MountainMornings

We’d been dreaming about this for months. Our first vacation after being vaccinated; it had to be epic. This year robbed us of so much, it was time – time to return to our usual French habitat. To rest and recuperate.

The Groom caught Covid while taking care of his ICU patients. The Grands did Pod-Zoom school, followed by a strange, masked and socially distant single desk school. And the Bride, well she endured months of too little PPE, and too much pain and suffering in her ER.

The Rocker and Aunt KiKi were lucky enough to work from home. But unlucky enough to split their living room into two separate work spaces. One for music (in a headphone) and one for design flanked by two cats and a guard dog named Leo.

But France had other ideas. They thought we Americans were just too much of a risk. And in some ways, they were right. Still, I don’t get why they let the Brits in, and the Germans.

Plan B began to take hold. Hawaii was part of the US, and they would welcome us! We were all vaccinated except for the Cali crew and the children but so long as we all had a negative Covid test within 72 hours of our flight, we’d be good to go. And one of the Groom’s uncles had a house on the Big Island.

We are exploring an active volcano, and eating poke. We are swimming and snorkeling with fish and turtles. We are reading and relaxing in the sun. Our nomadic family has found another happy place.

It’s almost impossible to comprehend the amount of loss this pandemic has inflicted, and Great Grandma Ada was expected to live forever. I silently offered a prayer to the Goddess Pele; her volcano is active now and we can see her fire and steam.

I could live here, on black lava that looks like brownies baking in a giant’s oven.