wanted to do.
All she wanted was to be alone.
Now that she finally was alone for her first morning in this peaceful place, she took her time thinking, moving, and deciding. There was no rush. She could sleep all day, if she wanted. When was the last time she rose on a Monday morning and didn’t have to go to work?
What would it be like to live in a place like this?
Beside her on the bed stand rested five books she had gathered the night before from the extensive collection on the shelves in the living room.
She got up and used the s
Then she thought about Richard. Her reading mood went on pause. Ever since she was sixteen, Richard was the one with whom she shared everything that mattered to her. If their relationship were what it used to be, she would be on the phone with him right now, and he would be eager to hear all the details of her visit so far. He would want descriptions of the people, the food, and the scenery. He would ask questions and evaluate. He loved to evaluate. But now that they were floating in this undefined place of autonomy and had closed off their thoughts and feelings toward each other, Carissa realized she would have to process all these new experiences by herself. She could do that. She was strong and capable. As much as it felt natural to want to talk to him, she knew that after their dead-end conversation yesterday, another call was pointless.
Just breathe. Isn’t that what Irene told me? Just breathe.
Carissa tried breathing deeply in and out. She pushed the onslaught of the past week back, way back, far from this place of peace. Yet in the shadows she could feel the deep sorrow creeping in closer.
“I’m being too reflective. I need to get up. I have to go do something. I have to work my way into relaxing.”
She had no idea why she told herself that or what she was going to do. All she knew was she refused to sit there and slip into depression.
The only persistent thought she had was that she should go pull weeds. She had no other plans or schedule for the day. If she went and did that now, at least she would feel that she had offered her kokua and could use the gardening time to think about what else she wanted to do that day.
Her shorts were wrinkled, but it didn’t matter for garden work. Pulling up her hair in a clip, she washed her face, applied a quick rub of sunscreen to her face and bare arms, and headed out the front door.
The sensation of warmth and golden light startled Carissa as she stepped out on the front porch. The breeze from the day before was missing. Instead the air was still. The shaggy palm trees stood their post, undisturbed.
In place of the trade winds was a chorus of tropical birds. Some cooed, some tweeted, some trilled. Blended all together, their song was magnificent and unlike anything Carissa heard at home.
With flip-flops on her feet, Carissa stepped through the small break in the foliage that linked the bungalow grounds to Dan’s paradise garden. The morning sunshine covered the garden with full light, and like the sun, Dan was already up and going strong. He had a well-worn straw hat on his head and an equally well-worn hoe in his hand.
“Good morning.” Carissa stood back, waiting to be properly invited to enter the Garden of Eatin’.
Dan didn’t seem to have heard her. He was working the earth around the base of the orange trees.
“Hello!”
Dan turned and smiled when he saw her. He waved for her to come over, and she made her way toward him, gingerly picking her way on the steppingstones.
“How was your sleep?”
“Very nice. It’s such a comfortable bed.”
“Quiet enough for you?”
“Yes, very quiet.”
“Good.” His deeply creased face glistened with perspiration. The old T-shirt he was wearing had a logo on the front of an outrigger canoe.
“I came to help,” Carissa explained when he didn’t add any more small talk. “What was the word? Kokua? I’m here to kokua.”
Dan looked surprised. “This is your vacation. You should be out seeing the island and enjoying your free time. Yesterday I was only making a light comment about helping with pulling the weeds. I didn’t mean for you to take me seriously.”
Carissa shrugged. “I’d like to help. I love being outdoors, and I don’t have any other plans; I thought this would be a good way to get in a morning stretch.”
“Well, then, I won’t turn down your offer. Do you need gloves?”
“Gloves? No. That’s okay. Where should I start?”
Dan leaned on the hoe’s handle and looked around. “Over there with the tomatoes would be a good place for you. Some of those straggling vines need to find their way up out of the dirt. More stakes and string are in the shed on the side of the house. All the weeds you pull can go in the compost pile over there behind the ginger.”
Carissa looked around. She remembered Dan pointing out the ginger yesterday during their patio luau. She had asked about the exotic plants over in the corner of the yard, and Mano had laughed, saying none of the plants was exotic to them. Dan asked which plant, and she said, “The one that looks like giant red Q-tips.”
Dan kindly told her it was ginger while Mano laughed some more.
