This “Search and Rescue” story was told June 2 as part of Tell It Like It Is: Iowa Storytellers Project, funded by the Hoyt Sherman Place Foundation in partnership with the Des Moines Register. These stories can be republished by any Iowa newspaper. The next storytellers event is “Voyages” on Sept. 29. If you have a story to tell for that even, reach out at stories@hoytsherman.org by July 20.
Even in Hawaii, the best place to get pineapple is Costco.
I learned this recently during a trip to the Big Island to celebrate my birthday.
My husband Marvin had our journey all planned out, but he knew, no matter what, there were two excursions that I really wanted to do: One was to fulfill my lifelong dream of whale watching.
And, two, was to eat a real Hawaiian pineapple.
I know what you’re thinking: Hawaii! Blue Skies! Beautiful Beaches! Mai Tais!
Uhhhh, no. That was not our Hawaii experience. We went a few months ago, during the Kona storms. If you remember our derecho, these rains were sort of like that — only we were surrounded by the Pacific Ocean. And rather than the storm coming and going, it just seemed to rotate over the island.
I got to Maui at around 2 a.m., a day ahead of Marvin, who was staying back to deliver an important presentation. I slept about an hour, tuned into the virtual presentation and then headed to the grocery store.
As the automatic doors open wide, I’m expecting to walk into just a sea of gorgeous yellow pineapples. But there was not one pineapple in the whole entire store. Not one!
I find a clerk to ask if I just missed them and he refers me to the aforementioned Costco.
Well, I figure I’m at the store anyway, so I get enough dumplings for two armies, all the poke I could find and I had to get the ingredients for my Aperol Spritzes, of course. I spent more than $200 on groceries that I knew we weren’t going to need, but heck, it was my birthday and I was going to celebrate.
Right as I’m leaving the grocery store, torrential rain begins to just downpour. The paper bags carrying all my treats disintegrate before I can even get them into the car.
And it kept raining. And raining. And raining. And raining.
And what followed was two days of flight delay after flight delay for Marvin, to the point where I ask: “Are you sure you want to come?”
Because, recently, I had been wondering if this wasn’t a good opportunity for me to spend some time alone.
The man from Oklahoma
Marvin and I met at 30th and Forest Avenue near Drake University.
I was pulling up to the intersection in a red Nissan Altima, and I spot this purple throwback Nissan Altima with Oklahoma plates.
I roll down my window and yell, “I’m from Oklahoma!!!”
We exchange a few more words before the light turns green and I offer a polite, “nice meeting you” — thinking this was the last time I was ever going to see that fella.
My friends and I head down the road toward the Merle Hay Target, and when I look in the rearview mirror, lo and behold, I see a purple Nissan Altima.
Now, Marvin will say he was going to Target anyways. He will also say that he diverted his path and through divine intervention still ended up at Target.
All I know is that my friends and I are minding our business shopping when he comes up and hands us a party flyer.
Well, we went and it was a good time. So Marvin became the guy I called when I wanted to know where the party was at.
Then he became the guy I called when I was moving from dorm to dorm.
Then he became the guy that took me to Oklahoma when it was time for us to go see family.
And then he became my guy.
After we got married, Marvin and I leaned deeply into our jobs and into our community. For the last two midterm primaries, I had the fortunate opportunity of winning the Democratic nomination for Secretary of State and then Governor.
Meanwhile, Marvin was working to shape talent and economic development in our community. Very fast-paced work. Sometimes heavy. But always deeply, deeply fulfilling.
Now, you should know my name means seeker of righteousness and truth. I’m constantly, curiously questioning the world around me and that typically starts with self-interrogation.
So as our Hawaii vacation was approaching, this innate inquirer inside me was examining a lot about our relationship.
Recently, when we would have conflict and it wasn’t resolved in 24 to 48 hours, it would kind of linger. What used to take up 5% of my brain was now taking up more and more space. And these questions started coming: What is happening in my marriage? Can we get through this? What are the tools we need to endure?
And: Did I need time alone to figure all that out?
“Are you sure you want to come?” I asked Marvin on the phone, ducking from the rain in Hawaii.
Marvin, waiting through another flight delay, was steady.
“I’m coming,” he declared. “I’m coming.”
Keep going, Deidre
When Marvin’s plane finally takes off, I get in the car to drive the 30 miles from our resort to the airport and, of course, the Costco. I didn’t forget about my pineapple!
As soon as I set off, the rain — which had been pouring — started pounding. It was in the middle of the afternoon, but the sky was dark as midnight. The winds were high.
And the road to town was on the edge of a cliff. Literally. The tide was being whipped up by the storm and the waves were beating my rental car. And I was driving — get this — a red Nissan Altima.
I was actually living in a thriller movie where you’re yelling, “Go back! Go back! Go back!”
I felt like I had an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other. One was right there with the bad movie audience, saying, “Go back!”
And the other was saying, “Girl, you better go get your man.”
I couldn’t tell you which was which.
But I kept going. I kept going through the rain, through the literal falling rock, through flash flooding. I just kept going.
I make it to the airport a little bit ahead of Marvin, and I decide to trade this Altima in for something a little bit sturdier.
The rental car attendant was very seasoned; you could tell from his deep wrinkles that he had been through some storms in his time. So I asked him, “Should I stay or should I leave?”
“Oh, stay, stay.” he told me. “The people leaving are wimps.”
Now my new Jeep, I head to Costco. And when I get there, it’s raining — inside. Turns out, the warehouse’s roof was no match for this weather.
I find a clerk, a native Hawaiian woman who looks like she’s built for this type of storm, and I’m asking her the same questions I asked the rental car attendant: “Should I stay or should I leave?”
