Earth Man knows Woman
Blood-crimson-red walls. His room was sparse and spacious, his bed a futon style - low to the ground, wooden dresser, Paia-bought sandalwood-incense quietly glowing ashes in the corner under those vaulted, open-beam ceilings. The four-paneled windows faced the full moon lit brightly in those no-street-light jungles past Five-Corners of deeper Haiku. The long-legged naked portraits he painted of lengthy, full-hipped, busty, thick-haired women of chestnut, chocolate and charcoal colored-skins filled in all the wall space among pieces of dreamcatchers, prayer beads, stone-carved figures, and leather sentiments from his many years in Africa. His red-tinted auburn hair was the thickest I’ve ever held and on days he didn’t shave well, I’d have harsh rash on my chin, cheeks and breasts even days later. Tanned-caucasian, fit from free-diving and yoga, a Virgo, around 5’10 or so, and a good 15 years above me. My father cringed when he heard the age difference but he’d end up marrying one 13 years below himself, later on and that perspective would change.
I met Marc at Borders Bookstore - where Barnes and Noble used to be - in what is now the empty Sports Authority off Dairy Road. There are a handful of characters I’ve met at bookstores (my weakness) in my life of whom feel like mind-soulmates and hatch long friendships deep in understanding. I mean, if anyone else is hoarding the ancient mythology tales, outlawed books of medieval times, native herbal medicine teachings, history of human origins and disbursements or trying to decipher Egypt’s Book of the Dead, then be prepared for my all-nighter wine and philosophy debates that lead to either a passionate argument or a make-out-session from my mind-turn-on.
What language is that?
Marc was holding a few freshly-bought Dalai Lama’s texts in the parking lot when I noticed him talking to his spotted pet-deer sticking it’s head out of his front-seat window. “It’s Gaelic,” he spoke out-loud, reading my perplexed stare. “I’m just trying to assure my fawn we are going home.” He saw my books in hand. “I’ve read a few of Edgar Cayce’s prophecies. It’s pretty amazing how many he healed.” … And so, I indeed took up his invite for dinner that night.
Spiny-lobster meat is sweet and softer than mainland lobster. The shell color has hints of bluish-indigo and some black. There is no big front claws - we eat mostly the tails here in Hawaii. I haven’t ever caught one myself but Marc would dive for them regularly and the ugly, tasty creatures would be beautifully steamed and buttered every time I came for sunset dinners those spring months of 2007 (before I’d move back to Oahu to continue college after leaving Vegas mid-semester from UNLV). If it wasn’t lobster, it was white fish, local shrimps, upcountry salads, fruits, rarely starches, and never pork or pre-prepped dinners. At the time I knew him, he made a living creating murals, paintings, and stone craftsmanship for private residences in Maui. Although he had not always been an artist - he had been a successful, mainstream model of London in his 20’s before he lost himself in the party-life and went soul-searching for a more meaningful life. He often talked of his father’s Celtic roots and that slight accent would pop up in certain phases he’d said throughout those weekly wine-night conversations but his mother’s South African upbringing seemed to have overridden any western way of thinking and is why he found Maui a familiar place.
“Wild,” he described the African women he had spent time with in those several years he wandered from tribes to cities throughout his mother’s home continent redefining himself. “The women there are more un-attatched, more rhythmic - the way they did chores, talked, the timing of doing things was slower and without shame of the body’s natural way. Sagging breasts and belly weight - Even sex is not shameful - it just is a need to fulfill and a feeling to act on.” He saw women as a part of the earth animal - not owned by a man or parent but as an animal belongs to nature. He never spoke down of women in a sexual way or of status, career or seemed to care how many partners she had. He saw women as a species to be acknowledged as its own and left to their own callings - not to be tamed… instead to adhere to.
Even though un-posessive, he was very masculine - his hands were firm to lead and to the point, his pace was steady but not forceful, not ever impatient. He’d smell my neck and hair, breath deeply, let sweat be, hold the last few notes of our rhythm until my heartbeat would calm and soak in the energy without words or questions. I remember gentle-chants and whispered poetry in between. Namaste.
There were never words of romantic love between us, and there was nothing expected, but his friendship was so simple and un-demanding of me that it left me questioning the modern way. What Natives (Celts, Africans, Hawaiians, the earth tribes) everywhere seem to find in their sovereignty may be the very thing that re-testosteronates a man… that it doesn’t matter what the skin color, age, background - that native connection to the wild, the earth, the simple may be what brings a man real peace and in turn, be able to let women be women, let women be just as wild and free - whether friends, lovers, or simple human to human.
*Please note that this read is meant to be entertaining, not necessarily factual
