A Visit to Hana - #39
A Visit to Hana - #39
A turning point moment in trusting whatʻs trustworthy
Welcome to all my new readers joining for the first or second time; welcome back to those of you who have been on this journey with me over the past 11 months. This Substack is a memoir with essays thrown in, which means there are previous posts about sequential events starting in 1992 that give meaning to this episode. I try to provide some links, but the best way to catch up is to at least begin at the beginning of the year (1997). All the previous posts are in the Archives. And when you subscribe (even for free), you get a welcome email listing all the installments in order. Mahalo for reading. Let me know what you think!
Months had passed with Marlies and I staying in the rented house in Kula, Maui. We began to feel more confident in our ability to discern, to navigate based on our own inner knowing rather than the narrative accepted by others around us, each beginning to design our next steps. When Velvalee called to say she and Joié had “heard” they needed to also come to Maui, it was a chance to put our insights into practice. I could feel the energy of the conversational exchange, and my boundaries were clear. Yes, Marlies and I would join them for the trip to Hana. No, I would not be treated as an ATM, paying for their rental car and lodging. It was not as though they were coming at our request or invitation. Still, I looked forward to seeing my friends and a visit to Hana sounded like fun. I had never been. Marlies had good memories of Hana.
Aerial view of a portion of the Road to Hana, Maui.
The drive from Kahului over to Hana is beautiful, the famous road having over 600 turns framing waterfalls and ocean vistas. It was only when we arrived in Hana that I suddenly felt physically awful. I rarely get a headache, other than as a symptom of caffeine withdrawal on the rare occasions I miss my morning coffee. I don’t get carsick, and in fact, have always enjoyed driving winding coastal or mountain roads. Still, immediately upon reaching Hana my head started pounding and I felt nauseous. I knew I was not physically sick in the ordinary sense. There was an extremely disagreeable energy affecting me.
The only explanation I could give Marlies was that it was as if there were big unfriendly pillars hidden in the ocean offshore, radiating a toxic frequency directly at me. It did not affect my three companions at all.
It still makes no sense. It was definitely not coming from my companions or even from the land itself. If someone were to tell me that there were submarine military exercises taking place offshore in the winter of 1997 I would not be surprised. But it was somewhat embarrassing that after all these months of being the grounded skeptic with no outrageous mental pictures or stories attached to the journey, I could not find a reasonable explanation for the sensations in my body. I never felt this way again in Hana, which has become one of my cherished places. I certainly do not feel it as I write this, sitting at my desk looking out my window at Hana, only 37 miles away across the ‘Alenuihāhā Channel. It remains a rare event occupying space in my brain as important but without explanation. Maybe some day I will understand.
Meanwhile, headache or not, there were practicalities to be dealt with. There were few choices for where to stay, or even eat dinner, in Hana. There still are not many options today, but twenty some years later you can use your favorite booking platform to search for accommodations in Hana and come up with dozens of private vacation rentals. There is still a single hotel option - the Hotel Hana, now a Hyatt resort. And that is where we showed up, without a reservation.
In 1997 the Hotel Hana was around five decades old. More than a little in need of an update, what today is rustic charm was then merely rustic, not at all charming, as though the place and the staff were simply tired of the visitors arriving at the end of the road, and just barely making an effort given that they were the only game in town. The one thing to recommend it was the oceanfront setting, then as now spectacular. Or would have been, except that it started to rain. Hard.
When I was fortunate to return for a business event a few years ago, I stayed in a separate suite below the main hotel building, one of the newer bungalows scattered throughout the property, connected by meandering walking paths. Each cottage has a spacious ocean-facing lanai where one can sit for hours with a good book or just oneʻs thoughts. But when we arrived in 1997 there were two dingy rooms available. Velvalee and Joié took one. Being the skinny ones, Marlies and I would have to take the other, which had only a single king bed for us to share. And the price - almost $400/night - made my eyes pop. In 1997 four hundred dollars would have gotten us a really nice room at a Wailea hotel.
Did I mention it was raining? Hard? After a few uncomfortable hours of sleep I was rudely awakened by a drop of water. At first I was confused, and lay still, not opening my eyes. A second drop hit my face. I slapped at it as if to smash an annoying mosquito. Then I looked up. The ceiling had begun leaking, and rain water - at least I hoped it was rain water - was dripping on my forehead like some sort of bizarre $400 a night water torture.
We called the front desk in a fury, demanding to be moved. No other rooms were available, they reminded us. In fact, according to the night clerk, there was absolutely nothing to be done. No one would come to look at the leak nor assist us in moving the bed (although the room was so small there was really no place to move it). And no, they would not be refunding our money or even giving us a discount on the room rate.
That was it for me. It wasn’t even an omen, it was just a ridiculously wrong situation all the way around. Marlies and I left for Kula right after breakfast, taking the back road along the eastern slope of Haleakala, the road forbidden by our rental car contract, rather than retracing our steps along the official Road to Hana.
Velvalee and Joié continued their residency at the Hotel Hana, living it up on room service for weeks until Joié got a call from her parents, whose American Express card she had been charging. It took them years to pay off that balance. But since according to her Guide the third dimensional world was about to come to an end, the entire financial system would crumble as no longer necessary, and with Velvalee and Joié assuming important roles in the new age, the Hotel would be happy to have played its part in their story. Or something like that was how the story went. Marlies and I just rolled our eyes, which were wide open to the craziness of the reliance on channeled stories that we now saw as badly tainted by the hopes and fantasies of those relaying them.