Musings: What Else Matters?

The sun rose in a blaze of orangey-pink glory, and Koko and I were there at the water’s edge to greet it, the musky fragrance of hinano, the hala flower, mingling with the scent of salt and limu.

I swam in the shimmer path in a foamy, wind-tossed sea, and we walked on sand washed fresh by the waves, the first to leave our tracks on an otherwise deserted beach. An albatross soared and dipped just feet above my head, and then was joined by another, and they flew in wide, soaring circles over the heliotrope and ironwood trees.

In such a setting it was easy to reflect upon the three words my sister in Portland had shared at the end of our telephone conversation on Friday: compassion, attention, gratitude.

Really, what else matters?

And as I drove home, Koko riding side saddle on my lap, as she always does, into the land of cloudy skies that lies mauka of the Sleeping Giant, I had a smile on my face, love in my heart and waffles on my mind.