Like a Corona ad ... but not

This might seem self-evident but: I miss Hawaii.

I just kind of expected the feeling to fade, as the romantic memories you have of anything (a place, a relationship) do over time. They haven’t.

I came back from Maui feeling like life there was a life I could live. Simple. Expensive but not especially complicated. Slower. I had relished it in for the days we were there and I thought seriously that it was something I could do. Would do, if it didn’t require leaving so many people behind who I don’t want to leave. But I expected the feeling would diminish. I would grow again accustomed to cheap groceries and freeways and high-speed Internet and uncountable channels on the TV.

And I suppose I have welcomed most of that back into my life. But also I haven’t.

I was writing to a friend today about how I’ve lately felt, not sad, but just bland. I’ve been uninspired. I am tempted to blame it on the coming summer, or my wife’s illness, or my inability to use my left arm for pretty much anything. That’s not really it, though. It’s been a month we’ve been back now and I’ve felt this way the entire time. The islands have never been far from my thoughts. The memory of the ocean still seems close. I miss the place in a way I’ve never missed anything, even home.

Could we really move there? I do think we could. Whether we would is an entirely different matter. To be sure it would be hard. But I think we could. Will we? Almost certainly not. We would miss our friends. Sooner or later we will move or our friends will, that’s true. But moving to Hawaii would be almost like abandoning everything – friends and family – and I don’t think either of us is willing. But the pull is strong, the idea still there even weeks later.

I miss the ocean, the sunsets, the permanent warm of the air. I miss the green and the food. I miss the sound of waves. It seems almost ridiculous that I thought coming back to my life of office work and television and e-mail could compare to that sound, that feeling, that world. I’m not mystical. I don’t get caught up in ideas of what natural life is or should be. But living that way feels better, feels more right. I would still check email, still write on a laptop, still watch TV. But I’d spend a lot more time on the beach than I would doing any of those things.

I suppose I should make of it what I can. And so maybe tonight I will take a book and sit in a chair on my patio and feel the Arizona spring air and watch the sun turn the sky orange and pink. I will have to imagine the sound of the surf, though.