This story begins with a girl, striding down the crumbling sidewalk of Nu‘uanu Avenue in her stretchy shorts, trying to get in her 8k steps before her wife at home realized that 8k steps took much too long for their newborn’s temper.
So there I was, minding my own business, begging my Apple watch to count my steps faster, when BAM, an idea slammed into my head. “Wouldnʻt it be SUPER cool if your stretchy shorts had Hawaii comics printed on them? Like mo‘olelo. in comic form. on leggings.
“Imagine how badass you would look striding into the gym with THAT on your shorts.”
It was one of those ideas born out of pure delirious, exhaustion, the kind of exhaustion that knocked you into a dead sleep in the five minutes it took you to warm up your newborn’s bottle.
In any case, as suddenly as the idea threw me from the sidewalk, it recoiled back into the dusty file cabinets of my mind. “Are you crazy? You are NOT going to try and start another business, another business that will probably fail, like the rest of them. Plus, you have your newborn and are tired as fuck. Just finish your walk and get back home.” So I did, but as we all know, the hero can never truly be rid of their new found-exciting-but-absolutely-terrifying discovery.
Every day, on my powerwalks, that pesky idea would swarm about my head, and since I very well couldn’t give up my 8k steps — did I tell you I had a very colicky newborn at home? – I let the idea take over my thoughts and settle into my steps. “Who would manufacture them?” 5,042 steps. “Who would do the comic illustrations?” 5,060 steps. And the most important question. “What mo‘olelo would you print first?” 6,000 steps.
Now that was a hard question to answer.
Since I taught Hawaiian mythology and had gone through the Hawaiian Studies bachelors and masters programs at the University, there wasn’t a shortage of myths or resources to mull through. But I wanted it to be a powerful mo‘olelo. A fun, coming-of-age mo‘olelo. A mo‘olelo that was like “BAM, bitches, I’m here.”
That mo‘olelo was Maui.
As with the discovery of new powers, comes the research and training movie montage. I started looking through Hawaiian language resources, like the Hawaiian language newspapers and the Kumulipo: the Hawaii creation chant to find out who Maui really was. How did he become THEE Maui that pulled the islands from the sea and slowed that great, big sun in the sky? How did Maui become Maui?
The deeper and deeper I dove into these stories of Maui, unearthing all his earlier challenges, the more I realized how much I needed this to be the first mo‘olelo I printed. Not just to have a badass comic book legging debut, but to show the world what anyone wants to show the world. A little more of themselves.
Maui moves through his life, unencumbered and unphased by the “rules” and limitations others put on him and his abilities. At the age of 6 – or perhaps younger – he fights off and triumphs over his two full grown Uncles who doubt and belittle his lineage. He then goes on to further prove his strength and power by stealing from two powerful gods, even going so far as to take an oracle tower from a temple. (What?!) In every challenge he undertakes, he does the impossible, the unimaginable – I mean slowing the sun – and always being himself while doing it – the playful trickster.
His stories make me want to be more of me. Makes me want to do things, say things, be things that I am too scared to do or say or be. And that, THAT is what I want to roll up to the gym in. That is what a superhero would want roll up to the gym in.
A pair of leggings that makes you want to be you. Free.