Is my dream finally dashed?
For years I’ve had this recurring dream about leaving Hawaii and then realizing that I didn’t make good enough use of my time there enjoying the natural wonders of the place. I don’t know what precluded me from doing so, but I had blown my chance to take full advantage of the beauty of the islands.
I once asked my friend Andrew what the dreams meant. He said, “I think you know exactly what they mean.”
“Oh, you mean I’ve wasted my life by not sufficiently enjoying its happy or perhaps even glorious moments; squandering too much of my finite time on the planet horsing around with journalism?”
He didn’t answer, which was Andrew’s way of answering.
Now I’m retired, save for the time I squander writing this newsletter rather than enjoying life’s joys and splendor.
So I went back to Hawaii for the sixth time last week, this time with my wife Jane for our 45th anniversary, and just like the other times, I fully engaged myself with the setting of Kaanapali just outside the still smoldering ruins of Lahaina.
We snorkeled with sea turtles; fed a pair of monogamous mynas and a lone red-crested cardinal; saw a rare “moonbow,” a nocturnal rainbow caused by a bright full moon shining through a misty rain; spied a pod of several dozen dolphins spouting and leaping along the channel off Maui and between Lanai and Molokai and watched the sort of chaotic surf pounding away just a few feet in front of our ground-floor oceanfront condo.
It seemed to me to have been a perfect vacation, and I don’t think I left any of Maui’s offerings on the table and, while we’ve only been home for about a week, the dream hasn’t recurred.
Worldwide Breakfast Quest 2024
This time my wife of 45 years subbed for my daughter Hannah as we checked out breakfast in Lahaina at Slappy Cakes, which is a goofy name for a semi-goofy restaurant that has just three locations: the one in Maui along with one in Portland, Oregon and one in Singapore.
My wife, every bit as adventurous as our daughter, had bacon and eggs, while I sent for the Blueberry Tart, a stack of pancakes with blueberries and topped with lemon curd — and who doesn’t know that I’m a sucker for lemon curd?
It was pretty good, though it fell short of Long Beach’s Bake N Broil’s lemon-blueberry pancakes, which are pretty much the clubhouse leaders right now.
The key feature of Slappy Cakes is the fact that if you wish you can get a table with a griddle in the middle on which you can make your own pancakes. Sort of a Korean barbecue version of breakfast, which, because neither my wife nor I like doing kitchen work when we go out to eat, we passed on the option. I only slightly regret it.
Turning to politics
OK, maybe we did squander a little time by doing non-Maui-related things, like watching parts of the Democratic National Convention on TV.
I’m not generally a big fan of speechifying unless the subject matter deals with Hannibal Lecter, fear of sharks, a lesser fear of electricity or the inability of solar power to work when it’s cloudy outside.
My Top 5 Moments of the convention:
- Raphael Warnock’s speech
- Michelle Obama’s speech
- Kamala Harris’ speech
- Barack Obama’s speech
- Jason Isbell’s performance of “Something More Than Free”
Beach reading on Kaanapali
Not your typical beach book (my wife wisely chiseled away at James A. Michener’s “Hawaii”), I went with a rereading of Jim Harrison’s semi-mystical “Returning to Earth,” as a first step in going back over some of the author’s incredible body of work that, in addition to novels, includes a memoir, nonfiction (generally regarding food) and a prodigious amount of poetry.
As always, Harrison (who died in 2016 at 78) writes in an artful and beautiful manner. In this novel, he explores, at least in the first half of the book, the meaning of a “good death,” with his protagonist Donald’s early last days at 45 as his body wastes away due to a particularly savage case of Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Donald is beloved by everyone, and his wife and other relatives and friends help him with the manner in which he dies (and which he considers merely a “returning to Earth”).
The second half details how Donald’s survivors deal with his passing, and they don’t always cope with it as well as he did.
Ultimately, it ends elegantly and the book, Harrison’s ode to mourning, lingers with the reader at least until the next book is picked up to read again.