Island Life: Down Home Hawaiian

To some people, paradise is a plane ride away and requires the suave of a skilled concierge.  I used to be one of those people, even if my airplane was an aging Honda and my concierge was a cashier at Kohl's.  The point is, I equated good times with travel, even if the trip was just a few miles down the road.  And summer, that grande dame of good times, demanded the most travel of all.  Forget its laidback, the-living-is-easy persona.  That's just good PR from the Good Humor people.  The real summer is a dance-on-the-tables diva out for her pound of sun poisoned flesh.  If by mid-July I hadn't been out for ice cream, eaten fried seafood alfresco, or smelled the ocean, then I worried that summer was slipping through my fingers and that I'd better crank up the fun quotient already.  Now that I've been home all this time, I see that this mindset is silly.  Kind of like spending December chasing that perfect present or cookie recipe instead of succumbing to a hot cocoa coma under the tree.  It's a relief to just read a book on the couch with the sun streaming in through the windows and think, ah, this is summer.  And it's okay that the indoors version isn't that different from winter, that the only distinction is that Mother Nature shuts off her porch light at nine, not five.  (Not that bonus daylight is any small thing; pre-dinner blackouts are all kinds of depressing.  Stay tuned for November and that rant of a post.)  No, all I need from summer is sunshine -- window-screened, at-a-distance, no-sunblock-required sunshine.  Not some taskmaster of a list ordering me to collect seashells or else.   

That said, to celebrate the height of the season, I'm showing off my Hawaiian shirt collection.  At home, in my yard (except for when I'm standing in front of my beach towel-draped mantel), safe and chill on my own little Oahu.  I've shown you my luau shirts before, but now there are two more.  Who needs the beach when you've got palm tree-print polyester?

Clockwise: Candie's, Kohl's; Lily White, Marshalls; LC Lauren Conrad, Kohl's; Lily White, Marshalls

They say that no (wo)man is an island, and maybe that's true.  After all, I have the husband here with me, and I couldn't quarantine without him.  Still, there's something soothing about this exile, however horrific its reason (don't come around here, COVID-19; I've got PocketBacs and I know how to use them).  There's a kind of security in surrounding myself with internal adventures and pastimes, having a high old time while I weather the storm.  Even if that storm lasts forever.

If that happens, then I'll start collecting umbrellas.