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The Goddess Speaks
NOW that it's summer and the kids are out of school, it's time to party, spend a little quality family time together. Even a stone can
part the clouds"Let's go walking," my husband Peter and I suggest to our kids on a Friday evening.
They stare at us in disbelief. As they imagine their friends going to the movies, some great event or dinner, this is simply "not fair," I know our 12-year-old son is thinking. He's thinking that even watching the "Simpsons" on TV at home or watching Jim Carrey in "Liar, Liar" on video for the fifth time is a party compared to taking a walk.
Nevertheless, our seniority wins over their discontent. We reduce the blow by promising to pick up some burritos on our way back home.
In spite of their grumbling, we head over to a small beach near the Sheraton Poipu, parking at the edge of the water. My husband, our 7-year-old daughter and I, open our doors and step out. The boy adamantly elects to stay in the car. "OK, play like that," I tell myself.
But this is too much for him to resist. The sun is beginning to set, the air is crisp and the walk begins on a rocky beach. He half-heartedly steps out of the car and joins us, already 20 feet ahead of him.
Perhaps to release any remaining dissatisfaction, he picks up a stone and throws it into the ocean. "Watch out for the turtles," my husband yells out, "You don't want to go to jail."
Our son cracks a smile, then looks out into the distance. Halfway to the horizon, there's a silhouette of a lone dinghy with two fishermen casting their lines. Above that, the clouds part to reveal a burst of white light.
"Look at that," he smiles, pointing with awe.
ONCE again, he turns his attention to the stones and other "treasures" at his feet. Before long, he finds something he can't seem to let go -- a small fully-husked coconut. I'm finding some treasures of my own--frosted glass in white, green and blue, and a perfectly square piece of concrete polished by the pounding surf. Speculation is that it is a piece of the old Sheraton smashed by Hurricane Iniki.
With ideas of what to do with his coconut rushing through his mind, our son catches up with my husband and me about 40 feet away.
Our daughter lags behind, trying to gather as many shiny black stones as she can by forming a cup in the front of her dress. Finally, she releases her heavy bounty and joins the family, claiming my concrete square as her next show-and-tell piece.
As we near a bend, my husband spots a humuhumu-nukunuku-a-pua'a cavorting through the rocks. I point to white sea worms spreading their long bodies across the ocean floor. We see a group of small-shelled mollusks that as kids we called pipipi, making fancy tracks on sand that had settled on a flat rock in the shallow water.
It is now dusk. Armed with our little treasures, we head back to our car. Peter throws a long pass to our son with his coconut and they tackle one another on the hotel's grassy lawn.
My daughter and I watch the horseplay from a distance, absorbing their laughter. By the time we get back to the car, no one's pouting.
Now that was a great party.
Jane Esaki McClaran and her husband Peter
live on Kauai and publish the monthly
Kauai Business Report.
The Goddess Speaks runs every Tuesday
and is a column by and about women, our strengths, weaknesses,
quirks and quandaries. If you have something to say, write it and
send it to: The Goddess Speaks, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, P.O.
Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802, or send e-mail
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