The View From Here

From the seats of our dining room table, we can see the majestic green ridge of the Koolau Mountains out our windows. Every day the view is different, depending on the light, the clouds, and the mists that typically surround them.

(This view sure beats looking at our neighbors' beat-up, weekend surf vehicles, which was what our old dining room window view used to offer.)

From our bedroom at night, we can gaze out the window and watch the moon rise above the ridge line above our valley.

During the daytime, provided you crane your neck around a tad, the same window provides a glimpse of a mango tree, a lychee tree, an avocado tree, a strawberry guava tree, and a tangerine tree (pictured below, in front of the cactus).

These generous shade providers (all but one have yet to bear ripe fruit so far) surround a large grassy area where the kids are able, for the first time, to run through the sprinklers and kick a soccer ball around in their own back yard, instead of having to retreat to the neighborhood park.

And on clear days -- and most of them are -- from our backyard we can see a slice of sky where planes pass over the eastern tip of Oahu as they make their way back to the mainland.

I imagine the people on board, slightly sunburned and well rested, pants and skirts perhaps a little snugger than when they arrived from all the good food, but relaxed and better off all around from the time they've spent here in Hawaii. And not once yet have I wished I was on one of those planes instead of where I am now.