Malihini, n. visitor, newcomer, guest, transplant
This was once a nice little blog about Hawaii, but since my husband's suicide it's devolved into a place where I mutter against the wall about grief, fandom, religion, queerness, and nonsense. As one does!
"Wow," said Auntie Val Hanohano, looking around as the Hula performance ended and all the parents and friends got up to push their way out of the theater, "the natives are getting restless! Ha ha ha!"
Sunday, September 8, 2013 I first heard of Claudia Brown when I was about 8 weeks pregnant and nauseated by the smell of oxygen. I had already had one extremely disappointing visit with an Ob-Gyn out in Waimea (grimy carpets, dead-eyed nurses, and a dismissive and distractingly attractive male gynecologist). I was taking my toddler for a walk along our little gravel road to see the horses (don’t breathe: horse-sweat, hay, grass, animal hair, poop) and feed them papayas (don’t breathe: too pungent, too fleshy, with an overripe kerosene off-gas). We ran into our neighbor and her leaping and spinning three year old, who was tanned to mahogany and naked except for a tutu. The little girl pointed at her mom’s watermelon-sized belly. “HIS NAME IS POPCORN!” We chatted about birth and doctors and midwives, I told her how much I had loved the midwife-run birth center on the Big Island and how unimpressive my visit to the Ob-Gyn had been. She said, “Oh, you’ll love Claudia,” and dash...
I have to say, I was shocked to discover that Mormon widows go through a slutty stage. I mean the church-every-Sunday, garment wearing, sealed in the temple types. The things they get up to, honestly I was clutching my pearls! (And my opera glasses!!) They engage in heavy petting after playing pickleball, they hike the Y and make out in their Suburbans with divorcees they met on LDS Singles dot whatever. They enjoy necking with elder singles they find on facebook recently bereaved widows groups. Those widowers, they’re a hot commodity. They have no shortage of action. I was in Utah right after Matt died, and all of my widow friends were nice Mormon ladies in grief. And, not gonna lie, in heat. And I love that for them! Even though I thought it was kind of funny to hear about their moms-gone-wild-exploits, it made perfect sense to me. They've been married -- they've been sexual grownups for years or decades. And they are not messing around for the sake of it-- they are takin...
*So I published this post last night, as is, and today it was bothering me-- and I realized that I need to contextualize it a little better. I haven't read the comments yet, just so you know.* Morning-After-Contextualization: I have been reading and thinking a lot about human evolution. I find the vision of an ancestral environment very moving-- up until 10,000 years ago or so when humans developed culture, language, institutions, religion. I'm intrigued especially by the traits that we usually wouldn't call biological- the cultural, the religious, the familial. Recently I've read a really stupid book -- Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters -- that completely ignores culture as an impetus for behavior-- and a really wonderful book -- A Natural History of Parenting -- that will inspire you and blow your mind. Both illuminate the surprising evolutionary roots of common human stuff. Trends, choices, behaviors can be seen through that lens in a fascinating way. Re-se...
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