The first time I stepped into this house, it was like royalty. People live this way. With this view of all of Kāne’ohe Bay. This isn’t the world I live in, I thought. This is just some high-tier society that I shrug off because I wasn’t invited to the party….but that night eight years ago I WAS literally invited to the party and this house. And standing on the balcony over miles of Oahu coast; from these heights you can see yourself. The world is less a contention and more an opportunity when it stands at your feet. I remember this house.
Now, eight years later we’re vagabonding through the Hawaiian Islands, living like pawns—but tonight we’re paupers because we’ve been given the key to this hillside manor. I feel like I just checked into my room on the Queen Mary. What a life to be raised in this polished wood—does it even creak? Yes it does. A great tall-ship of a house—even smells like a ship. The salt-air of the trade winds turn from the sea to flow through these windows.
Tonight I popped the rusty strings off my guitar and put new bronze ones on. I love the sound of both: the mellow grit of a string that has slept under the stars and the vibrant metal shimmer of a fresh pack.
If you can live in the story, immune to status and the lure of ”someday,” be a pawn one day and a pauper the next, give more than you think you have and receive more than you can repay, then the Song Of The Open Road will lead you to the best of the poor man’s shack and the best of the rich man’s villa.
