The Way of Water
It never rains here, the pool boy reassures the vacationers. The mountains just north keep the clouds at bay. But the sky is a murky gray, and the guests at Maui’s Four Seasons Resort glance nervously at the clouds. I can feel the atmosphere shift from relaxed to tense; there are murmurings of trouble in paradise.
The pool boy’s face is tanned and his arm is covered in swirling patterns of ink. It’s not just a normal tattoo, it’s Hawaiian. He is part of the island, and I’ve been watching him for a while. I like to watch the workers here.
Most of them are dark-skinned and ink-swirled and native to the island. I’m a bit in awe of them. The people who are staying in hotel rooms almost seem like a different species, with their lobster red skin and wilting leis. I wish with every bone in my body that I was local. I look it from the outside. My skin tans wonderfully fast and my brown wavy hair catches the light of the sun. I wear thin skimpy bathing suits, ones I would never wear back home. Not because I have anything to flaunt, but because that’s how locals do it here. The less you’re wearing, the more you are one with the sun and the ocean and the salt and the sand. The more it becomes part of your body, soaks into your skin. I wrap a floral cloth around my waist and swap a tshirt for a bikini top and walk around barefoot most of the time. I smile at the workers like I’m one of them, like I know what I’m doing. I’ve gotten to know a few of them in the week I’ve been here.
The local who works with paddle boards recognizes our family. I think he was a bit relieved when he discovered we were raised in southern California. We know the Pacific too, just not nearly as much as him. The ocean is my second cousin and his blood brother, but at least we’re related. When he’s waiting in the water for the next vacationer to come paddling in, I sometimes talk with him. I ask about his life here, how long he’s been working at the resort. I tell him I grew up in the ocean and moved away from it when I was fourteen and that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
One time he asked me to watch the vacationers on the paddling out on the water while he went to grab more boards. Make sure they come to shore in-between sets, he said. At that moment, I felt suspended between vacationer and local, like maybe I could go to the other side, but then he came back and I remembered I was going back to Wisconsin in a few days.
I watch the pool boy glance up at the sky again. He has just reassured the vacationers that it won’t rain, but he looks nervous to me. I am sitting in a cabana reading a book, and all I want to do is go down to the beach. I don’t like being by the pool, it makes me feel fake, like the concrete deck and chemically water are somehow a substitute for the ocean.
The wind picks up and it starts to rain. A great commotion erupts. Locals quickly tie up umbrellas, clear food off of tables exposed to the sky. Vacationers act like it’s the end of the world. They squeal and jump up and grab their things and rush off to their rooms. I’m sitting in the pool chair, watching all this happen with a smile on my face. They were just all lounging in water, and now because it's coming from a different direction, from the earth itself instead of a man-made basin, it’s no longer acceptable?
Does anyone want to go to the ocean with me? I ask my mom and my sister. My mom looks at me skeptically. In this? Yeah, I say, with a smile on my face. They both settle into their pool chairs, telling me to be careful. We are protected from the rain in this cabana, and my family is content with staying under it. I walk as fast as I can across the pool deck and towards the ocean, barefoot and clad in my small bikini.
I stand on the top of the steps leading down to the sand, in awe of how the beach has transformed. This morning, the sky was clear and the ocean was still and the sand was filled with vacationers. Now the sand looks almost like mud, all the umbrellas and chairs gone. The water is rough and choppy and doesn’t seem to know which direction to flow in. The sky is dark and the rain is making the water even rougher. I only see two people in the ocean. I run.
I’m surrounded by water, the ocean beneath me and the rain around me. I jump and duck and frolic, allowing myself to dance with the tide. It's swirling all around me, like the tattoo of a local, and in that moment, I feel like one. There are no vacationers here. I can tell the other two men in the water are locals. They acknowledge me, but we exist in the ocean in mutual agreement that this moment is strictly between human and nature. I almost feel the waves crashing in me, the tide pulling on my soul. Like I’m swallowed up whole. The water is around me and beneath me and inside me. It is wild and slightly frightening, even to me. But I love it.
Time passes while I am in the ocean. I want to stay here forever, but I know my mom is worrying about me. Like a child being pulled away from their mother, I leave.
Back at the pool, I see my mom frantically looking around. You scared me, she said. You were out there too long. I apologized, trying to convey the gravity of what I just experienced. I could tell it wasn’t coming across.
Maybe it’s just me, but as I’m standing on the pool deck explaining myself, my hair tangled, my body dripping a mix of saltwater and freshwater, I almost feel the locals looking at me, like they had never seen a vacationer go in the ocean in the rain before.
