Beth told me that she had been crying every morning anticipating leaving Hawai’i.  I haven’t felt that way until this afternoon.   If I open my mouth to say how sad I am I might not stop crying until tomorrow.  Our flight is in a few hours.

Me and KL are very organized and methodical.  We have a google wave of every item in every box that we shipped home. Here are the items in boxes #4 and #12:

4-dvds, LOST box set, router, books (Good Poems, Letters to a Young Poet), Dharma beer, little bears, jump rope, harmonica, hand grip

12-honu bowl, doorstop, oahu revealed book, 2 wine bottle bags, Annie candle and soap, red envelopes, bathing suit and swimming trunks, lanakila staff shirt, white beach shirt, art fair pillow case, thomas wylde clutch, bose ear phones, rearview mirror hangings

By all appearances we’re doing well in our packing, cleaning, and general errands.  I have to remind myself that there isn’t really that much to worry about.  We’ll be back in NY very soon and it’ll be very easy to be a worry wart there.  Must relax…except I have a job interview the day after we get home and I’ve been parked in front of my computer emailing (and blogging) hours out of the day while the sun shines and the beach calls.

Saw Beth and her gang for breakfast.  It’s odd to be going through this life change while everyone around us is going through it too.  I wish we could have sat at Cinnamon’s all day….I’m going to miss them.

This is Coro being driven away by someone else. We donated the car to Lanakila Pacific and they came to pick it up.  It’s very strange how attached you become to an inanimate thing.  Like having this vague irrational thought of ‘I hope Coro is ok’!

Weird.  But yes, we miss it.  It was a good car to us.  It was an incredible thing when we bought it and that we owned one at all.  This is the day we drove it home for the first time:

We visited our old place today when we were coming back from getting coffee.  It felt nice. It was easy to remember what it felt like living there. I took alot of pictures of this pond.  It’s changed alot!

In some ways I think Ken and I just want to go already.  The organizing and saying goodbyes feels, at this point, sad.  A typical event runs through my mind like this:

oh tonight will be the last night I’m going to see so-and-so
it’s so nice to spend time with so-and-so
i’m going to miss so-and-so
is this the last time i’m going to see so-and-so?
impossible!
i’m sure we can squeeze in another time to see so-and-so

and the goodbye is never done.

i hate goodbyes.  i love so-and-sos.

Ken just asked me how many times I planned on saying goodbye.

This house.

Wednesday Meals on Wheels

Yoga with Sarah

Blanket Camp with Beth…as well as dancing with Beth, eating with Beth, and drinking Pink things with Beth.

Sushi Sasabune

Annie in general.

Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck

The Green Baron

Puakenikeni

Full moons in Lanikai.

Neighbors leaving fruit on our porch.

interislandterminal.org and V Lounge

Hibachi

Lisa, Marian, and Marlena at Lanakila Pacific.

Badass Hula

Jeff

Cinnamons

Brigitte and Manny

Hikes

History

Making ginataan with my mom

Lanikai

Poke

Kawailoa Rd.

Jules

Ma’o

Gabby, Jake, Ginger, and Nunu

01/21

Malasadas

Flowers

New friends

Mochi

Aloha

Kauai

HIFF

The Mokes

I just poked myself in the eyelid when I ran into this Bird of Paradise.

I’m so resistant to blogging.  Everything is happening so fast and we’ve been so blessed in this last week.  The hospitality Ken and I have received on this island is so profound that it’s hard to process while we’re going through it.  The house is a mess, most of our belongings are making their way back to NY, and the next few days are our last on this adventure.

I know when I’m back in NY I’ll catch a scent or see a flower that will bring me back here and I’ll long to be back.  It wasn’t easy at first, but these days I can feel how much Hawai’i has changed me.  I don’t think I’ve been this happy in years.

This place is made up of so much more than the rest of the world knows.  More than I can know. It will always have a place in who I am.  And I feel incredibly blessed by that.  I only wish I could have written more here.