East Hawai’i shoreline. February, 2020.as we pull to the side of the road between a long line of cars that have done the same.
I’ve lived here for two-and-a-half years and this is my first time to Kahena, one of the few real beaches on this side of the island that also happens to be a nude beach.
I nod and coolly ask Ava, “What do you usually do?”
“I usually don’t wear a suit — but there are plenty of people who do,” she says, reassuringly. The people she’s referring to are mostly tourists who stick out in a sea of flesh tones with their neon colors and printed patterns. And today, I may join them, a lemon-print one-piece crumpled up at the bottom of my bag.
I’ve imagined, since I first heard about this favorite local spot, a bunch of flagrantly self-confident types sunning and shamelessly flaunting themselves, looking down on the rest of us who have yet to shed the social scripts holding us together like bones.
Twelve years in Catholic grade school trained me in military-style obedience. Rosary beads and threats of eternal damnation were our version of the drill sergeant’s “drop and give me twenty.” Literal and figurative uniformity was not only rewarded but enforced. Rolling your knee-length skirt thigh-high? Demerit. Wearing knee socks that weren’t the prescriptive solid navy, black, or white? Demerit. Do it a few times? Detention. And one too many of those? Suspension.
I was not the type to get into trouble. I feared the demerit system, the less sadistic but not altogether humane modern-day ruler slap. And as I matured, I became more self-conscious, compounding religious social scripts with cultural ones. I spent my early teen years praying either my hips would stop expanding or my chest would at least start to catch up.
With neither hope fulfilled by college, I opted for oversized sweaters and jeans beneath midi dresses and mini skirts. Still worried about not measuring up to some arbitrary standards, not looking “right.” My clothing choices were less of a style and more of a plea: Please, don’t look at me.
My sophomore year of college, I pushed myself out on a limb when I took a figure drawing class. Once a week, a svelte, Swedish-looking woman and a long, bearded man took turns standing on a carpeted platform surrounded by space heaters in the brutalist basement of the art building. I was in awe of these people who nonchalantly dropped trou in front of a dozen gaping kids who'd likely never gotten this much face time with the body parts on display.
“Someday,” I often thought, “I want to do that.” Not because I actually wanted to do that, and not necessarily that, but some equivalent display of boldness and bravery.
And now here I am: sidling down a craggy cliff towards a black sand beach in Hawai’i where people are doing exactly that. And at the bottom of the hill, I will perform the old locker room changing trick all women know, sliding my bathing suit on underneath my dress, and thrusting myself into a real-life game of One of These Things Is Not Like the Other.
Ava, her boyfriend, Darell, and I set up camp under the canopy of some palms with a few precariously positioned coconuts dangling overhead. I point to the hazards hanging and Darrell jokes with frightening statistical accuracy, “Yeah, more dangerous than shark attacks!” prompting me to move my towel immediately. (There are less stupid ways to go.)
But sharks and coconuts are the least likely of our worries. Waves here do not unfurl across expansive sandy shores like they do in the mental images people have of Hawai’i. No; here they thunderously churn and head-butt craggy cliff walls. Here, the power of the ocean must be acknowledged and respected.
After giving me a brief tutorial on how to enter the ocean, my friends shed their clothes. “Cute suit!” Ava says, reassuring me of my outlier choice as we walk together toward the ocean.
Ava and Darrell trudge in deeper than I do, and as a giant wave cracks the shore, they disappear into it, emerging a few seconds later as bobbing heads on the horizon.
I try my luck to make it past the surf break but get slapped mid-chest. Retreating, I decide maybe I’ll just watch the waves from the shore. And that's when the current pulls my ankles out from under me.
I’m laughing as I come up, both out of surprise and slight embarrassment. I am quickly solidifying my tourist status to the naked eye of any observer… and there are observers — several rows of them sunbathing on towels and a smattering wading in the water with me — and they are naked. But I don’t have a chance to ruminate on this faux pas before the ocean calls back her resources and with it, my balance.
And down I go again.
This, the tide mercilessly decides, is the appropriate time to pummel me. As I go under, the churning waves kick up the glass-like particles of lava rock-turned-sand and deposit them in the seat of my suit.
When I rise, I’m face-to-face with a naked man with a white beard who sees my exasperation and sympathizes with a smile and a single word: “Brutal!” In my current state, I can’t think of anything quippy to say, so I just shake my head in defeat.
When I see the next wave, it’s too late to run for it, but I try anyway. That’s when it slaps me on the back, pushing me to my knees with a mouthful of salt water.
Ava and Darrell drift farther and farther out, and I’m stranded on the shore, drenched from head to toe without having crested a single wave yet. I realize that at this rate, it’s unlikely I’ll be joining them.
Intent on enduring, I lift myself to my feet, picking my bathing suit and a mound of black sand out of my seat like a swaying boxer determined to be the last (if not the bloodiest) man standing.
Finding my ground, I gather myself, rooting down in a warrior stance, holding this pose for several minutes as the sea sucks at my ankles.
I sway but this time, I do not fall.
Exposed, on a narrow patch of sand on an island amidst a sea of differently dressed strangers, I finally find my footing.
Look at me, sticking out but standing up. Planted firmly, in my own center of gravity. Poised, despite all the awkwardness and discomfort, the ocean, my opponent and my witness.
Look at me: doing that — just like the me all those years ago wished she could.
Look at me.
Look.
Credits
The background music in the audio version is Odes by Diskret.
(Click the play button at the top of the email to hear for yourself.)
And here’s the running list of all background songs from the beginning, below:
“It’s clothing-optional,” she says…