I dream of Hawaii

A week ago I was enjoying my beautiful view of the Pacific from the balcony of my hotel room on Waikiki beach. The weather was amazing. Later on in the day I could be found enjoying drinks (ok, without alcohol, I am taking care of two small children after all) in the open air bar at the bottom of our tower. Now I am sitting in my family room close to the heater vent trying to stay warm. God, I wish I was back in Hawaii.

Q spent the first few days we were back asking if we could go back to his hotel room. Since the weather in DC this week has been nothing but cold and miserable, I totally agree.

Hawaii was absolutely beautiful. I'd say it is one of the most beautiful places in the world. (Other nominations for the most beautiful places in the world are welcome. I'll be sure to attend any conferences there too.) Somehow the combination of incredible blue ocean next to lush green mountains and cliffs seemed almost too much. I grew up near the beach, Long Island, NY, to be exact. When we cut school we went to the beach. I spent most of my childhood summers on a boat. I love the water. But our landscape was very flat. In my mind beaches just don't go with mountains. Mountains were in places like the Poconos where my aunt had a house and we'd spend winter weekends skiing. (No my family is not as well off as this description might make you think.)

But put mountains together with beaches, add lush foliage and warm temperatures, and you get something almost too good to be true. An old neighbor of ours, a year or two younger than I am, moved to Hawaii a few years ago. I thought a lot about if I could live in a place like that. I am not sure I could. It would almost be like looking at the sun too long. Beautiful but too bright.

But the reality is that life in Hawaii, much like life anywhere else, has its dirty and depressing side. Driving to the airport you see plenty of run down apartment buildings, garbage, and poverty. It is disconcerting to look at one side of the street and see tall, beautiful hotels with incredible grounds and beaches and see a run down shabby apartment complex on the other. Of course when you are on vacation, mostly what you see is the incredible beauty you are supposed to see. What produces that beauty, the people who make sure your food is cooked and your room is clean and the grounds are tended, we aren't supposed to think about that and how they might live.

This is why we should never confuse vacation with real life. If I actually lived in Hawaii I would have a house that would still need cleaning, kids that needed tending, food that needed cooking, laundry that needed to be washed. I would still struggle to pay the bills. I would see other people struggling far more than I do, just like I do here at home. Just moving to paradise doesn't solve all your problems.

Then again, I wouldn't need to be hovering by the heater if i lived in paradise. And so I dream of Hawaii. Only in my dreams I look a lot better in a bathing suit.