Article by Pumehana Holmes Art by Isabella Hageman
My aumakua passed me today
In a way I could not ignore
I laid down on the beach
Freeing my skin to the sun
I let my body rest on the sand
Let the sand cradle me
The way a mother does a babe
As she sleeps
I close my eyes
And hear a lullaby of waves
Hear the wind pick up
Let the rain bounce against skin, seep in,
And keep me cool
“You know, grandma always says our aumakua is the honu.”
“I know, you’ve told me this before.”
“She's adamant.”
“I know.”
My cousin gives me that look. The one deepened by history set before us by our mothers. The ones we laid in, closed our eyes and listened to the beats of their hearts. The look that tells me she knows my history, acknowledges it, but pushes for more.
She continues to drive, I continue to look out of the window, and we talk about different things. It’s a familiar loop, one cultivated by growing into people together. Growing into friends, into strangers, into friends again. Always family.
“So, what are you going to tell him? The tattoo artist?”
I’ve done this talk before. Alone. Raved to mirrors where I looked at myself, enjoying where my hair and lips curled, where my brows laid emphatically. How I could simply exist by myself in my room. I had practiced what I wanted to say, lips wet and eager, like the first time I kissed him in his studio. His eyes teasing, my heart bold. My lips are chapped, my tongue dry. I swallow. Furrow my brows and huff.
“I don’t know,” I say but do not believe.
I had pondered this before, ranted to friends in the pockets of their cars in the dead of night. Had whispered small notes into my books, the ink seeping with my enthusiasm.
“I’ll tell them about my parents. How they’re Deaf. How I’m CODA. How they met,”
I say but the words feel strange. I had never said this before when I practiced in my room. Not like this. Perhaps because I felt pressured. Perhaps because a younger part of me felt the need to conform, to perform, even to her.
She isn’t satisfied but I continue regardless, stumbling on fragments of identity I’ve poured into scholarship essays of how I’m diverse and special. One of a kind. The type to bring “aloha” to their communities. A scheme. A way to conform, to wrap myself around a stereotype I no longer believe.
The words grip my mouth, yank paragraphs through my bared teeth, my throat bland. What I’m saying does not match what I mean, but I say the words nonetheless.
My cousin pauses. Glances over at me in a studied way. It’s a look filled with knowledge, with knowing, even when she thinks otherwise. Our relationship has changed in strange ways. Sometimes strained and other times closer than ever.
She purses her lips. They’re glossy, covered in the balm she keeps herself prepped with. Her image, a careful thing.
She is the kind of beautiful you breathe in. The kind you do not question but know. The kind of beauty you see in a landscape and nod at. At how the land simply makes sense.
She is simply beautiful.
“What about a storyteller?” she says.
And I feel dumb. She has the kind of intelligence that seeps into the air. Fills it.
“What about talking about your struggle in embracing being Hawaiian?”
I think of course! I’ve said these things before, practiced them in mirrors, alone in my room. I tell her this because I cannot keep the words in. They bubble out like magma.
I agree with her, but I do not tell her that she has seen me. Has listened to me in such a way, that I believe through our mothers’ mother’s heart, she heard and saw me. Before we were born, she felt me and gripped on, and in a breath saw me in the mirror, practicing what I wanted to say. How I wanted to tell my story.
I do not tell her that in a second, I saw her in the glass made from the sand we laid on to tan. That in a second, she was cradling my soul in such delicacy that I was frozen. To know that someone has seen me how I saw myself even through my doubt and insecurity. That she has seen me after all these years.
Perhaps it was the growing done simultaneously. The ways in which we molded and conformed to each other until we sprouted apart, like roots in the dirt, in the mountains we call home. Maybe it is because we see each other through our pain that we see each other so vibrantly. I had seen her for years through the glass but had not realized there was a pair of eyes looking back.
She continues to drive. I continue to look at mountains. We continue to the beach.
Kin lay on the sand
Similar hearts beat to the crash of waves
“You know I only said those things because I was jealous.”
“Hm?”
I know what she is referring to.
“You being haole.”
“Mm.”
My cousin loves me. I know this, don’t doubt this, it is one of the few familial connections I am sure of.
“You used to call me haole a lot growing up.”
“I know.”
My cousin has always loved my lashes. My hair. My eyes. Features I inherited from my dad. She has always told me this. I have always known this.
She looks at me and I look back
I nod. She does too.
We breathe together and understand
“Are you ready to go in the water?” I pull the straps up my arm: failed attempts at masking my London tan.
Us kin, we swim
Our bodies floating with the ocean
One.
Our ancestors were voyagers
They searched for new homes across the sea
My cousin stills. “Puma,” she says, looking straight past me.
“There’s a seal behind you.” She turns around and swims. I turn. I see its head, how its eyes lock on mine. For a second, it is peaceful, then I turn to a splash.
I follow my cousin like a breeze, sharp. When we look back, out of the water and drenched, we see the monk seal swim along the shore, grazing past people in hesitant glances. A failed attempt at sunbathing.
