Nuku-Hiva

Before coming here I was hungry for news. What was it really like? I wondered, consuming the messages from friends and acquaintances who’d traveled this long way. But no, what was it really like? Of course there’s no singular answer to such a question. Dogs in the street with full udders, hundreds of chickens—huge, mild grapefruits, custard apples and frangipani. It’s laughable to think one could answer such a question on the basis of a week’s acquaintance. In this village of less than two thousand people there are many drag queens, who wear lime green tap pants and kitten heels, who have darkly penciled eyebrows and run the local grocery store and the pension. There’s obviously a different understanding of sexuality here and I want to understand it better.
The money I dispense like brightly colored pieces of paper and shiny bits of metal. On one of the larger bills, some highly decorated guy, some naval officer, sneers as if saying, I’ve tasted the women, and, if I must admit it, a few of the men, and they were délicieux, selon la manière primitive d’une île isolée. His hands come out of the empty space in your pocket holding a small glass of absinthe and a Cuban cigarillo.
The sea is soft, not too salty, and there are plastic bottles and beer cans in the weed-choked stream that flows into the bay of Taiohae. The air blows down over those verdant volcanic peaks like the sweet damp breath of a dragon sleeping on the other side of the island. I like such cheesy similes. I’ve been reading children’s books about mythical figures and I appreciate their simplicity. Clear answers, not too much information at once. Because otherwise, the vivid, hydroelectric force of arriving on the other side of the world, future unknown, might pour in.
At bedtime we lie in the forward berth, the rocking of the boat jingling the cutlery, knocking the books together in the shelf, and rolling the baguettes against each other so that they churn up crumbs across the countertop. The ineffable force of the universe soothes us. We watch the clouds silently obscuring the moon, that sweet dragon’s breath on our skin. In a couple of weeks, we’ll move on.

Last Day in Mexico

It was just about perfect.
We've been in La Cruz for over 4 months and I have it dialed. This is good because I checked out of the country four days ago... I'm ticking things off my list--getting them done at N American speed. I catch the bus into Puerto Vallarta and walk to my friend Hilario's shop. I've never seen it before and it's impressive. No wonder he drives a late model BMW SUV. There are two floors of lathes and milling machines. The kind of machines that, given the right raw materials and direction, can make an identical copy of themselves--I love that thought. And there's art on the walls, each piece with its own custom fabricated metal pedestal. But no HIlario, I feel a slight hesitation in my momentum but soon spot one of his workers who knows me and I wave him over. I tell Jesus what I need and he starts to tell me how they're actually not working today so I'll have to come back Monday. I hit him with a pause. "I'll be back in an hour...with lots of money." We part laughing, knowing he's not going to have it done in an hour and I'm not going to have lots of money BUT I'll have it today and he'll get paid. In an hour I spot Hilario. He's determined to drive me wherever I need to go so we're off. I ask him what's his key to finding good workers and he says his best guys are the ones who started out sweeping the floor. I file that nugget away.
We stop at "Bolt World". I buy bolts, Hilario ribs the owner while the owner talks trash about Hilario to me. This is good guy fun we're having at "Bolt World." Next we have lunch, lunch transcends good guy fun--this is something. Bellied up against the sidewalk around the corner from "Bolt World" is a lunch wagon "Tortas Ahogadas" with a couple of tables spilling out into the street and a quiet crowd eating or waiting. We grab a table. Hilario says this type of torta is from Guadalajara and they're very hot though he quickly adds these aren't too hot...I think he's worried I'll disappoint him here but when we order I say I want mine like Hilario's. He looks at me and smiles, he says to the cook "he's practically Mexican." The cook doesn't seem impressed. He's in a routine. I watch him go through his moves, a deeply worn groove, no wasted movement. Rolls are hustled along a toasting rack, hunks of meat are chopped then stuffed inside, add some pickled onions and smother (ahogar them) with the special sauce. Boom.
We finally have ours and I just know this is going to be really good. But the first bite is a revelation. The roll is softened with the sauce but that toasting gives it a firm center that holds up like good al dente pasta. The sauce is hot but not too hot, the bread and the meat are your friends here and keep it from overwhelming, instead it creates an atmosphere in which all the flavors and textures do their thing. The meat is prime, no dubious chewy bits, just melt in your mouth rich, smokey tender chunks. Those thin slices of pickled onion and the sauce work together to balance the richness of the meat. The whole thing works together, each element balanced and enhanced by the others. OK, so I had a great sandwich.
We get back in the car, return to the shop and sure enough there's my newly machined fitting ready to go. I go through the formality of asking Hilario what I can give him for it and as usual he says "nothing." I give Jesus a goodly sum and I'm off to catch the bus back to La Cruz. The next thing I notice is a group of rowdy teenagers get on the bus I'm riding. They're heading to the beach, full of themselves and making too much noise in the back seats. Riding the bus often devolves into an experience that just needs to be endured and this ride is shaping up that way. The next stop, adding insult to injury, a mariachi steps on board. The bus riding mariachis tend to be the worst of their breed and sure enough the teenagers in the back start yipping and howling in mockery. As he makes his way past me I hear the mariachi say in a low growl "direct from Hollywood." He stations himself right in the middle of the teenagers and immediately hits some cords that sound fantastic. Over the next ten minutes he's easily won over the entire bus with the best live music I've heard in years. The crowd in the back sings along to a couple of the traditional songs and lets him loose to do the others on his own. At this point I'm glad to be sitting by the window with sunglasses on because I'm alternately sobbing and laughing at myself.
I love these people.
I'm really going to miss this place.

