the valley isle

a loveletter

Jul 02, 2026

West Maui is certainly some version of heaven. The Pacific Ocean at my literal door, the constant sounds of the waves and the joy of watching a paddle boarder ride a long one, baseball hat and all. I always feel like a tropical Snow White: birds landing on the table and the railing one after the other, even coming into the condo through the open sliding doors, turtles feeding on algae 30 feet away from the lanai. It is the place where i can eat apple bananas, tangy and tinged pink at the cross-section, in my pre-snorkel morning oatmeal and spoon fresh papaya from its skin. Slowly chew the shoyu poke and drink the wai koko coconut water ice cold at sunset after a hot day in the sun. Gorge myself on the water and shore activities, the marine wildlife, the birding. In the water I become weightless and I do not resist.

I went straight to the Honokawai Times Supermarket when i got in. There was no one in the produce aisle, just me and the fruit flies on the ripening mangos. I listened to the birds that live in the rafters chirp and fly around. I woke up to rain on the ocean and ate a spam, eggs and rice plate while getting soaked on a picnic bench.

The big attraction to Maui is the ease of shore-entry coral reefs. In the water I watch the green sea turtles take their time collecting their breath. Keeping their shell buoyant at the surface, taking sips of air before they descend down and nap under a shelf of coral. I saw my first shark this way too, nestled in a sandy cove at Honolua Bay, its white tip and smooth grey body. I swam by quickly not wanting to disturb, checked it off my mental list of what the many hours of time in the ocean has yielded.

One pleasant part of vacation is having access to a television. I have been following the world cup, finding football to be a pleasant sporting event to watch even while alone because it the action is so constant. Not like the baseball games I watched for hours on Cape Cod growing up, or the American football games with so much downtime that play now at my parent’s house. This trip is a tale of two condos, the first at the Royal Kahana which did have a roach infestation but did not have true cable with which to watch the world cup games. I settled for an Antiques Roadshow UK channel as well as Fifa plus which at first i thought was showing the 2026 cup but in fact it was a bush-era USA vs. Italy match. It played at 7pm for two consecutive evenings and wasn’t even a particularly exciting game. The channel is entirely comprised of re-runs of old world cup matches, so I got a bit of an education. The highlight for me was 1986 Soviet Union vs. Belgium match: The haircuts, the granular footage, the expert playing, all vastly entertaining.

We wear physical sunscreens in the ocean to protect the reefs. And I had to daily surrender my commitment to the mineral sunscreen, what it entails. The first few days I looked out at the beach and saw I was the only person with a white cast. In 2022 I asked a cashier at the Kahana Snorkel Bob’s why chemical sunscreens were even sold in Maui if it was hazardous to the environment. He told me they were working on legislation to ban oxybenzone et al from sale which has since happened. But all of these tourists brought it from the mainland, from their home countries, gliding in the water all the same. I could say they know not what they do but there are asks all over the place to be mindful. I hate visibly sticking out more than I already do. A ghost in a bikini getting white stripes on everything: the backpack, the steering wheel, the patio furniture. It is a whole thing putting the sunscreen on, spreading it evenly. It comes out the tube in thick globs that have to be massaged. I got sunburned on my chest the first day so i started to question if it even worked. But the UV is high and the sun is closer to us here, near the equator. At least that’s how it feels.

I played 40s Junction and swam along the Kahekili beach reef front to back most morning hours. I had to take it easy the first day snorkeling because my lungs were sore from the terrible toxic freezer fire in Los Angeles. I discovered quickly that i felt very habituated to the marine life. The practice lost its sparkle somehow, though my joy was revived in certain moments when i saw something new or big or in a great number. I challenged myself to relish and notice the schools of black triggerfish. The invitation to swim with them at the surface, noticing the grid in their flesh, how they elegantly move about with their top and bottom fins rippling.

My highlight in the ocean was a swim with two eagle rays, one very large, one slightly smaller. I imagined them a m/f couple, the male leading the way, the female following him at every turn. They swam so slowly, i heard the big one crunching on coral, ripping it from the reef. Wildlife indeed ! They stayed close to me and I felt god. It was probably the most soothing part of the day in which i had some anxiety adjusting to the pace of time off and time away. As i was swimming away from the pair I saw another ray, a small guy all alone flapping his wings and going very quickly up the north side of the reef. And then another one immediately after, busy and also on his way somewhere. Four eagle rays one after the other. I couldn’t believe it. I have been waiting to see rays in the water for years. The closest i have come was a freshwater Atlantic Stingray on the shores of Lake George in Florida and that was a sighting above water. I really come home to myself watching wildlife. Let me never forget this!