Now, getting her bearings, Carissa set to work, gently untangling the first wayward tomato vine. It seemed determined to crawl along in the dirt and tumble into the watermelon patch rather than stay the course and climb heavenward up the prepared ladder of string woven between the steady stakes.
The fragrance of fresh tomatoes was strong in the full warmth of the morning sun. Only two tomatoes were blushing red around the edges. The rest were still tight little green orbs, drawing all their strength and future from the well-supplied vine. Even in their preripened stage, though, they smelled like tomatoes. That intrigued Carissa. She sniffed her hands. They smelled like tomatoes.
For some reason the scent was comforting. At the grocery store, she always bought tomatoes that were sold in clumps still connected to the vine. She liked the fragrance. Even though the vines were shriveled and frail by the time they ended up in the grocery store, whenever she reached for a clump of ripe tomatoes, she could still smell the garden on them.
She dug her hands into the rich, moist soil at the base of the tomato plant. The earth felt different than the soil in her simple flower garden at home. This earth seemed to be deeper in color and more porous in texture. The soil was richer and darker than she was used to. She held up her palmful of earth and let it slide through her open fingers. The dirt shone with hints of volcanic red in the full sun. This was beautiful dirt. To her novice gardener’s hand, it felt like mink.
Dan had stepped closer. She hadn’t realized he was watching her until he spoke. “Aloha ‘aina.”
Carissa looked up at him, squinting against the brightness of the sun. “Is that Hawaiian for tomatoes?”
“No, that’s Hawaiian for what you are experiencing.”
“What I’m experiencing?”
“You’re connecting to the land. We call it aloha ‘aina. Love of the land. Can you feel the richness of the earth?”
Carissa stood and gave Dan a cautious nod. She emptied her hands and brushed the dirt off. While Portland was full of enthusiastic environmentalists who would love to discuss the “richness of the earth” with him, she didn’t see herself as a tree-hugger.
However, she did love nature and was always the one who noticed the sunsets or the first baby bird chirps in the nests tucked into the honeysuckle vine that arched their front door.
Richard never notices small beauties in nature. I always have to point them out to him.
It bothered her that Richard had once again come to the forefront of her thoughts. She was surrounded by newness, beauty, and peace, and yet she felt all the same heaviness she had felt at home. Why had her anxiety followed her here?
I don’t want to spend my entire getaway time feeling like this.
Dan tapped the end of his hoe on what Carissa thought was a patch of green ground cover. “You see these weeds here with the long arms? These grow very fast. Any of them that you see starting up, pull them out. Be sure you get the root.”
Glad for a refocusing of her thoughts, Carissa went back to work, pulling the fast-growing weed clumps. They actually looked pretty. She hadn’t seen this sort of weed before and would have thought the trailing green arms speckled with tiny white flowers were supposed to be there. It was pretty and looked healthy.
&
“Yes, some of those would have been easier if I’d pulled them up sooner. Once those runners get entwined with the tomato vines, they take over in no time. All the fruit is lost.”
“I know how it is with vines.” Carissa thought about the honeysuckle at home. The extravagantly blossoming vines were a stunning focal point of their house, but they hadn’t started out that way. She told Dan about how her husband had planted two unassuming bushes on opposite sides of the entryway when they first moved in.
“He was obsessed about both plants being cared for so they would grow at the same pace, but, of course, they each seemed to have a mind of their own. It took almost three years before either honeysuckle stalk grew significantly. But when they did, I’m telling you, those vines lost no time in crawling up, around, and over the entryway. It’s really beautiful now the way it arches over the front of the house. You can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.”
Dan grinned and leaned on the hoe, lacing his fingers together. “This is how vines grow strong. Woven together. This is what makes a good marriage.”
Carissa began to nod in agreement and then stopped. Marriage? I thought we were talking about plants here. The earth and vines and …
Gathering up the pile of extracted weeds and heading to the compost pile, she knew she needed to make a quick exit before Dan went any further in his marriage analogy. Or worse, started to ask questions.
Returning from the compost, Carissa said, “I need to make a trip to the grocery store. When would be a good time for me to borrow your car?”
“Anytime. We rarely use it. Irene doesn’t drive, and most days I have no place to go.” Dan grinned.
“Would you like me to bring you anything from the store?”
“Yes. Irene has a list ready for you.”
“Oh, okay.” Carissa hadn’t anticipated his reply. It gave her the feeling they were expecting her to make a run to the store for them that day.