A friend just sent me an email all the way from Hawaii.
As I was reading her message, I was perfectly aware that it is, in fact, a lovely day here in New York. Spring has sprung, and the weather is becoming downright reasonable. The gods, it seems, having forgiven us our trespasses, have at last relented from their long vernal temper tantrum.
Yet my memories of Hawaii — of Kawaii, of Maui, of lush trees and glistening blue ocean, of long mountain hikes and finding shells by the cool breeze off the shore — remind me that even a beautiful sunny day in Manhattan is not, how shall I say, a day at the beach.
There is a certain kind of peace and calm that is simply not what we are about, here on our teeming shore.
And I think about my friend, happily observing the waves or reading some escapist novel from her shaded chaise by the beach, and I am delighted for her.