A Welcome Break from Winter Reality

Hello again.  For those of you who live in the more frozen parts of the world, you’ll be happy to know that the tropics are still wonderfully warm.  We left the Midwest on a cold blustery day in late January when the thermometer could only manage a dazed and windblown 8 degrees.  Most of a day later, we stepped out into a balmy 78 degrees.  Lovely! 

Hawaii isn’t a place that I would have visited on purpose, exactly.  Like Florida, it’s one of those places where people flock in such numbers that a visitor can feel like a very predictable cog in the tourist machine. But in any case, my husband had a business trip there and I was permitted to tag along for 12 days in the sun. 

The volume and variety of ways to separate a tourist from her money in Hawaii are truly amazing.  And it is somewhat surreal to find almost every tour, every brochure, even every menu available in Japanese.  I’m a bit bemused by the sight of all those tiny Asian teens running around in their mini-skirts and $300 Ugg sheepskin boots – in 80 degree weather – while they frantically search for something else to buy.  (I’ve never quite seen the point of LeSac and probably will never live at a socioeconomic level lofty enough to consider purchasing a Ferrari – but the options are there in Honolulu, by God.)  And like any city with temperate weather, there are a significant number of persons caked in grime and sleeping in doorways or under park benches.

Once out of the city, I found the land to be beautiful and the buildings to be somewhat shabby and sad (excepting the occasional high end resort, of course).  Iz sings a song about the changes to the Hawaiian lands over the last century, with major highways squeezing through throngs of sky-high hotels.  I learned that the Hawaiian population numbers have been in a free-fall dive for generations now, and are in real danger of being wiped out.  I toured Iolani Palace, the only royal residence in the United States, and learned about the coup which removed a good Queen from the throne in order to facilitate American annexation.  I learned about the battles to unify the Hawaiian Islands, which were often decided by European weapons.  My impression, over and over, was that the Hawaiians had a pretty good thing going until the Europeans came and screwed it all up.

But the ocean life is astounding.  I have become somewhat more “fluffy” over the years, and the resultant buoyancy let me almost rest without effort on the ocean surface.  I shared the water with Spinner dolphins, Honu turtles, and an incredible variety of fish.  A bright blue-green parrotfish as long as my arm swam lazily by me to crunch on the coral a few inches from my hand.  And three Humpback whales staged a “heat rush” or mating competition right off the bow of our boat, popping back to the surface every few minutes to breach and float languidly around in post-coital bliss.  I soaked in the beauty of a thousand blossoms, was surrounded constantly by fountains and statuary, and rode a mule down the incredible north sea cliffs of Moloka’i.  And like God looking back on creation, I looked back over my trip and decided that it was good.