3:49 p.m. - 2005-06-30
Moonlight Rant
Some six blissful hours later in which Rick was the captive audience by my side, our plane touched down at Lihue Airport on the "garden island" of Kauai. Giddy with adventure, we filled our senses with the scent of plumeria as a beautiful native girl placed leis around our necks. We rented a red Nissan and were off to find Islander on the Beach. Brochure to guide us, Rick joked that the place would most likely bear no resemblance to the slick, inviting photographs that had drawn us there. He speculated about various diasppointing scenarios, each funnier than the last. Careening along the highway lush with foliage and a thick humidity that framed my face in loose sandy ringlets, we arrived at the Coconut Plantation district of Kapa'a near the mountain called the Sleeping Giant. The hotel suddenly appeared like a mirage, more beautiful than anything we had dared to envision. I'm surprised that our squeals of delight did not awaken that landmark giant who continued to snooze. Each morning, we watched him emerge through puffs of fog from our window on the second floor. Sharing a faraway land for the very first time seemed to take us to another level, something that could never be erased no matter what. I trusted Rick to plan every second of the trip. He wanted to be sure that we saw every inch of the island from every possible vantage. And so, we rode horses beside the sea on Poipu Beach. We saw Waimea Canyon from a small helicopter, the national bird of Kauai as we were jokingly told. We paddled kayaks up the Wailua River, humming the tune from Indiana Jones. My favorite of favorite days, we took a catamaran to the Na Pali Coast for lunch and snorkling. I remember saying aloud "I am in paradise with someone I love". I said it with surprise and gratitude. I said it to Rick, but mostly I said it to God. It was a moment in which both the latitude and longitude of my heart and soul intersected perfectly. By divine design. Nothing could ever look quite the same again. I fell in love with Kauai, with elements of Rick I had not known and especially with my own untapped capacity for joy. I decided I wanted never to return to the dull expectency of my everyday life, as we sipped Blue Hawaiis at the local Jolly Roger. When a young man asked me to dance, Rick said in his gentle way, "This night is kind of special for us". In some secret male language, he understood. And so Rick and I hugged and swayed to the ukelele until the band went home. Later we spun crazy circles in the ecstatic moonlight there on the white sand. "I want to live here", I said with resolve. "This is just vacation, honey", he reminded me. "I have never wanted anything, but I want this," I simply said, and it was true. Petitioning those eyes the color of green foam, I relied on the fact that Rick was the kind of person who tended to get what he wanted and, maybe even by osmosis, what I wanted. I had hitched my wagon to his erratic star and I was not about to let go. He scanned the scenery as his mind wrapped about my dream like a silvery lasoo, there under the full moon. "Okay, let's do it", he said with conviction. And I knew it was done.
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