Kaaawa/Kahuku/Kawela Bay/Haleiwa, North Shore Oahu; Haleakala Crater/Road to Hana/Kaanapali Beach, Maui; Hawaii. [November 2016]

I write this with the gentle rhythms of the Pacific in the background, asserting itself softly but surely into Kuilima Cove. Hours ago there I joined a green sea turtle one-on-one as it gracefully grazed upon ocean floor for algae, like an Instagram model foraging for sustenance at Sweetgreen. Greedily I yearn for one more day in paradise, even as Google Calendar reminds me to check in for my flight home.

This trip has been filled with special, delicate, visceral experiences like that. How long will the brain latch on to these dear memories? And how many days shall pass before they fade into oblivion and beg rendezvous withHawaii to relive the magic?

Will I still remember that primal spearfishing night hunt, with salt-water-in-the-nose and sand-blasting-upon-open-wound pain pumping wrathful shots of adrenaline necessary to crucify tropical fish and (hideously ugly) slipper lobster off of the flashlight-illuminated ocean floor?

Will I still savor that insatiable moment of prideful conquest as E and I summited the 3rd Peak of Olomana, mud clinging to our shoes like a bad dream, surveying King Kamehameha’s kingdom below?

Will I still cherish that opportunity to hike into the Makapu’u Tidepools, sliding down the mud-greased side of the mountain, getting dragged along the reef by vehement incoming waves and a knee gashed open in exchange for those moments of feeling unbearably alive?

Will I still recall the farm-to-truck-to-mouth taste of the crack cocaine that is roadside garlic shrimp, the heaps of moist, steaming Kalua pork overflowing my Gluttonous plate, the bricks of immoral delight known as Spam musubi, the mini-Everests of shaved ice drizzled in condensed milk and sin?

Or just the endless moments of sloth-like nothingness, whether basking in the sun or gazing for Orion and Auriga in the endlessly transparent night sky?

But whatever envy of the residents of this fine heaven and lust for their infinite playground, life goes on. Home beckons and back we go. There’s no time to ponder the future because it’s asserting itself softly but surely into the present. “The light rushes out and floods in.”

 

“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. The bee fertilizes the flower it robs. When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.” -Charles A. Beard, A Condensed History Lesson

“It is saying these things that keeps us from falling apart. And maybe by imagining these futures we can make them real, and maybe not, but either way we must imagine them. The light rushes out and floods in.” -John Green, Paper Towns