THAT DAY

I'm on a plane to Hawaii with my sister Miriel for a two-week vacation. Stare out the window, see Hawaii coming hundreds of miles off, rising nearly into the stratosphere...

Land in Oahu. Hotel. Halloween in Honolulu! We wander through arcades. Dreamlike, strange. Miriel buys a nude postcard for her best friend Diane. I blush. So shy!

THE DREAM

My friends and I round a tiny cape, running through rooms and lanais and up little stone stairs... all is twilit, lamplit, mysterious and quite beautiful. Through a sandy-floored cave...

Emerge to see a little cove; across it, on a sandbank, several people stand.

I have an intense reaction to the scene--realize this is the end of the path, the end of this life--if I can make it across to that beach, I'll be in a new life, a transcendent life. I go down to the water, check the area. No way round the shore of the cove. I sense we're supposed to try to find a way round but aren't expected to make it--it's been closed off.

So I go straight into the water! It's the only possibility. Shallow, but it slowly deepens. Over half way there, and still deepening. I didn't expect that, assumed it'd be a bowl! I wade on till the waves are pulling at me, up to my nose... It's deepest right under the far side; I lose my footing and the rip tide pulls me out. One of the Farsiders reaches out for me, but I'm still too far out and moving too fast. Have a sense I won't be swept out too far... but this WILL delay me.

TWO WEEKS LATER

It's our last day in Hawaii. I feel sad. I love Kauai, I could spend weeks exploring. Still, my sister and I are both sick and exhausted--in poor health to start with, and the stress of travel hasn't helped.

A dark morning, and it gets darker. Storm!

Try to drive to Haena but turn around--can't see a thing but gales of glassy rain. Go to the local mall. Look at coral and shells in glass cases instead of the sea. Spend the afternoon in, reading, writing, watching TV...

But late in the day, the storm lulls, and I decide to try again. I want to see Haena and Na Pali coast, with an urgency I don't really understand. Miriel's depressed and sick and sullen, as she has been the last couple of days... She says "Why even try, it'll just be raining. I say "Okay, then, I'll go alone."

In the parking lot, hear a yell. "WAIT FOR ME!" Miriel gets in. Glad I pushed her, now.

North! Tattered clouds, fast-flying. Flashes of sun. Lush green forests, pretty bays. Caves.

Miriel lies on the Haena beach. I hike alone up the trailhead to Na Pali. At sunset I climb to the stone terraces where the ancient Hawaiians had a hula dancing school.

At dusk a magical swim--the water crystalline, despite the recent storm. The fish and coral glow maroon, yellow, purple, midnight, parrot-green, in polarized light bounced off huge cumulus clouds. The lights come on around the cove, till it looks like an elven city, no mortal realm...

And then I realize the magical feeling is no mere trick of the light. Deja vu. And no illusion. I HAVE been here before! Two weeks ago, in my dreams, the very first night we came to Hawaii, I dreamed this moment--my last here. My tiny victory of willpower over our family's legacy of illness and pessimism.

When I get back to our room, I look in my journal--and there it is. It was real. At the beginning, I dreamed of the end.

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