Aloha Soup

By Virginia Beck

Aloha at Kealia Beach

The rains reminded me of another soggy, rainy season. It was grey and gloomy then, unlike our scattered sun and drenching rains. I decided to make a spicy ginger carrot soup, a great immune booster and soul lifter when the dampness gets into the house.

I planned to visit my mom, and the healthy lashings of chopped ginger and garlic wake your spirits and pep you up. I thought about a neighbor whose house was dark. His wife died a week ago, and I worried about him.

His house was across from mine, and we could see into each other’s dining areas. I fixed up a bowl, with a luscious dollop of sour cream and chopped green onions, a bright contrast to the orange carrot soup. It might cheer him up.

I don’t really know my neighbor. We wave, but they are elderly, friendly Japanese and reserved, except with family. Feeling shy, but compelled by the need to brighten his day, I knocked on his door.

He was surprised to see me, but accepted the soup and some wheat nut bread, thanking me.

How else to console someone on unspeakable loss? I realized this would be good. His natural Japanese sense of courtesy would have him return the bowl, and we would become more connected.

Sure enough, the next morning, a polite tap at the door, and there he is, a smile lighting his face, and holding a packet of coconut cookies, a the bowl full of peeled, sliced oranges. We smiled in greeting, and I shared the recipe with him. So simple, economical, and so onolicious (good!).

I should have thanked him for more than oranges. He was weaving us into a web of relationship, a neighborhood ‘ohana.

In this weird pandemic, there are many who have lost loved ones, whose children are far away, or who have no real friends outside the workplace, and are lonely without family on the Mainland.

Many have no insurance, except each other. We reach out and hold each other together when challenges threaten to overwhelm us.

We may feel weak at the edges of our society, our community, but we are strong in the center. We can pull into safety all of those in need when we work together.

This is the ultimate luxury, to have the time or the means to care for our community the way we would like to be cared for ourselves. In some cultures, this is called the “Golden Rule.”

My mother called it “enlightened self-interest,” because when we care for our community, we weave ourselves into the resilient fabric of the whole island. On this remote island, only about as big as the entire San Francisco Bay, when disaster strikes, it affects the entire island.

We are far from resources and close to our neighbors, friends and social groups. Everyone shares our skills and resources to make sure all are cared for.

In the privilege of living on Kaua‘i, there is limitless power from the Earth that supports us. In the potent messages of life and regeneration from the masses of living plants around us, and in the abundant beauty of colored clouds that can lift our heads in even the darkest moments.

The beauty of Kaua‘i is in her people, and the Aloha that makes us one community.

Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono.

• Virginia Beck, NP and Certified Trager® Practitioner, offers Wellness Consultation, Trager Psychophysical Integration and teaches Malama Birth Training classes. She can be reached at 635-5618.