Dad's Life 3D: A love letter from Maui

I sure wish I had more time to keep up on my blog. Or should I say, I wish I made more time to keep up on my blog... Truth is, I love writing, and with the exception of writing a commercial spot or marketing spot from time to time, these days this blog seems like the only outlet where I get full range to be creative through my own choice of words. And as a divorced dad writing about my life with my kids, I do believe that there is some importance to this.

Travel inspires me write. There's something romantic about being 2500 miles from home that makes me want to tap on the keys of my laptop. OK, yes, I'm with my kids, so a romantic get-a-way this is not. But with this summer's family vacation being Hawaii, regardless, who wouldn't be inspired!

The act of writing while traveling didn't always come natural to me. Initially I was "encouraged" to do it by my parents. "Encouraged..." Which really means they made my sister and I do it. Like it, or not. When I was a kid, I didn't want to write when we traveled. I wanted to play. But, my dad was a journalist, turned professor of English and journalism, and my mom was a world traveler. By the way, I still have a long way to go to catch up on the roads she's traveled, but I keep chipping away at it little by little.

I learned to write from my dad. Up until I was about six, he was an editor/copy writer at the Los Angeles Times. Sometimes he would dictate stories over the phone from home, and when he did, he would include punctuation so that the story could run verbatim the next day. His cadence, and the way he enunciated while dictating stories was singsongy to me as a child. Almost poetic. I can still hear his words in my head as if it was yesterday.

But my dad didn't make me write. That was my mom. She was the enforcer and I have the travel journals to prove it! Every time we hit the road, or got on an airplane, I knew I'd be waiting about it. And, I'm glad I did, because she inspired me to do something I love, even if I didn't know it at the time. I must thank them both for giving me the tools that have helped me create my own little history.

Long before we had smart phones and other electronic devices that enabled us to connect to our family or friends back home with great ease, travel could get lonely at times. We played outside with other kids we met at hotel pools, campgrounds, beaches, rivers or national parks. We chatted with our new friends from far off places, like Wichita, Woking, Aarhus and many other places. We learned a lot about each other in a very short period of time. Sometimes we even fell in love. Mostly as a memory, but those memories can live on inside your head for decades. What if we didn't live on the other side of the planet from each other...? What if I had learned to speak Japanese, Danish, Italian or French...?

Back then we became pen palls and stayed in touch by writing letters. What's crazy is that I'm now friends on Facebook with some of these pen pals whom I met on my travels. It's amazing to me that we've stayed connected for so many years now. We've gone from letters, to email, to social media. But, I can't help but wonder where many of the other kids I met while traveling are these days. Maybe one day I will pull out my journals and search them up! One day...

Now, there's something to be said about being so connected these days while traveling. Unlike back-in-the-day where an internet cafe was our only connection to the world, it wasn't hard for me to get in touch with with some friends from home who happened to be staying a couple miles south of us on Maui! They were at the end of their vacation, so it was nice for us to hook up before they made their journey back home. We had a great dinner together in Lahaina and got to hear stories from their vacation on these magical islands. My son got to hang with his bro. My daughter got to work her magic, taking care of his three-year-old little brother. Life is good!

Tonight is a balmy, but breezy night in Kaanapali, which is on the the Northwestern edge of Maui. From our hotel balcony, I can see the big dipper clear as can be. Down below I can hear kids night swimming in the resort pool that changes colors from green, to blue, to darker blue, to purple. There is a small volcano in the pool that is lit up red, and appears to be spewing red water bubbles. The grounds are carefully manicured with palm trees and other tropical flora. Walkways are lit by tiki torches.

Nestled in the corner of the balcony, doors wide open, I sit on my laptop tapping away at the keys. The kids are sitting on the couch a few feet away from me relaxing before bed time. They're playing one last game of Fortnight. In Hawaiian, the word for heaven is lani. Yes, the stars are aligned tonight. Well, except the Fortnight part... But when you're on vacation with a 12 and nine-year-old, you can't have everything!

Aloha