THE SUBURBS OF PARADISE Luigi Semenzato Copyright (C) 1997, Luigi Semenzato. 1 September 1997 --------- A New Era --------- The God of our kitchen is an oversized refrigerator that stands more or less in the middle of it, protruding abnormally from the counter. When we bought it, my former girlfriend and I felt that this was the American Way, and anyhow it cost less than a good slalom board. On its vast white panels there's plenty of room for decorations. Important items, such as unpaid bills, are on the side. The front is mostly taken by pictures and one of those `refrigerator poem' kits. It's a set of one or two hundreds magnetized words with a theme. The words can be composed into poetic sentences, until one starts running out of meaningful combinations, so towards the end you see nonsense like `Doctors Make Children Develop Germs' or `Expecting Poop Won't Bring Sleep.' By now you may have realized that the kit's theme is unrelated to wind or horses. That's correct: the theme is `Baby Talk.' Yes. We have a baby. `How could this happen,' you will ask, `and is this story about windsurfing or are you going to waste our time?' No problem: this story has plenty of heroic windsurfing, but it needs some context which I am trying to break in gently. Why did it happen? For the usual reasons, among which the need to preserve a legacy (which one, it depends on the viewpoint---there are two parents, as in most cases). Her name is Francesca and she is now 13 months old. I'd be a shameless liar if I didn't admit her presence has cut down my windsurfing somewhat, and that's one reason why we planned the trip to Maui. We landed in 4.0 weather. Man! Four-oh on the first day, after a night of little sleep thanks to last-minute packing and ungodly-early departure. No rest on the plane either. Francesca had slept well and had decided that she should meet all other passengers. If we had any energy left, it was drained by the awful line at the car rental, and, at its end, by the little surprise that someone had screwed up my reservation. I took whatever they had. But eventually Max and I left the families at the condo and made it back to the windsurf shop. The clerk told us: `It's pretty windy out there. I recommend this board.' `What! An eight-three?' I read the warnings near the mast track. The volume was barely 80 liters. I decided the clerk was being silly. We both picked eight-sevens with 4.0 and 4.5 sails, and, at three-thirty, were on our way to Kanaha. I had a slight but persistent headache. We rigged 4.0s. The wind was crazy. It went from skunk level to grossly overpowering in two seconds. We stayed on the beach long enough to feel the stings of the high-speed grains of sand, then we hit the water. The chop was unforgiving. The clerk was right. Further out, at the reef, the waves didn't break but became steep enough to induce serious air, especially since I was too tense to even think about absorbing the lift. `Easy on the hands, easy' I kept telling myself. I wanted my palms to last. Not that I've ever had problems, but I've seen many blistered bloody callosities, and it's not pretty. I crossed Max's path, and he too was as stiff as a log. Not even his eyeballs moved, but were fixed on a spot on the horizon, along his line of motion. His mouth was slightly open to improve air intake efficiency. He was in fear. He was having fun. It was a perfect welcome. After two hours of this, my endorphine production had reached record levels, and had drowned my headache, even though it didn't quite manage to squelch a few new pains. I was quickly keying in, and eventually I chanced to look around. I was outside the reef. The water was blue-black. The sun was strong, but there was no glare and I didn't need to squint. The colors were super-saturated. Downwind, mysterious valleys opened between green mountains under permanent dark clouds. Back towards the shore the water took brown reflections over the reef, then changed to emerald. A short bright beach ended in lush vegetation (I have to say `lush'---this is Hawaii), and beyond it rose the sunny slopes of Haleakala. I was wearing a shortie and was being severely flogged in the windiest session of my life. Was this paradise, or what? Later, having fulfilled our goals for the day, we unrigged, loaded, and headed back to the condo, and for the first time we allowed ourselves to relax. We drove by the airport and through the outskirts of Kahului. This is when I began to notice that there was something wrong with my carefully groomed mental picture of Maui. We passed K-Mart, and then Costco, then another mall, so, if this is paradise, why does it look just like an American suburb? I pointed this out to Max and he sympathized, adding that shopping at Costco is awful. I completely disagreed. Our condo at Kihei looked like a concrete parking structure. The apartments, however, were nice, with a view and sound effects from the waves breaking on the narrow beach below. We had attempted to rent a large house for all of us (eleven), but finding separate small condos proved easier. In retrospect, this was also a better idea, since Max and Susan also have a child, Alessandro, who is one year old and sleeps six hours out of twenty-four. The wind was still strong at Kihei. Open staircases and hallways braced the building. When we got out of the elevator on the fifth floor it felt as if the gusts were going to lift us and throw us over the railing. But perhaps it was just fatigue that affected my balance. I staggered to 519. I turned the knob and the wind pushed the door open. I had to lean against it to close it. `Dada!' Oh oh. At this point in my previous trips to Maui I would drink a light American beer, inviting snide comments from my snob European friends, and go into a vegetable state known as Semenzombie. But on this trip something else