I nodded. It did sound like a very good life.
George paused, and then continued, “But that doesn’t mean life has always been easy. There have been ups and downs, as in everyone’s life. But even in the toughest and saddest days, I’ve always found something to be grateful for. I think life is a gift and whatever circumstances and challenges we meet, it is up to us whether we let them break us or make us a better version of ourselves.” He smiled. “And now I am doing my best to enjoy the time I have left on this earth, knowing that when I have fulfilled my purpose, I will join Aimee on the other side.”
I was moved by his firm belief that there was another side.
“So, what do you think the other side looks like, George?”
He spread out his arms.
“Like this! Times ten. And with Aimee in it.”
“That certainly does sound like a perfect place,” I said and smiled. George nodded, and I could see how his mind drifted away again. I followed his gaze and for a while we sat there in comfortable silence. Looking at the horizon and listening to the waves filled me with so much calm. A kind of calm I could not remember ever having felt before.
After a while the little bird flew back to its perch on the steps of my beach house. I took it as a sign that I should head back, too. I stood up and thanked George for the coffee.
“Any time. May I ask how long you are planning to stay on the beautiful isle of Kaua’i?” He pronounced Kaua’i differently from what I had heard before, with an accent on the “i” at the end.
“I don’t know yet,” I replied. “Yesterday I was thinking that a week would be more than long enough, but today I’m already feeling that it will be too short. I may stay for another week or two. It’s not like there is any rush for me to go back to New York or anything.”
“I hope you will stay,” George said. “Next week we have a ceremony on the beach. It is the tenth anniversary of Aimee’s passing. All our friends will be there, and my son William will fly over from San Francisco to be with us. I would love for you to come.”
“Thank you so much,” I said. “If I’m still here then, I would be honored to. Thank you again for the coffee, and the song and the stories. It’s been magical.”
I didn’t use those words lightly.
“I’ll see you again very soon, George.”
I smiled as I walked back to the house. Within thirty-six hours I had made two new friends, one young and one old, both by far the sweetest men I’d ever met. It gave me hope for the future.
…
I was in a haze the next few days. I slept and relaxed and then slept and relaxed some more. I practically lived in the hammock between the two palm trees in the garden, listening to the ocean sounds and the songs from my little friend the red-headed bird. It was the perfect backdrop to process everything I had experienced and learned over the last few days.
The nagging voice that wanted me to start planning my future jumped into my head now and then, and one day it almost convinced me to call the headhunters that had been chasing me with different job offers during the past year.
But just the thought of talking about work, or having to go back to New York for meetings and interviews, filled me with dread. I knew I would have to at some point, but I decided to postpone the inevitable for another couple of weeks. It wouldn’t make much of a difference anyway. I could always find a job. But how often would I have the chance to totally chill?
Three weeks in paradise. I decided I deserved that, after everything I had been through. Reality could wait.
My landlady happily extended my stay, and once everything was settled, I messaged Ruth, Lisa, and my dad to let them know everything was OK and that I would head home by the end of the month.
“I’m happy & proud of you,” Lisa texted.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” Ruth wrote.
“Have you gone out of your mind?” Dad replied.
Apparently, back in New York, everything was the same.
As the days passed by, I gradually adjusted to island life. I had hardly looked at my cell phone or laptop since I’d arrived at the beach house. It was liberating, not thinking, caring, or worrying about the external world. To just relax, chill, and enjoy the moment I was in, for once.
I’d never felt better.
George and I chatted for a bit every day after my morning swim. He served me coffee and talked about life on the island. He also shared funny stories from the set of South Pacific and sometimes he talked about his son, William, who apparently was some Silicon Valley hot shot.
When I asked him if he had any grandchildren, he just laughed, explaining that William was way too busy for that. He mentioned that William had dated a sweet woman for a long time, but they were taking a break, so he’d pretty much given up his hopes for grandchildren for the time being.
I enjoyed my chats with George. In addition to our morning coffees and my daily swims, I continued spending a fair amount of time in the hammock. I had started picking up some of the books that the previous tenants had left behind and I devoured novels, biographies, and even some business books. It had been ages since I’d carved out the time to just sit and read a book. I’d forgotten how much I actually enjoyed it.
One day, a week after I first had arrived, I was resting and reading in the hammock, when that familiar voice snuck back into my head. “OK, you needed the rest. That’s fine. Been there, done that. Now, you need to get on with your life. You’re not planning to wander around like some barefoot goddess in funny-looking clothes your entire life, are you? You’re being ridiculous. Imagine if people back in New York saw you. They’d think you’d gone insane. And what about your poor dad? His only daughter, once a promising businesswoman, now nothing but a lazy beach bum. Maya Williams, it’s time to get real!”
I sat up in the hammock. For a moment I wondered whether I should open my laptop and check on what was going on in the world. Maybe I should contact those headhunters after all. But just the thought of doing that made me queasy. I wasn’t ready yet.
