Tell 'em Dave Sent You

Every time I leave the house something new and interesting happens. Maybe life is always like this but only when we are paying attention to it.

The other day I went for a run. I turned right on the main road.
Alone with my thoughts, the pock marked pavement, the Kiawe trees… I passed no one for miles.

Then from behind me a sudden voice boomed out "I don't wanna scare you!" I jumped at the bicyclist's sensitive warning that had ultimately caused what it had hoped to avoid.

He said his name was Dave and as he tried to wrap his mind around my name I took him in. Dave is an older man either in his 60's chronologically or as many years of hard work stuffed into a smaller amount of time. His white hair sets of bright blue eyes in the face of a ruddy complexion tanned dark from months of Molokai sun. He smiled and I saw a few teeth missing and what with his holier than not shorts, bare chest and broken slippers, if I was anywhere but here, I would have take him for a bum. But this is Molokai and fashion is not always top on anyone's priority list.

Dave and I began chatting and somehow without saying it straight out we had decided that it was time to end the solitude of our daily exercise. When you live in such isolation you form friends quickly with those you pass on the street or beach. There is no such wastefulness of polite nods and quiet "Good Morning's" that would so begin and end a typical relationship of two humans passing. The chance of seeing another is so rare that you must take full advantage of it. I wonder if this is how the people of other remote places in the world feel. When you see a figure in the distance you are pulled by atomic energy towards them, chatting at length, and then bouncing off from each other fully charged and refueled by the interaction.

As I ran along with Dave, he pedaling slowly so I could keep up, we filled each other in on only the necessary parts of our life story with which to give us a structure for the further more interesting conversation.

Dave comes to Molokai six months a year then returns to Canada where he is a "trucker" along side his brother. (And yes I did have to suppress a giggle every time he said "about" as "a-boot". I don't think I will ever get over that. Why is that so funny? I am even laughing now just thinking about it).

Dave has just recently retired though and when he returns home in two weeks he will be returning for the first time with no work to be done.

As he spoke I felt the fear and the underlying panic that Dave has most likely been carrying with him ever since he arrived. Now with his trip coming to an end, the monster of the unknown is at his door.

How do men survive this? All your life long you are taught to give your life to work. You are forced to work so hard that you actually must make as if your life is the work. Then one day they tell you it is over and you are left, at the age of 60, having to create a new life for yourself. How does anyone survive it?

I told Dave about what I do. I felt it important to be as vulnerable and forthcoming about my own fears as he had been with his; my new job, which has not begun, as a family therapist, feeling tense and anxious regarding how I will be accepted in this new world to which I am a stranger.

Dave offered me a few names of people I should talk to, to help get me started. Actually, he couldn't remember their names. He could only reference them with such details as; "The large beautiful Hawaiian woman married to the old Haole. Everyone knows her. Ask for her house number at the post office and go knock on her door and tell her Dave sent you."

He also wanted to support my running career and gave me several other houses to go knocking on for a partner. "You know the grey house on the corner? There is a dark lady there. I can't remember her name but I think her husbands name is Peter or Jim. She would like to run with you. Tell her Dave sent you."

I pictured myself walking around the West End of Molokai knocking on people's doors. "Hi, my name is Casselle. Are you Peter or Jim's wife? Dave sent me."

We filled the rest of our time together looking into bird's nests, discussing different legends of Molokai folks and debating the authenticity of such stories. We then began a recap of our most recent literary explorations.

As I forced my now weary body up the last hill (Dave said I had to run it) he entertained me with a summary of "Paris 1914" the book that he just finished.

I wanted to know more about Dave. I wanted to know what intrigued him about history, why he never married, and what possessed him to return to Canada when he could just stay on Molokai. But I was out of breath and Dave was out of time. As we parted ways he asked "Do you usually run at this time?" I confessed that I don't usually do anything "usually." Meaning that my life is currently an unscheduled boundary-less matter that bends and flows to the whim of my each moment's desire.

Of course I didn’t have to explain that to Dave, he knew what I meant. We knew we would most likely not see other again. We bounced off each other, he pedaling down the road and I slowing to walk down my street, both of us feeling satiated with our 60 minute friendship.