Colorado Mountain Passes

I miss the stars. There were tons of stars there due to the low-intensity streetlights, which cut down on the light pollution for the Gemini Telescopes on Mauna Kea.

I miss the farmers’ market. I miss the way it smelled, and my Saturday morning routine of walking there, buying an empanada and coke, and shopping.

I miss the warmth. And the humidity. I had great hair in Hawaii.

I miss being able to orientate by "uphill" and "downhill" instead of "left" and "right." (That would be "mauka" and "makai." They make so much more sense on an island.)

I miss the island music on the radio stations, but not my neighbor who played it on Saturday mornings starting at about 7am.

I miss using the Hawaiian-word skill I developed. You know, Hawaiian words have so many vowels. It takes time to learn to read them, esp. on street signs!

I miss the rubber slippers, and that you could buy them on sale at the KTA for $1.99. I still have my pair. They have purple honus (seaturtles) on them.

I miss some of the people I met there. One family in particular had two daughters that would have been my students if I’d taken the secondary teaching position, but who turned out to be my friends instead. They were fun, and were able to ask me about their English classes, since I have expertise in English.

I do not miss the leaf-blower that cleaned out the Shop’n’Save parking lot every morning at 6:30 am. I do not miss the grunge that built up on my face due to the traffic that thundered by my apartment and the school every day and all day long.

I do not miss the roaches, esp. the flying ones.

I do not miss that the seasons never changed, and that nothing ever seemed to get any easier in my day-by-day life. Instead of being always winter and never Christmas, it was like always summer and never autumn. Mainland people really like seasons, and now that I am back on the mainland, I really enjoy the change of the seasons, even when I dealt with cold and slush and dark. At least it was a change!!

I do not miss how I didn’t seem to have much privacy in my apartment. The shutter-style windows did not provide much privacy, and as for the plywood walls…not much soundproofing.

I do not miss the roaches!!! But once you learn to live with roaches, you remember how to live with roaches and you never cry and scream over them again.

I don’t miss that I didn’t have any real friends. Or a real church.

I do not miss the high prices. Cereal was so expensive there! And cucumbers, and apples.

But God is good, and what others meant for evil he means for good. And Jesus allows us to suffer in order that we can enjoy the resurrection even more.

Whoa! I wrote this a while ago, and rereading it have an interesting thought. Do you wonder why I jump from little irritants to a sentence about suffering? Well, believe me when I tell you that I did suffer in Hawaii (and when I came home), that irritants and suffering are two different things!, and that I know the difference. And God is Good!