Instead, I put on some clothes and took the Jeep into Hanalei. Maybe a change of scenery would be good for my mind and keep that nagging voice at bay.
When I got there, I found a farmers market on the lawn next to the little green church right outside Hanalei. The market was crowded with locals and tourists. The stands were stacked with avocados, mangos, coconuts, and pineapples. Two young men were playing their ukuleles and singing traditional Hawaiian songs. In Kaua’i, even grocery shopping was chill.
After filling my bag with fruit and vegetables and chatting with the local farmers about the perfect ripeness of a mango, I walked over to a nearby café. I had never been a great cook, and not even the magic of the island could change that. Without my daily fast-food habits from New York, the shorts I had bought a week earlier were starting to get loose around my waist. I didn’t mind that at all. Being more curvy than skinny, I could stand to lose a few pounds.
“It’s stress fat,” Lisa had explained to me, showing me scientific research that stress was the worst threat to the waistline. Another good reason to hang around on the island and chill some more.
LANI & LIAT
The café was crowded, so the waitress asked a mother and a daughter who were seated at a four-person table if I could join them.
“Absolutely, Jesse,” the woman at the table said. “We’d love some company.”
Normally I would have hesitated to join some strangers, but this was Kaua’i, and I was the new, improved, and chill Maya. Besides, the mother-daughter duo looked very sweet.
“Hi, I’m Maya. Thanks for letting me crash your party,” I said as I sat down. The mom looked like she was in her mid-thirties, with shoulder-length brown hair, big almond-shaped eyes, and a small emerald-stone nose piercing. She laughed and reached out her hand to welcome me.
“Hi, I’m Lani. And this is my daughter, Liat.”
“Hi, Lani—and hi, Liat,” I said and shook the little
girl’s hand. “What a pretty name you have.”
Liat looked pleased. She had the cutest little dimples when she smiled.
I looked around the room. The café was crowded with small wooden tables and had a large bar in the corner. The two young men behind the counter were laughing and throwing glasses in the air, clearly trying to impress two young women sitting by the bar. Soft island music was playing in the background.
“Nice place,” I said.
“The fish tacos are delicious,” Lani said and nodded toward the menu in front of me.
“I’ll follow her advice then,” I said and smiled at Jesse who was waiting to take my order. “Fish tacos and a kombucha, please.”
I turned around and looked at Lani and Liat. “So, do you two live here, on the island?”
Liat nodded eagerly and picked up one of the crayons in a small glass jar on the table.
“Yes, we’re both born and raised on the island,” Lani said. She nodded toward my shopping bag. “My parents are local farmers, and I used to help out at the farmers markets from when I was a little girl.” Liat looked admiringly up at her mom. “And then you left,” she said before she looked down again and started drawing on the white tablecloth.
“Yes, that’s right, doll face,” Lani smiled and tenderly stroked her daughter’s hair.
“When I was nineteen I went to Honolulu to study to become a teacher, and when I finished, I decided I needed to widen my horizons, so I moved to New York,” she explained.
“Nice, I’m from New York,” I said.
Lani nodded and smiled. I had a feeling she had already picked up on that.
“I loved New York—and my work there,” she continued. “I worked at an elementary school in Harlem. God how I loved those kids.” Her eyes crinkled up in an affectionate smile. “But when I got pregnant with Liat, I decided to move back to Kaua’i. I can’t imagine a better place to grow up. Now I teach at the local school here in Hanalei, and I love that too.”
Lani exuded life, strength, and positivity. I imagined she would love whatever she did.
“And I’m in first grade!” Liat exclaimed proudly. She had lost both of her front teeth, and the way she pronounced “first” was unbelievably cute.
I didn’t ask about Liat’s father. I had a feeling he was no longer in the picture.
“What about you?” Lani asked. “What brought you to the island?”
I meant to give her the short version of my story but ended up telling her about everything that had happened in the last weeks, including my performance at the conference and my meetings with Josh and George on the beach.
“Way to go, sister,” she said. “Sounds like you’re on quite a journey. I’m really excited for you.”
I felt that she really meant it.
“And you’ve definitely picked the right place to come to figure things out. This island can do wonders for people who are open to it.”
I nodded. I was starting to realize that Kaua’i was a special place.
I turned towards Liat, who was deeply focused on transforming the white paper tablecloth into a big colorful rainbow.
“What a beautiful drawing!” I told her.
“Yes, isn’t it?” Her dimples were truly adorable.
“I love drawing rainbows,” she continued. “Mom says it’s because I am a Rainbow Child.”
She didn’t look up, but I could hear the pride in her voice.
“What is a Rainbow Child?” I asked.
Liat looked up at me and then at her mom and they both started to giggle.
“Shall we tell her?” Liat asked and looked eagerly over at her mom.
Lani smiled at me.
“Why don’t you come and check it out for yourself?” she said a bit cryptically as her daughter nodded eagerly.
“Once a month the Rainbow Children meet up for a fireside chat on Ke’e Beach, overlooking Mount Makana. We usually don’t invite grown-ups, but something tells me that you would really enjoy it, and the children will love having you there.”
