Maui dreamin'

My friend Dean and I had a chat last night.

We were talking about the 1995 death of our friend and my cousin Josh Ellis, its existential effects, how life has changed since then, how we have become politically adrift, no longer recognizing the Republican Party and not being able to find a home anywhere else.

I told Dean I'd be happy just to sing my songs, tell my tales, make my music, sit in the sun.

I also told him about something that happened when we were on Maui last September. Jennifer had stopped at a roadside pull-off to buy trinkets from someone who had set up shop there. I stayed in the car, admiring the high-def azure of the ocean and the sky.

And on the radio (KPOA-FM!) came a hauntingly beautiful song by Kendra Fisher, "Haleakala Medley."

"I'm never going home," I said. "I have found paradise."

Paradise found, yes, but back home I went.

But, back to Paradise I would go, if I could.

Oh, I know. Hawaii has humans and with humans come problems. As Matt King says in "The Descendants," people may think Hawaii is paradise, but cancer still kills.

Indeed. But, I think if I saw the sun rise and set over that shoreline every day, I could handle just about anything.

I'm getting tired. Tired of the partisan bickering and blathering. Tired of the self-important jackasses in this crazy town that don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Tired of the sadness and the screams and Fox News and MSNBC and Romney and Obama and the whole darn shooting match.

I want to sit in the sun and sing my songs. I want to read and write and tell my tales. I want to live. I want to love. I want you to be free to do the same.

I want the nonsense to stop. I want common sense to make a comeback.

Otherwise, buffalo chips is all it means to me, or so said Tom T.

Haleakala

We were stopped at one of those roadside scenic lookouts that seem to populate Maui's coastline.

Jennifer was looking for a fishhook necklace for bruddah Keith. I had a headache and just wanted to sit in the car and ogle the ocean.

I'd tuned the radio to KPOA, an FM station that plays what it calls "Hawaiian music...Maui style." A most beautiful song began to play.

A young woman sang about going one summer morning to see the sun rise at the top of a mountain. It haunted my heart.

Sista Val, the popular DJ and music director, was kind enough to end my week of frustration and send me the name of the song ("Haleakala Medley") and of the artist (Kendra). Feel free to surf over to iTunes and check it out. You'll be glad you did.

Sitting in the car, overtaken by the Pacific, overwhelmed by Kendra Fischer's haunting harmony, I vowed then and there I wasn't leaving Maui. And, well. You know how that goes. I'll have to sell the Great American Novel about as well as Stephen King can roll out another spine-tingler, or pop the Powerball prize, in order to make that dream a reality.

And, yet, here I sit at 3 a.m., finishing an excellent novel set in Honolulu (I'll tell you more about that later), listening to Kendra's sweet song on my iPod, yearning to see the sun rise on Haleakala.

As it was rising, I could see all of my dreams, on top of that mountain, called Haleakala.

The way Kendra shares it through her song, I'm up there on the mountain, too, clearing my head, dreaming my dreams.

I have a bad habit of getting caught up in the moment, declaring that whatever I'm reading or hearing or watching at the time is the best, gosh-darn, greatest thing I've ever read or heard or seen. Well, let me tell you this as I check the hyperbole at the door: Hawaii is the most beautiful paradise I've ever seen.

It may be sooner, it may be later, but we'll be back one day, climbing the mountain, seeing the sun rise on Haleakala.

Until then, I have my memories, my contentment here at home, my loving wife and my words and rhyme.

Just don't be surprised to learn my daydreams are filled with sunsets and ocean waves, out there somewhere beyond the reef.