My Pot of Gold: Eyeballs fixed on iPads

Miles away, the velvet green slopes of West Maui's mountains backdrop a rainbow’s end as it falls out of misty clouds and hits the ground.  As I drive, swathes of yellow, green, blue, purple, red and orange mark my road’s endpoint.

Oddly, the rainbow never moves as I get closer. Two miles, one mile, a quarter mile, and the colorful stripes continue to collide with the same trees, in the exact same spot.  The nearer I get, each rainbow hue grows brighter and wider, like ribbons.  I think if I get out of my car and walk across the field, I could merely touch these multicolored strips.  They’re not going anywhere. I speculate a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow could virtually be found.  

And at this moment, as with so many others, I am stunned once again that I live on Maui. 

And too, I am now strangely solitary as I drive, marking the end of two weeks of visiting family; of chaos, of kids, of sand, of beach, of glorious conversations, of sharing island discoveries with some of our beloved, including four of our children, three grandsons, and a grandpa. 

And in our 1,100 square foot Maui home, every moment had been a movement of people.  Clear logistics were needed for showering in two bathrooms.  The garage was used for personal phone calls.  The master bedroom became Tom’s escape away from the Orr family of cousins squabbling, parents lecturing to not jump off the top bunk onto hard-as-rock actual-rock flooring.  An air mattress conked out so adults and kids rotated sleeping arrangements on the couch. Food overflowed kitchen countertops and swelled our fridge.  

Our clothes washer tumbled and cleaned towels, shorts, socks and swimsuits continually for ten days, prompting it to ask for union wages.  Dryer lint shot out the side of our home onto the patio and its furniture, and sometimes onto our toast, whether we asked for an extra topping or not.

The only place we could let the grandsons knock themselves silly with play was at the beach.  And even then, in all childhood’s seeming invincibility, the boys were repeatedly interrupted by adult warnings not to swim out so far.  Four beach chairs strategically placed on the sand propped a row of adults supervising childhood energy.

(When I use the word “strategically”, I use it with importance.  You see, math is required to perform proper etiquette at the beach.  It’s one of those half-life calculations.  Take the distance from Point A (one group of beach goers) to Point B (the next closest group) and divide it in half to find the politically correct spot to unfold and park a beach chair.  If, say, few people are on the sand, you settle at a calculated distance halfway between.  If the beach has been filling in its halfway points, people plop closer and closer.  If crowded, each new camp can wedge into a tight space without accusation…  How badly I have the urge to one day just set up towels and umbrella three feet from another sun worshipping party, but 120 feet from the next, just to test the human mind.)

For our Maui family visit, nine people fit exactly into two cars, including one in a child car seat. When great-grandpa arrived to join the fun-slash-mayhem for two days he had to rent one more car: the car without sand.

For long durations, young and older sprawled across our large sectional sofa and a reclined lazy-boy chair and a bottom bunk, like flopped dogs taking a siesta in the afternoon’s heat--each person engrossed in a personal electronic device, drooped side by side, but in completely different worlds.

Sometimes I look at this as whiling away, and I think what I would give to have the physical abilities of a ten-, twenty-, or thirty-year-old.  If I could just “not feel” the aches of a sometimes sore back, or delightfully feel the power of youth’s easily exercised and sculpted muscles, I would choose instead to set down my iPad and sprint out the front door to jog six extra miles, or built a taller sand castle, or surf for the first time ever. I would do all these things with glee, with excited agility, and then some. 

Grandsons Paul, Kaden and Josh

But I was young once.  I realize I cannot explain the advantages of youth to youth.

It’s all good, as my son says.  Eyeballs fixed on iPads mean a content family hanging together, and that’s most important.  So I concede and go to use my own personal electronic device and write, like I am now.  All in all, togetherness and contentedness envelope us, even if we have already caught up on stories and have used every last towel in the house. The chaos and calmness of family roared into our quiet Maui life and filled it with vibrancy for twelve whole days.

Now that family has left, our dog has stopped ducking under the bed for intermission.  Our dishwasher now waits days to fill. Bananas, hot dog buns and apples, which had overwhelmed our countertops, give way to now sterile blackish-green granite. 

Our clothes washer rests for its union break. Neatly folded white towels bulge in the hall closet with no plans. Capri-Sun fruit drinks sit in the fridge missing grandkids. So do I.  The sand has been carted out.  Perhaps I should spread some once again on the garage entry floor just to feel family.

And a rainbow is within reach today.  If I choose to walk over to it, I am indifferent about finding a pot of gold, so I’ll turn left instead.  Besides, the gold had already been found these past two weeks.