Eat, Pray, Maui

It’s about 3:00 in the morning and I am throwing up.  This is not oh I drank too much and I need to puke, no this is something is wrong with me.  I am sick. 

Is this really happening?  I am going to Maui tomorrow.  I have to pack, go get a haircut, and go get a new iPhone.

I tried to sleep but my stomach twists and turns and I spew several more times between 3:00 and 7:00.  I have to be downtown at 9:00 so I just get up and try to power through.

At the AT&T store downtown, I am approached by a 13 year old boy.  I explain my whole story about dropping my phone recently, getting it fixed, but noticing last week that the battery was getting old and that the repair place said they could replace it in 10 minutes for $50 dollars but they discovered that the something on the inside got cracked when I dropped it and they can’t fix it and I am going to Hawaii tomorrow and I have to have a phone and camera.  He is not here to help.  He is here to put my name on a waiting list so that someone else will help me. 

Soon my name shows up on a display board.  I am number 4 in line.  But then more people come in.  Old, crazy, homeless-looking people who yell.  He puts each of them to the front of the line. 

30 minutes later I am approached by another 13 year old boy, this one has pimples and is a jerk.  He does not want to hear my sob story, he does not want to sell me a new phone, he just wants to be an asshole.  I contemplate for a moment about throwing up on his head, as I could right now, but I don’t. Instead, I walk across the street to the T-Mobile store and cancel my 20 year old relationship with AT&T. $1000 later I have a new waterproof phone with an awesome camera and my same old phone number.  I still want to go back and throw up on the AT&T clerk, but I hold it in and get my hair cut.

The rest of the day and night I am sick.  I am too sick to pack or clean my house.  I just get up at 5:00 the next morning and do both.  Then I am off to the airport.  Still quite nauseous. Oh, and happy birthday to me.

………..

So these new lie-flat seats are an unexpected joy.  You can completely stretch your legs out while you sip champagne and make eye contact with the poor as they make that long, long walk of shame to the back of the airplane. Sometimes they even talk, the poor. 

“You’re living the life, man!” 

“Jesus!”

Or my favorite, “Honey, remember when we used to live like that?”

Well Honey, if you would put toothpaste, kitty litter, your cable bill, and every other possible charge you can think of each month on your Hawaiian Airlines credit card, you could be sitting here too. Oh, and don’t have children. Oh, and get a job in IT.

I am actually just holding the glass of champagne so that I can torture the poor as they pass by.  I am still very nauseous. I so don’t want to be sick on my way to Maui.

Sigh. Maui. My one true place.  I can’t wait to get there.  This will be my 13^th trip to Maui.  There have been 14 trips to other Hawaiian islands.  Those were a mistake.  Maui no ka ‘oi.

I know I have said this many times, but I just don’t understand why people don’t believe me when I say that the front of the plane moves faster than the back.  Einstein mapped all this out on a chalkboard in 1922. It is supposed to take 6 hours to get to Maui, weather permitting, but sure enough after a 10:00 AM take off we land at 1:00PM. The poor, of course, will be deplaning at 3:00PM. Space-time is your friend, in First Class.

I literally have four windows to myself.  I look out at the Pacific and remember the first time I flew over this ocean, on United!  (The horror, the horror!). I thought all the little whitecaps you see on the ocean surface from 40,000 feet were icebergs.  Yes, icebergs 300 miles west of Seattle.

Lunch is disappointing.  Mostly because I can’t eat lest I spew, but also they are still using Chef Chai Chaowasaree from that pole dancing strip club in Honolulu as their head chef. I push food around for a bit and then take a nap on my lie-flat bed 40,000 feet in the air. 

I am awoken by some horrible chainsaw-like snoring sound.  It’s me.  I should be embarrassed but everyone in First Class has their noise reduction headphones on.   Soon the plane banks to the left and I see land. 

Maui!

………..

It’s my birthday dinner and I am still sick.  I’ve been taken to this lovely restaurant with a view of an infinity pool filled with frolicking young bodybuilders and then the ocean beyond them.  This is so lovely, and I try to be polite, but I just can’t do it, the eating.  Normally I would have gone for a walk on the beach tonight.  The moon is out, but I just have to go back to my room and crash. I wonder if this is fate.   Am I being punished for making fun of the poor? I scoff. There are probably some people from the last row just getting off the plane.  

