Away | Hawaii

I unfastened my seatbelt, switched my phone off airplane mode and texted him, We’ve just landed!

You made it! When should I plan on heading over?

(Amazingly, our hotel was just a handful of minutes from where our son lives.) 

We’ll get our bags and our car and head to the hotel. 

Does sushi sound good? I could grab some and bring it over for us. 

That sounds good! We have our car. Now on our way to the hotel.

Should I head over?

Yes, we just arrived.

Then he called. “I’m here! Should I come to your room?”

I think I was already halfway out our hotel room door, nearly shouting into my phone in my excitement, “I’ll come meet you!”

Out the door, I ran. Down the hall, around the corner, through the lobby, out the double front doors and into the parking lot, looking, looking for our boy. 

There. There he was, at the far end, coming toward me, all the six feet, muscles, and thick, curly hair of him, the packages of sushi tucked into a football hold in his left arm. A fabulous grin stretched across his face and into his eyes. His deep voice carried across the parking lot “Hi, Mom!”

I squeal-screamed and ran even harder, as if I couldn’t get to him fast enough. And there he was. There I was, hugging our boy. The words caught, and the tears flowed and we were laughing and crying and holding on, holding on, holding on. He was real. This was real. The very best kind.

We squished the sushi.

The waves gathered, flexed, and in a force of rolling momentum, they effortlessly swelled twelve feet high, the color of the water turning from deep blue, to teal, to aqua as they came closer, closer, towering, towering, towering, cresting, then dramatically crashing on shore in front of us in an explosion of froth and foam. 

The power of them reverberated in our chests. We were in Hawaii! On Oahu’s north shore, where the sun rose above the mountains behind us and set beyond the point to the west.

Humble beach houses looked out toward the northern horizon from their cover of swaying palms and leafy foliage - taking in the view, with no notion of being the view. The people, scattered across the expanse of beach, seemed just as humble - shelling, wading, walking the sandy shore, lying prostrate in the sun, uninterested in being fancy or splashy or seen. Content, instead, with becoming part of the landscape, the experience, the moment.

This is just what we’d hoped for. Authentic Hawaii. We didn’t want a show or entertainment or pampering. We didn’t want ritz or fuss or frenzy. We wanted simple, we wanted real. We wanted to stroll the docks of the harbor, looking at (and dreaming about) sailboats. We wanted to kick off our sandals and walk for miles along the empty beach in the early morning sun. We wanted to draw our chairs up to outdoor tables and spend endless time eating incredible food. We wanted to sit on the shore at dawn, wiggle our toes in the sand, and drink our coffee and tea. We wanted to hike those rugged, green peaks. We wanted to drive all the way around the island with the windows down, Hawaiian music spinning a trail behind us. We wanted to live like the locals. 

There were food trucks within walking distance of our one bedroom bungalow - communities of food trucks - with music, common picnic tables, corn hole games, and wild chickens strolling about, all lit at days’ end by strand lights and tiki torches. At the small local market, shirtless, barefoot locals bought deli lunches, local pineapples, and bunches of apple bananas (so good!). Tourists wearing sunglasses and tropical print shirts purchased sunscreen, boogie boards, and beach chairs. A remarkable kindness seemed the standard character of the local people, sewn right into who they were, from a wave and hello on the beach, to a press on the brakes and you-go-ahead on the roads, to a ride if you’re walking along and look like you need to get somewhere. 

As the three of us sat on the shore one last time on the morning of our departure, we drew every minute out as long as we could, holding them gently, precious as they were, etching the feeling of the place into our minds and souls. Hawaii was so very good to us. 

P.S. Oh, and the hat! The crazy-wonderful (very) wide-rimmed beach hat was the only thing slated for the trip that didn’t get to go in the end. Try as I might, I couldn’t fit it into my carry-on suitcase, and I didn’t think “packable” was the same as “crumpable.” But! Never fear, the hat will be along with me to any sunny beach that I can drive to. Grin.

For the curious: we stayed at Ke Iki Beach Bungalows, a place I would fully recommend if you’re looking for the kind of Hawaii experience we were.