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We’re back in beloved Hawaii. We came back a few weeks early so that we could find a home before K started working. Five days later and eight rentals visited we’re, as the English say, knackered.
Last year, the first place we visited ended up being our home for nine months. It was such a great experience–in some ways the best home K and I have ever had together. We thought that this time around it would be an even easier process.
Not so.
We’ve visited a pole houses five miles up a mountain, condos in gated communities, a sweet little beach house on Lanikai; and an A-frame on lush Kaneohe bay. Each place was lovely on one hand and completely not right on the other.
We see our time here as an opportunity to really live a happy life. Manhattan is so rough, so challenging–it’s like living in a game show. But it’s our home and probably where we’ll live for many years to come. In contrast, we want to treat our limited time here in Hawaii as a real experience with as little compromises as possible.
It’s been an adventure. We’ve met such a range of people. One lovely woman let us drink beers on her lanai and then handed us fluffy towels so that we could take advantage of their private beach access. Another woman took a break from her store to show us her home for rent and then left us there with instructions to enjoy the space. One woman told me, when I politely said we were going to keep looking, that I could call her anytime to chat if I needed a girlfriend on the island.
Remarkable.
Even more remarkable is that K and I have no place to show for it. For now we remain in a hotel using baby bottles of shampoo and conditioner, eating at restaurants for every meal, and occasionally reminding one another that wherever we are together is home.
We’ve been home in New York for just a little over 2 months now. I’ve been meaning to blog but have been lost in my thoughts, unable to articulate what being home feels like. Reconnecting with people and trying to feel normal in this bustling crazy town has taken up most of my brain power.
When we first got here I was so occupied with noting the differences between being here and being in Hawaii. The thing that struck me as the funniest and most perplexing difference was that everyone in New York is on their cell phone. Which isn’t a spectacular observation but it takes being away to see how odd it is to be surrounded by people having passionate, personal conversations everywhere you go. Even when you’re sitting in your tiny apartment with your window open and someone decides to stop right under it and berate some faceless sap for drinking too much, or not wanting to get married, or for flirting with someone’s best friend. The first day after we arrived we were buying drug store supplies and a South Asian girl behind us on her cell phone declared to the person on the other end that there wasn’t any other person in the world that she could confide what she was about to confide. Meanwhile there were about 5 of us on line with her.
But that’s what it’s like here. We live in tiny spaces with roommates or partners. Most of the day is spent walking to either meet someone for lunch, pick up your dry cleaning, attend an event, or go to a dr’s appointment. I find myself constantly on the phone ranting or raving about something or someone completely unfazed by the strangers walking alongside me just a couple of feet away. It’s like being woven into a crazy rug.
I missed Hawaii terribly when we first got here. I was very pleased with myself whenever someone said to me ‘you’re so calm!’ or ‘Hawaii is good for you!’. I was worried that being back would wind me up again and that I’d lose that aloha spirit. Perhaps I have because being here feels alot more normal than living across from a beautiful beach and driving thirty minutes to buy mac nut kona coffee.
We head back to Hawaii in four weeks. I can feel the nervousness stirring up again as we shift from being here to getting ready to be there. It is, at least, not an uninteresting existence.
