Week Nine — September 2026
OAHU
I went to Oahu twice, twenty years apart.
The first time I went for a man. The second time I went for the island.
I was eighteen the first time. A volcano had erupted on a neighboring island and ash was falling from the sky like snow. I had flown four thousand miles to meet a man from work who grew up there, and when I called him the first night he said he’d have to see if he could get away.
So my friend and I made our own plans. We danced. We ate at places I couldn’t afford. We learned to surf on the baby waves at Waikiki, which is where this picture comes from — it didn’t take long before everybody else was up too.
That was also the day I got sunstroke. Nobody talked about sunscreen in 1983. It was all baby oil and foil blankets and if you were serious, you’d climb up onto your rooftop to get that much closer to the sun.
I spent my last three days in Hawaii on the floor of a house that didn’t have a kitchen, too sick to move, with no one coming to check on me.
You want to know what that teaches an eighteen-year-old girl when nobody comes?
It teaches her she’ll get through it.
Twenty years later I went back. My niece’s family was stationed on the island and they showed me the Oahu the postcards promise. The local beaches. The mountain roads above Honolulu where the driveways disappear into jungles.
One Sunday my niece’s husband drove me through those mountains. Gate after gate posted No Trespassing. And then one was standing wide open.
I told him to pull over. He asked me what I was doing. I didn’t answer, and to his horror, I got out of the car and walked toward the entrance — all while he anxiously recited the consequences of my apparent intention to trespass.
The driveway opened onto a gorgeous view with a white house, a lawn, cars and a moving truck. A man noticed me and came toward me, hand outstretched. I took his hand and introduced myself, apologizing for trespassing. By then my nephew-in-law had made it down the driveway, looking like a man about to be arrested.
The gentleman said they were moving out and asked if we’d like a tour.
I was not going to say no to that — and my poor nephew-in-law had no choice but to follow.
He showed us the house and the backyard, at which point my nephew-in-law had apparently found his brass and wandered off on his own.
At the far end of the backyard there was a white stone pathway disappearing into the jungle. I asked if I could follow it. He said to go for it.
I followed the narrowing path for about ten yards, which abruptly opened up to something I was not expecting.
I found myself standing on a cliff overlooking the whole of the Pacific with Waikiki and the Punchbowl off to my left.
My nephew-in-law caught up a minute later and we just stood there — in awe.
I dare say — totally worth being arrested for.
That car that was in the driveway on the way in, yeah. It’s license plate had a message about this man’s life that I hoped to carry into my own. Four letters say it all — “EASY.”
They asked me to stay longer. Come on, just a few more days.
I got on the plane on schedule.
Twenty‑three years later I’m still thinking about the week I didn’t take.
Whatever’s being offered to you — take it.