demanded my attention. Francesca had taken a nice long nap and was ready for her dada to entertain her. Oh, okay. I took her for a walk by the pool and she discovered the shower. One of its heads was low near the ground, for rinsing one's feet. Francesca likes water, and she likes control. It made her day. She started turning the shower on and off, playing with the jets with her free hand. She squealed and the wind messed up her auburn hair in the soft evening light. The image almost made me forget the beer I hadn't had. ---------------- Day Two (Three?) ---------------- Taking Francesca on vacation was an exercise in rest deprivation. It's not like I was missing any sleep. Thankfully she sleeps a solid twelve hours per night, plus naps. It must have been the running around after her, the frequent baby lifting and picking up of innumerable little objects. After spending the morning at the Baby Beach in Lahaina, and a quick lunch back at home, I was laying on the bed, seriously undecided between windsurfing and a nap. But then Klaus walked in, with a big smile and spirited eyes. He had just flown in from LA with his family. Bye-bye bed. I introduced Klaus to Max and we took the surfmobile, an old Buick, back to Kanaha. This time the wind seemed a bit lighter. I rigged 4.5, and Max 4.2. Klaus was afraid he'd be underpowered, so he rigged 5.0. It turned out to be a mistake. The wind picked up. I was overpowered on my 4.5, and I felt sorry for him. Upwind of Kanaha, the break at Spreckelsville was inviting, but we were in no shape to get there. Not yet. We sailed in and out of the surfless reef at Kanaha and took frequent breaks. At the end of the session we were all somewhat worn out. I avoided looking at Klaus' palms and had almost succeeded but then he showed me. We drove back to Kihei. Max was about to turn into the parking structure but Klaus said: `We should check that the fin is not going to hit the ceiling.' Good call. Max and I hadn't thought of that. Upon inspection, it was clear that the three-board stack on the Buick's roof would have collided with the concrete beam at the garage's entrance. We took one board down and Max drove in slowly. With two boards, the fin clearance was two inches. So! The previous day Max and I had come that close to losing a fin in a rather unheroic way. After the evening baby shift, I was clinging to the hope that I would get used to this new pace of life within another day or two. It never happened. The following days are a blur. I treasure my memories but I can't sort them out. It must have been the fourth or fifth day when I started noticing the changes in my body. One day, after the afternoon session, I began to turn into an Invincible Hulk. I was walking along the open hallway on the fifth floor and I realized that I wasn't quite exactly walking. Rather, I was gliding, my feet barely touching the ground. My movements were fluid and effortless, and my muscles were a powerful engine purring on idle. But I didn't push on the accelerator. I just enjoyed the feeling. Later that evening I was washing my hands but there was something wrong with the stupid soap dispenser. `This thing just isn't working,' I though. I had squirted the pump several times, and as I rubbed my hands it felt like there was no soap. I repeated this twice and the third time I looked at my palms. The soap was there all right. Wow. I had killed so much skin that I had lost the ability for fine sensation. I proudly looked at my unblemished palms and played with them for a minute. If I stop typing and look at them now, there are still a few rough spots, but now I can feel the soap. -------------- The Downwinder -------------- On or around the third day we were loading the car (destination: Kanaha) when a guy in wetsuit, booties, and helmet walked by us in the parking lot. `Are you launching here?' we asked him. `Sure.' He was in a talkative mood. `This is a little-known but excellent spot, especially when the wind comes at an angle like this. Perfect rigging on the grass over there, nice beach, no crowds, no driving, plenty wind.' `But... wouldn't it be windier at Kanaha?' `No. Not today.' He went to his van and pulled out a wind pager. `Let's see... Kanaha... there, only 20 miles per hour. It's more like 30 here.' This guy had a wind pager and his surfmobile was a van, so he obviously knew what he was talking about. We rigged and launched right in front of the condo. The wind was indeed good, and the only regret was the memory of thin white lines in the distance. The break at Spreckelsville would have to wait just a little longer. Pretty soon we noticed the purposelessness of sailing back and forth precisely in front of the launch area when there was so much unexplored territory. Earlier from the fifth floor we could see two groups of sailors downwind. One group was launching from the Kihei Beach Park. The other group, a bunch of tiny sparkly sails in the distance, was further down. We agreed we should go there. We took off into screaming wide reaches and started chasing each other. Max and I were so close in speed that at first I though that the distance between us was a cosmogonical constant. Then, when I was ahead, I noticed that he consistently gained a little bit on me. It's not nice to be competitive among friends, but I was challenging mostly myself when I decided to perfect the `surprise jibe.' My goal was to jibe in minimal time from a normal sailing stance, and quickly get back on a plane. I have seldom picked a better goal. Max accepted the challenge. I literally threw myself into each jibe, flipped the sail, then looked back to see Max still in the middle of his elegant but slow arc. Of course we were so engrossed in this activity that we lost Klaus. We looked for him upwind for at least half an hour, while he was waiting for us downwind. When