Kapiolani Park, Honolulu
Walking through Honolulu’s Kapiolani Park, I don’t feel like I’m on solid ground, for what would solid ground be doing this far out in the ocean? Maybe I still have sea legs from my eight-hour flight, but it feels like I’m floating. I am on a big lily pad. Of course it’s quite an improbable lily pad, with skyscrapers, and freeways, hot surfers, chunky mainlanders, and a very big extinct volcano. Oahu has a different feel than a barrier island, tethered to the mainland by a causeway or a ferry. This island itself is improbable. While I know it is not true, I feel like the ground is nothing permanent, that if we started shoveling the earth we would find the ocean just a few scoops deep. And because it is not permanent, not anchored to the ocean floor, I want to appreciate it more, before it floats away or sinks.