This is only my second entry for the month of June. Seeing as my New Year’s resolution was to do at least one entry a week, I’m staring at a 50% fail rating for this month. Or, maybe it’s a 50% success rate. I am an optimist. Besides the lack of feedback on my last entry, I do have reasons (read: “excuses”) for not writing as much.
First of all, I was gone for a whole week. . . in Seattle! For those of you who logged onto Facebook anytime between the 9th and the 16th, I’m sure you were bombarded with my daily photo albums. I got quite camera happy. And why wouldn’t I? Seattle was a fantastic place to visit! My family rented a model-perfect, two-story house in a neighborhood that reminded me of a clean Berkeley. All the character and charm of my old college town without the hobo smell. And just like Berkeley, we were within walking distance of the main college drag: University Street a.k.a. The Ave. Small, privately-owned shops and healthy restaurants lined both sides of this student-infested street. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time walking up and down The Ave.
Downtown was a $17 cab ride away. While our northeast neighborhood was a clean version of Berkeley, Downtown was a clean version of San Francisco. Besides the lack of hobos (I’m sure the rain washes them away), Downtown Seattle felt like San Francisco. The seafood was great, the shops were eccentric, and the street musicians were abundant. I could have sworn I stumbled onto a hidden pier off the Embarcadero. At one point I even smelled my city by the Bay. The fact that I felt at home and at the same time knew I was traveling made my experience in Seattle special. I was simply happy.
I am not going into detail about my day-to-day adventures in the Emerald City. That’s been done through my Facebook photo albums (all the detail you could ask for. . . with pictures!). What I will discuss, however, was how Seattle changed my view of Hawai’i. While touching down on the runway at HNL Tuesday evening, it occurred to me that my trip to Seattle was my first vacation from the island. I went home in December, sure, but that was “going home.” This was “going on vacation.” I came back with a sigh and realized I had finally settled in.
I have a routine here. Sure, it’s not as tedious and repetitive as it was during my Whole Foods days, but it’s still a lot of the same. Ride bike to work. Ride bike back from work. Watch TV with roommates. Hang out at bars with coworkers. I’ve lost that urge to “explore the island” every chance I get. That little voice that motivated me to just walk around Waikiki during my free time has quieted to silence. There’s nothing new. Nothing exciting. It’s just Hawai’i. It’s just home.
Routine leads to lack of progress, lack of progress leads to lack of story, lack of story leads to empty blog. And that’s my second reason for not writing as much. I know, I know, it’s a lame excuse, but unless you want to read about how well my tables did at Forrest Gump trivia, you’ll be stuck with these bi-monthly routine rants.
Until, of course, I move to Seattle next year. . .
(Young Man Went North? More on that next time.)
Young Man Went East 