…………

Today is spa day.  And I am still sick.  We head down the beach to the Grand Wailea Resort and Spa Grande.  They know us here.  I shower and then get under this gigantic waterfall that is supposed to relax sore muscles. I am sore and my neck is in knots, part of whatever fate-induced ailment I have.  The pounding water does help.  I also float around in a Japanese soaking tub for a while and then some aromatherapy pools.  These I do not like so much so I am back to the waterfall pounding on my neck. 

I’m taken upstairs for a massage.  My stomach feels ready to blow.  This nice Japanese massage therapist works on my back.  Pound pound pound.  Don’t throw up, please don’t throw up! Pound pound pound.  Oh please no. It passes, the nausea.  I don’t spew.  It’s a nice massage.

Next I am taken to another room for an anti-aging facial. I expect a chemical peel, maybe some laser beams, certainly some extractions. No, this is more aromatherapy bullshit and a lot of face washing.  That was sure silly.  But I am feeling way better.

………….

So I have driven up to about the 4000 foot level of the Haleakala volcano to try to work through a little problem. Well, two little problems actually.  One, I have lost the ability to write.  And two, I have lost the ability to cook. 

Last night I attempted to make fresh ahi seared with peppercorns and sesame seeds, and then Molokai sweet potatoes mashed with coconut milk.  Disaster.  The night before, fresh Monchong baked with grated ginger and greens onions, served with some snap peas and sweet potatoes cooked in Portuguese sausage fat.  Yuk.  The night before, fresh Mahi Mahi pan fried and served with sautéed bok choy and soba noodles.  All bad.  So bad. 

I have just lost it, the cooking. 

And then there’s the writing.  If you are suffering through this you can obviously tell.  I have not written anything good in a long time.  They are just not there anymore, the muses.  I court them but they ignore me. I probably scared them off over the course of the last two years.  The awful last two years.

It was exactly two years ago that I was also here on Maui, knowing that when I came home I would get laid off from my job. I was so stressed out.  We had rented a large Nissan Megladon SUV and drove to Hana.  Almost as soon as we arrived I backed the Megladon into a metal pole and broke the car. My first car accident ever, on Maui no less. 

Then there was that big storm and our hotel cottage nearly got blown away. I drank a lot that night and I think I died in my sleep, but my old buddy Cathead emerged from the void and pushed me away from the light.  Probably to take care of those kittens he was so fond of.

So I did get laid off. Then I got a new job.  Then I found out that that job was bad. Then I got a new job.  Then I found out that that job was bad.  Then I got a new job.  And here I am now.  On Maui. Inept in the kitchen and unable to write.

Why can’t I cook or write?  Has something changed?  I do have a new job. But this job is not bad.  I love my new job.  Really.  I work for an amazing organization that surprisingly does not consciously give people diabetes, or make bids on building a wall at the Mexico border, or provide logistical support for government sponsored torture, or put up tater tot casserole recipes from Trump supporters, or sell ridiculous cell phone games for lonely middle aged women, or lay me off.

Could it be that because I am happy at work I don’t need to distract myself with writing or cooking? Maybe.  So that brings us back to today’s little jaunt.  Let’s call it Eat, Pray, Maui.  The plan was I would have the day to myself in my one true place to do whatever I want and get to the bottom of these little problems. There would of course be no praying, but there was likely to be eating, and I was on Maui.

I started off the day trying to find a place to get my rental car washed.  There are several million non-indigenous and quite hateful starlings living in the trees above my parking space.  They shit, these birds, a lot. My car looks like some kind of large milky white cocoon from a Korean horror film.  Soon it will crack open and a monster will crawl out, growing rapidly and devouring Kihei.  

Siri was able to recommend several car washes in the greater Kihei area, all of which turned out to only take cash and I only had $4. Finally, I found a Chevron with a drive-through car wash.  I filled up my tank expecting to get a ticket with a number on it which would get me into the car wash. Nope.  No receipt, nothing.  A nice Hawaiian man with a long scrubby brush told me I'd have to go in and pay for the car wash.  When I came back out the nice Hawaiian man was waiting to help me put in my four digit code.  When it took him six tries to get the code in I realized he did not work for the gas station.  But he scrubbed off the bird poop and was waiting on the other side to dry my car.  I gave him my $4.

