2001-05-12 | 10:59 p.m.

corduroy licorice liked to compare apples and oranges. "look how smooth the peel of an apple is compared to the bumpy peel of an orange...and yet both coverings, though so dissimilar, are called 'peels,'" he would often muse to himself.

***

howzit, brah? i'm back from de island and still feeling de aloha buzz. paradise has been found, dude, and it's a lava-birthed lump of land called maui.

from the trade winds to the fluorescent fish to the fresh tropical fruit, maui is too amazing for words. while there, i caught myself overusing the word "beautiful."

i relaxed, snorkled through coves full of turquoise, purple, mauve and lemon yellow fish (some even sported a combination of all of the above colors)--even a polka-dotted eel, hiked through a rain forest and crossed swinging bridges, biked down a volcano (inactive, fortunately--heh), attempted windsurfing (unsuccessfully...maybe next time...), ate mangoes and papayas and pineapples, soaked in some sun poolside and pretty much turned relaxation into a lifestyle choice.

my sister and i schemed on how we could hook ourselves up with a house-sitting gig and come back for more. i really think i could live there, although my uncle says that after his over-the-summer stay, he's always ready to return to the mainland. i was talking to a local who's an engineer over there and he revealed that it's tough to get intellectual conversation on the island. most people want to limit the topic to water sports-related talk. hmmm...i dunno...i think i could hang, man.

plus, after about ten years of bathing suit avoidance, i discovered how much i like being in the ocean. it's been so many years since i was out there in the salty waves and face-kissing sun (despite the fact that i live 20 minutes away from the pacific. doh!), so now my resolution is to visit mother ocean as often as possible.

the experience opened my eyes in another way, too. it made me realize that two weeks of vacation a year is not enough. a lot of the mainlanders who love the islands have chosen jobs that allow them to take months-long leaves of absence. sure, they get stuck a bit lower on the corporate ladder and have to live on a shoestring, but they opened my eyes to the possibilities. we really do have more choices in our lives than we realize. we chose our path and can change our path. life, as they say, is too short to be stuck in an office doing overtime until you reach the gold-watch age. i realized that i need to rearrange my priorities a bit. there is too much of the world i still need to see. time to start a travel budget, yo.

even though i'm back home in my suddenly unfamiliar apartment and facing the prospect of a 9 a.m. meeting at the office in the morning, i can still hear the sound of the surf on the shore...see the glory of cloud-piled, tangerine sunset framed by the silhouettes of gracefully arched palm trees...ahhhh...don't wake me from my maui dream...the dream that opened my eyes.

<----������� ---->