Adios and Aloha

As most of  you know, we're back on the island of Oahu, in total reverie of time's elasticity.  With our Nicaraguan exit stamps, came the abrupt halt of our simple jungle life, the reintroduction of paved roads, the luxuries of garbage disposals, washing machines and hot water, and of course, the first day back to work.  How simple it is to walk back in, and shed the life you have just lived.  I still hear monkeys in my dreams and envision the thin, empty lips of waves, curling and lapping onto Central American sand.  As phantasmal as the last six months now seem, the reality is, it was our dream fulfilled and has become our inspiration for the future.  We don't want much, but next time, we'd like to be able to stay - we'd like to have the house paid off and to start a little business - a car that doesn't rattle itself loose, (but even that's a luxury.)  We'd like a false ceiling over the kitchen and some tile in the bathroom and a garden that gives us unlimited tomatoes.  How to perpetuate our life abroad ... how to get back to our simple jungle life.  This will be the next chapter of this silly little blog, that is our life.

Aloha Oahu,

Leaving Oahu gets a little bit easier every time, and I suppose the reason for this is that I keep coming back.  You can't fight the vortex of Pacific Paradise and really, why would you?  In this week of lasts, everything around me is sensory enhanced.  The windward breeze is humming a major key instead of its ominous, diminished seven chords.  The fine Kailua sand has embedded itself further up my orifices, making it harder and harder to remove in the shower.  There are more rainbows this week and certainly better food coming out of my favorite eateries.  The days are getting longer, extending sunset sessions and tailgate beers.  And of course, the whales are breeching higher and the waves are breaking cleaner.  It's only the islands way of saying stay, and what an honor it is to be chosen, instead of a mythical ousting by the gods, as many people experience within their first year, or even seventh year, of life on this 'aina.  Oahu and I are tight.  I'm going to miss her, but we've made the same pact for years.  I'm gifting my waves to someone else and she's promised to give them back when I return.  One more firm, genuine handshake.  So, goodbye mi isla favorita.  I will see you in my dreams.  But for now, I'm trading one paradise for another.