The thing I learned this past weekend is, If you have any chance at all to go to Hawaii—even for just two-and-a-half days; even if it entails a fourteen-hour flight from New York, which stops in Indianapolis and San Francisco on the way there and Phoenix and Chicago on the way back; even if you have to pack Aragon and Pascal and a dictionary so you can do homework; even if, once you get there, you find a dearth of Keanus and a surplus of Als and Nancys on the beach; even if your red-eye flight back means you have to go straight to a full day of school from the airport—you have to take it. Because from day one, slathered with SPF 50 and lying on a towel in the sun on Waikiki Beach, palm trees all around, the waves lapping languidly on the sand, skin tingly from the heat, you will realize that it’s all worth it.
By then, you will have discovered that during the transit in Indianapolis Beefy will keep you company on your cell phone, and during the stop in San Francisco Jon will. You will have had papaya, cold and sweet, for breakfast—a meal you will repeat twice more over the weekend, never tiring of it. You will soon be pleasantly surprised to find that Les cloches de Bâle actually makes great beach reading, ’specially ’cause the book opens on a summer vacation scene on the Normandy coast.
On the beach, you will see a Japanese guy walk up to his friends already sunning themselves. “Aroha,” he will say in cheery greeting. “Aroha,” they will respond. “Aroha.” “Aroha.”
Later, sitting on a bench by a koi pond, accompanied by a Details magazine with Jude Law on the cover, you will have zaru soba and a spam musubi for lunch, the cold noodles welcome on your tongue, the saltysweet musubi a perfect treat. You will have gotten this lunch from the miracle that is the ABC store, one of a chain on every Honolulu block, which carries postcards, and straw mats with pink piping, and Hawaii edition Hello Kitty pineapple-flavored lip balms, and Glico Pocky, and, oh, my word, so, so much more.
In the ocean, swimming in water clear enough to see the little fish, you will gleefully say, aloud, to the sun, to the wind, to the white tips of the waves, “Now this is what we’re talking about!” You will float on your back till a big wave splashes salty salt water up your nose. You will swim out as far as you dare until you start to scare yourself imagining what’s hiding in the dark liquid shadows. You will head back to shore, and then swim out toward the horizon again, going further each time.
At the end of the day, you will smile to smell the sun and salt on your skin.
You will rediscover that weddings truly are affairs of great fun, and can be gorgeously simple and elegant and quiet, the day’s joy carried in the bride’s candid grin. You will make friends with your friend’s friends, and dance and sing the night away with people you barely knew just the day before. And all of you will learn that if you band together and badger the deejay, he will quit playing R. Kelly and put on “Bye Bye Bye” and “Oops! I Did It Again.”
And after it all winds down and you’re standing on the patio of the bridal suite at the Moana Surfrider, breeze in your hair, looking out onto sand and water stretching into the soft black, it will be clear as the midnight stars that there was never really any other choice than to head out there.
By then, you will have discovered that during the transit in Indianapolis Beefy will keep you company on your cell phone, and during the stop in San Francisco Jon will. You will have had papaya, cold and sweet, for breakfast—a meal you will repeat twice more over the weekend, never tiring of it. You will soon be pleasantly surprised to find that Les cloches de Bâle actually makes great beach reading, ’specially ’cause the book opens on a summer vacation scene on the Normandy coast.
On the beach, you will see a Japanese guy walk up to his friends already sunning themselves. “Aroha,” he will say in cheery greeting. “Aroha,” they will respond. “Aroha.” “Aroha.”
Later, sitting on a bench by a koi pond, accompanied by a Details magazine with Jude Law on the cover, you will have zaru soba and a spam musubi for lunch, the cold noodles welcome on your tongue, the saltysweet musubi a perfect treat. You will have gotten this lunch from the miracle that is the ABC store, one of a chain on every Honolulu block, which carries postcards, and straw mats with pink piping, and Hawaii edition Hello Kitty pineapple-flavored lip balms, and Glico Pocky, and, oh, my word, so, so much more.
In the ocean, swimming in water clear enough to see the little fish, you will gleefully say, aloud, to the sun, to the wind, to the white tips of the waves, “Now this is what we’re talking about!” You will float on your back till a big wave splashes salty salt water up your nose. You will swim out as far as you dare until you start to scare yourself imagining what’s hiding in the dark liquid shadows. You will head back to shore, and then swim out toward the horizon again, going further each time.
At the end of the day, you will smile to smell the sun and salt on your skin.
You will rediscover that weddings truly are affairs of great fun, and can be gorgeously simple and elegant and quiet, the day’s joy carried in the bride’s candid grin. You will make friends with your friend’s friends, and dance and sing the night away with people you barely knew just the day before. And all of you will learn that if you band together and badger the deejay, he will quit playing R. Kelly and put on “Bye Bye Bye” and “Oops! I Did It Again.”
And after it all winds down and you’re standing on the patio of the bridal suite at the Moana Surfrider, breeze in your hair, looking out onto sand and water stretching into the soft black, it will be clear as the midnight stars that there was never really any other choice than to head out there.
posted by stellou at 12:55 AM
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