Twenty, ten and even five years ago, I little confidence in knowing how the future would unfold. And in the same vein, I continue to avoid thinking in terms of guarantees when I imagine what life will look like in another five, ten or twenty years (should I make it that far). But as I stand here now and straddle what feels like a halfway point, I do realize that the planet is supplied with a rich and wonderfully diverse group of humans for interaction and reassurance. Throughout the years, people come and go. Some stay close for the long haul, while others come back to you like a recurring yet unexpected gift.
As I write this, I’m sitting on an aircraft that is bound for London. I’m leaving a sky full of tropical sun and will soon find myself in the cloudy and skin-splitting cold of northern European February. I’m not complaining the geography shift, it’s just that this past week in Hawaii was so badly needed and I didn’t even know it until I suddenly started feeling like a misplaced version of myself.
Oahu is 10 hours behind London, so I spent most of the time with my circadian rhythm stuck somewhere near the east coast of the United States. Every morning I woke up in the black quiet of Oahu and found myself staring off into nothing. But I wasn’t actually looking at nothing, and my surroundings weren’t quiet, either. Just outside my window was the constant crash of the Pacific as it dragged itself back and forth over pumice that formed the island’s southern shoreline. More than just white noise, the action drew a three-dimensional picture in my mind and it kept me fully entertained until the sun finally showed up around 6:30.
Every morning while back in Hawaii, I took the opportunity to go out for a morning run. I say “back” because I used to live here many years ago. I also have a dormant muscle memory that translated into an instant ease about this area—even if I am now considered a tourist. Knowing what early mornings in the Pacific are like, I could not pass on the chance to get outdoors. Besides, London right now is cold and full of cars moving in all while Hawaii at dawn, if you’re not on the H1 commuting into work, is something that is almost magic.
Out on the leeward side, it frequently rains overnight. Walking down the slippery incline to access the beach, I opened up the music on my phone. The run mix that I’ve compiled over the years has a diverse catalog, and as such it can be relied upon to assist in exorcising unaddressed feelings from my brain and bones. On the first morning, as I started my run, the nearly-forgotten beat of an Outkast song started to play as I twisted along the path in the dark:
Might as well have fun ’cause your happiness is done when your goose is cooked.
Might as well have fun ’cause your happiness is done when your goose is cooked.
Might as well have fun ’cause your happiness is done when your goose is cooked.
It’s too much information for the collective audience, but the lyrics brought me back to the time I first heard them. We had purchased the double CD “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” very shortly after work relocated me to Oahu. That was now 15 years ago, before smartphones became the oracle that we rely upon today. I haven’t really returned to Oahu since I left 11 years ago. Much like my current music source, that time was, without question, a different way of life.
But the Outkast song soon ended and my phone moved on to something more current, perhaps ‘Bring It On’ by Nick Cave or something similar that I don’t associate with Hawaii. As the first and second mile clicked on by, the sky around me started to dominate my attention. I soon arrived at a jetty that marked the start of a channel before me. Because I could go no further, I stopped for a bit to admire the sun’s handiwork as the same charcoaly rocks I heard in the early morning were suddenly cast nearly pastel.
Every morning it was the same scenario: I ran in the early morning while watching locals get an early start on their work. Then I’d head upstairs to join my friends—a couple I have known for about 20 years—as they welcomed me back with a table set for three. I took a seat in the chair, and each day the wife handed me a half of papaya that was filled with banana slices. No one else would know it, but this bowl of fruit was a ritual of love now two generations old—one that began with her de facto mother many years ago over on the Windward Side. I was from the only person at our table with strong emotional ties to Hawaii.
I was invited to journey out here from London just over a year ago are. I came to celebrate my old friends because they are, like my friend Safi, people who hold incredible value in my life. Sadly, the constraints of adulthood and time-distance mean that we don’t see each other that often. But when we do see each other, even if it’s not somewhere tropical and exotic, the effect seems to be something of an incredibly powerful elixir.
“We do not take sides.”
This is what my breakfast companions told me ten years ago as I sat nervously on their couch in southern California. I was there because I was practically ordered to do so, and I sat there anticipating the worst: for them to kick me out of their lives forever. But this never happened. They handed me no judgement. Unlike me at that age, they understood a great deal about how life works. These two people had already become an important part of me, and the sense of relief that I felt in knowing that their presence would continue was probably the thing that I needed most at that rather painful time.
Sometimes, especially when I do less than graceful things, I feel like a spiny pineapple gatecrashing a garden of otherwise delicate and exotic-looking flowers. It’s always a wonder that I get to continue on sprouting awkwardly in this real estate—because the people around me are such remarkable beauties. Anyone would be grateful to grow up having these guys in their midst. The fact that I’m spikey plant with a more palatable yet difficult to access interior only underscores the sentiment that I feel like I am ultimately the most privileged item in the garden.
London boasts some of the most beautiful gardens in the world. I know this because I often run through them on the weekends. But the sunrise over there is not the same, and more importantly, I require more than just thoughtfully-constructed gardens. More than aesthetics, I need moments like the ones I rediscovered while back in Hawaii. It’s more than just clutching a plastic bag of li hing pineapple while at the Swap Meet—it’s more about being surrounded by people I can rely upon. People who know me for all my faults but still off-handedly say, “You’re our kid,” while leafing through the latest Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
I had to leave Hawaii on an Aloha Friday early in the morning. The traffic on the H1 was the rush hour flavor that is emblematic of a non-vacationer’s Oahu. I was sad to go, because my existence in London is very different than the one that pulled me from the curb at Honolulu airport. I’ll have to wait a bit longer before I being reunited with these particular cohorts. It’s bittersweet, but slightly more seasoned adult in me now appreciates that this is just the way that life goes.
As my connecting plane finally climbs higher over the impressive Los Angeles sprawl, I feel a deep sense of reassurance over where life stands. We’re leaving behind a deep orange California sunset that serves as a final kiss goodbye from my loved ones still further west. As I scan the world below, I think about the circulating population of major and minor characters. Some I’ll see soon, and some I’ll never see again. This no longer worries me. For all the ups and downs that are presented to us, I appreciate the extensive garden that we have collectively managed to cultivate. One that has no borders, one with plenty of growth, cutting back, and hopefully regrowth.