An Ode To The Beasts

The most extraordinary paradox that I have ever experienced happened  right here. In the most detestable country in the whole world (on a par with Israel) is where I realized that I cannot talk about myself, if I do not talk about others, if I do not talk about the land, if I do not talk about psychology, about dreams, about culture or language, if I do not talk about the most beautiful beasts that exist: animals. 

Having grown up on the Mediterranean coast of Castellón, in a small town with a moderate climate but rather dry in terms of vegetation - which does affect the fauna of the area - the few animals we lived with were seagulls, fish, crabs, lizards, small snakes, a few tortoises, crayfish, tiny “normal” birds, some pigeons, etc. The biggest and wildest animal you come across is the wild boar. On the roads there are signs warning of deer, but I don't remember seeing one in my whole life. I remember living in the hope of coming across one. Surely if I had gone further into the mountains I would have come across large birds of prey. Once I saw a giant vulture that must have got lost or escaped from a sanctuary. In the sea, very occasionally, I have seen dolphins. The last time I was in my village, during a busy summer full of increasingly unbearable tourists, while rowing in the calm sea, far from any noise, I saw a dead, rotting turtle. I have seen eels, blue sharks (dwarf sharks), jellyfish, squid, cuttlefish, starfish, sea urchins and, on one occasion, when I was still small, we saw a dead sperm whale on the shore of the white stone dunes. The strongest smell of my life, which I remember with sadness. It was one of the events of the year. The whole village went to see that giant being that came from a distant, mysterious and unknown world. Despite the cruel children, who threw stones at it and screamed in the form of nervous laughter, you could see the enigmatic admiration they felt for it. What happens when you live by the sea is that you spend your life looking at the horizon. Maybe that's why I'm so thoughtful and dreamy. Maybe that's why I ended up doing a job as introspective as that of a trimmer. The sea is infinite and eternal, as is the mind. And the world I live in is cruel, stinking and unjust. 

I remember climbing a pyramid made of red ropes on the beach, built for children (tourists, of course) to play on. I would climb to the very top, to the very tip, where I would sit holding on to the cold metal pole that held the whole structure together. I would go in winter, at night, when I knew there would be no one to interrupt my desire to disappear. I would escape from home or from boredom, I would sit with the whistle of the westerly wind between the ship's hulls and the metallic tinkling of the ropes on the masts of the sailboats. It would have been sinister music if it weren't for the gentle sound of the Mediterranean Sea, with which I would meditate, cry, talk and, surely, also pray. I wish I could remember those wishes I made. Although in reality it doesn't matter. Back then I didn't understand as much as I do now, that the wind and the sea, unlike human beings, know how to listen and have a memory. 

It is only here that I learned that it is the same as the sea listening to you, as you listening to yourself. I understood that if I pollute the river water, I pollute myself too. That if I dirty the forest, I also dirty my soul. Before, I knew that polluting was wrong. I was always quite an environmentalist. I was the girl at school who made the other children throw their sandwich wrappers in the trash. My topic for my end-of-year project was recycling. And it infuriated me to see drivers throwing their Coca-Cola cans out of the window. In reality I'm still the same. The only thing that has changed is that now I understand the relationship between all things better. I understand it from the heart. And this is partly thanks to animals. 

I think I'm like the sea. I dream a lot about waves. They indicate my anxiety levels. Sometimes I dream that a tsunami is about to arrive and I run into the land. Other times I'm on a water scooter surfing a wave with difficulty. Other times I'm on the rocks, between the beach and the sea, and the waves break on the rocks where I am. But once, about two years ago, after a very traumatic experience and after spending months in isolation and having constant nightmares at night, I had a beautiful dream. I was on a paradise beach with my best friend, my Maurino. We were watching a beautiful sunset under some tropical trees. To our left there was a dune. And to the right a small promenade with shops for tourists. Suddenly a big wave came and went over the dune and the current carried me away. Maurino managed to rescue me. He held out his hand and pulled me towards him. I was a little scared but I was excited about what I had experienced. I asked him: “Hey! Did you hear that?” He said no. I told him that the water in the wave had music. A gringa tourist appeared, wearing a sarong and with sunburnt skin. She listened to what I said to Mauro and knelt on the ground, praising it with her arms as Muslims do. She said that the water speaks. That that was why she was still on the island. That the water told her ancient, wise, beautiful and profound stories. The water sings melodies. Mermaids are the water singing. The sinister song of the mermaids is a whisper revealing the ancient secrets of planet earth. 

