WED 18 DEC 2024

Notes on: Tengan, Ty P. Kāwika. Native Men Remade: Gender and Nation in Contemporary Hawai‘i. Duke UP, 2008.
Playlist: Girl Like Me, Jazmine Sullivan feat. H.E.R.

“I stand on the precipice, and my world spins as the ocean crashes into the jagged rocks sixty feet below me. I am surrounded by people both living and not, and the pillars holding up the heavens calls to us. I hear the voices of women behind me chanting and the explosions of men landing in the water below me. I call out to my ancestors to give me strength, the courage, and the mana to jump into the Pō to be with them again, even though I am not entirely sure what that will mean. All sounds and sights freeze as my feet leave the edge and I fall . . . fall . . . fall . . .” (Tengan, 17)

Finally made time to read this. Despite the endless recommendations, I was waiting for the right time. I have always admired Ty Tengan. I liked reading his work when I was trying to be an Ethnic Studies student in his department.

This feeling he describes is so magical. If you know, you know. Standing on the edge of the world like that. Watching the waves in the rising sun until they stop being waves and start being rhythms that you can read. I’m not kidding, bro. Breaths and rests: each wave like a song, and those little cliff birds I always forget the name of. I always think of them like independent melodies, dipping in and out of the song. Waiting on the cliff for their parts,

Everything is music if you’re paying attention.The thing with watching the waves is that it’s like catching the beat. Once you got it, can see all the other stuff that is not the same. Irregularity reads like will to me. I watch these spots. I am noticing all of these kāne in my life (past and present) pointing me in a direction I cannot see yet but that feels familiar.

All of that and there’s me walking across the cliff looking for a place to perch; to wait; to fall.