My decision to move to Hawaii from New York City started with a dream.
In the dream I was an angel and I was tied up with my arms and legs suspended from the ceiling. I was hanging above a bed of swords, with the hilts in the bed and the points sticking up toward me.
In the dream, there was a voice speaking to me, and the voice said, "You believe that, if you are cut free from these chains, you will fall upon the blades and die. But it is your comfort that has chained you. You have forgotten that it is the nature of an angel to fly."
And then I partially woke up from the dream; I was in that in-between place, still remembering the feeling of the dream quite vividly, but already consciously thinking.
The first thought that came to my mind was, I'm moving to Hawaii.
Phase Two
A few days later I was standing in line to see a visiting spiritual teacher named Ammachi. It was an incredibly long line. There were these two hippie guys in line right behind me. We were out there so long, that I decided to strike up a conversation with them.
They told me about how they were traveling across the country, then asked where I was from. So many of the people there had come from far away that they presumed I had too. I said, "Well I'm actually from right here in New York City, but, I'm about to move to Hawaii."
One of the guys said, "Oh, where in Hawaii are you going?"
I said, "Oh I don't know that yet. I just had this dream a few nights ago, and I decided to move to Hawaii, so I'm moving to Hawaii."
He said, "Oh, that's cool." I had already told them before that that I was studying Tibet and Buddhism. And so he added, "Well, we just spent a year living in Hawaii, and we were in this sweet little town called Paia. And there was actually a Tibetan Buddhist Center there, so you should check out that town.”
I said, "Okay, well that's good to know," and then I didn't really think anything more about it, and went on to have a really great day.
The next night, I had another dream in which I was shown a map, and it was of the Hawaiian islands. The image focused in on the Island of Maui, and a finger pointed at the map and said, "Start here."
The next day, remembering the dream, I got a map of Hawaii and looked where the finger had pointed. And right there was a little town called Paia, the very town the young men had mentioned!
I said to myself, Okay, well obviously I know now where in Hawaii I'm going, and the only question remaining is when am I going.
Phase Three
I was working as the primary trainer for adults who were being retrained for the workforce. I was teaching a summer series that included a business writing course and a reading improvement course. This apparently gave my students the idea that I actually liked to read, though really it was during a period in my life in which I did not do any recreational reading. I just thought it would be good for them to improve their reading skills to improve their work prospects. This misunderstanding will become vital later in this story.
Anyway, I gave notice at my job that I was leaving. It was July at the time, and I decided I was going to leave in October. So, I gave about three months notice at work. My bosses said that they did not want me to tell my students that I was leaving, because they didn't want them to have separation anxiety, or for it to be weird having me around so long, knowing that I'm going. They said to wait until I had only two weeks left and then let the students know. The whole summer only my bosses knew that I was leaving.
One day I really had no productive work to do, so I decided to go online and buy my ticket to Maui. I was making the purchase through a service called Travelocity, trying to buy a ticket on United Airlines. I was trying to book the ticket for October 15th, which gave me a chance to wrap up everything for the summer courses, but not start the Fall courses with my students yet.
I started buying the ticket for October 15th, and as I was in the checkout process, I saw that I could get it for $100 less if I did it for a different date. So I canceled the one that I was starting to buy, and tried to buy the other one. Only then it wouldn't put the money back on my credit card from the one that I'd canceled, so I didn't have the money for the second one within my credit limit.
I called Travelocity, and wound up on hold with one customer service person after another for over half an hour. I wasn't getting anywhere and finally one of the customer service supervisors said, "Look, you have to call United Airlines. They are the ones who have the money. They're the only ones who can back that transaction out and get you a different ticket."
So then I started the “customer service roulette” game over with United Airlines. I was on hold with United Airlines a very long time, over half an hour just sitting there listening to music on hold. I was so frustrated that I started wandering if the universe was trying to tell me that I wasn’t supposed to go to Maui after all, or at least not yet.
Now, it so happens that a couple weeks before, one of my students had given me a story to read. I took it graciously, because I wanted to encourage her, but I had no real interest in reading it. It had just sat there in my desk drawer ever since. I realized I was going to see the student the next day, and that she would probably ask me about it. So waiting on hold seemed like a good opportunity to read it before I saw her.
I started reading the story. This is how the story goes: it's the story of this guy who's living in New York City. He's good at his job, but he's kind of bored with it. He can pretty much “phone it in.” He spends a lot of time at work not really having any productive work to do, and finally decides that he needs something more. At a party, he mentions this to someone, and the man says to him, "Oh, you have to go to this travel agency and ask to see the folder."
He goes to the agency, and as he walks through the door he hears the man on the phone with United Airlines… now realize, I’m on hold with United Airlines as I’m reading this story.
Anyway, he walks up to the counter, and as soon as the man hangs up the phone, he tells him, "I would like to see the folder."
And the guys says, "Absolutely,” and slides a folder across the desk. Our protagonist looks in the folder and sees pictures of this beautiful place with rolling green hills out to the ocean. In the accompanying brochure it's described as a place where people say 'I love you' to say hello. It's always sunny, and it's always warm, and it's just this magical, lovely place in the bosom of nature.
He tells the travel agent, "That's it; that's where I want to go. How much does it cost for a ticket to get there?"
The man behind the counter says "Well, how much money do you have?"
He pulls out his wallet, and says, "Well, I don't really have much money on me." He has maybe $20 in his wallet, if memory serves me. "I've got $20," he says.
