Do You Have the Time

Jetlag. Everyone knows what it means but only those of us in it can commiserate. I'm back from the Islands and it occurred to me had I flown the same distance east instead of west I could have landed in Prague in the future instead of Honolulu in the past. Now I sit in Boston in my present wondering what time it is. For the first time in my adult life I actually understand and appreciate the lyric, "Does anybody really know what time it is?" Not that I haven't traveled plenty of places before...but those places didn't have a tiki bar next to a beach and a moon that will tap you on the shoulder to let you know night just fell. For some reason, time sorta stops in Hawaii. Could be the traffic, poised at every light like surfers awaiting the next big wave. Could be the locals, encouraging your next cocktail with an ear to ear grin and eyes that say, hey, you're not anywhere near a continent anymore. You may not make it back... It's a couple of days later (I think) since my last stroll on the sands of Waikiki, but it feels like ages already. It's amazing how you get back to doing what you're mind is used to before you're body's remotely ready. And of course, I try to talk my body back into the 9 to 5 on the east side, the 11:00 p.m. bedtime, but then my stomach argues, hey I should be enjoying those fabulous chicken wings and a jack and diet about now. No one else is up at 2:00 a.m. to agree. The fridge, full of vegetables, salsa and one lone beer, is not cooperating. Count Chocula doesn't help, but it was worth the try. I don't know how long it really takes to get back to your old self and not feel like that guy from Quantum Leap. I mean, I'm here, back where I belong, but I still feel like I just appeared, my hair's mussed up and I'm holding two pineapples for no apparent reason. I wish I would just stop calculating six hours back every time I look at the clock to justify whatever I'm feeling at the moment. But it's in my blood, I think. I used to be one of those people who would set my clock 10 minutes fast so when the alarm went off in the morning I would actually wake up ahead of the game. My alarm clock was a softball with a 9 minute snooze. When it went off, I'd throw it against the wall to activate the snooze. 9 minutes later it would go off again, but of course, I was still a minute ahead plus the other 10 minutes...snooze again, and well, you can see why I never really know what time it is regardless of wherever the hell I am. And I have a nasty habit of throwing hotel room alarm clocks against the wall. The good news is, this weekend is fall back. While I routinely admit Halloween is my favorite holiday, secretly it's because it lands around the weekend we all fall back. Fall back in time. Gain an hour. I love gaining that hour!! I don't change the clocks till later in the day so I can look at them and go, hey, it's actually only 2:30, not 3:30! I tell other people, too. Strangers in line. They ask me what time it is and I say, "3:30 on my watch, but guess what?! It's really only 2:30! Isn't that awesome?!!" And then I put down the pineapples and straighten my hair a little. I love doing the backward math that gives you more time in your day. I'm always looking for more time. Maybe that's why jetlag plagues me longer than most. I think of the time I had as time I still have. Now that I'm in two places mentally, why sleep? What's wrong with 6 meals a day? And I ain't lyin' when I belly up to the bar and say, hey, it's 5 o'clock somewhere...flying first class across four time zones taught me that. I guess I'll take jetlag if it means your nuts are warm, you can watch four movies in a row and no one but the flight attendant knows what a lush you really are. What are the odds she'll be on your next leap anyway?

