I call it my sweet zone, my Hawaii place when everything comes together perfectly, when I am totally at rest.
When you’re looking out your dreary eyes, not seeing what is in front of you, feeling only bliss, that’s the sweet zone.
It is easiest to feel when the environment is peaceful and leaves you alone. Hawaii does this, but Hawaii is not paradise, Hawaii is a place so peaceful that paradise can happen inside you.
My sweet zone happened one day sitting in my car in front of a local cafe, looking out at the lava.
Soothing slack key music was playing on the radio, it was overly warm in the car and I was looking out at the lava field in front of me, suddenly I wasn’t even there.
I floated in a trance, zonked, stoned, but done naturally. All the way up until someone opened the car door and jarred me back into reality.
Another sweet zone happened sitting on the hot, white sands of that little beach across the lawn behind the Kona pool. You know that beach, the one with the big tide pool, in front of the expensive houses, so nice you think you’re trespassing.
I was lying back in my beach chair, feeling the cool breeze on my face. I was looking down the coast at the misty stretch of land sticking out down south, Kealakekua, I think. I smelled the salty air, my toes digging in the sand and I started drifting into my Hawaii place, being there but not there. Perfection.
Isn’t the ultimate goal not being here for a while, where problems are gone for a moment or two or 10? Where the angst blows away and your mind is free of everything, and all concerns are far, far away.
Paradise they call it, what everyone dreams of.
People in Kansas dream of it, people on the L.A. freeways dream of it, Nebraskans, New Yorkers, the whole world dreams of this place where you can put on a lei of flowers and be totally gone for awhile. Giddy, silly, dreamy, calm. A world where you can forget and not be there for a week or two or as long as you want.
We live in this place the world dreams of. We wake up here every day. That golden Kona sun smiling in the living room. All that green in the backyard. The light blue sea along Alii Drive. Do you feel it? Where is your Hawaii place?
Maybe it’s at Hapuna, slapping in your slippers down to the shining white beach feeling the ocean water bite at your ankles.
Maybe it’s falling into your La-Z-Boy after a long day of work and through tired eyes barely see the palm fronds nodding in the wind.
And then seeing the sunset, a blazing symphony of gold and crimson, lavender clouds lacing the pale sky, as the bright persimmon sun gives you a little lime green wink before it disappears.
Dennis Gregory writes a bimonthly column for West Hawaii Today and welcomes your comments at makewavess@yahoo.com
