Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart_ A Novel - Alice Walker [62]
Everybody is surprised that an old lady like me loves John Lennon’s music, but I do. And one song in particular I like: “Cleanup Time.” Because that’s what time it is now, not only for us on these few islands but all over the world. In Africa, in Europe, in China. In Australia. In Indonesia. In Atearoa and Fiji and Tahiti too. And in America, whew! She made a face. We will have no future eating the slops the masters have brought, and furthermore clinging to them for dear life.
It is all about food, as I see it, she added. The food we eat, how good it is for us. And how efficiently we cleanse ourselves of it when it no longer is good for us.
Some of us are holding on to bad food we ate years ago, she said, and the bad feelings that went with eating it, I might add, without any idea that this is the easiest slippery slope to an early grave. Children, she said, seriously, looking into each of their faces, we must learn to let go.
It was so unexpected, this visit, this subject, that the circle was stunned.
Food? Constipation?
Suddenly Aunty Alma giggled. I see I have surprised you, she said. I like surprises, she said, impishly, don’t you?
They didn’t know you were coming, said Aunty Pearlua. They thought we’d be a circle of men.
Aunty Alma raised her eyebrow. Aunty Pearlua laughed.
When I Came Back Here
When I came back here from New England, said Alma, dragging on a cigarette, I had a degree from one of the best schools on earth; a degree in architecture. I wanted to come home and build houses, beautiful, green, living houses, like our ancestors had. I imagined every Hawaiian living in a spacious house with a wide thatched roof, in which geckos played and hunted all day, right next to a restored fish pond from which they’d catch their daily fish. My houses would have every modern convenience, of course, and be technologically up-to-date. They’d have solar power, for instance, to generate energy. She threw her hand toward the heavens. Look at all that power, she said, squinting into the sun. Wasted.
Alma was so saturated with smoke and beer Yolo found himself moving upwind.
And what happened? he asked. That sounds like appropriate dreaming to me.
She stubbed out her cigarette on a rock in the yard and promptly lit another. She looked at him with anger, hatred, futility, and sadness mingling in her face.
It’s illegal to build such a house, she said, almost in a wail. I tried everything. I even took people to court. They wouldn’t change the law. Look around you, she said. Do you think all these ugly prefab houses you see are an accident, or that nobody in Hawaii could have done any better? There are people dying to live again in houses that breathe, that interact with the elements, that let in some life. But they’re outvoted and outmaneuvered by people who have deals with the construction industry on the mainland. So we get a lot of housing made out of pressed wood.
So what did you finally do? asked Yolo.
Alma laughed, bitterly. I got married.
I got married, she repeated, and I took the land my parents had left me and I used it to set myself up in real estate. By selling the land I was able to keep myself and my family going. But you know what I found out?
What? Yolo asked.
The land does not like being sold. It haunts me.
The land haunts you?
Yes. It is offended by my disrespect. It wasn’t meant to be bought and sold, you know. It was meant to be loved and sung to; it was meant to be appreciated for its wonderfulness. And admired. Shared, yes. Bought and sold and abandoned over and over, no. Marshall and Poi understood this. I don’t know how they got it, but they did.
Why is Poi called Poi? asked Yolo.
Because when he was a baby he would not take formula. I was so modern I was opposed to breast-feeding. He was just as opposed to Nestle’s formula, which all Third World mothers were being sold. And one day, as I struggled with him, trying to get that bottle into his mouth, one of his flailing arms accidentally knocked over a bowl of poi. We were visiting one of my friends whose family still made and