When I couldn’t fall asleep in the sands of Maui
And I HAVE fallen asleep in the sands of Maui
But when I couldn’t fall asleep in those sands
I did the next best thing
Or the thing NEXT TO the thing that sits on the last page of the book that sits
on the same shelf as the book that lists things
As nice as the sands of Maui
I would open my window
And listen to the sound of traffic roll by.
It builds like waves crashing down on the shore
As the tires roll smoothly on the pavement beside my home
And then as the crescendo reaches it’s feverish pitch
The cars and trucks roll over the drainage grate in the ditch
Just then they roll on and roll off out of range
Like the crest of a wave so proud to have travelled as one body of water
For so long
And so fast
To the shore
That as it hits the continental shelf the top of the wave itself snaps
And makes the same cracking noise
It resembles the sound of a snapping towel
Because it resembles the motion of a snapping towel at its peak.
Through the night I hear these waves of cars and trucks roll towards and past
And I am able to imagine myself again in the sun and sand
Not a care in the world
All of my thoughts intact
All of my body intact
My trajectory – forward – no room to pause or doubt
Just the belief that as long as I keep doing what it takes to stay in the sand
And on the beach
In that sun so warm
My mind would do what it needed to do to maintain that roll.
I’ve said this before / I’ll say it again here (eloquently – I hope)
There are three places to be with a wave, only one of them is ‘fun’
You can be behind the wave, missed again!
Watching as the water builds and rises and pushes away without you.You can be in front of the wave
Bouncing up and down in the water
Missed AGAIN!
beach.
This time the wave falls down on top of you and pushes you down as it rushed the
Then there is the sweet spot
No wave
No wave
No wave
No wave…
A small swell starts to lift you
You bound UP as much as you can, like trying to use your own thrust the same as
a trampoline
BINGO!
You catch it! You are ON THE WAVE.
You don’t have to stand still and watch the wave roll past
You don’t have to brace-up as the wave falls on your head
You are on the wave
With the wave
At ONE with the wave
You ask the wave: “is there room for one more?”
And the wave claps back: “I don’t even notice you there! Hold on!”
THAT is the wave that carries you.
That is the wave that fulfills you.
The wave that you came in search of.
You don’t always find it, maybe one in every 40 or 50
But when you find it, it is just perfect.
As I sit under that open window
Distracted by lights flashing
Persecuted by a console with LEDs that flicker with data coming in and out.
And thoughts flashing of things I never did or things I did wrong when I should
have done nothing.
And life that has passed me by to the point where I don’t know if there will ever be
another wave to catch me…
Hell – I’d take one that crushed me for good as long as it came with the smell of
coconut scented suntan lotion!
I hear those cars crest and drive on past
Wondering if I can at least have one good dream of what it was like to be perfect
and exempt.And then maybe wake up on that beach again.
7/27/26