My cousin and I lay in the sand and let the waves crash like we did when we were young. For a second, we negate gravity and time. For a second, we are eight and eleven. Our eyes are wide, locked onto each other.
“Puma,” she mutters softly.
“There was a monk seal right behind you.”
“I know, I got scared that I was too close.”
“You were close, Puma.”
“I know.”
We spend a few seconds looking at each other in wonder. Eight and eleven. Twenty-one and twenty-four. We lay together in the sun, searching waves, watching for a sign of the seal long lost. I google Hawaiian Monk Seals, and what they mean.
Guardians, Google says, of departed souls. For a second, I worry someone has died. That this is how I find out. This freaks me out. My cousin clarifies they must be Hawaiian. Crisis averted. I let myself tan again.
“Puma,” my cousin says urgently, a common trend of the day I suppose. I dart up, what one does when such a tone is inspired in one’s vocal cords.
“Turtles.”
“Huh?” I pull my straps over my shoulder, one at an embarrassingly useless (tan-wise) but so utterly needed (breast-wise) strap at a time. She points. I look and look and look.
She points again. I glance at her confused but look, and look, and look.
She gets exasperated so I look, less urgently, but look, looking away, away from my cousin’s growing delusion until I finally see it. This green spry thing pops up in the water and stares directly at me. It was then the sea’s declaration of war began, which I would soon learn when I visited the beach again only to be destroyed by the tides. But that’s another story.
“I see it!”
My cousin looks at me with that look one gives when they were right and were being gaslit to believe otherwise. I look at the turtle. Touché.
“You know, Grandma said our Aumakua is the honu.”
“I know,” I say because I didn’t forget.
She gives me a look.
“Puma, I don’t think you understand. They’re our Aumakua. Our ancestors.”
I nod. She gives me a look. We grow closer by the second. We lay back into her towel under the umbrella we just bought. My cousin looks out to the waves.
“Puma.”
I spring up immediately, straps abandoned, modesty ignored. It’s a shark. It must be a shark. It can’t not be a shark.
“Another turtle.” I dart my eyes, glazed for a chance of green. Eyes grasping for a hint of honu. Eventually, I simply let it come. Set my eyes along the tide. I see it. Point. She nods.
“Two in a day. Do you know how rare that is, Puma?” I shrug. I don’t know.
“We saw a monk seal and two turtles.” I nod because I know that is surreal. That something more than magic has occurred. Something spiritual, something linking us to the land.
“You know, it’s probably telling us something.”
“Hm?”
“Our Aumakua. Maybe they’re telling us to be careful.” I nod.
“Seriously, Puma.”
“I know, I believe it. I believe you.”
She nods. We wait a while, feel our skin warm, and begin to burn.
“I want to go back in the water,” my cousin ponders. I agree because I am terrified I will begin to burn, and it is the first time I have worn a bikini in a while. We gather ourselves, dripping sand as we walk. We get close, then my cousin halts. Yet again. I halt in solidarity.
“Puma,” her voice dips low, her brows knit and her eyes confused.
“There are turtles.” Again? We sit and I look, She points. I look and look and look. Nothing. I give up then find them. I point.
“No, not there.”
“I see a turtle there.”
“Where?”
“Right there.”
“Puma.”
“I think there are multiple.”
“Puma, this is it. Our ancestors.” I nod because I agree. We sit in the sand and watch the turtles pass by. We wait, consider going in the water once more, see another turtle, and abandon any such thought.
“Puma.”
“I know.”
“Puma.”
“I know.”
We contemplate dipping in the water even for a second. Every time we do, a green flash appears and we silence such thoughts. My cousin fixates on the deep. I confuse the waves with scales, big monsters under the sea, but my cousin sees something. I believe her because she isn’t the type to scare someone for the fun of it. We sit guard on the shore with our aumakua roaming ahead of us. We sit and listen, no longer contemplating a quick dip. We listen to the breeze, how the waves crash, and fixate on the deep.
“They’re protecting us.” I hum because I don’t want to be redundant. My cousin looks at me seriously, but turns away, both of us waiting for the sea to settle. For the dark shadow in the deep to pass and the swirl on top of the water that looks too much like a crashing wave to dissolve. Finally, the water is clear. The turtles are gone. Only my cousin and I remain.
When I search what turtles mean, Google tells me they mean wisdom and knowledge. I think for a second that it is telling me something, beyond the dangers along the water. I think about my recent urge to go to grad school, an endeavor that had been building for a year. How I wish to learn ‘Olelo Hawai’i, to digest Pacifika literature, and let this knowledge seep into my bones so that one day, I too may share it. I let the thought come and pass like the saltwater on the sand.
I embrace the moment next to my cousin, embrace the fact that we are here, together for a moment that may not pass again for a while, and let myself rest.
“Kiara?”
“Hm?”
“We should tell Grandma in the car,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says, standing up.
Together, we walk towards the sea.