Hawai'i is much, much more than Waikiki Beach. Even the island of Oahu, the most populated in the state, is more than tourist traps and tacky dashboard hula dancers (though if you want tacky, there's plenty for the taking). What Hawai'i is about, it seems, is relaxing, not getting stressed, getting in touch with the natural world, connecting with other people, enjoying the sacred intersect between nature and experience. Hawai'i drivers are the most polite I've ever encountered. In Cleveland, the Interstate is dog-eat-dog, move-it-or lose-it, high-speed roulette where people often as not will speed up to keep you from changing lanes and God-help-you if you drive the speed limit in the fast lane. There is urgency to Get Somewhere Now. In Hawai'i, one almost never hears car horns. Sure, they drive 70 mph on the H-1 when possible, but there isn't the same manic intensity to their driving. Want to change lanes? - sure, go in front of me, we'll both get there for sure, bra'. People seem to know that what's important is all around them: water, sea and sky; family, food, ancestors, waves, and tomorrow.

Best of all, there was green everywhere. I had left a world of white and gray: clouds hanging low in the frozen sky and gray/black/brown(!) snow drifts in parking lots waiting for a thaw to melt away the residue of exhaust, salt and gravel. I left my coat and gloves behind and stepped into a mid-summer evening rich with smell of growing things, warm and fertile, expectant and inviting.

The indigenous people of Hawai'i, the Hawaiians if you will, make up about 25% of the population. Like most cultures subject to the influence of crown and colony, their identity and culture suffered for years; not wiped out entirely, but hidden amid the demands of trade and commerce and religion. That is changing. Slowly, but changing, nonetheless. Hawaiian history and culture, Hawaiian identity is being encouraged. The authors the of the incredibly relevant and helpful guidebook "Oahu Revealed" note that the Hawaii of today is much different in that respect than what one might have encountered even ten years ago. Today, Hawaiians are everywhere. They seem happy to share their island with the rest of us "mainlanders", but it is, make no mistake, and in subtle, but distinct ways, their island.

There is more to see here, more to feel and smell and touch, than imagined from the perspective of a land-locked Ohio boy. Is it Paradise? Depends on what you mean. If Paradise can have racism and homelessness and all of the other problems of life in the West, then I guess it is. You just have to remember that there is also a place where whales come to breed and dolphins come to play. There is also a place where waterfalls and volcanos and coral reefs and forests and crystal-clear water on white and black sand beaches co-exist with MacDonald's and Sam's Club and KFC and where the median home price is a half-million dollars.

I am back home barely a week and already saving for next year's trip. I am into the daily routine of life in the snow belt, but wondering, along with the other thousands of visitors, whether I could afford to make the move to a place where life seems more vibrant and full, more real and livable, less cold and gray and competitive, more interesting, less big-box-bland, more . . . normal? right? passionately-laid-back? More like Paradise than Paradise Lost.
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