I woke up. I woke up happy that it had been my first beautiful dream after so long. I had the feeling that I was at the end of the beginning of that torment. But now I know that it was the beginning of something that has no end. 

That week I had a meeting with my beloved rogue writers at the Williams cultural center. I don't really know why I arrived two hours early, but in any case, I started looking at the books on the shelves, when one of them caught my attention. It was titled “The Singing Creek, Where the Willows Grow”. And I thought, “Singing water!” I ran to sit on the sofa and read the back cover. It said it was the diary of a girl called Opal Whiteley, who grew up in the late 1800s in Cottage Grove, a small town just two hours north of Williams. Opal had a very special connection with animals and nature. She could hear the song of the stream and she talked to the animals. She had more animal friends than children. Among them was a dog, a crow, a pig, a little cow from whose footprints poetry flowed, a little mouse that she hid in her pockets when she went to school because the poor thing was very shy, and a cat with whom she couldn't connect. I experienced the excitement felt by a little girl when she discovers a treasure, apparently insignificant to those so-called “adults”. 

Anyway, I don't want to take up too much time talking about her. I highly recommend her diary. It is written in a magical and/or childlike language. As the years went by and with the invention of psychological pathologies, when she grew up, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. It is a story to reflect on, not only about so-called “schizophrenia”, but also about our relationship with the earth and with animals. 

That same day I told my friend John about the dream and the book. He said the dream made him think of Kauai and suggested I go. He had a friend who could lend me a minivan. I immediately called my boss and asked when we were starting work. He said in two weeks, so I left for Kauai. 

The idea of death started before I even got to Kauai. Even on the plane I couldn't stop thinking that we were going to crash and that I was going to die and that my family would never see me again because my dead body would be floating around in the Pacific. The landing was terrible. I thought we were going to explode and that they would only be able to recognize my hands because of the tattoos and because I've never had any nails, just little stubs. But thanks to life, everything went well and I just had to hold on tight to the arm of the lady sitting next to me. 

Finally we touched down and in the airport corridors there were photographs of enchanting places and of the Kalalau hike, the one activity I really, really wanted to do. It was an eleven-mile walk, between cliffs and jungle, that led to a paradise beach called Na Pali. I began to calm down and smiled. When I went outside to wait for John's friend to come and pick me up, with the heat and the characteristic smell of the heat of tropical places, I smoked a little cigarette in the sun. I saw a white pigeon flying over an increasingly cloudy sky and at first I thought of peace, but then I was tormented by the idea of death. I thought about the white pigeon that are sometimes released at the funerals of military personnel, and I was terrified. What's wrong with me? It wasn't normal. I thought it was due to my recent sedentary lifestyle at Williams and I just waited and looked at the dozens of roosters and chickens that were everywhere. And, in the background, the ocean. 

Finally John's friend arrived. Very handsome, by the way. And he took me to the supermarket where I couldn't believe the exorbitant prices of absolutely everything. I thought I was going to be feeding on bread and tins of sardines. And so I did. It started pouring with rain outside and we went to a viewpoint to wait for the storm to stop. There he pointed out the mountains to the north and I looked at them with curious eyes. 

But finally, that night, after having a few beers, I said goodbye, got into the mini van, which came equipped with a bed, blanket, pillow and the smell of salt, and set off for Anini beach. I fell asleep listening to the sound of the calm waves of the coral reef and woke up feeling as if I'd been rejuvenated by seven years. I was calm. I hadn't forgotten what traveling was like and I felt again, after so long, the freedom of moving like a little bird, from here to there, following nothing more than the path of instinct. 

