LE PORTRAIT MAGAZINE MARCH-SEPTEMBER ISSUE | Page 33

Drum Circles, Sexual Temples, and Skinny Dipping in
Hawaii – An Essay by Emily Meg Weinstein
ESSAY: UNSAFE SPACES, BY EMILY MEG WEINSTEIN
To a New Yorker, California is far out, or so I believed when I moved
there. But when I arrived, all the real adventurers had set their sights not
on the edge of the country, but on the states that weren’t even attached.
My friend and fellow East Coast refugee, Jeff*, had done me one better
and moved to Hawai’i. Like me, Jeff was from Long Island and had
gone to a fancy college, but he found those experiences lacking. His
search for something more had taken him first to the far north coast of
California, and then, when he tired of the soap-opera politics of smalltown dope-growing, into the Pacific itself. He picked me up at the
airport on the sunny Kona side of the Big Island, drove us to the rainy
Puna side and announced, “This is what’s left of the town of Kalapana.“
What was left of the town of Kalapana was a drive-thru salmon-burger
joint and a combination outdoor concert venue, picnic area, and bar that
doubled as a church on Sundays. Some people, Jeff said, passed out
drinking on Saturday night and woke up in attendance at the Sunday
morning service.
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