Stairway to Heaven

Today I climbed Diamond Head. Diamond Head is the crater and peak of an old volcano on Oahu that blew up a long time ago and now shows zero signs of aggression. It’s one of those rounded bumps on the coastline covered in a fur of vegetation and hundreds of tiny doves. I thought the doves were dirt until I noticed movement and the movement is the constant nodding of their little heads as they peck their way through the groundcover. They don’t even look up to say hi. And apparently they have no fear of awakening the beast. I have been gunning to hike Diamondhead because Diamondhead is one of the few words here I’ve been able to pronounce with confidence since touching down four days ago. It is truly a gem among words stuffed with too many K’s and double A’s randomly punctuated with apostrophes. This giant crater has returned the inner socialite in me. Now that I’ve been to the top and back, it’s opened up a whole new world of conversation with any person within earshot no matter what their native tongue – Hawai’ian citizens, Japanese dignitaries, surfer dudes. It makes no difference. As soon as I rattle off a few “Diamondheads” in my crazy Boston plus Midwestern English, heads turn and start nodding. “Oh, she has been to Diamond Head!” And immediately after, “Did you go all the way to the top?” Which is a silly question, really. I don’t know anyone who would have the balls to say, “No, I turned back.” Old Hawai’ian couples climb this thing in flip flops. I saw a toddler in crocs. Mothers routinely summit wearing twins. Granted, it’s a mile hike that involves several steep staircases (which led me to ponder if staircases are indigenous to the volcanic landscape) that are comprised of 272 steps in total (yes, I counted. I am a nerd. But I was not the only genius on the mountain that day. A father and young son passed me going up as I came down and I overheard the dad say to his befuddled son, “And that’s why they call it the Dewey Decimal system.” The boy said nothing. I suspect he was just trying to put one foot in front of the other, plotting to push his father over the edge at the next lookout point.) The staircases are preceded by a steady upward climb on a narrow rocky path that takes about 20 minutes (longer if your Dad is describing a library). Once you hit the first set of stairs, you are no longer looking up. You don’t really care about looking at anything other than the next step in front of you. The first 100 steps are followed by a very dark, very long narrow tunnel that punches you through the wall of the crater and guess what? When you finally see daylight, more stairs! Immediately! Up up up! When will this nazi stairmaster nightmare end?! Even at elevation 755.566 feet, there were still two more dark spiral staircases to master (are we going inside a rocket ship??) and a rickety metal staircase of roughly 53 steps that led everyone to the point surrounded by endless blue at which they could finally exhale, “We made it!!!” Hours later, over cocktails, one of my trail mates would remark, “Can you believe we went up 755,566 feet today?!” It was hard to correct her, considering the journey certainly felt like that. She looked at me funny when I told her planes typically fly around 35,000 feet so it’s a wonder we didn’t slam into Diamond Head on the way in. Now I think she’s nervous about getting out of here. But, I digress. I should tell you about the payoff. You exit the last spiral staircase into a small cave where a guy in a Hawai’ian shirt or a Hawai’ian guy in a shirt sits behind a 6’ table with pamphlets on it. He gives you a minute to collect yourself, assuming the position of those around you: grabbing your knees, gasping for air, mumbling Mahalo God it’s over. Then he politely suggests you make a donation. I would have, except I saw this sliver of blue up ahead and I was drawn to it. Two steps up and you literally crawl under an overhanging rock and voila! You are at last on top of old non-smokey. Almost. Around another bend there’s the final staircase and that takes you to the best view of all. Miles of ocean so clean and clear you can see the reef underneath. It churns and foams into whitecaps that stretch in every direction. Surely that’s a whale! Surely those are dolphins! But maybe they’re just rocks. It doesn’t matter. Turn left and there’s the big city. Buildings crowd the coastline. Palm trees line the streets. It’s spectacular. The breeze is soothing. The air is like a cold beer. And all you have to do now is look. And appreciate. The trek down after that was easy.

Am I Really Here?

