Why is it so damn hard for me to write about places I've visited?



In my memory, Hawaii is a porch. It's a comfortable place, located somewhere just outside normal life and above the fray, where I can sit back and think about things. I've found that after leaving somewhere — whether it was a city or someone's house; a place I visited for a day or lived in for 18 years — my memory slowly whittles away the events until I'm left with one, maybe two, lasting images. When I later think back on these places, this image is my starting point — the cork plugged into the barrel of recollections. Sometimes it's not what you'd expect: Whenever I think of The City of San Antonio my mind immediately focuses on, I am not kidding, breakfast tacos. For Hawaii, it's my cousin's porch.

I started and ended my days on the porch's grubby loveseat, my feet up on the wooden railing, book in hand. Our days got going once my cousin had found me on the porch and asked, "So what do you wanna do today?" while he rubbed his eyes. Our nights concluded with my cousin and his roommates putting out their cigarettes, proclaiming "Man, I'm really tired for some reason," and heading inside. I usually stayed up a little later reading about E. B. White and his farm in Maine.

Mornings were bright, crisp, active. Sunlight flooded the living room, where I slept, through floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned two full walls. I woke early. Some days I awoke to the plinks of aluminum baseball bats from the little league field across the street. Other days I sat on the porch and watched the Hawaiian birds swooping and chattering through their daily errands.

I got in the habit of watching for a specific type of bird, whose markings appeared unique to the island, but whose behavior closely resembled a blue jay's. These birds had dark brown feathers, gray torsos, and bright yellow masks around their eyes to match their beaks, and they were not the quiet type. When they took off, there was a flurry of motion, accentuated by the thick white bands on the underside of their wings. Mostly, though, they hopped around, wings outstretched, from curb to stair to railing to fence.

One morning I heard a small squad flapping in my direction but didn't look up. Then came a solid-but-not-massive plunk, followed by a flutter, from the house next door. Looking over, I saw several birds perched on the stair rail. After a pause, a miniature version of the others hopped onto the railing, trying to shake out the cobwebs. The grown-ups launched into the sky, but the yougin' didn't move. Pacing back and forth, calling out, he looked unsure of himself, like a child on a diving board. Two of the birds returned for a demonstration, flying quickly from rail to rail, and with a tentative pause, the young one cautiously crossed the four-foot gorge. As he alighted, the rest of the troop swooped in front of the porch and around the corner. Left alone again for only a second, the little guy followed, flapping as fast as his undersized wings could carry him.

I enjoyed watching the organized chaos of little league practice, too. Judging by how tiny the kids were, I'd guess this was probably their first season of coaches-pitch ball, around seven or eight years old.

Their practices mimicked the pro's: routine grounders, batting practice, and a little mini-game at the end. The coach never said much more than, "C'mon c'mon, son, hustle!" I guess there's not much else to say to kids this age. The first baseman reminded me a lot of myself. He was a little lefty, who, even compared to his teammates, looked pint-sized. But the kid could play. He scooped up grounders and heaved the ball with the weight of his entire body behind him, and he did so confidently and with coordination, like all this was old hat. His batting style was familiar, too. His legs were, relatively, far apart, and he choked up on the bat (which was probably three-quarters his height), waving it back and forth ever so slightly to keep his wrists poised but loose. Sure signs of a contact hitter.

I love baseball the way these kids play. There isn't much coordination to go around or anything resembling brute strength, but each base hit or dropped pop up is a triumph worthy of cheers or a disaster that knocks them to the ground in exasperation. The play at this level is a thousand times more haphazard and spontaneous than the professional game it so closely resembles. Little league is free of the burden of statistics. There are no switch hitters, left-handers can play shortstop, runs are never unearned — they are always just runs. Nothing is routine. Later baseball becomes ruled by numbers, dictated by probability. Bring in a south paw to pitch against a lefty; bases loaded, up by one, infield in; the scouting report say to play this guy to pull. Routine rules, right down to the homerun trot. Every play is a mathematical calculation, and a manager is simply an algorithm for interpreting the various variables. There is a different kind of beauty to the pro game, one that belongs to a chalkboard, and I often think baseball fans are so sentimental because their game is so cold and calculating.

But the kids play just to play, as the birds fly just to fly. They did it, well, because they wanted to. I couldn't say the same for my vacation.

As much fun as I had, the days were filled with obligation. Everything we did, we did because I was there. It put a strange, unspoken damper on the trip. We hiked to a waterfall to fill the day, not because we actually wanted to see a waterfall, just as we drank at night to pass the time, not because we wanted a beer.

Toward the end of the trip, I spent a night on the porch listening to the rain. Each night, the clouds rolled invisibly over the mountains behind the house, bringing a cool breeze and sprinkling raindrops so light that they rarely ever stuck to your skin. I thought about my cousin and his Navy friends. I genuinely liked them all, and for the most part they worked hard and served well. But none of them seemed to care deeply about anything except getting out of the Navy. With one exception, there were no artists, no musicians, no heated political debates. One guy, Aaron, did love to rebuild cars, and he worked at it incessantly in his spare time. I enjoyed his company the best, even though we didn't have shit to talk about. And while I'm not one to tell another man what matters in life, I think something at least should matter.

But, no, for most of the people I met the job, Hawaii, and life were obligations, albeit ones with perks. They were part of a routine you endured as you counted down the months until your discharge, when you moved on to what you really want to do in life. There is certainly something to be said for such a life, but it lacks spontanaeity, it discourages flying for the sake of flying. And inevitably, my vacation took on this same tinge. Hawaii was supposed to be beaches and clubs and anything but "the real world." Instead, for me, Hawaii was sitting in my perch, putting off the inevitable. Maybe that's why as I recall it now, what I did was less important than what I saw.