I spent two days traveling along the north coast, where I saw turtles, sunbathed, washed in rivers and slept to the sound of the rain or the sea. I was so moved that I even cried to the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”... 

One afternoon I went to a beach with green cliffs, where threads of water flowed down the corners of the mountains. I started writing postcards to my grandparents and my parents and they almost seemed more like farewell letters than greetings. I felt death dancing behind me with closed and serene eyes, wearing a Hawaiian flower skirt and with two coconuts on her breasts. “Death is a woman,” I thought. The clouds came and with them the evening rain. I had to run to take refuge in the car and, as it was getting dark, I set off in search of somewhere to spend the night. It was raining harder and harder, the windscreen was barely enough to keep the water out of the glass, the road was dark, without streetlights and, in all the spaces where I could have parked, there was a sign forbidding it. So I drove on and on, dodging potholes in the road, which was getting narrower and narrower, until I came to a large parking lot, where there were several cars, but not a soul. I had a long shiver. Once I had parked, I turned off all the lights in the car for fear of being seen by the ghosts. There was no signal, but I managed to open Google Maps and see where I was on the island. To my surprise, I realized that I was in the parking lot of Kalalau, the excursion that I had been looking forward to doing. So I had no choice but to do it the next day, very early so that the rangers wouldn't see me and ask me for the permit to spend the night on Na Pali beach. I prepared the sandwiches, which fortunately I had bought the day before, and put everything I needed in my schoolgirl backpack. I rolled myself a little cigarette, opened the sliding door at the back and lit it. The wind was blowing hard, the trees sounded with the leaves crashing into each other and the rain didn't stop. But there in the background, shyly, the light of the almost full moon was revealed. 

I spoke to the mountain, which was also a woman. I just knew. I asked her, please don't kill me. That I was young and eager to live. I swore to her that if she didn't take me with her I would learn what she had to teach me and then I would tell people about it. And with this, with my first conscious prayer for life, in the middle of the storm, I went to sleep with my ghosts. 

At six o'clock in the morning I was woken by two men who I heard say “come on, let's go now, they can't see us”. So I jumped out of bed, washed my face, got dressed, put on my worn-out martins, grabbed my backpack and got the hell out of there. I knew I had forgotten something but I thought I had the essentials: water, food, sun cream, the hammock to sleep in, the toilet bag, toilet paper, a waterproof jacket, tobacco, the book and even my camera, which took up space and weighed the most. The day dawned calm and sunny. I could hear the birds of the morning and I couldn't help but picture the smile of a little girl who knows she is going to discover something new. I passed a rice plantation, home to herons, and then I saw a beach hidden behind some pine trees, where there was a sign for Hawaiian seals. It was a beach with a coral reef and the water was as flat as a lake. From time to time you could hear the splash of a fish or the cry of an early morning seagull. That's how silent the morning was. But I didn't want to linger too long, as it was a long way and I had to get to Na Pali beach before dark. I started to climb a narrow, very steep path for half a mile, which smelled of wet earth and, somehow, of home. Roots crossed from one end of the path to the other. How long have they been here? Sometimes they served as a handrail, and other times, to trip you up - a reminder to be alert. Varieties of intensely green tropical plants grew there, among which pink and white orchids could be seen, elegant ladies of the forest; vibrant red and yellow heliconias; birds of paradise, orange and blue-tipped, one of the most beautiful tropical flowers in existence. I immediately took out my camera to capture the scene before I got too tired. The sound of the wind blowing in from the Pacific Ocean could be heard getting closer the higher up the hill I climbed. I finally reached the top of the hill and there I witnessed the beauty of the mountain woman and the ocean man. I could see the beach where I had started, to the right, calm and solitary, and to the left, the mountains with their green undulating shapes caused by the torrential rains that fell on their peaks. There, in the center, it rains more than anywhere else in the world, the scene of constant rainbows and long waterfalls as thin as the fingers of an eternally young and beautiful witch. I took a moment to catch my breath and to thank the mountain woman for giving me such a radiant day. From there I started to descend and the path continued without many slopes. I had the ocean on my right, and the mountain and the jungle on my left. Now I felt strong and energetic and I wanted to dance with the strong wind, doing goat jumps and stopping from time to time to take photographs of details and landscapes. When I had completed the two miles, I crossed a fast-flowing river that flowed into a beach and then I ate a mango and smoked a cigarette. When I finished, I stood up and a few meters away I saw signs. There were two marked paths: one four miles long, which led to a waterfall, and the other was the Kalalau trail. I looked at the screenshot I had taken of the map and saw that to the left you reached a waterfall and then followed the Kalalau trail, so I thought I had to go to the waterfall indicated on the sign, hoping that was the case. Just in case, I covered those two miles quickly, jumping and moving between trees and stones like a snake, overtaking all the people, who were wearing expensive clothes specially for the occasion. Despite my lack of physical fitness, my will was strong. I kept in constant dialogue with my surroundings, the interior of the jungle and the river, until I reached the Hanakapi'ai waterfall. The sun had not yet risen enough to illuminate the place, snug and comforting, surrounded by large volcanic rocks, where I took off my clothes and laid them out to dry the sweat. The water was crystal clear and pure, but you couldn't see the bottom because the impact of the hard-falling water created ripples that reached my feet and continued downstream. I got into the water and swam for a little while, as I was shy. I still didn't want to interact with other humans. I watched a woman who had arrived there barefoot. She stood on a rock just in front of the waterfall, far enough away so as not to get wet, and took out a large snail shell to which she said a few words. She took a few seconds and then blew into the conch energetically. Its aquatic sound bounced off the wet, mossy walls of that fairy well. It enveloped us as if we were inside a bubble. In that moment, I remembered the song of the water. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and I knew I was where I was meant to be. I looked up and was struck by the height and grandeur of the circle formed by the majestic mountain walls. And how small I was. I was a little girl and the mountain, I thought, was a “señora” who, for some strange reason, guided and looked after me.

