2024 is now more than a week old; the year got off to a great start, spending the first week (more or less) in Maui, our family's "happy place." We've been going out just about every year for the past 20, and have seen our son in a sense 'grow up' there.
As a barely one-year-old, I can remember waking at four in the morning and carrying him around the beach walk in the darkness. Listening to the waves and waiting for the sun to rise. Then as a toddler, learning to swim in the pool and making sand castles. Now, he is on the edge of adulthood.
Who knows how many more trips we have left?
One of my personal favourite things about being in the Islands is that Ka'anapali is west-facing, which means that on a clear day, we can watch the sun sink slowly into the distance over the Pacific.
It reminded me of a time, many years ago.
Recently, I was asked a question - what is a favorite memory you hold onto of feeling alive? What made you feel that way? How long did the feeling last?
I could fall back on a number of quite significant things. All are terrific memories.
Being in Maui and seeing those golden sunsets brings me back to a far more prosaic time.
In the fall of 1995, I was living in Fremont, California, a suburban city about an hour south and east of San Francisco. I was 25 years old then, in my first job. No real responsibilities. Each weekend, I would go hiking in one of the many parks in the east bay. A favourite was a place called “Garin Ranch,” which is just above neighbouring Hayward. It’s a series of easy, relatively flat trails in the foothills.
I remember that it was getting later in the afternoon, and was cool. Maybe 50 degrees. It was getting towards sunset and dusk.
From the trail in Garin Ranch, you can see the San Francisco Bay below, and on the other side, the cities of the Peninsula and the Santa Cruz Mountains.
It was a crystal clear day, and the sun had just begun to set behind the mountains. I stopped to watch as the sun touched the mountains, and then gradually sank behind them. I had never really watched the sun go down, and I was amazed that you could actually see it sinking, slowly from view. Over about 45 seconds, it descended, and then was gone, leaving “golden hour” light.
For the first time in my life, I saw the sun set, and it was an awesome, magical feeling.
That feeling was a time I really, truly felt alive.
Now, it’s obviously not constant, because I have to think back to that day. But the feeling has now lasted nearly 30 years.
