…Sweat, Tears, or the Sea.

When I told my family that I was moving to Salt Lake City, my lifeguard cousin looked at me as if I had lost my mind and said, “But there’s no ocean there!” My heart broke on the spot. He was forcing me to think about the unthinkable: saying good-bye to the sea.

When my uncle died he was scattered out past the windsock in front of Kaimana Beach. So was my auntie. So were my cousins. It’s where my father will be, and my mother. One day, my ashes will be there too. My family does not go back to the earth when we die. We go back to the sea.

I have spent my life falling in love so deeply that I do not know how my spirit will go on without her. Will I be the same person? Will I walk around with a hole in my heart? Can the mountains in my new landlocked state take her place? Isak Dinesen wrote, “The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea.” If all I have left is sweat and tears, can I ever be well again? I feel like I’m being dramatic, but I also feel like I am not being dramatic at all.

The idea of leaving her is like someone proposing that I unzip my own skin and step out of it; that I live my life without an essential layer of protection. She is my mother. She is my sister. She is the salty blood in my veins. She is the blue calm in my soul. She is my playground, my church, my school. She terrifies me and mesmerizes me. She is the boss, but I strive to master her. I study her brother the wind, only so that I can know her better.

I stare at her, I stalk her, I track her. I want to take in her every facet, to absorb her. The human body is 60 percent water. I pretend my 60 percent is ocean. Sometimes I stand at the Diamond Head lookout and I watch the white light turn her surface silver, like undulating fish scales. It is so beautiful I cry.

In fact, she has brought me to tears often; sometimes tears of joy or pleasure, sometimes tears of defeat and pain. Lately, with the anticipation of good-bye.

Since choosing my new state, I’ve been trying to make my Pacific experiences indelible, un-erasable, forever a part of me, as if they were another essential limb. I spend hours in reverie, retrieving all the sea memories I have, then replaying them over and over...

***

…Lei and me at Tongg’s on a sunny Sunday. The surf small and gentle, my favorite. We take off on the same wave and glide over to each other, our rails getting within inches of touching. Lei laughs and tosses her head back, her ehu curls fluttering in the trades. A briny mist envelops us. It feels like I am dreaming.

 Diving and peeking into the coral with Amy and Anjie, following tangs and humus to Sand Bar. Their baby bumps have slowed them down just enough so that I can keep up with them. We lay on the bottom and watch the waves roll by over our heads setting loose thousands of bubbles and pulling up columns of sand from the ocean floor. When we pop back up top, the air smells like the inside of a shell, freshly plucked from the depths—tinged with sea creature salinity. Not just the smell of ocean, but the smell of life, of living oceanic things.  

 We are at the starting line at Keehi Lagoon. Four women in a 400-pound canoe built for six. It is a brutal race that no one wants to do. Yet here I am, in the Kakina, stroking in the O’ahu championships. It is the first time I have ever sat seat one. The green flag flies and we go, hard. As we take the quarter-mile turn, we are in first place. Our steerswoman yells out “Uni!” I crank the nose, noticing too late the ‘ama inching toward the flag. The pink lane marker goes under: an insurmountable technical error. Only halfway through the race, we know we are disqualified. We pause for a second, stunned. Then I roar, “LET’S BEAT THESE BITCHES ANYWAY.” Suddenly the boat is flying again, all of us together, hammering to the finish line, which we cross first. We do not get our gold medal, but I feel deep joy and awe in the power of these women who chose not to give up.  

Bell and me, surfing at Sand Bar. She is leaving in a few months to start a new life and beginning to understand what she will be leaving behind. She wants to be in the water with me as much as she can. The early spring surf is tiny and the sun shines orange and low on the horizon. Sometimes after I catch a wave, I stay inside just to watch her, flying in the froth, side stepping to the front of the board, with her hands poised elegantly outward like an iwa’s wings as it skims the blue fire of the sunset sea.

After a friend dies tragically, a bunch of us drink and talk and then head for the waves after his scattering. The water is soft and gentle on the tipsy five of us, the waves waist high. We surf and laugh and are occasionally rolled in the foam. After a party wave, Kula and I stand on the sandy bottom in the place that is the same blue as his eyes. His board is upside down, and its fin is transparent. He lowers his face and peers at me through the clear skeg. I climb back onto my board and paddle away, my na’au light and bubbly, like it’s filled with the white tendrils of a thousand Moorish idols.  

I am on the starting crew of Na Wahine O Ke Kai during our first, ugly 45-minute piece. The boat drags and we fight each other without meaning to. We can’t find our rhythm. My body rebels and my spirit dips. I am not the only one. The crossing is hard, unpleasant. Numerous times, I consider jumping out of the boat in the middle of Ka’iwi Channel. After six and a half hours and 42-miles, just as we hit the turning buoy, a rogue wave catches us, slaps us toward the reef, fills our boat with water. It is the final insult. We keep paddling and bailing, doggedly. We still finish first in our division. On shore, I fall into my daughter’s waiting arms and cry. I never want to race again.

We are in over our heads, Leela and me. Literally. The waves tower above us as we kick blithely toward Old Man’s. It’s foolhardy, but the low stakes of the foam boogies make us charge anyway. The drops knock the wind out of us, the white water eats us for long seconds until we are spit back out hurtling forward, laughing and shrieking hysterically. Our fins are too big and our bikinis are too loose; every time we catch a wave we are in jeopardy of having our bottom halves stripped naked.  We start taking off in full scorpion—knees bent, legs way out of the water, feet pointing toward our heads—in an effort to stay clothed and finned. We look ridiculous, but are having too much fun to care.

***

If we watch and listen, the sea teaches us. With her cousins the stars and her brother the wind, she taught the ancient Hawaiians how to find new lands. She’s taught countless local kids how to work together by racing canoes. She’s taught us courage when we challenge ourselves by going out on big days, wisdom when we sometimes decide the day is too big, and humility those times when wisdom should’ve won out. She teaches us joy when we are visited by turtles and dolphins on our swims, and respect when we see tigers swimming under our OC1s.

As I prepare to leave her, affix her memories in my heart, and sift through all the lessons she has taught me, I settle on the most important one for me right now: Change is the only constant. I see this every day in the ebb and flow of her tides. The more gracefully I can accept this, the better my life will be.

I am going to the mountains. To the snow. To the forests, and lakes, and rivers. I have so many things to get through, to rent, to buy, to pack, to unpack. And I really need some covered shoes. But what animates me is focusing on the new things I can do and learn. I picture myself riding snow like I ride a wave. I wonder if I can get a canoe in Utah Lake. I ponder what the lessons of the mountains will be. What the forests will teach me. I need to study how to stay safe in the snow or the desert, how to behave if I see a snake or a bear. It’s a new frontier. I am trying to be ready.