Salty Thoughts...

As I glanced out my kitchen window last night I noticed how the dark clouds with a flat edge contrasted the sky and I was instantly swept back to my days in Hawaii. To see how easily the pale blue sky fell right into the dark blue ocean always fascinated me. Unless it was night, I always gawked as I drove home from the Tunnel to Hickam, or crossed to the Windward side of Oahu via the Pale, Like Like, or eventually the H-3. There were times it was tiring to see the white clouds hanging low on the mountains and have to convince my brain that it didn't mean snow (unless we were talking about Maui or the Big Island, of course), and it was often frustrating to have a great amount of rain but never any lightning & thunder, but it never got old to see that great big body of water we know as the Pacific Ocean blending into the sky along the horizon.

I had someone look at me very oddly on Christmas Day, too. I had cookies to take to friends in Penrose, so hubby asked me to stop at the gas station to get him some more Dr. Pepper. Nevermind the fact we had plenty of cans in the garage, he wanted the 2-Liters. He's addicted. Now way around it. Regardless, I started giggling while waiting in line because the "Woohoo" song came on. I don't know the real name, I've always called it that. It came out the same day I landed in Hawaii and the only part of the words I remember are "WOOOHOOO!" So, that's how it came to be dubbed. Everytime I hear something that was popular while I lived there, I grow calmer, or warmer, or smell the ocean, or smell the sweetness of the pineapples that grew in the fields above my head at the Tunnel, or think of the boat (that would be submarine, not ship, and not a sail boat), or many, many, many hours sitting on the beach or in Aloha A'ina Park watching the ships & boats entering or leaving Pearl, and countless miles run on the roads, sidewalks, and bike paths on both Hickam & Pearl. Or it all floods back to mind. This day it made me warmer, and I told the person who looked to see what I was giggling about that this song made me instantly feel warmer because it reminded me of another time. I'm sure they thought I was completely out of my gourd, but it was the truth.

Hawaii has been on my mind a lot lately. It's not just because it's cold here and I still wish there was a place that had mountains as fantastic as the Rockies out my back door while beaches and that glorious salty scent of the ocean out my front door. There are reasons the place is on my mind. No, we are not moving. No, we are not taking a vacation (what the heck are those, anyway??). It's reasons that will come forward in due time. But they're such sweet memories that nobody needs a reason to think of them, anyway...