What was I thinking?

A memoir piece, circa 1983

RA Cook, copyright ©2024

View from the shore of Kalalau Valley. The waterfall was, at one time,  the local shower for hikers.

“You know what it is, don’t you?” the guy said. He pointed to my bare feet as I hobbled by his campsite. I had not noticed him. Instead, I had been looking down at the earthy black trail that led to the communal waterfall. With my head down, I inched along and watched for protruding stumps or rocks. When I looked up, he smiled as if he knew the answer. About 45 years old, the man was of medium build with a full head of curly gray hair. Darkly tanned, his skin was damp as if he had just come fresh from the ocean.

Perplexed, I stopped abruptly in front of his campsite. “What do you mean?” I said. Relaxed in a beach chair near his tent, he held a small cigar in his hand. A bank of sultry tropical air stood between us. I smelled the pungent scent of the cigar waft toward me on the trade winds. The mixture was a curious combination of salt air and flavored smoke.

“Your foot,” he said and pointed to my left foot.

“Oh … yes,” I sighed. “I smashed my toe on a lava rock a little while ago.” Grimacing, I glanced down and noticed the toe was bruising nicely. “It really hurts. I think I might have broken it.” I shifted my weight onto my good foot. “I was just going to the waterfall to soak it.”

“What were you thinking right before you did that?” he asked.

“Thinking? You mean before I smashed my toe?” Contemplating the man’s question, I looked toward the ocean and briefly tried to recall just what I was thinking. “Uh, er, I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Something obviously.”

“That’s what I mean.”

“Does it matter?” Puzzled by his inference, I couldn’t imagine what he meant. “I’m supposed to hike out of here with my daughter in two days. That’s what I’m thinking about now. I’m worried I won’t be able to make the eleven miles. I’ve heard the trail is rigorous.” I began to feel a little irritated. My foot was throbbing. What was he talking about?

“You’ll be okay,” he said. His tenor sounded as if he were an all-knowing God. “Go with the island and … just watch your thoughts.” He chuckled.

“Really?” I said with a tinge of sarcasm. “Can you be more specific?” Leaning against a palm tree for support, I crossed my arms and lightly strummed my elbows with impatient fingers. I wanted him to get to the point so I could go soak my foot.

The man laughed and stubbed out his cigar. He sat straight up in his beach chair. “Let me tell you a little story.”

“Okay.” Dubious of the man’s counsel, I searched for a place to rest my foot. “Do you mind if I sit?”

“Of course not.” He gestured to a sizable lava rock near his tent as if it was lounge seating in an exquisite theater.

“Thanks.” I limped over to the lava rock, put my hands on the black boulder to test the heat, and adjusted my towel over the pockmarked surface. I tried to stop thinking about my throbbing toe. “Go on,” I said.

“I was living in Anchorage, Alaska when this happened to me,” he said.

“What? Anchorage?” I interrupted. “I grew up there,” I said, amazed at the coincidence. “Where did you live?”

“Mountain View.” He smiled. His eyes glazed slightly with the memory. “I liked living there. It was quaint and shanty-like.”

Yuck, I thought. When I grew up in Anchorage during the 1950s, Mountain View was a crummy part of town. Drunks and derelicts frequented the neighborhood. As children we were not allowed to ride our bikes there. “I know where that is,” I said.

“Yes, well, back to my story,” the man said. “I was fresh out of the military then, Elmendorf Air Force Base, actually. I decided to stay for an extra year and rented a little place in Mountain View. It wasn’t much, grant you, but I was happy there—mostly, happy to be out of the air force.” The man paused, tilted his head, reading my mind, wondering how far to take the story.

“Yes, I’m listening.”

“I had just moved in and was hanging a picture when I smashed my thumb with a hammer. Hard. Damn. It hurt,” he said, remembering the moment. “The finger nail turned blue almost immediately and I hopped around in pain. When the pain finally stopped, I continued to unpack. Then I went into the bathroom to hang up a hook and smashed the same thumb again.” I winced. He looked at me intently. “I smashed that same damn thumb SEVEN times before I got it.”

“Got what?” I was still puzzled about his allegory. What did it have to do with me?

“It was my thoughts, you see. In a flash I knew it was my thoughts that caused me to smash my thumb—the same one.” The man bobbed his head and pointed to his thumb. “SEVEN times!”

“Seven times?” I looked down at my bruised, purple toe and hoped I wouldn’t smash my toe seven times. We’d never make it back. My daughter and I would be stranded in the jungle. A vision of myself being carried out on a stretcher with my 15 year-old daughter by my side came into view. No, I can’t let that happen. “What were you thinking?” I asked.

“Negative thoughts,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Dumb stuff … took me a while to get it.”

“I see.” I watched the palm fronds flutter in the ocean breeze and tried to remember what I was thinking right before I hurt my toe. “Well, thanks,” I said. “To be honest, I’m not sure what I was thinking.”

“Well, think about it,” he said with a smirk. “Oh, and … don’t worry about your hike out. You’ll be fine. Just go with the island and you’ll make it.”

“Thanks for the tip.” I pushed myself up and grabbed my towel. “I better go soak my toe now and try to remember what I was thinking.”

Nodding, the man smiled and relit his cigar. “Aloha,” he said. I limped out of the campsite brooding over his metaphor.

When I arrived at the waterfall, I sat on a small shelf carved into the lava wall next to the gushing water and dunked both feet into the cold pool below. The icy water felt good, and I sat for a while cooling my toes and listened to the combined sounds of waterfall and ocean roar. It was then I remembered what I had been thinking. The guy was right. It was my thoughts. Two days later, my daughter and I walked out of Kalalau Valley at dawn. My toe was completely healed.

A side note: The Kalalau Trail is known for its rigorous and often dangerous footpath. After eleven hours of switchbacks and steep valleys, my daughter and I made it to Ke’e Beach safely and hitch hiked to our condominium in Princeville. For more information on the trail: https://kalalautrail.com

Photo by Sven Bannuscher