A Walk

I went for walk earlier tonight. The sun was retreating in the west, the spilled ink of night was spreading from the east, the sky between was a lived in blue gray. Walking in silence, my eyes move liked a conductors hand around the world before me. The quaint houses with open windows I would peek into as I passed, the lush landscapes that give way to concrete apartment buildings with piles of garbage and discarded furniture out front. Each street in Honolulu is so many different things.

I walked straight up into the hills of upper Makiki. The quaintness returned, the sky grew darker, and I found myself on a street with no one in front of me, no one behind. I closed my eyes and stood still, letting the evening breeze move across my face in the most perfect way. The way that it only does on Oahu. I let my mind go, and listened to the wind blow through the leaves of a banyan tree. The sound each leaf makes, works in perfect harmony with the others to create atmosphere for any scenario.

Tonight as the smells of dinners cooking in peoples kitchen mixed with the sound of the leaves, I remembered taking walks around the town of Carlyle, IL as a kid with my grandpa. He and I would walk almost every evening when I stayed with him and my grandmother. I was seven or eight at the time, and each night after supper we'd stroll. I don't remember if we talked about anything, mostly we rambled on in our own imaginations. The walks always lead to the same place. A small ice cream stand, where he'd buy us each a cone. Vanilla for him, mint chocolate chip for me. And on those late spring and summer nights, we'd sit quietly on the patio and listen to St. Louis Cardinal baseball games while the crickets chirped and the cares of the world went by unnoticed.