“I would love to!” I said.
“Phones are not allowed at the fireside chat,” Liat added and pointed to my cell phone, which was lying beside me on the table.
“I promise I won’t bring it,” I said earnestly and put it into one of my grocery bags. I had brought it with me to take pictures and soon realized how hard it was to not look at all those emails, missed calls, and ignored text messages just waiting for me. I felt a tightness in my neck and stress in my body when I had the phone around. I had already decided I would put it back in my suitcase as soon as I got back to the house.
Lani turned toward me.
“Even here in Kaua’i, kids just five or six years old are getting addicted to their devices. I want to bring children together, device-free, so they can learn to really connect with each other and have real in-person conversations.”
“Mom always says that if you can’t say something to someone’s face, don’t say it at all.”
“Yes, I do,” Lani smiled. “And what else do I say?”
“That you should only say things that come from a kind place, because you mean the other person well. And if you don’t mean well, don’t say it.”
“That’s right, my sweet little angel.”
Liat responded to her nicknames as if it was the most natural thing in the world. It was really adorable to watch. Lani and Liat reminded me a lot of my mom and me. In spite of the age difference, they seemed to be best friends.
“You know, Maya, the world you and I grew up in, the world before the internet, smartphones, and computer games, was so much simpler than the world children grow up in today.”
I nodded.
“Kids today need help to sort out all that information, to make sense of things in a different way, and to learn how to be humans in a world where the difference between the virtual and the real is increasingly difficult to separate.”
I nodded. “Yes, times definitely have changed, haven’t they?”
Lani smiled as she looked down on the table that now was covered with every color of the rainbow.
“Nice work, princess.” She gave her daughter a kiss on the cheek. Then she looked back at me and continued, “Today, many kids don’t get to use their imagination. They are receivers, not creators, playing on their phones and computers all day. And while they are becoming increasingly good at playing violent video games, they are getting worse at empathy, communication, and normal human interactions.”
Not having kids myself, I hadn’t given this much thought, but I had to admit that it sounded like a scary scenario for young children.
“I want to help children make sense of this world, to grow up to be kind and sensible but also dreamy and courageous human beings. And most of all I want them to be happy, and to learn that true happiness comes from within.”
Her words moved me.
“So, what made you decide to do what you do?” I asked.
“When I grew up, my parents always told me that if I didn’t like something, I should try to change it,” Lani explained. “And that is what I am doing. Trying to change things for the better. For one child at a time.”
Listening to Lani speak, I couldn’t help thinking how meaningful and personally rewarding her work with children must be.
I was almost embarrassed about how important I always had thought my work had been.
When my food arrived, I was left to my thoughts while Lani chatted with her friend Jesse, and Liat continued her drawing in deep concentration.
I thought about the boxes Josh had talked about, the ones with the imaginary walls. I realized I had spent most of my life inside one, thinking it was solid and that there was no other way to live my life.
Meeting Josh, George, and now Lani made me realize that life could be so different and much more exciting than I had ever been able to imagine.
Now I also understood what Josh meant when he said, “When nothing is certain, everything is possible.” I felt ex
cited to realize I had no idea what to do next or what was waiting around the corner. Thoughts like these usually would cause me to go into a tailspin, because I always wanted to have everything carefully planned and thought out. I hardly recognized myself now, and somehow, that was a big part of the thrill.
When it was time to pay the check, Lani insisted on buying me lunch.
“I get the friends and family rate.” She winked.
I smiled. “Only if next time it’s on me, at a place where you don’t get that.”
“Deal,” Lani said and gave me a fist bump. I made a mental note to practice my fist bump technique.
Before we said our goodbyes, Lani asked if I wanted to join her for sunset yoga on the beach that evening. I hesitated for a moment. I might be the new and chill Maya, but I wasn’t sure if I was that chill yet.
“I’ve never done yoga, and I don’t have any yoga clothes,” I explained, hoping that would qualify as a no.
Lani just laughed. “Don’t worry about that, girl. This is island beach yoga. People show up as they are, in T-shirts and shorts, swimsuits, or whatever they feel like. It’s easy and fun. Just bring a towel, and you’ll be good to go.”
ISLAND BEACH YOGA
“Inhale. Exhale. Breathe in. And breathe out.”
We were sitting on the soft sand, just breathing. There were about twenty of us, women and men of all ages and sizes, and not a fancy pair of yoga pants to be seen.
In front of the group, with her back to the ocean, was our instructor, Ava. Long gray hair, mid-sixties, with the body of a thirty-five-year-old, she was dressed in a blue bathing suit and white shorts. She looked like a goddess who’d just stepped up from the sea.
Her voice was deep and soothing: “Feel the humidity of the ocean cleansing you with every breath you take. Breathe in the beauty, the purity, the happiness, the love. Breathe out any feelings that don’t make you happy. Breathe out any thoughts that don’t make you feel great.”
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