Flight Beyond the Stars

Sometimes you Have to See the Ocean, Part II Watching the beautiful bodies, I listened to the hotel band music swaying the people into the water and back again. I was sitting under an umbrella in a chaise lounge, relaxing like other people, no longer an observer, standing on the outside of life. It was time for me to get dressed and to return to the salon for a Jacuzzi before getting ready for the dinner show. On the beach, I decided to dress and it seemed to take as long for discreet dressing as it did undressing. Returning to the beach check-out-cabana, I washed the sand off my feet before heading down to the salon. As I walked through the pool gate, past the check-out center for beach chairs, I heard the band from next door playing “Tiny Bubbles.” When I had gone to hear Don Ho the last time I was in Honolulu, he gave us signed cards with our name and his, signed with the word, “Ohana” Family. Before my trip, not knowing I would go to Hawaii, I had sent Don Ho a fax hoping for some kind of connection. The fax was the response in part to his internet page which I had read in the local library in the middle of winter. He beckoned; “Don Ho gives you your wish from Hawaii.” There was nothing else available from the internet ad. Someone else had won the trip and the song would not play on the sound portion. I wrote to him saying I was spiritually attuned to Hawaii and loved her. Hearing the band play Tiny Bubbles struck me with its timeliness. What a lovely offer for me to be able to use the salon for the day. It almost felt as if I had expanded my room to my own spa. I would be able to shower and relax and get ready for the dinner at the magic show. Through the colonnade corridor, down the carpeted hallway, across the garden through an art gallery on the lower level, I entered the salon. When I opened the door to the Jacuzzi, I saw a five-foot high mountain of bubbles, the water was running and the bubbles kept growing. Frantically and quietly, I knocked on every door in the massage parlor. I had to tell someone to “turn back the ocean.” When a young man came out to help me, he saw the mountain and explained, “I don’t know who ordered this up for you.” Sheepishly, I gave testimony to the universe, not wanting to think or say Tiny Bubbles or Don Ho. Sometime later, I thought of the hotel band playing when I walked through the beach gate to go to the Jacuzzi. I wondered how my Japanese interest would be carried further on this trip. I hoped I would be with some Japanese people at the magic show and, of course, I was seated with a tourist group of twenty-five Japanese people. There was one seat left next to the only one who spoke English and just as soon as I was seated by the hostess, she came by again and re-seated me at another table, next to an American couple. Upset that I could not continue sitting with the Japanese, I asked the hostess to be moved back; she was not going to let me! I became insistent about the place where I wanted to sit, and so she moved me back. When I looked around, almost the whole room was filled with Japanese tourists and the girl sitting next to me reminded me that “Japan is only five hours away.” She, too, was a teacher and we had talked about the appeal of my life story workshops at her school. The couple across the table shared their smiles and the printed program for the evening. They graciously nodded hello, many times, when she explained who I was. What great, wondering disappearing people and energetic fire dancing, an extravaganza sight and sound show. The theme “Magic is seeing and seeing is believing” whirled like a pinwheel inspiring awe, as if there was no ending or beginning. Finally, I could see there was no ending and beginning. Truly seeing is believing; believing is seeing. I wondered about the truth that the magic show was trying to illustrate and my own faith. At the finale, the whole cast squeezed into a tiny hut on stilts and on command the house disappeared. A fantastic visual as the magician called out, “Building your house on concrete, seeing is not reliable either.” The turnabout that confirmed his message was in reality, “faith is the necessary ingredient, because even in the end, seeing is not believing.”—A highly entertaining, complex experience to create faith in the audience. During the show, I had established eye contact and energy with the beautiful hula dancer, the star of the show. The most beautiful woman I had ever seen, in body and spirit. When she came off the stage with the other performers to walk through the audience, she saw that she was near me. She excitedly came over to hug me. It seemed that I was her focus. How wonderful! After the performance, the Japanese girl who I sat next to at dinner sought me out of the crowd and asked me to stand with her parents for a picture. Someone else took the picture of all of us and she took down my address so that she could send me the picture and be in touch with me. The show was over. Musing and meditatively I walked through splendorous tropical plants and pools of the gardens joining the hotel toward the beach walk. As I circled around the very large planter with the ocean walk in full view, my eye caught the shine of a photo on the ground. When I stooped to pick it up, oh, my heart sank. A pornographic photo. What a contrast with the beautiful imprint of the lovely hula dancer and the picture of my new Japanese friend with me. I thought of the truth I knew that evil brings itself up against the beauty of truth. Ugliness reared its horrible head and also demanded also to be seen. Equal time. Looking out toward the ocean, I looked forward to my massage. This trip was not over, even at the end of my walk back to the hotel.