Island Reflections
It has been a couple of weeks since I posted, and I apologize for the internet-silence. I am in my second week of vacation in Kauai, so it’s hard to wrap my head around “normal” things when the Pacific Ocean roars out my window around the clock. And in the week before we left, it was a mad dash to complete tasks for work (court calendars show mercy for no man or woman), and get things ready to head out for 2 weeks of vacation. My husband and I hadn’t been away for more than a few days for three years and we were so ready!
And of course, once I got here, I crashed and slept. And sat and read. And cooked some nice meals. And sipped a little wine, and savored some really good Kauai dishes at a few lovely restaurants. Did a little swimming, and simply relaxed. It has taken about 8 days to finally hold my head up above the fray, and slowly return to the land of the conscious! Eight days of sloughing off some of the old skin and watching the new me unfold. At first blush, no one will notice; for the new me is within. This new me? I like her.
When we come here for a long vacation, there is an internal reorientation that takes place, a re-settling of bones and sinew and heart and mind, as if I am being restored, renewed, transformed, from the inside out. And for that, I am so grateful. My friend says it’s all about the negative ions at the ocean; that may be. But I also think it is about the hours I’ve spent watching the ocean, observing the sky, marveling at the stars, looking at tropical flowers that drip from every bush, tree and weed; at the fish and turtles and at the wild roosters that strut the streets and lawns and beaches of this little paradise. There is a deep renewal of the soul that happens when we are immersed in the earth’s beauty - whether from thousands of feet above Waimea Canyon, from a catamaran that speeds along the ocean waves escorted by playful dolphins, or from simply sitting on a volcanic rock, millions of years old, watching a monk seal sunbathe on the sand, or listening to that eons-old siren song of wave and surf and wind.
I also know that part of the reorientation that speaks to my heart is peeking into a culture that lives at a gentler pace, with different rhythms than those we follow on the mainland - at least in the Northeast. Parents seem less frazzled and there is a contentedness within families that is palpable. Children seem freer, and I watch them play by the water, or chasing roosters, or jumping on old tires, and the parents simply watch and smile. Drivers are patient, and let others into traffic lines with a smile. Everyone waves to the other, nodding, smiling. You can tell the visitors because they are reluctant to “let go”; they seem anxious to move, to get by, to get to the next thing. Many visitors bring to the island a loud brashness that clangs in this gentler space, dissonant in sound, harsh in effect. Some visitors have yet to learn the whisper-voice of a gentler rhythm. It is a hard thing, sometimes, to adapt to a gentler, quieter rhythm. Hard, perhaps, but I’m willing to try.
We went to an off-the beaten-track beach today, a secluded beach on the eastern shore of the island that was 6 miles down (down, down and around) a bumpy, rural road that curled through farms and estates, and then required a 10-minute hike through field and forest of wild to reach its shores. This beach is not a tourist attraction, and there are few people there except a few locals and some adventurous tourists like us (well, really, like my husband - I just go along for the ride!).
I was sitting under the shade of a tree at the edge of the beach when I noticed a mom and her small child head to the water’s edge; they had been tucked under another tree down the beach, and I hadn’t see them earlier. She was not wearing a bathing suit and neither was the child, and far from shocking, their nakedness in the sun was natural, graceful, beautiful. I was mesmerized by the serenity and ease of this woman; how comfortable she was simply being. The skin of mom and child was bronze and sleek; her steps elegant and sure. She sat on a rock at the ocean’s edge, pulling her little one close onto her lap, skin to skin, and they simply waited for the waves to come. One particularly aggressive wave swept them off the rock and onto the beach, and the delighted giggle of that little one rose into the sky with silky notes of sheer joy, ringing out his delight with the ocean, with the world, with life.
Mother and chid taught me something else today. They showed me there is still priceless value to the simple experience of things; with the feeling of sun and water and wind on bare skin, in the joy of relaxing into a wave and letting life sometimes knock you down so you can get up and giggle with the joy of the fall. This mom’s love for that child was evident in her quiet, gentle manner, in her playfulness, in her smile; in how she picked him up and swung him around and shared in the joy of simply being alive. His trust in her, revealed in the sure hand that led him to the wild ocean’s edge, in the willingness to sit on her lap and let the waves topple him over, brought me to a place of wonder, and a sure knowledge that most often, life’s deepest lessons are not found in books or in classrooms, but in observing earth and creature; mother and child, land and sky, ocean and wave. The deepest wisdom comes from quiet meditations on what lies all around us. The holiest God-moments come when we least expect them, revealed in quiet wonder. We just have to watch and see. Look and listen and observe.
It’s been a good few days, and although we’ve had a marvelous time, I am beginning to look again to the mainland, to the coming week, the familiar things of home and hearth. That’s what vacations are supposed do, right? They allow us to escape from our routines to shed the old skin, and take on “new skin”- the sights and sounds of new experiences that mold us to new ways of thinking and being; new ways of doing.
That’s what I intend to do; to take this new appreciation for a gentler rhythm and for genuine experience, and see how I can continue to transform and renew. Even at my age, it’s never too late to try the “new”.