Now I am on the road!  The road to inner peace and self-actualization. I am listing to Ludovico Einaudi’s album Divernie, which means “Become” in Italian. It seems so appropriate.  The road leads me to upcountry Maui, to the Kula area. Its cooler up in Kula. And the flora is amazing.  Gigantic yucca plants and birds of paradise pop up along the side of the road, Jacaranda trees in bloom drop their flowers, covering the road with a vibrant purple blanket.  There are giant prehistoric ferns everywhere.  When the road turns to the south, the climate changes a bit and suddenly the giant ferns and flowers give way to huge green meadows dotted with eucalyptus trees and giant cactus. Looking down from above I can see both ends of the central isthmus of Maui, the West Maui Mountains, and the islands of Lanai, Kaho’olawe, and Molokini. This will be a good place to park, get out, and ponder my universe.

It’s so magical here.  There are rock walls separating the meadows like I imagine you would see in Ireland or Scotland.  A gentle mist shrouds the top of the volcano and occasionally drifts down just far enough to create dancing rainbows that come and go playfully.

As I sit on one of the rock walls and gaze out at the incredible view, I think about the last two stressful years, about how old I am, about all the awful jobs I’ve had, about my health, about how much I love Maui, and how there is no other place on earth I would rather be right now. Things are starting to make sense, they are coalescing, when suddenly a large bee-like insect about the size of a banana zooms up.  It chases me around the meadow and I run screaming back to the car.  God, I hate being outside.

I am so out of here, so I decide to head down to Pa’ia for lunch at Café Des Amies, a quirky little restaurant run by surfers and yoga people.  I’m craving a healthful green salad and a mushroom crepe. Plus, I have to pee.

Coming down the mountain I make sure to take Baldwin Avenue so that I can drive through the artist colony of Makawao. Oh Makawao.  I have such fond memories of the galleries, the secret bamboo gardens with hidden Buddha heads, the giant spiders that live in the webs that fill the power lines above the main street, and of course that time I got stung on the eye by a bee here.  Oh Makawao. I drive faster.

Soon I am at the ruins of the old Maui high school. You already know that story. 

I can’t wait to get to Pa’ia and to Café Des Amies.  I just love the vibe, the friendly hippie servers, the organic iced tea. That reminds me of just how bad I have to pee. I consider getting out and just peeing on the side of the road here, but I’m in a eucalyptus forest right now and the last time I tried that here giant spiders came down from above to greet me. I am not going through that again.

No, I am close to Pa’ia.  I can hold it.  I have a strong bladder.

When I get to Pa’ia, it's total traffic gridlock. A tourist and surfer-induced jam of SUVs and old Volkswagen vans for as far as I can see.  I circle the restaurant once.  No luck.  Gotta pee!  I circle the restaurant twice.  Really gotta pee!  I try the free public parking lot just outside of town, but cars are backed up trying to exit in reverse as the lot is full and there is no rear entrance. I am so full of pee my eyes are turning yellow.  What can I do? I am certainly not going to risk getting out of the car to pee with all this abundant Hawaiian wildlife lying in wait.

I will just have to drive to Kahului and go to Sheldon Simeon’s highly anticipated new restaurant, Tin Roof.  Surely they will have a clean, vermin free restroom along with some exciting new food finds!

Siri gracefully guides me the 20 minutes to Tin Roof and I find the last free parking space, as it’s lunch hour.  Inside the tiny space is a line of customers and a bunch of cooks working at breakneck speed.  There is no place to sit down. There is no bathroom.  I put on my sunglasses so no one will think I have hepatitis.  I decide to float just outside of my body in the ether and look back at the bladder pain from a quiet and detached distance. 

I order pork belly (Sheldon says it’s his favorite vegetable) on top of some garlic noodles.  It comes with some Arizona Iced Tea and some mac salad.  Service is fast and soon my food is ready.  I scarf the food down in my car, but have chosen to leave the Arizona Ice Tea at the restaurant as pee is now coming out of my ears. Lack of bathroom aside, Tin Roof is awesome, cheap, unpretentious, and great fun. 

