The Red Eye to Honolulu

I've done this flight so many times, coming home from the far east, too many times to want to count..the departure from Asia late at night, the waking up in a contorted position at what is the dead of night where I am coming from. The stale taste in my mouth, complete grogginess and shock as I lift the window shade to let in the brilliant, such shockingly brilliant, early morning sunlight of home.


I've escaped the frigid cold of Seoul for a week to go home and spend some time with family. T had some work meetings here and at the last minute I decided to tag along, in part to thaw my digits, but really to see my family, Grandma in particular.

I've been thinking of her a lot recently. Perhaps in part because a blogging friend has just become a Grandma I have been considering what it means to be a Grandma, and to be a grandchild as well. The connection that grows not diminshes as years go by. The understanding that we have less time ahead of us as we have behind us. My Grandma, like everyone else's, is special. She is now 94 and still living stubbornly alone in the same house she has always lived in. My place of comfort, as long as she is there to inhabit it.

We went straight there from the airport, the standard drive over the H-3 highway that is anything but standard. How many times have I shot out of the Windward side of the H-3 tunnel, like the Millineum Falcon out of the Death Star (if you are emotionally connected to Kaneohe and have been gone for a long time you'll understand that this anology does not come from left field). As was customary, it was gray and raining as we left the high mountains of the Leeward Side and all light and blue on the Kaneohe side.


And then those Ko'olaus...the mountain range that is one of my first memories as a child, the backbone of the island that has become part of mine as well.





I intended to take more photos when I got to Grandma's house but as soon as we got there I was enveloped in its warm security and forgot about my iPhone completely (how often does THAT happen?). She made us laugh by calling T her "big fellow" - he is 6'1" and she is maybe 4'9". She fed us and we both fell fast asleep. We are in Waikiki now (blah) where T has an early evening meeting. Tomorrow when he leaves for his day of meetings I'll go back to the airport, pick up a rental car and spend the next two days with her. We have a bunch of mundane things planned, but I can't wait.

I leave you with the view of Waikiki Beach...a very famous view that I find just okay, prefering the crowing roosters and barking dogs of her old, working class neighborhood.


As we say here, "latahs" (see you later).

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Location:Honolulu, HI