Hula and Other Survivors

“Come home.” Tom’s words reverberated in Nik’s ears. “Will you come home?”

Before he had left New York, Nik had set parameters under which he and Tom would get back together. Basically, it amounted to Tom doing back flips through rings of fire while juggling puddles dressed as ballerinas.

“That’s fair,” Nik assured himself.

One of Nik’s personal quirks that he was trying to free himself of was his continued reliance on absolutes. The world had to be, or at least appear to be, a particular way under Nik’s rule of law. There was a definite right way and wrong way to go about any given activity; any scenario in life came with its Nik’s-way-or-the-highway ultimatum.

Months ago he had told Tom that he would only come back if an offer of marriage was given.

“It won’t be marriage,” Tom concluded on the phone. Nik had already made the effort of letting Tom go, he had set actions into motion, and now he was being offered something he desperately wanted...but under a new scenario. Perhaps Tom’s offer was not in the manner that Nik had previously prescribed but was that just another “absolute?”

Nik was striving to live a life more like water. Water was never absolute.

That evening Nik’s friend Charles invited him to a Hula exhibition. Charles was a delightful, rotund gay man who truly embodied “Aloha.” He was continuously jolly and generous. Nik sometimes resented this as it reminded him of how often he was not jolly and generous.

The Halau Hula Ka No’eau performed the exhibition. A Halau is a Hula school and this particular one was very well respected consisting of students both young and old, haole and local. It was neo-classic Hula, which basically meant they allowed themselves to wear different, more modern clothes. It was beautiful. So fluid and strong.

When the missionaries came to Hawai’i they nearly drove Hula out with the dinosaur. It was too sexual, too pagan, and they just plain didn’t get it. They were absolutely not going to permit this activity in the place they had stolen. The Christian god had rules and, by god, Hula wasn’t in god’s plan. Though apparently usurping lands through illegal and immoral means and raping cultures was.

But life and love persevered and the Hawai’ians found a way to keep Hula alive.

Life is chaotic and uncertain and Nik was trying to wrap his mind around that concept. One has to take risks and challenge oneself and not be afraid to fail. He had come to Hawai’i as an experiment. It seemed that the experiment was failing but that was part of the journey.

It becomes harder the older one gets to make big moves. More is at risk. Nik had abandoned all of his safe holds: steady income, retirement, health insurance, friends, everything. He moved to this place “just to see.”

But, he thought, one has to be as willing to abandon an experiment with the same freedom as one picks one up. Perhaps this was reckless or erratic. Perhaps he should have more determination and stubbornness. But he was also trying to be more comfortable in his own skin. Yes, there were things that needed work but perhaps just because a person didn’t fit in the parameters of greater society didn’t necessarily mean he was “wrong.”

He had also given up surfing. It was not surfing that Nik enjoyed as much as it was the experience of the surf camp many years ago. He enjoyed learning new things in new places. He had confused that for a love of the sport itself. Yes, he loved surfing, but he loved the camp aspect, of learning, more.

He had, he realized, a certain amount of adventure A.D.D. And maybe that was OK. Maybe he didn’t have to absolutely be this or absolutely that. Maybe he could be a little this and a little that, sometimes this, and used-to-be-that.

But then there was Tom’s request and proposal.

“The thing is, we have a lot to work on: individually and collectively.” In a case of perfect contradictions, Nik and Tom found each other. Tom was both everything that Nik was looking for in a man and everything that drove him completely bananas. Tom was stubborn and prone to an over-masculinized emotional aloofness. He was always just out of reach keeping Nik in pursuit. Here, even now, Tom was calling shots and changing the game. And this drove Nik up a wall, but was also so much a part of what he loved about Tom. Some eight years later, the two were still trying to figure each other out. And that was, Nik felt, kinda cool.

But it was also frustrating for Nik. Part of him was habitually trained to set life goals and become frustrated and disenfranchised when those goals seemed unattainable. He had so allowed the goal-oriented ideology of America to dictate his life experience. He wanted “things” and those things spoke of status and worth. It had not been enough for Nik to enjoy figuring it all out along the way, but this was changing.

He had thought that a future with Tom was out of the question and here he was reversing his earlier decision. Moving back to the mainland to take a next step with Tom was certainly risky. But everything about Nik’s life these days was risky.

“It’s not marriage but we can work at this.” Nik had wanted marriage. He wanted promises and contracts and things a person could hold up and show the world. But that wasn’t the reality of life, he was discovering. Nothing is certain. Tomorrow could never come to pass. And that was OK. But in the time one is given, shouldn’t a person pursue love with reckless abandon? And if it didn’t work out, fine, at least a person tried.

Life was like water. To stay rigid and rooted too aggressively, to be too absolute, was the source of all unhappiness. One had to train oneself to change shape and direction as life’s tides ebbed and flowed. It was, after all, a journey, not a destination.

Nik had to give Tom an answer.

“Yes. Yes, I’ll come home.”