I pull myself back into my body and the pain returns.  It’s intense.  Where the hell can a boy pee around here? It’s not like I am going to go in to a McDonalds or something. There could be people from the back of the plane there.  Oh yes, Maui Coffee Company! It’s only six blocks away and I know they have a bathroom.  I find a parking space right in front.  I park, run in, run up to the counter, “I am going to buy some beans but I have to pee or I will die!” I whip off my sunglasses and the girl at the counter looks at my eyes and is like, “Oh my, here’s the key to the bathroom.”

I pee.  It takes a while.

Then I do buy some locally grown Maui coffee beans for me and one of my employees and I get one of their yummy decaf nitro cold brew things to drink as I no longer have to pee.

So where to now on my quest of self-discovery?  I think about heading up the north side of West Maui as I have not been there in years, but then I see the ‘Iao Valley in the distance and I think, golly, that is rather dramatic and green, plus there are free range kittens there.  I head towards the ‘Iao Valley.

When I get to the ‘Iao Valley, it is closed.  The gates are down and locked.  Those poor kittens.  Well at least I don’t have to get out of the car.

I think I have had enough Italian classical music, so it’s time for Michael Kiwanuka, whose album Love and Hate is so transcendent and revelatory that I may just figure my things out just by listening to it.  Oh but wait, I need to do some shopping for gifts to bring back home. I head to the ABC store in Wailea because I like that one and there is limited chance of a wildlife attack or encountering the poor.

Soon I am back at the condo, with a full day of self-discovery under my belt. All I have to show for this is that I have reconfirmed I am afraid of going outside.

……………………..

I should probably explain about the stepping outside of my body thing when I had to pee so bad.

As you know, I started doing astral projection again in 2003 when I came to Maui for the first time.  I had lunch at the Haili’imaile General Store and ordered the crab pizza.  With the first glorious bite I left my body and floated around in the ether.  Pretty good for someone without a soul!  

Much like flying in First Class, there are some space / time things going on when you astrally project.  First, the amount of time you spend up there is not equivalent to the amount of time you spend in the physical world with your eyes rolled back in your head, moaning while the crab pizza sits on your tongue and people stare at you.  You can be up there for hours while it seems like seconds down here.  Also, since time does not exist up there you get to run into older and younger versions of yourself while they were/will be astrally projecting.  That first time at Hali’imaile I saw a much younger and skinnier me heading down to Sacramento through the ether.  I wanted to tell that me that I was going to get hit by an airplane soon and that it would scare the hell out of me at I would get violently jerked back into my body, but we floated away from each other and I never got to tell me.  It is so freaky when your astral form gets hit by a big old jet airliner.

Anyway, on this trip I got to project again at Hali’imaile over mythic crab pizza, then again at Star Noodle when I had the Lahina Fried Soup.  It’s not soup, it’s really a mythic combination of magical homemade noodles, pork, garlic, and green onion.  Then finally at Mamma’s Fish House over the best piece of fish I ever had at a $500 lunch for three.

Other restaurant experiences were not so good.  As you know I nearly barfed on my food at the Ka’ana Kitchen and then there was the Republican talking loudly at the Monkey Pod. A Republican.  On Maui.  Who knew?

The food flying home was much better.  That is because Sheldon Simeon is the chef.  They are trying out other Hawaiian chefs because they know that Chai guy’s food is so bad.  There are chefs I know, Sheldon of course, Andrew Le from the awesome Pig & The Lady and the equally awesome Lee Anne Wong from the Koko Head Café.

Also good on the way home are the fie flat seats. 

What is not good in the man sitting in front of us.  His wife and mutant child are in the first row, he is in the second row.  He literally stands up 13 times before the plan takes off to cater to the annoying kid, who needs a blanket, then doesn’t need a blanket, then needs a blanket. Then his wife starts doing the same thing.  This goes on throughout the flight.  When we are landing the man again gets up, while we are landing, to get something for his annoying child.

I have had it and I am going to get revenge. 

When we deplane the kid and mom are right behind me.  The kid jumps in front of me and I cut off his mother.  He runs away and I don’t move.  The woman screams, “Oh my god my child!  Someone save my child!  The husband comes barreling up from behind and I accidently trip him. “Oh my god my husband!  Someone save my husband!” she screams as the passengers trample him.

I am happy and content.  I have done something good for humanity and I got to spend 5 days on Maui.

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