Greenville without me

I drove to Aiken to see my friend Michael and his husband Allan, whom I'd been missing for years. Auntie Maya and Uncle Dennis took care of Lulu. They found baby bunnies living in the backyard. They went to the zoo. Naked fun was had with cats.
Now Adam's waiting for us in Nuku Hiva. And I'm sitting here, staring at the screen, reminding myself to stretch.

Adam is...

8 degrees N [er, wait--would that be south? all he said was 8]
138 degrees 32 minutes W
120 miles offshore, thinking about doing laundry and eating something other than lentils and weird sourdough bread

The people who raised you, siblings, if you have any--they have stuff. Maybe they have objects, things saved for sentimental reasons, still kicking around. Regardless, they have other things--accumulated emotions that have collected in a deep pool from which all can freely draw.

But I can't really talk about those things right now. As for the objects--the other day I came across a diary I had kept sporadically when I was an adolescent. I received it from some family friends for my eleventh birthday, or "for my birthday 11," as I inscribed it.

Excerpts from my diary: "I really hate Townley because she bothers me." "I got the Clinique bonus with English Pink lipstick and the Lancome bonus w/ some liquid eyeliner." "Don't be cute!" "I have an obsession with Adam. Of course, forget that. Forget that. It's so ridiculous. Don't even think about it. Dave I don't really care about now. I used to like him so much I think. I can't really remember. Anyway, who cares. More later."

Adam and I got married, but otherwise I don't want to relate to this petty, obsessive person. In my last entry ("DEC 30 I think 1986") I conclude, "I can develop myself from within and try to have a beautiful personality. It's very difficult though."

Paging through albums, watching ourselves grow up, my sister paused at a photo of our family taken in Lynchburg, Virginia ("I wish I had friends in Lynchburg. I hate my teachers they give us so much work"), where we'd moved after our parents' divorce. We're in the dining room of our house. She must be about twelve. She looks like she's eaten mushrooms and they're starting to kick in. I'm standing behind her with my arms folded over my chest, wearing dark glasses. Our mom is giving the camera a lovely smile.

Where was I going with this? It's really hard to think.

Those other things, the things I can't talk about, are trying to come in.

I can hear my mother, full of hearsay and popular opinion. The phone rings after polite hours for phoning have ended and she speaks in a flat, tired voice, so I know who it is, and then hangs up abruptly. Memories are like granite over which the days flow, but it's hard to know anything for sure. If there's anything to know for sure. My grandmother's house still smells like a dog that died years ago. I saw a photograph of her as a child. Her hair is bobbed and she's standing on a split-rain fence, calmly watching the photographer manipulate those unwieldy glass plates, balancing there without moving.

Adam is...

400 miles from Nuku Hiva with good steady winds. He has been inspired by the work of Benjamin Franklin. He even talks about getting some rimless glasses. Except he doesn't need glasses. He's been out there a long time.

My sister took these pictures after Lulu ate a holly berry which is poisonous and I tried to make her throw up and she started crying hard and it didn't work anyway and then my sister finally found the number and got through to Poison Control and they told her that I had just totally traumatized her for nothing because they don't prescribe barfing anymore. They said one holly berry was no big deal. And then I made a special drink in the blender and Lulu loved it and we hugged like survivors.