I drank the water from the river, put on my clothes, said goodbye to the Hanakapi'ai waterfall and went down the same path, quickly and nimbly. The cold water bath renewed my body and the sound of the conch shell gave my soul a boost. It had been a long time since I had felt so alive. I wanted to scream with joy. The sun was beginning to filter through the trees, creating threads of light and shadow across the landscape. I had already covered six miles when I arrived back at the beach where I had turned off the trail - which had turned out to be the right path after all. I would have already completed half of the Kalalau Trail, but I hadn't even covered a quarter of it. The trail followed the same pattern: it climbed until reaching a point where there were panoramic views of the coast and the ocean. And it descended into the jungle, darker and quieter. As the mountains were undulating vertically, even if you went deep into the forest, the cliff and the ocean were always close by. From time to time there was a stream of stagnant water. The terrain was fairly safe but every so often there were landslides that could cause slips and falls to the bottom of the Pacific. The Kalalau Trail is considered one of the most dangerous hikes in the world. Several people have died trying to reach Na Pali Beach. So I walked fast, but alert. I didn't want to stop until I reached the halfway point, but I had to stop to eat something because I felt like I was going to pass out. I finished my water and didn't find another river until I reached the middle of Kalalau, with my knees in pieces, sweating, with huge blisters on my feet and dehydrated. Luckily there was a couple there and I asked them if I could borrow their water filter so I could fill up my crappy plastic bottle. When they left I took off my clothes and went into the river to wash off the sweat and recharge my batteries. I had to make a decision: whether to stay there for the night or carry on to the end. My strength had diminished and I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up the same pace. On the other side of the river was a group of friends whom I asked if they thought it was possible to reach Na Pali before nightfall. A well-equipped man and hiking professional said yes, with confidence. That if we left now, we would even have time to spare. So, I didn't think twice and took his advice. I got dressed in my still sweaty clothes and as I put on my boots my face winced in pain. The blisters were considerably large but, although they were causing me pain, I tried not to pay too much attention to them. I had to keep going and reach Na Pali. I put on my backpack and said goodbye to the group of friends, who set off a few minutes later. Having taken a swim, my knees were now cold. With every step I took they trembled and I had to make a tremendous effort not to give up.

