Perfection

Sitting on the porch of our cabin, facing the ocean, we ate breakfast and sipped mimosas while the chickens ran toward us, hoping for handouts. The hens and roosters milled around the flower beds surrounding the porch, pecking at insects or other spots they suspected might be food. The bravest, a black hen, came up on the porch, the better to catch crumbs that might fall on the deck.

Ben looked at me slyly, and turned to the fine-feathered rooster below him and said, “Cock!” He looked back at me impishly. “Cock!” he said again, more confidently. “And Carly” our female shepherd “is a bitch!” he added, chuckling.

“Oh, we’re 13 years old again,” I remarked, unable to keep from laughing. For a man who bellows four-letter words on the golf course, often using the same f-word as a noun, verb, adjective and adverb in the same sentence, he seemed to delight in the naughtiness of a couple of common nouns.

I could see pure joy in his face. He and I were having a perfect morning. I rose early and walked into town to find croissants for lunch sandwiches and a latte to drink on the beach. I returned to our cabin on the ocean at the Waimea Plantation Cottages on the west side of Kauai, and watched the sun rise over the morning clouds and the waves break on the red-sand beach. I sat out by the beach on an Adirondack chair with a book, a study in the anthropology of religion, and found it delightfully interesting, even though it had been close to incomprehensible in my exhaustion of the night before.

Ben returned from his morning run, waxing enthusiastically about his discovery of a pedestrian suspension bridge over the river and how the river ran down to the ocean to our beach, providing a perfect running path. Out on the porch, we opened a bottle of champagne and a carton of orange juice, broke open a package of blueberry muffins and shared a banana.

We were about as happy as two grouchy middle-aged, over-educated people – especially two as different as we are – can be together. For the moment at least.

Readers of this blog may often wonder “where’s the enjoyment?” Why do I travel so much and find so little joy in it? Why do I rent a $700 a night ocean-front room at the Grand Hyatt Kauai, and complain about the noise, the costs, the food, the kids, the loud adults, the leaf-blowing machines? Why not stay home?

The truth is, I am a perfectionist. I’m not perfect, I just want to be. And I want everyone and everything else to be, too. And if something isn’t perfect, then the whole kit and kaboodle can go to hell. Well, almost. Fact is, I can have a great time on a sunny day on the golf course in spite of my horrific score. I can enjoy a day at the pool with a few clouds. I can enjoy a meal at a nice restaurant even if the wine is overpriced.

But, paying $700 a night for a room at the Hyatt doesn’t ensure happiness. Indeed, it just buys you the opportunity to spend more money on overpriced services. A massage that costs $200, a buffet breakfast for $30 per person, a 2-ounce mimosa for $9. And, it doesn’t assure peace. We are surrounded by noise: noisy kids splashing around in the ostensibly adult pool; parents arguing with their children below our lanai at 6 a.m.; leaf-blowers replacing brooms on the pathways between our room and breakfast. The room loses its luxury patina once it is strewn with wet swimming trunks, wet golf clubs, dirty clothes, towels, extra pillows (does anyone really need eight pillows on the bed?) and half-consumed bottles of wine and cans of beer. We’re not really slobs, but we’re trying to live our lives in 350 square feet of space for five days.

But, a place like Waimea Plantation Cottages – with its ocean setting, its quiet (unsafe for swimming) black beach, its beautiful and tranquil grounds and roomy period cottages – harbors the potential for joy. Joy and peace.

So, here is the joy in traveling: finding a place that’s just perfect. Or perfect enough.