I got to pet some horses today.
these are our neighbors two houses down. I haven't met their humans yet, but for now I'll call them cream and cocoa. They had very soft noses.
I walked 4 miles today. I started at Hamoa beach, where my dad dropped me off at 1:30. I talked to the different flavors of people there and didn't find much.
So I walked a little over a mile to Koki beach, where I found a group of locals drinking beers and BBQing. I joined them, and we got along well; the few silent seconds felt entirely comfortable, and that surprised me. Still, as I sat there drinking heineken, digging my toes in the sand, I watched their impression of me transform, in their faces. A different expression each time I revealed something new; scars, tracks.
Two beers later, I went for a walk and found a man and his dog about to leave in a truck. I made friends with his dog, then told him about my mission to find weed. He said he didn't have any to sell but he gave me a bowl and a half for free! I was so happy, it was stupid. After thanking the man and his dog profusely, I ran back down to the group of boys/men/two girls/a baby and packed a bowl, got so stoned! =)
Then I took out my notebook to write, and one of them, (the nicest, cutest, smartest) Robert (I think), asked to read my "journal". I showed him a poem that I had titled "it speaks like dead fingernails." I jumped into the ocean while he read it. When I came back, he was reading it aloud. I felt my mind float somewhere safer, and my body start to blush. "What we really need is steel blades emerging from our gums like teeth, and jutting out of each vertebrae, to face the circumstances."
Soon after reading that they started packing up to leave. I felt kind of left behind, but at the same time, knew it would be a bad idea to go with them, even though they wanted me to. On the way out, one of them (Jay, who had a kid) said to me, "Just write in your little book: They wanted to do you." Great. No thanks. Can we please be friends?
Some 14 year old girls I had met at Hamoa beach passed by us, in a truck driven by one of their dads. They yelled to me right as I was trying to politely decline a party, a ride, whatever. So I jumped in the truck with the girls, entirely tipsy, and got a ride back to Hamoa beach where I was supposed to meet my dad at 6.
I got there at 4 and realized I was barefoot. I had forgotten my fucking sandals, a mile and a half back. I walked back to Koki beach, stumbling a lot over painful pieces of lava or whatever, hoping my sandals would be there. They were. There were also a lot of hardcore looking ethnic Hawaiian surfers, scowling at me. I tried to smile, even though I felt like an ignorant pale fish out of water.
After that I dragged myself back to Hamoa beach and wrote in my journal until my dad came. We ate dinner at the fanciest restaurant, barely passing the dress-code, with me nearly falling asleep in my chair. My dad ordered a Mai-Tai for me without even asking me if I wanted it; I didn't, but I didn't have the heart to decline a 13 dollar drink that he doesn't even like, so I drank the majority of it.
Now I'm home, entirely exhausted, confounded by the Hawaiian community as a whole as well as the personalities, beliefs, and lifestyles of individuals. How they are different from each other, from me, from Mainland Americans.
My brain is running on fumes.
I feel like I'm stuck in a dream; a really intense, good one.
P.S. I'm cramming in these pictures, trying to illustrate my story, and not sure if it's working. It feels kind of cheesy. Is it adding to the entry or am I just entirely vain? Both maybe?