The path followed the same pattern until I came to a small hill of slippery gravel, with nothing to hold on to, where there was a “danger of death” sign. I despaired. I fell to my knees on the ground. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and going back was not an option. I was so close! But my boots were not made for walking on that terrain of vicious little stones that , at the slightest mistake, were going to drag me into the waves of the Pacific, which broke forcefully on the rocks. I thought the song of the water had brought me there to die. That's why I felt death with me all the time, accompanying me. It was she who had guided me. I thought what a bastard, she could have warned me. But maybe she was warning me all the time and I chose to ignore her with my romantic fantasies. Can you escape death? Why does death smile and dance? Is it cruel? Is it natural and spontaneous? Why am I afraid of it? Why me? I couldn't help but talk to “señora” again. I asked her again to help me overcome the obstacles. I reminded her that I was going to tell the world whatever she had to teach me. That I loved life, that I loved her, the animals, my family, my friends, my cat. And that if she was with me I would make friends with death, that now I understood that it was the same as making friends with life. I thanked her for listening to me and for having given me such a beautiful path. I tied my boots well and carried on.

I went down the little gravel mountain almost on all fours. I was slipping and sliding, for goodness sake! I had to stay focused and go very slowly. I realized that if I put my feet in a certain way, it helped to cushion my weight. I kept my knees bent all the time. Apparently, they hurt less that way. If I stretched them, they would start to tremble and that was a risk I couldn't afford to take. I spent half an hour like that, concentrating on making sure my body didn't fail me. I finally reached the bottom! I got an adrenaline rush and started dancing with death, holding hands. “How strange death is,” I thought. It seems so innocent, without malice... but at the same time, if it takes you to the other side, it takes you! “It's as sinister as a Pikachu,” I thought. Once I had celebrated the conquest, I looked ahead and, again, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a much narrower path than the whole route, which came to some rocks that I was going to have to climb. I looked around to make sure that this was the path and not another one. But that was the only path. It seemed like a macabre joke of death. Why are you like this, lady? What are you trying to do? Get me killed? Death was still dancing and smiling and I asked “señora” for help again. When I reached the rocks, the sound of the waves crashing against the wall sounded like thunder from the heavens. Boom! Boom! Boom! The image of myself crushed on the rock flooded my thoughts. But I couldn't let it overcome me. I told myself that I could get through the obstacle. I put my hands on the rock to see if I could get a good grip on it and, once I had checked, I took the first step. I exhaled forcefully and focused all my attention on taking the right steps and grabbing the right rock. It was about fifteen or twenty meters away, but the waves were so big that their impact on the rocks splashed my legs. “Don't look down, don't look down,” I repeated to myself intermittently. It almost seemed as if it was “señora” who was speaking. I felt afraid, but protected, safer. 

At last the stretch of wet rocks was over, but this time I didn't have the strength to dance with death. Instead, I gave her a tired but sincere smile. She was still, looking at me and suddenly looking sad. It didn't take me long to understand that this was our farewell. I felt tenderness at the thought that when the time came for me to see her again, she would be happy to see me and I would be happy to see her too, and we would embrace in peace. “Goodbye, dear friend. Thank you for accompanying me for a little while”. I turned around and continued walking without looking back. 

On that last stretch of the path, despite my swollen knees and my limp, I enjoyed the scenery. There were no more cliffs and I could see the mountains of Na Pali beach, which I had seen so many times on the internet. It was a beautiful and dreamlike sunset, and a feeling of pride and love filled my heart. I started to cry, not only with pain, but also with joy. I felt like Jesus Christ carrying the Cross on his shoulders. It was a redemption, which is nothing more than a sacrifice for salvation. I thought that the water, the death and the mountain, together, had helped me to understand. I had to go through the first waterfall of the aquatic snail first to know that feeling. A new door to consciousness opened before me. It was then that I remembered all the suffering of that last year, where the worst of all was the trial I brought on myself. The three ladies, wise, strong, brave and infinitely generous, showed me how one becomes friends again WITH life. 

To be continued...