As I begin writing this it's golden hour again and I love the way the sunset turns the dorm surroundings. I feel so much better. Transported. Kind of unreal. But so very very much in love with where I am, where I'm living, what I'm experiencing, Hawaii.
Home has never seemed so precious or so lovely. I mean, this is the same old island I've lived on for all of my life. At the same time, it's not my island where I'm living, right now. This isn't my side. Every time I look at the surroundings as I walk around the dorm roof, I think, this isn't my home turf. Silly thing to think, silly way to put it, but my silly mind immediately pulls out that phrase, because this isn't my side of the island. My side of the island deals with horrendous weekday traffic just to reach "town". My side of the island is flat, rainless, and ridiculously hot in the summer and fall nights. It has a strange amount of geckos sitting themselves down in the middle of sidewalks, upon tall white plastic fences that separate dying grass in backyards.
Though this isn't my side of the island, I love it here, none-the-less. And though this side of the island offers me "so much more", the more crowded city-like lifestyle, the tourist-attraction beaches, hotels, and shopping malls, I don't love my side of the island any less. After all, in the Leeward side lies my childhood, my family, (THE WATERPARK!), and many, many memories.
In a way, that side of the island carries my past. This side of the island carries my high school years, and will carry my high school years. It carries my future, it houses my dreams. What are my dreams? I'm quick to say that I don't really have any. But if I dig into the past and call upon those imaginary future scenarios that my mind dwelt so heavily upon before, I can say this now: Even if writing papers takes me forever and drives me insane as I try to figure out what words would be most effective, I would not mind trying to spend a part of my life writing for the public. Fiction, in stories or poems, would be nice. I guess I would eventually be okay sharing my opinion with the world at some point. I'm no journalist, I'm no special individual with a way with words that can capture people's hearts or sway their minds. I wouldn't mind trying to be one. I wouldn't mind going back to my ways with pen and paper and the open afternoon before me, the freedom to dream whatever I wish onto paper. Love stories ending with heartbreak, poorly researched mythical creatures and workings of space...
As restricting as the written language is, there is a freedom in being able to write what I can.
I guess college has left me always fighting the thought of how other people make judgments. It's held me back. I think I'm getting to conscious of other people. Or, I'm jumping to conclusions way too much. Caring too much.
I ran into that Mark guy on the roof when I went up to snap those photos. I think that's the guy who's always with Tenny, always wearing that hat and his glasses and his seemingly Filipino skin, shades of grey and calm, that beautiful camera of his. I had my oh-so-easy-to use Canon PowerShot with me and I inched past him as he shot Diamond Head, illuminated by the setting sun. I thought about him probably becoming a photographer, and I thought, good for him. It suited him. And it would be nice to spend a lifetime capturing the beauty in the world, treasuring those moments alone on rooftops with just one's perspective and the means to display it.
I felt so silly taking pictures with him at work. But it was okay -- I snapped these few and rushed back down the stairwell, past a girl sitting on the steps talking on the phone, past the smelly garbage chutes, past the empty 11th floor activity sign-up sheets, past the open doors revealing people I've never seen in my life.
I thought, even though I feel so lost right now, even though I'm fighting my bad habits and my fear, there is so much in this world that can occur, so much in this world to be lived for and explored.
Ray sent the link to this song and all the things I've been pondering about fell into place with that first lyric in the chorus. Time to swallow these worries, brush off the pressure, and just believe.
College will be okay.
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