The good news is the plane found Hawaii. Since we landed in the dark, it could have been Kansas for all I knew, but I was so happy to have touched down safely I didn't question it. As soon as I set foot inside the airport though, it was pretty evident Don Ho had been here. Despite the sorry lack of coconut tatas and swooshy grass skirts (I guess the late shift couldn't wait for us any longer), there were plenty of other clues. The letter K was everywhere. Random apostrophes appeared in heavily syllabled words on sign after sign. Tiny bubbles floated all around. The decor was distinctly 70's and prior. There was an unspoken question in the air: "Why update? You'll come anyway." And the guy who I let go before me to get off the plane went from "Thank you" to me to "Mahalo" to the pilot in less than 2 seconds. He was from Indiana. I know this because he was very tall and pale and probably played basketball in high school. Driving to the hotel I was still skeptical it might all be a hoax until I saw Likelike Highway and the signs for Waikiki. And of course, I am staying in the Pink Palace of the Pacific. Hours (days) later, I sit in my room overlooking waves bullying surfers to the shore over and over and I think, holy crap. I'm really here. All these years I have imagined Hawaii an impossible adventure - mostly because a honeymoon seemed unlikely and the actual airplane ride just as ridiculous an idea (both threatening a rather lengthy plunge), but here I sit. In the middle of the freakin Pacific with no other land mass of consequence for thousands of miles. I am a mere speck on a mere speck. Merer! I did not fully comprehend how mere until I googled Boston to Honolulu. Apparently, you take a couple of major highways across the northern part of the continental U.S. through Montana and such and you get to the Pacific coast where you turn left and then KAYAK south for 2,671 miles (or something like that). Then you turn right on Franklin Hwy. This will take 16 days. I assume that's because you have found one of those high speed ferries out of Mackinaw to tow you. For once, I'm relieved to have flown. Bird strikes have delayed others in our party from arriving, so I'm even more relieved to have flown when the birds were wreaking havoc at some other airport. I've been here for a morning and an afternoon and I've already visited the Pearl Harbor Memorial. Intense. Intense in the sense that so many lost their lives so many years ago and yet when you're standing there, you feel like it was just yesterday. They show an amazing documentary with actual footage and a very good retelling of the events that took place that fateful day in December 1941. It's so good when the Arizona explodes you actually jump out of your seat a bit and I honestly was a little terrified it was happening for real. I can't imagine living in that time when one day everything seemed so peaceful and the next, well, instant hell. Walking through the memorial, feeling the rush of the breeze over the water, staring out at the harbor and trying to understand the meaning behind such sudden and lasting destruction was unsettling. I wish I knew how moments like that really sit with the person on the other side. The one who made the call to attack. The one who thought this would be a good thing in the end. All it did was lead to more lives lost and more what might have been's. The power to change the future is in any and every one of us, I suppose. Unfortunately, some are more comfortable on a bigger stage. If you have the opportunity and can stomach the flight (if I can, you can) to visit this state so many call "paradise," take the 75-minute tour of Pearl Harbor. I'm not being flip when I say the $3 hotdog is outstanding - it is truly a nice bonus with a little catsup and a bag of corn chips (bring an extra $2 for the vending machine soda). But the lesson, the standing there and seeing it for yourself, is far more worthwhile. I learned I may be a speck, but every life has meaning. Every life gives something to the next. Consequently, you should do everything you can to get the most out of yours. So enough sitting...I'm off to smile at some people on the beach.

Hawaii-atus

I’m supposed to talk about ideal co-stars, topic #41. I’ve been supposed to talk about it for several weeks actually. I completely blew off September. I’ve talked myself into the fact that I did it on purpose. I refuse to write in September, I’ve said on many occasions. Actions speak louder than words, of course, so I had to force myself to stay away from blogging during month number 9. How that lead to nearly abandoning October I’ll never know, other than generally an object at rest tends to stay at rest. In an ongoing effort to become an object in motion that stays in motion, I will now vow to blog daily for the next week. I can make this promise because I am doing what all good series do when they have writers’ block and have no idea what to do with the characters anymore: send them to Hawaii. I am the Brady Bunch for the next seven days. I am sitting in LAX as I write this anticipating touchdown in Honolulu at some ungodly east coast hour that is entirely acceptable in the middle of nowhere. Indeed when I land I expect hot chicks wearing tastefully placed coconuts and rustling grass skirts to greet me with trademark grins and colorful flower strings. They will respectfully pause when I fall to the ground and smooch it because I can’t believe the plane actually found land in the midst of all that blue. I might even kiss the pilots if the door is unlocked and one of them is a woman. I never dreamt I would be going to Hawaii. It has always been a crazy faraway place of volcanic mystery in my mind that makes for great scenery but can’t possibly be real. I mean, how did they find it? And how do they keep finding it? It’s like the only thing on that side of the globe. If you look at a map, honestly, it’s a few little dots and thousands of miles of a really pretty blue color that represents certain death. Boarding the plane, I’m sure I will be slightly comforted by the couple from Ohio in matching Hawaiian shirts. Surely they got those the first time they went and now here they are going again! They trust this craft. They’ve been there and back in a tin can with wings and by golly, it’s perfectly sane to climb aboard with a couple hundred other souls, sit facing the same way and breathe the same stale air for several hours into nothingness. I know it’s a real place, but my only real exposure to this exotic land has been my parents’ honeymoon photos from the mid 60’s and that 5-day stretch when the Brady’s went on vacation and Bobby found the tiki statue. After that, I was petrified of tarantulas crawling the length of me during sleep and I never hung any sort of artwork above my bed. I would also leave a trail of bread crumbs wherever I go. Or Doritoes. Or small sandwiches. The Hawaiian episodes taught me that you can’t mess with the Island gods or you will end up getting kidnapped by Vincent Price. It is only because he passed that I’m somewhat encouraged I won’t fall victim to a similar fate. Can’t speak for his ghost, however, which given the option would probably roam 87 and balmy day in and day out. Well, they called for us….boarding soon. Kiss the kids. I love you all.