|
"Lucky you," Harry grinned as we said good-bye to each other.
We were on our own from then on. Luckily, the local airlift committee had a few rental cars for needy VIPs like us. They said it had been chaotic, even on the islands, but things were back to normal, except for the flood of refugees coming in.
While we drove away, I told Jennie that it had been a couple of years since my last visit to the island. Surprisingly, nothing had changed. I said that everything appeared exactly as I remembered. A wonderful sense of peace flowed from this familiarity.
I had selected the long route, through the center of Wailuku, and from there via a narrow highway along the base of a mountain range, to the coast. I had fond memories of this drive. I wasn't disappointed at seeing it again after more than ten years. The mountaintops had always been shrouded with clouds and they still were. I supposed to Jennie that they would most likely continue to be that way for a long time after the last of mankind might be exterminated from the face of the planet.
She just laughed.
Being touched by this timeless familiarity was like a celebration for me. We passed beneath archways of branches that stretched from both sides across the narrow road lined with wildflowers. Nothing had changed. Far to the left lay sugar cane fields, stretching endlessly into the distance. I felt as though I had just come home from a war, to a place of deep peace.
Driving along the coast, we came into a dry area. Nothing grew there; however, the sea sparkled beautifully in the sunshine. "Let's stop somewhere along a beach," Jennie suggested.
I recalled that there had been many beaches along this road. One especially came to mind, not too far off from where we were. I had loved this particular beach for its unusually soft sand. Also it was right beside the highway.
We found it ideal. There wasn't another person on the beach with us. Though it was close to the highway, it was just another one of those quiet and beautifully lonesome stretches of sand that the islands had long been famous for. Its closeness to the highway didn't seem to matter. I didn't to us. There was no traffic, anyway. Only the sound of the surf could be heard, and the wind.
The air was clear, cool, and the sand as soft as I remembered it. With each step our feet sank two or three inches. Neither of us spoke as we walked along the edge of the water, wading through the shallow surf. In time some unimportant small talk interrupted the quiet when one or the other remarked on the lack of seashells or driftwood.
While we walked, I recalled another morning like this, with Melanie and the children. I closed my eyes for a moment and listened to the surf. Scenes of our holiday came to mind, of bodysurfing, swimming, snorkeling. It had been a wonderful vacation for the whole family. Now the beach was empty, with no children's voices shrieking for excitement when the waves pushed them down. Jennie and I were alone, carrying within us the agonizing realization of how much had changed in the world. Still it was wonderful to be at this beach, to be away from smoke and chaos, to see clean water, feel the fresh moist air, look up into a sky that portrayed not the slightest hint of the pain and horror that we had become so closely linked with. I couldn't shed the feeling that we would soon be right in the middle of it again. In this respect, our walk on the beach was a holiday, too, a holiday of a different sort, from an ugly reality! I vowed that I would savor this holiday to the utmost. A day in this age of uncertainty might well be like half a lifetime; and a single experience of living not grasped, like a touch of life lost forever.
With this background in thought, our walk on the beach took on a new meaning. The sand, the surf, the air, the water, to be able to feel, to be aware of them, all were like miracles now. I wondered how many thousands of billions of miles a traveler would have to traverse the far reaches of space to locate other worlds comparable in riches to our own. I looked at Jennie with total appreciation and smiled as if she were the most precious miracle in the universe, which indeed, she was. She must have thought that I had gone 'bonkers' to smile as I did when all the evidence of the world would have one cry. But how could I not smile at her? She appeared like a jewel to me. In my way of looking at things, she was a jewel within a jewel of the universe. Her legs looked infinitely soft, smooth, perfectly formed; her figure graceful, shapely, well proportioned, and her gestures were always gentle. Of course I realized that beauty was a response rooted in the beholder, a reflection of values found in the Soul and acknowledged in appreciation.
Next Page
|| - page index -
|| - chapter index -
|| - Exit -
||
|
