Craving

Sometimes I get these cravings.
I don't mean the flavors that my tastebuds long for, it's almost a nostalgic, sensual, emotional craving.

For the last hour I've had a craving. It started out at the thought of a glass of water.
Soon, I realized that wasn't enough. I envisioned an extremely large body of water. I was craving being engrossed in the rhytmn of the pacific ocean's waves.

But that wasn't quite enough.

I wanted to be at Turtle Bay Resort, on the North Shore of Oahu.
I want to hop from the ocean, to the pool, back to the ocean, to the pool.
And I want it to be 1996.

Although I lived on Oahu for years, I've got a specific instance that I aspire to acheive, that ultimate bliss that I once experienced.

It was 1996. My first trip to Hawaii.
Me and my long blonde leg hairs had just graduated the fifth grade, and my sister had just graduated high school. She was off to attend Brigham Young University over there. And my family followed suit.

I was ten, my brother was fifteen, and my sister was eighteen.

In preparation for my hawaii trip I watched "My Father The Hero" (vintage Katherine Heigl) about twenty seven times. Every time Nicole dipped into that listerine - blue water, my toes tingled with excitement all the way up and through to my perma-grin smile and googley blue eyes. I smiled, knowing that I would be walking around on a tropical island diving into pools and floating in the satly sultry sea.

This movie was to me, and my Hawaii trip, like "Gonna Fly Now" by Peter Wolmarans, was to Rocky. You know thee "Rocky".

It pumped me up. I knew that in a matter of time, I too- would have the pool, the sand, the ocean, the fruit drinks, the tan, and an even tanner Hunk of a man. Ok, most likely my pre-pubescent self matched with my hairy legs wasn't going to land me a dreamy local boy any time soon. But I could feel it, it was soo close.

I remember the smells immediately off of the airplane. The sounds. The wind. I remember seeing the first sunset hover over the fluorescent waters. I'd previously never understood how beauty can captivate one's emotions, but I remember - even at my premenstrual age, I felt it. I felt the beauty surrounding me. I was overcome by it. It was no longer a vision: It was a feeling. I was convinced that I was just sweating tiny droplets of the sodium packed ocean out of my tear ducts. Not me- I wasn't crying.

I remember my dad buying all of us beautiful lei's to wear. I felt like a Hawaiian princess. Spreading my plumeria scented aura amongst the land. Behold, Princess Brynn Akuhnakikahu Lau Lau had arrived.

To the outside world, my family was a bunch of tall, skinny, blonde, pale as powder- TOURISTS. But I didn't see it that way. I was on my own island, owning it. I felt fireworks. With every waking moment, my dreams were coming true. I no longer pictured myself as an akward gangly girl who could be out-weighed by a gallon of milk. I was bronzed, I was beautiful, I had long black flowing hair.

When I reminesce my latter years, when I was actually living in Hawaii; they are very significant, but nothing really brought such electricity to my soul, as the trip of '96. I look back at my years as a resident of Hawaii and smile at the good times. But when I think back to my trip of '96 I still actually feel it. My throat grows a lump, my eyes produce a subtle swell, followed by a wistful case of the goose bumps.

I think this trip to me was so life changing because it was the first encounter I had with "Possibility". I acknowledged the possibilities that the world had out there for all of us. The tropics were not just for the movies, the fancy cruises, or those stranded on a desert island. They were for family vacations and College kids too! It didn't have to be a distant dream to let your toes mingle with the orchestra of the soft, yet, exfoliating sand. I was doing it. I was living it. It was possible.

This trip also proposed to me: "Growth". My big sister was leaving us. What some called my sister- I viewed as my idol. She really was a princess ( Portland Rose Festival Princess- it was a big deal in the ninties). She was beautiful, virginal, humorous, intelligent, a prom and homecoming queen that oozed with integrity and honorable values. She was my Madonnna, my Britney Spears. And I knew that after ten days, I'd have to let her go. We were leaving her on this island.

Where was I going to find my new dance moves? Who's hairstyles would I copy? Who's dates would I tag along on?

I realized my sister had to grow. She was "grow"-ing up. And it was time for me to grow as well.

Just a few days into the trip, my family and I found ourselves kicked back, maxin' and relaxin' at the Turtle Bay Resort. Out of nowhere- I come to realize myself being smothered by four pairs of blue eyes throwing daggers at me, followed by a chuckle here and a giggle there. Can you imagine? All of them! Just gawking at me! My own flesh and blood! My sister (brother, dad and mom) had caught a glimpse of the beautiful shinning sea of golden locks, that swayed back and forth with the Hawaiian breeze, on my teeny, tiny toothpick- like legs.

It was time.

two disposable razors and an hour later. I was nude. Ok, I wasn't nude. But I felt like a skinned cat. What had my sister done to me? I remember so vividly that night. My legs caressed the hotel's white thread count, and to me it was the most awful feeling of all. I wanted my leg's golden comfort blanket back.

The next day, I was teased by my brother and my dad. It was a catch 22, a lose lose situation, I was teased either way. I was either Harry with the Hendersons, or I was mocked by the uncanny resemblence of my legs to Uncle Fester's head.

I remember indugling into a heaping mound of shave ice, freezing my brain with a tasty Dole whip. I helped break open, and cut up coconuts and pineapple, and when doing so- my mind told me that I was living like they did in the ancient Hawaiian days. We attended Luaus, and I became extremely mesmerized by the ocean like motions that those beautiful women created as their hips shifted. But I couldn't get myself to stray for very long from the thought, that all I wanted was to be back in that water.

I would always end my days with a peaceful swim in the evening. The way the moon hit the water and bounced off of my sibling's sparkling shoulders, was unreal. It was that sparkle that you'd sometimes see on Ariel in the little mermaid. I soaked it all in. Everything was captured and tucked away in my ten-year-old memory card.


I sometimes forget about the Brynn 12 years ago. That young girl was completely consumed by the feelings, enthralled by the beauty, absorbing it all.

She wanted to live there, She wanted to love there, She wanted to grow there.



And I did.



( circa 2005. Our 1st valentines day as a married couple)