Floaties
I'm struck with a clear memory from 2000. I was sitting on the rocks overlooking that beach on Oahu made famous in "From Here to Eternity". I was looking at Molokai, barely visible on the horizon.
At the time everything was going to hell. I was unemployed in one of the most expensive places in the U.S. My relationship was in trouble. All I wanted was out; out of Hawaii, out of the relationship, out of the mess I had made of my life.
I sat there and thought I could swim to Molokai if I had some floaties. If I had some floaties, I could swim to California. I could be away, I could be free of the mess, if only I had some floaties for my arms, because I don't swim well. And if I didn't make it, so what.
If I had been magically endowed with floaties at that moment I might have climbed down and marched across the sand, where actors had pretended to make love in the surf, and started for California.
Of course, the current would have swept me around Oahu to the southwest in the general direction of Guam and across the shipping lanes where the sharks lurk.
And that's always the reality when I look for a quick escape from my troubles: straight to the sharks.
At the time everything was going to hell. I was unemployed in one of the most expensive places in the U.S. My relationship was in trouble. All I wanted was out; out of Hawaii, out of the relationship, out of the mess I had made of my life.
I sat there and thought I could swim to Molokai if I had some floaties. If I had some floaties, I could swim to California. I could be away, I could be free of the mess, if only I had some floaties for my arms, because I don't swim well. And if I didn't make it, so what.
If I had been magically endowed with floaties at that moment I might have climbed down and marched across the sand, where actors had pretended to make love in the surf, and started for California.
Of course, the current would have swept me around Oahu to the southwest in the general direction of Guam and across the shipping lanes where the sharks lurk.
And that's always the reality when I look for a quick escape from my troubles: straight to the sharks.