I did a lot of eavesdropping on the shore while reading Stephen King and James M. Cain and David Sedaris. Once when i came back from snorkeling there was a row of people in chairs right behind my sunning spot. I could have moved but i decided it wasn’t that important. I gathered it was a mom, daughter, boyfriend(?), aunt and cousin. The aunt brought snacks and I was hungry. I listened to them plan a pizza party and talk dinner reservations for hours. I did want to be invited but I just laid there planning my own dinner.

I spent untold hours asking myself (and search engines) how many roaches on a tropical island constitutes an interior infestation? For context: about eight years ago my parent’s Central Florida house was infested with roaches for a while, and for many years my 1991 Volvo was infested with roaches too so you could say I already had some experience and dangerously, some tolerance for the bugs. The last straw this time was a cockroach crawling on me in the bed around midnight which plainly ruined my sleep. I then learned of a “problem” in a downstairs unit and that was the beginning of the end. I had no real option but to leave, as i did not want to bait them into traps on either side of my bed in case this backfired and I increased traffic towards or around my sleeping body. My last night at the Royal Kahana was another late night of anxiety: talking to Anouk on Amorgos while my meds slowly made me drowsy, waiting for the washer to stop running, the tide pod fragrance filling the condo. I slept with the light on to discourage roaches going into the bed and either it worked or i slept through it. I’m a little ashamed of how i tolerated the roaches to begin with but such is life. Why am i such a devotee of the 12 steps and god? Because i must be restored to sanity each day. This is just how i am: slow to react to unsavoury conditions.

I allot one afternoon to the ‘Ohai trail. Its wind-tousled cliffs evoke England every time. It’s one of my favourite views on the island because Lānaʻi and Molokaʻi are out of sight off to the west so you really feel like you are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with nothing around for thousands of miles. I listened to the Treasure Isle Time compilation record on the way back remembering my first time driving up north on HI-340 with Mom and Michael, Mom pointing out the depth of field in the views of the valley. I felt so proud of her in that moment, because she was right and gave me new appreciation for what i was looking at.

On my way out of West Maui i found two eggs lying in the grass at a Japanese cemetery where i looked at ten early 20th century headstones for babies who died after birth. I drove up to the island’s volcano, Haleakala, with all my possessions in the trunk of my rented red kia soul full of trepidation as the elevation count got higher and the roads windier. On the way up to 10,000 feet I saw a female ring-necked pheasant pop into the tall grasses. I drove to the summit and floated in the cloud, unable to see much of anything except glimpses of the always blue ocean behind the observatories. I saw a mum chukar partridge with lots of babies on the summit trail. I watched them for a long time in the mists, shivering but wearing all the layers i brought to the island. I kept going to the top of trailheads and seeing nothing, stuck in one massive cloud. I hiked into the crater and sometimes the sun would come out, the clouds would reveal peaks of green covered rocks that looked like Switzerland, or the multicoloured cinder cones. I had to take a lot of breaks on the ascent because of the high altitude, the thinner air. I went up and down the volcano looking for the state bird of Hawai’i, the nēnē, a rare striped goose. But i had no luck, I saw only the non-native game species. The end of the trip was a pre-red eye burger in fluorescent lighting eaten next to four tables of parents with kids then roaming the aisles of the Maui Costco to kill time, colourful water bounce houses and halloween decorations dotting the store.

The video tape of my last trip in 2023 ran under this one in 20261, me comparing and contrasting. Sometimes memory is noise.2 My new chest, my medicated brain and body, my short hair: the changes. My love of the cardinal’s song and the myna’s hops: the constants. Glory to God. I’m open to learning that there is a different kind of divine experience when things are in balance. I spent my last afternoon in the condo hiding out on the lanai, topless making one last attempt at a tan, the rain falling at my feet. I saw my twentieth rainbow, probably.

All my bikinis are now drying out on the patio chairs in LA, the fabric stained by the zinc. All my souvenirs of the trip revolve around skin - my tan and the white fingerprints all over my leather notebook cover. Still soaking in the way the sky turned deep lilac after sunset, the subtle beauty of returning to a place that works.