Beachfront

Of all the places I've stayed on this island, the most satisfying - just as a place to be - is here, in the house I moved into yesterday. Itʻs right on the beach: none of the other details about the house are nearly as important, although it is a beautiful house. As they say in real estate: location, location, location.

Walking up to the front door one sees through the glass, through the large glass sliding doors in the back, through into the back yard lawn, a low hedge, and finally, the ocean. There's something spectacular about that view right through the home that cannot be ignored, that grabs you and invites you in. Perhaps it harkens back to ancient human preference to be near water, even just a bit of the look and feel of a Hawaiian hale, the traditional structures built here for hundreds of years of posts, thatched roof, often no walls so you also looked through it.

First thing I want to do upon arrival is go out into the yard, through the hedge, and step out onto the beach. Not a soul around. Tide is up: the waves are right here at my feet with a thin band of sand. Not long afterwards, swimsuited, I stroll down to the nearby spot where I like to enter the water. Most of the shore here is covered with flat slabs of rock, sometimes with a thin covering of sand washed or not, and when the rock is exposed it can be rough or slippery. Hence a sandy entry is desirable: there is one at either end of the bay here and other sandy spot where a river dumps out into the bad.

The water is surprisingly warm, with cooler swirls that intermingle in complex patterns with the movement of the ocean. Plenty of fish are visible through the murky water, darting around the edge of the flat rock outcroppings as well as around some coral than dots the sandy bottom. In this bay it's shallow quite a way out from shore and it takes careful navigation in spaces to weave through without getting too shallow to swim. The warm water patches persist well out here and not necessarily in the shallower portions. Doubling back and exploring in the other direction out by the point that defines this end of the bay, the water gets distinctly cooler: currents must be bringing up deeper water. There are very few fish here so I turn back.

Until I stayed here previously for a few weeks in April I had always considered it frivolous when people would rave about living in a beachfront home, it must be a status symbol, nothing more. Being within walking distance of the beach it's all the same I had concluded. I quickly learned otherwise once I had experienced it. Ocean view has a peaceful aesthetic - I got that - and also being near enough to the shore to hear the sound of the waves - that was also pleasant. Yet what I came to appreciate is that being right there next to the beach, that makes an important connection, a much more powerful thing.

One cannot help but focus on the ocean when it is right out the back yard. By comparison, the road you drove on to get here along with the connections back to "civilization" the road embodies, falls away in importance. People have always lived near the ocean since ancient times. The Hawaiian land parcel called an ahupuaʻa honors the connection to the ocean: it's a pie-shaped region from the top of the mountains down to the beach that emcompasses the full diversity of island geography. Every ahupuaʻa is beachfront property.

As much as I love the west side, the beaches on the east (I think only the tourism board refers to this as the Coconut Coast) are indeed fine. The trade winds blow in from the ocean, blowing the tops of the waves into white foam, bringing the smell of the sea inland. No doubt exterior upkeep is challenging here but it is worth the trouble.

Back at the house and showered off, I am content sitting out back just watching the ocean for some time. My connection to it just recently renewed lasts even a good while later back there. Effortlessly my mind is clear and relaxed.

A trip to the beach is a very different experience, defined by a beginning and an end. You pack up everything you'll need, drive there, carry it all out onto the sand, play, swim, sit, get sandy. At some point though you have to go back: you pack up, haul it all back, sand and wet. Being right here day in day out the experience just goes on and on - nothing to haul, you can be out on the beach, or cleaned up and in the comforts at home anytime all the time. You completely skip that moment of slight regret when you need to decide to pack it up for the day.

I can't explain it but I don't aspire to live on beachfront property someday - at least for now. Perhaps it is best reserved as a special treat to be savored rarely. Year after year possibly it would get to become routine, not appreciated so much, though I doubt it. Most likely, as best as I can tell, it might be too compelling - it might distract from doing other things - and I would end up whiling away my days just hanging about the beach doing little else, happily unproductive.

What a privilege it is to spend solid time here on the edge of the ocean. Time to get out there again today. Even inside, cooking or reading or writing or whatever, the sound is there with you. Any time you can look up and see the waves, and if you like wander out there one more time.