After a few survival pointers, she says, “Why don’t you download the weather app?”
As soon as I did, the alerts start pinging my phone in ALL CAPS: SHELTER IN PLACE. FLASH FLOODING.
And to make matters worse, Costco had no pineapples. None!
When Marvin lands, the weather doesn’t look to be clearing out anytime soon. So we have to decide, do we stay where we are in town or do we head back to the villa?
If we went forward, it was going to be near impossible to come back.
We need more advice. So we call 2-1-1, 4-1-1, 9-1-1. But no one was answering.
And in that moment, we realized no one going to take this ride for us. We decided we had to try. We had to keep going.
The Jeep got us back safely and, for the next two days, there was nothing but rain. It rained like the clouds were faucets left on full stream.
All that food that I bought? We ate it. Dumplings for days.
All of our events and excursions? Canceled. So we talked.
We laughed. We played games. (I beat him in every game we played.) And we talked more.
When the weather clears, a few lessons take root
On the last day of our vacation, the storm parted just long enough for us to go on two excursions.
We went whale watching. I was able to see the calves and their mamas, and it was breathtaking.
Then we went to a pineapple farm. I was gonna get my pineapple! And, on our tour, we learned so much about these wonderful fruits.
Now, you should know, pineapples are not a rushed fruit. They have to be planted in very specific conditions, tended with care, protected from the elements and watched over for months before anything ever appears on the surface.
In fact, it takes 18 months to two years to produce a pineapple. And even then, a mother plant will only yield one pineapple in its lifetime.
After all of that watering, waiting, patience and care — one pineapple.
That’s when the lesson started to settle and I began to answer some of the questions I wanted to explore when I got to Hawaii.
You see, the pineapple life cycle is a lot like marriage, and it begins with planting.
Planting is like the wedding vow. It’s when you put something into good soil; when two willing individuals agree to grow together.
Then comes the rooting. Before you see any fruiting on the surface, there is so much happening beneath. That’s when you learn each other’s hopes, dreams, fears and goals. That’s when the strength is formed.
Next is sprouting. That’s the true sign of nurtured roots. That’s when you see the leaves fan out and the pineapple blooms the most beautiful, unique flower I have ever seen.
In pineapple farming, they call seeing the first sight of fruit “crowning.” Because the fruit literally bursts from the ground, its leaves splayed like a laurel, and it begins to expand.
In this stage, the growth is all potential.
Then there’s maturation. That’s the deep part, because a pineapple doesn’t ripen overnight.
And a strong marriage matures through forgiveness, through sacrifice, through laughter, and through choosing each other again and again and again.
Lastly, there’s the harvest, the blessing of a nurtured marriage. After all of that tending, there is a special sweetness when you finally get to taste the rewards of hard work.
And I also learned there was a reason I couldn’t find a pineapple at Costco — there was a pineapple shortage on the island.
An influx of rain had caused the fields to fruit early, which meant a summer surplus and a fall shortage. Not to mention the field animals had to get their cut, too. And the farmers just could not adjust fast enough.
When I heard that, I thought, Hmmm, that sounds a little bit like marriage, too.
Sometimes the conditions shift. Sometimes the storms come in. Sometimes something gets into the field and disturbs and disrupts what we’ve been trying to grow.
Sometimes what we expect to yield does not show up at harvest.
But despite the challenges, that doesn’t mean you throw the fruit out with the farm.
It means you tend again, you protect again and you believe again.
The lesson radiates: More than a marriage
On June 11th, Marvin and I celebrated 15 years of marriage.
At the start of this trip, I thought I needed time alone with my thoughts.
But what I really needed was time alone with my Marvin. No distractions, so that we could tend to this cycle of our marriage.
Since coming back from Hawaii, the lessons continue to resonate with us on a day-to-day basis, but they’ve also gone well beyond my personal partnership.
Whether in friendships, families, workplaces or communities, relationships have their ebbs and flows. They’re different, unique and special. But what binds these connections is a commitment to endure — despite the difficulty.
Just about the only hardship that didn’t hit the pineapple fields this year was a major dam breaking, which is a constant looming threat for farmers. Dams are a necessity out in Hawaii, a needed barrier to protect property and preserve life.
Our country has built a number of physical dams to protect and preserve, too, like the Hoover Dam.
But our country has built figurative dams, too, like the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Thirteenth Amendment, the Nineteenth Amendment.
Or the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act.
Generations before us constructed those protections because they knew that life, liberty and freedom had to be preserved.
But when we turn our backs on each other, when we give up on each other, when we lose sight of the value that each person brings to the table, tiny cracks being to appear in the dam.
Over time, it becomes more apt to fail. Less equipped to protect and preserve.
What I know now is that the relationship that’s easiest to walk away from is just as consequential as the one it is hardest to leave.
Whether it is a marriage, a friendship, a relationship with a colleague, your community, or our beloved country, the work is the same. We tend. We protect. We believe.
And when the storm comes, we shouldn’t focus on how we escape.
We should ask: How do we get through?
That’s the hard work. But after this experience, I know the hard work is always worth it.
Courtney Crowder is a senior writer at the Register. Reach her at ccrowder@dmreg.com.
Former Iowa gubernatorial candidate Deidre DeJear leads Iowa’s largest affordable housing complex. She serves on the boards of the City of Des Moines Housing Services, The Directors Council, and the Wright Foundation and serves as a member of The Links Incorporated.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: What pineapples taught Deidre DeJear about love, community and harvest
Reporting by Deidre DeJear as told to Courtney Crowder, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Deidre DeJear as told to Courtney Crowder, Des Moines Register | USA TODAY Network
