FOOD RUN

On Maui provisions are overwhelming, you are given your neighbor's vegetables, year-round fruits come from coworkers' yard bursting at the seams in the bag in the office (take them, take them, take them), you get your basics at the health food store, and all comes out too plenty and you don't know what to do. And there's more produce regularly, the growing season is everyday, sharing is a given (no pun intended), and there never seem to be an end to avocados and limes in all shapes and forms. My lovely landlord calling out to my second floor window, wearing light-toned sunglasses and a Tahitian jasmine tucked behind her ear, Pick your veggies first before my friends come. The sweet potato roots are big and chunky, still caked with soil; I took a ripe pineapple and she said, Break off the leafy top and dump it in the compost down here; don't forget the cucumbers, I know they're your favorite, and get more radish. 

I ate PB&J today on milk-honey artisanal loaf, toasted it a bit, and called it lunch. I packed all the "begotten" made on the island abundance in two fabric-tote reusable bags, plus purple carrots, still green bananas, and the rest, and will spread them on the office kitchen table on Monday morning. It's my turn to give - having constantly been receiving much. Wild mangoes fall from trees in the Iao forest rain or shine on the road. Edible forages are textbook perfect quality. Even the spring water from a natural cave spout is a common blessing. (Imagine being given as Christmas gift a real, naturally harvested "Evian" in a green glass bottle? I was guided on trail to this heavenly source, and it's not far from my small town on the foothills of the mountain.) What more can I ask? 

I love making creative random food gifts with anniversary cards/thank you notes. Once a coworker gave me a ride to a store and actually waited for me outside (when I could've taken a bus back home, which was my plan) but the aloha spirit here is just as abundant as malasadas (sugared donuts) and plate lunches. What I love most here apart from the overflowing everything, is the sense of humor of the locals. There's always a comic angle to their expressions and mannerisms, nothing seems to be taken seriously here, when come one, what have we to complain? I picked up that light-heartedness (what an unloading of my NewYorker/artist elegant rigidity) having lived on Maui two years to date, and so for the coworker giving me a roundtrip ride, the least I could do was think of something hilarious but sincere as thank you, just like what the locals do. I attached a peanut (one boiled shell-on peanut) on a homemade card and wrote: "Compared to your benevolence this gift is "peanuts." She texted me after receiving it with this acronym: LMAO! I didn't know what that meant, but then she told me - and both of us were LOL - and, after all, it was a "good run."