On a rock in a tide pool at a picnic area on the beach in Hawaii I slipped and landed - hard - on my sorry tuckus. Jostled into a momentary stupor, I watched my sun glasses fly from their perch atop my forehead and land in the shallow pool in front of me. My breath was momentarily knocked from my chest and my skull wobbled clumsily atop my neck. Even as extreme pain shot through my lower regions, I was thinking to myself that I had just pulled a truly tourist-class stunt. Admittedly, I was a tourist; but a tourist, nonetheless, who had grown up around oceans and tide pools and really ought to know better by now than to wear rubber-soled shoes while walking on wet ocean rocks.
I stole a glance at my family happily picnicking on a grassy knoll above the tide pools, thankfully oblivious to my wipeout. I bit my tongue, gingerly transferred myself to a more purposeful-looking seated position atop a dry rock nearby, and began the task of pretending that my coxis didn't feel like it had hordes of munchkins pressing on it from all sides.
Earlier that same day we had visited a place, the significance of which I do not know; all that I can tell you is that it involved a view of a staggeringly high cliff, the ocean below. The scene from the road along was breathtaking in the looking-at-this-I-feel-tiny-and-insignificant way, not the I-just-bit-it-on-a-wet-rock-and-now-I-might-never-walk-straight-again way. Perhaps more than the view, however, I enjoyed spending a few choice moment patting this fine fellow - a true Hawaiian Ass:
Today (a good week later) climbing stairs no longer induces quite the same degree of burning pain, but there is a definite sensation of having pulled my left gluteus maximus. This makes ascending stairs, bending over and standing on one leg all very uncomfortable. I never noticed it before, but as luck would have it it is my habit to simultaneously bend over and stand on one leg every day to put on my skivvies, socks, pants, etc. Never before have I so desired to remain naked in bed.
For all that it is humid and warm and green and beautiful, what I liked best about Hawaii was the fauna. Tiny green geckos with red spots and blue gecko eye shadow, hefty wild turkey-looking things, herons grazing with the cattle, sea turtles, wild cats, giant snails, mongooses, striped fish, dolphins, crabs and any number of exotic creatures captured my fancy more than anything else. I feel funny about this, since being hung up on the creatures of Hawaii seems like I'm neglecting to see the forest for the mammalian trees.
I think there's a little light somewhere in the back of my brian that snaps on when I get around animals, though, and animals were around virtually every Hawaiian corner. Risking sounding like the crazy cat lady I am destined to be, I feel more calm around animals; I think it's the simple act of being in the presence of something that does not speak and that does not expect me to speak to it.
I like to be quiet; to be in the presence of quiet beings.
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