Honolulu, Hawaii, USA:
Late afternoon arrival.
My backpack--my "Big Red Friend"--is gone. It has been misplaced, they say, by the airline. I am jet lagged and exhausted. I don’t know…maybe some kind of a circle is complete—at least I am back where I started…but all these cars! The wide, paved streets! The neat, clean people speaking English…the shiny, spacious, almost empty public bus to Waikiki…the dimes and quarters and dollar bills bus fare…the glittering hotels, so expensive, so familiar and so very, very strange!
Nothing has changed, but all is changed and strange to me!
I am no drinker, but I have a drink at a hotel bar I know. Here’s Ala Wai harbor where I lived for a couple of years on my very own sailboat. Here’s Waikiki--the Rainbow Tower and Hawaiian Village Hotel.
Oh, My God.
Where AM I? Where have I gone?
Where are the hustlers? The beggars? Are there no ragged untouchables here? Or am I the only poor, ragged untouchable now?
Nothing has changed but me alone!
I have changed!
I have made my long journey to the Monkey Temple and I will never be the same.
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