Chapter 23: Late Night Reflections

I wish that I could truly describe how I feel in this moment. Sarah and I are packing. It's 11:30 on this beautiful Friday night. I'm sitting on the floor of our hotel room in front of the double glass doors to our balcony, looking out into the dark and windy night, watching the palm trees, silhouetted, sway against the sky. It's peace itself, incarnate, as I try to create the best cradle for my sparkling wine to bring home to Michigan and Sarah, doing the same in another suitcase, talks about Lucy Ricard and her salami coming back from Europe. My ipod is playing me a gentle Genius mix in one ear of Joshua Radin, Colbie Calliat, The Fray and the like and I'm looking forward to creating my playlist for this trip, which is almost over.

Today was another calm day. We hung out at the hotel, went to a mall to procure another suitcase, and eventually ended up at a beach near mile marker 16 with a beautiful dark sandy beach. Sarah and I found its coral reef after swimming around for a while (it was amazing how shallow it stayed for so long!) and had a scare trying to come back in when we realized how far way we had ended up from shore and down the beach from our entry point. The reef where we were extended almost all the way to the shore and kicked up so much sand that we couldn't see more than a foot in front of our faces. I headed back out to deeper waters when I saw those horrible black spiny things I've feared for years chillin' in the shallow water so near me. I made it back to shore and purposed to lay out in the sun, so I traded Dad my snorkel gear dn he and Sarah stayed out for a while longer. He ended up seeing a turtle friend of his own emerging from the sand.

We went to lunch in Ma'alea at the Beach Bum something or another and were fascinated by the inappropriate sign-age, the least of which being "Eat, Drink and Remarry." We girls fell asleep on the way back to the hotel as it was so nice and warm in the Kia. When we landed back at the Shores, Sarah and I headed beach-side to bake again for a few more hours- and bake we did. Sarah got some interesting lines, one of which appears to be her headphone cord and my thighs look like Neapolitan ice cream, which I suppose is encouraging because at least they aren't still completely translucent. (Apparently it's all good though, because I'd be pretty to Patrick if my skin was tie-dyed. His words, not mine.)

Eventually we headed back in when the sun had disappeared behind the cloud bank, the bonnet on the Cabana was not keeping any rain off of us and the wind was blowing so hard that we imagined, or more accurately I imagined, that it was going to carry us off somewhere. We showered, compared ridiculous tan lines and went over and ate dinner, watch TV with the 'rents until was time to check in and pack up. (By the way, the wedding cake show we were watching is nuts- they do some crazy stuff on there and are super intense about it all.)