Labor Day in Hawaii + A new normal

. . .

Do you ever consider how quickly we humans adapt to things? How easily ‘new’ becomes ‘normal’?

All of the sudden, today, when I was sitting at the beach on a mound of sand I’d piled up to try to avoid the high tides, barely even noticing the once-novel scent of my coconut sunscreen, I realized this was my new normal. When I thought to myself, for the hundredth time: ‘I live in Hawaii,’ that internal statement felt completely devoid of shock or novelty. In fact, the thought passed like a cloud, the fleeting kind that breezes through my mind as I’m brushing my teeth in the morning.

How crazy that I could adapt and change so much as to get used to a place and an idea (like being an ocean from home) that once seemed so daring?

I don’t find change daunting anymore. Now I know that change holds hands tightly with growth, and that to be befriend one is to experience the other.  But I do think it’s important to honor the changes we make; pause at that place where who we were meets who we want to become, where imagination, dreams and initial anticipation meet comfort, familiarity, joy and renewed hunger.

It’s beautiful to adapt and to grow where we’re planted. We’ve all survived things that once stole our breath. And we often thrive after chaos shakes us up. It gives me goosebumps thinking about the many changes that have had to happen to bring me to who and where I am in this moment. I am proud to be resilient and flexible – and to have changed. I hope that I never stop changing. (Blake Lively is quoted saying the same thing, so I feel doubly convicted.)

I think maybe fulfillment comes from bearing witness to our own changes: recognizing that a change has occurred, and hungering, still, for more. But also from appreciating – for more than a moment – a place of peace where it exists, and all the other feelings you have had to feel in order to find it.

I’m proud that the life I’ve cultivated here feels normal to me now, but I want to remember the awe I felt when it was all still new by opening my eyes a little wider and perhaps walking further, and around new corners.

Yesterday was my 25th day of my 30-day Bikram Yoga Challenge. And yes, every single thought expressed above is probably spurred by what has been a process of strengthening my mind and body throughout this yoga challenge. I am so thankful for each Savasana (posture of rest and meditation) it has provided.

Yes. I totally drank the Kool-Aid.

Long weekends on this beautiful island tend to completely shake away the normalcy of living here, as though it’s nothing but the sand stuck in my ocean-wet hair; ever-clinging to my elbows.  It’s weekends like this previous one, shown in photos above, that I never want to take for granted.

But I also love recognizing that ‘normal’ can still contain so much wonder: a sudden whiff of that coconut-scented sunscreen or a big wave crashing up over my towel and washing across my whole body, a perched-on-horseback view of lush green mountains, the sudden ability to drop an inch further in my back bend.

An inch more elasticity in my spine.