Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Living Here

I was reminded sometime last week of how important it is to live here. Not just domicile here, mind you, but really live.

And so that night on my way home from my ten or eleven hour day, I decided that Head Chef and I would go to the beach that very night. I wouldn't hear any protest, and I would assert myself aggressively. We'd change out of our work clothes and get into board shorts. We'd go down to Waikiki and have sushi. And then, like reckless fools with no regard for convention, we'd get in the god damned ocean in the middle of the fucking night! Because we live here, god dammit, we've worked damned hard to get here, and we're going to take the time to reap the reward.

And we did, too. Not for long, but enough. And as always, I felt better.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I periodically have pangs of longing for some friend or other, but today a San Franciscan friend sent me an electronic invitation to his Thanksgiving dinner. On the invitation was a photo of a long table covered in red cloth and bowl after platter of food. All these smiling men were sitting around it, leaning in so as to be seen around the man next to him. So many of them were familiar faces and most were friends. Bearded, high, and rosy-cheeked, they look so content frozen in that moment. Like a group of youthful jolly Santas, and I missed them.

And although I had to decline the invitation because of this Pacific thing between us, I'll call. I hope they're high, too, because it's how they are in my mind's eye.

But if my guess is right, tomorrow I'll be going to look at potential homes. Maybe just a cursory look, even, before Head Chef and I don our sunglasses, our lotions, and head for a beach. Maybe Lanikai, perhaps something more solitary like Waimanalo or even Mokule'ia. We'll lay out on a sheet and soak up sunlight in between bobbing in the waves and splashing the bathwater ocean at one another. This is what we'll do on Thanksgiving day. And although it's incongruent with my lifelong expectations of what happens on Thanksgiving, it's plenty good enough for me.

We'll have dinner later with friends at a restaurant. Good friends. The kind you're excited to find. The kind that, when you look back at a picture of them, you miss them.

Sadly, with the time demands of this new job, I haven't seen much of these friends lately, and they could be gone soon. The partner in my office just set out a new fifty chargeable hour minimum work week, which means more like sixty in the real world. And soon my friends will be gone, and will I have even had the chance to say goodbye, or even take them to the airport?

Today I saw a newspaper article about men who make career compromises so they can have time with their families. It was as though someone at the Honolulu Advertiser wanted to send me a message. But rather than yelling "Get out of my head!!" in the middle of the restaurant, I just nodded to myself. And I sent them a thought.... "don't worry, I'm gonna live here."