Two weeks ago, in a kind of dull post-election haze, I hopped a plane to Oahu and posted up at the Four Seasons Ko Olina’s rooftop tennis center. I don’t turn tail and run in the face of every emergency, but after what many would describe as a cataclysm, I was powerless to resist the promise of a lei greeting.
They say the election results are legally binding even in Hawaii, but I can tell you that it all feels just a tiny bit less momentous there, where there’s Spam musubi at the market; guava jelly at breakfast; roosters strutting under banyan trees and gentle waves breaking on ancient lava beds. Sea turtles swim past your leg on their way to the safety of a shallow reef. There’s red mud in your sandals because you ducked the rope in search of good snorkeling. Monk seals lounge in a cove with—at best—a cursory understanding of the electoral college and frankly a woeful lack of contrition for coming between you and the good snorkeling.
For four days, there was sushi and yoga and fluffy robes, bone-warming sunshine and floating meditation—yes, that is a thing and you should do it—but the part that made me feel like life will go on was playing on that rooftop, where the trade winds buffet your ball and you dance around a fuzzed-up Pro Penn 2, which still bounces pretty well because it’s spent its whole sainted life at the Four Seasons.