Hawaiian. I used to think I might like to be Hawaiian. Or at least live in Hawaii. But now I seriously doubt it would be a good idea.
In the spring of 1988, a good solid 10 months prior to me getting clean, a friend and I took off for New Orleans.
New Orleans. One of the most educational and safe places in the world for 21-year-old women who are quite seriously pursuing as many mood altering experiences as possible. Sure!
Essentially, the days (or possibly weeks…I’m still unsure) in New Orleans ended something like this:
- Do some highly impaired driving in circles around the Saints Football Dome Thingy
- Eventually realize your hotel room is not even remotely close to the Saints Football Dome Thingy
- Make it back to your hotel and stop at the front desk to apologize to the night clerk for being late
- Do a pathetic little drunk crying thing when she tells you she couldn’t give a damn what time you come back to the hotel and to get away from the front desk
- End up making a few late-night phone calls to obscure family members
- Decide to go to Florida
So we drove to Florida and found a strange little hotel on some beach and spent something like 6 hours rearranging the furniture in our room for no reason other than one of us said we found the lamp in the corner to be rather disturbing.
And managing to get ourselves out of the hotel room went something like this:
- Finish rearranging furniture
- Sleep for approximately two days
- Wake up depressed, hungry and indescribably smelly
- Shower
- Sleep for another 5 or 6 hours
- Go to corner gas station and purchase cheap junk food and an even cheaper air mattresses because you’ve finally remembered you’re near a beach
And while floating in the water next to the beach next to the strange little hotel a man on another air mattress floated up to me and said,
This is really beautiful isn’t it?
And I said,
Huh?
He said,
I said this is really beautiful. Peaceful. Calming.
I said,
You’re not kidding. It’s like I’ve been needing a decade of psycho therapy or to be locked up in a mental hospital or to have some kind of blood transfusion to get all of this crap out of my system. Something. Anything. Man. Seriously. I just came from New Orleans and have no idea how long I was there and I keep almost drowning myself because I can barely lift my head up off of this cheap ass air mattress and my whole family is going to kill me when I get home because I think I called my old Aunt Tootie in the night and scared the crap out of her. You! Are! Not! Kidding! This shit is peaceful!
When I was finally able to lift my head off of the cheap air mattress I realized the man had already floated away. Or, looking back on it now, had probably paddled away from me as quickly as possible.
We made it home from Florida and New Orleans and I still had a good solid 9 months or so left of active addiction and I kept living in fear that someone was going to give me a hard time about calling Aunt Tootie from New Orleans.
I also kept doing the following:
- Sending five dollar checks to the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce for relocation packets
- Wondering why there were something like six New Orleans Chamber of Commerce relocation packets in my apartment
- Telling everyone I was going to move to New Orleans because the beaches there are so nice
- Getting my feelings hurt every time my New Orleans/Florida travel buddy would remind me that the beach I had liked so much was in Florida. Not New Orleans.
I never moved to New Orleans or Florida or anywhere within 500 miles of the ocean. Or a gulf or sea.
But I did keep traveling to places where there was a gulf or sea.
-
Jamaica
-
Greece
-
Italy
-
Israel
-
France
And kept thinking I should live somewhere near a beach.
Yesterday I went to lunch with a dear friend who was in town from Hawaii. Where she now lives. I also received an email from another friend who has lived in Hawaii for many years.
And it all hit me later about how much I love thinking about those ladies living in their tropical place surfing and laughing and sleeping nice and free in that peaceful Hawaiian air.
And how much I love thinking about how I used to wish I was somewhere near a beach…
…and now experience some kind of nirvana when I’ve been out of town and get off of a plane and walk into the thick and humid air where I live. With its thick trees and thick accent and sometimes thick thinking.
Now I know that moving to Hawaii is simply not an option because I am simply too in love with exact place I live.
And also because of that cheap-air-mattress-can’t-lift-head-scaring-people-away-crying-at the-front-desk-rearranging-furniture thing.