we finally reconnected we felt that it was time to leave (none of us wore a watch), and in four more reaches we had joined the farthest group, in front of a huge condo complex called Maui Sunset. `OK' said Klaus. `Now how do we get back?' Aaah, yes, action first, then reflection. We let it happen so seldom that on vacation it's a must. We walked around seeking inspiration and noticed a large number of Italian windsurfers. I was disgusted. Frankly I don't know what they were doing in Maui. There are plenty of fine locations in Europe that don't require a 24-hour trip and a 12-hour jet lag. I suspected Maui had become a fashion item. Anything that becomes a fashion item in Italy is ruthlessly pursued by hordes of the rich and the semi-rich in intense competition, and I could imagine the exchanges: `And where have you been, Giorgio?' `Oh, we went to Maui.' Nonchalantly: most important, nonchalantly, as if Maui were just that smaller island next to Elba. I ended up getting a ride from an Australian windsurfer, who was taking his traditional visit-the-world-in-one-year vacation before starting to work in his father's farm. I like the crazy mofos. ------------------ Venus and Alphonse ------------------ Alphonse works with Martha and by sheer coincidence he was on our same airplane leaving San Francisco. Alphonse windsurfs too and we tried several times to sail together. One night we had dinner with him and his wife. We drove to a Greek restaurant. The moon was low and there was a big star next to it. `It's Venus' I said. `No, no, that can't be Venus' someone said. `It's in the wrong position.' `What is it then? It's pretty bright.' `It must be an artificial satellite.' The bovine stupidity of this answer destroyed any credibility of the previous statement. `That's right, it's not Venus' someone else said. A collusion! Unbelievable. For a moment I hoped they were trying to tease me, but they weren't. There is nothing worse than knowing you're right and being outnumbered. I gave up. We sat and ate and Alphonse and his wife told us their story. They are from Prague. They were both fresh out of college, and already married, when the Russian tanks arrived. They ran away one week later, without saying anything to their parents. First to Austria, then to the States. A good story, and it made us want even more to windsurf with Alphonse, but it never happened. -------------------- The Thin White Lines -------------------- The next day it was a five-oh at Kanaha. We were finally in decent shape and started sailing upwind in long tacks, towards the Spreckelsville reef. For a long time we were alone. Not many people sail between Sprecks and Kanaha. Suddenly, on an onshore tack, I crossed two sailors, then another one. Could I be there already? I had just begun to wonder when the answer came. The swell ahead of me became markedly steeper. I struggled to climb it and made it. On the way down I turned sharply upwind, and stuck to the slope. Yes! The bumpy dark blue universe opened into a vast smooth green garden with white flower beds all around. I was flying four feet above the reef, over a soft carpet unrolled by the breakers ahead. `Welcome! Welcome!' the breakers said, as we all raced towards the shore. `Where have you been? It's been a long time.' The ensuing session was basically like good sex so I won't indulge in descriptions because it's really boring to hear about other people's sex. We are trying to maintain standards of high literature here. A while later we regrouped and sailed to the beach for some rest. The beach was narrow. It ended on a low cliff held together by the exposed roots of flimsy trees. Behind it there were houses if you could call them so. We landed in front of one of them. It was a poor, sad shack. It combined the beauty of living at the water edge on a tropical island with the sorrow of those who can only afford a tiny wreck of a house under the takeoff path of a busy airport. Its occupants seemed to trust the reef a great deal. It wouldn't have taken much of a wave to rearrange their living room. Since we were all supposed to eventually resume our family duties, we began wondering what time it was. Again, nobody had a watch. I ventured into the tropical suburb looking for someone I could ask. With the exception of a couple making out in a car, not a soul was around, just like your typical mainland suburb. I went back to the beach and found a windsurfer with a surfproof, slamproof, and sunblock-proof muscle watch. In a moment of weakness I coveted it and decided I would buy one at Costco. Eventually I achieved this goal. One day after a visit to the windsurf shop I boldly entered the Costco of Paradise while Max waited outside. I grabbed the only available macho watch, a twenty-dollar Casio Illuminator with a tacky display and a riot of functions that would appeal to pre-teen males. As a side effect, I bought a three-year supply of suntan lotion with a two-year expiration date, and a giant bucket full of toys for Francesca, knowing very well it would exceed our baggage limits. I just love capitalism. We still had time and played on the reef some more. Klaus was having fun jibing on the face of the breakers and encouraged me to do the same, but I wasn't in a sufficiently suicidal mood. I was just as happy running into the faces at full speed, and then wondering why it took so long for my tail to hit the water again. The following day was just like that. Afterwards, for the rest of our stay, the wind at Kanaha became too light and only Kihei was sailable. It was better than nothing, but not enough. ---------- Not Enough ---------- That's right: not enough windsurfing, and not enough time to write about it. There is only room for a tiny window on our lifes, our dreams, our struggles, and the sea. This was mine. I hope I'll see yours some day.