And the man says, "Well, it just so happens that's how much it costs for a ticket."
He buys the ticket, then the travel agent says "Okay, come back this time tomorrow and there will be transportation to take you to your destination."
He goes back the next day as instructed, and sits in a waiting room with a bunch of different people. As he sits there he sizes up the different people with his New York cynicism, trying to guess how much each person paid. There's a skater punk, and there’s a businessman. There are all these different kinds of people, and he's judging them in his mind.
Finally, they all are loaded onto a bus and driven way out to Long Island, which is a few hours drive from where they are in Manhattan. Upon reaching Long Island they are led into a barn and told, "Okay, just wait here and someone will be for you shortly to take you on to your final destination." Then he shuts the door, leaving them in the barn.
They sit there for hours. It's starting to get dark. Our protagonist thinks to himself, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe it. I've been taken. I thought I was a sophisticated New Yorker. I can't believe I let myself get taken like this. No one's coming for us. They've taken the last of our money, and they left us out here in this barn."
He gets up and heads for the door, all the while thinking, "I'm getting out of here. I’ve got to figure out how I'm going to get back to city with no money."
He leaves the barn and just as he gets outside of the door, he thinks about the people left inside. He thinks, "All those poor schmucks. They don't realize that no one's coming for them. I better go back in there and get them, and together we'll figure out how to get back to the city."
The door is closing behind him as he thinks this, so he tries to grab it just before it shuts. He doesn’t make it, but just as it’s shutting there is a flash of light and he sees these beautiful rolling hills leading out to the ocean, and people carrying big, colorful signs that say "Welcome." Then the door shuts.
He tries to get the door open and he's pulling, he's pulling on the door, and he can't get it open. After maybe a minute, he finally gets the door open, and he goes inside the barn. Only it's empty. All that's left are little pieces of confetti on the floor.
He goes back to the travel agency, and he says, "Can you give me the folder?" There’s a new guy behind the counter, and he says, "I don't know what you're talking about."
He says, "The folder. You know, the folder."
"I'm sorry sir. I have know idea what you're talking about."
So the ending of the story is that he went back again and again, asking for the folder, and there were always someone different at the counter, and they never knew what he was talking about. In conclusion he says, "The moral of this story is that if you ever get the chance to follow your dreams, don't second guess it. Because you may never get a second chance."
Now this is what I'm reading, as I sit there on hold, trying to reach the umpteenth customer service person and wondering if I should just stay in New York or move to Maui. After reading that story, I think, Well, okay then. That's the answer to that question; I clearly should not second-guess my decision to go.
You couldn't get a better description of what Maui is like. It's even a place where people say "Aloha," which means 'I love you,' to say hello and goodbye. And it’s called the Valley Isle. It is all hills and valleys leading up to beautiful oceans and is temperate all years. The entire story reads like a perfect description of my situation. I realize, Okay, obviously I'm meant to go.
When I finally got someone on the phone who could help me, she did fix the tickets for me. I wound up having to go two weeks earlier, and then that was the only way I could get the cheaper ticket, but that was fine. I'd given so much notice that I could move it up a couple weeks with no problem.
Phase Four of the Miracle
I couldn’t have known it then, but it turned out that, that was exactly when I needed to go, because if I had gone when I had originally tried, I would have gone after this event called “Sufi Camp” that was a critical occurrence at the start of my life on the island.
It worked out that I got there right before the week-long event began, and I wound up staying with this incredible woman who organized volunteers for the event each year.
The morning after I arrived in Paia, I went wandering around looking for the Buddhist temple the beach dudes had told me about in line for Ammachi. Someone out in front of the Buddhist temple told me that the temple wasn’t open, because there was currently no lama on the island, but that I should walk a little further up the street to the chiropractic center and ask there how I might connect with the spiritual community on the island.
I did exactly that, and the man who owned the place gave me a local newspaper and pointed out an add for the Sufi Camp. He said, "If you want to meet the heart of Maui, you should go to Sufi Camp, even if you're not Sufi. All the most spiritual people on the island will be there. It'll be a great way to connect with them for whatever it is that you're interested in.”
I called the number in the ad about work-study, not wanting to spend any more money than necessary until I found a job. The work-study organizer, Christina, not only invited me to attend the camp in exchange for a few hours of kitchen work each day, but also let me stay with her until camp started.
I went, and wound up connecting with a community of people who had lived on Maui on average for about 25 years, mostly landowners there.
Those people not only paved the path with gold for me all of the time I was in Maui when it came to things like finding housing or jobs, but they also welcomed me into a ready-made community of really loving friends, who just absolutely welcomed me onto the island.
If I had gone the date I was originally trying to buy a ticket for, I would have missed Sufi Camp by a week, and who knows how it would have been for me trying to make a way in this place where I knew absolutely no one. I was put in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.
Addendum
As an addendum, the day after I had my “customer service adventure” while booking the airline ticket, I saw my student who had loaned me the story. I told her, "This story is amazing, but how did you find out that I was moving to Maui?"
And she responds, "What? You're moving to Maui?!"
I say, "Well, didn't you know?"
She replied, "Well, no. I had no idea!"
So I ask, "Well, why did you give me this story? It's all about someone in New York, who's thinking about moving to Maui. Then they second guess it, and it turns out to be a bad decision to second guess it. I thought you were intentionally giving it to me for that reason."
And she says, "Oh, is that what the story's about? I never read the story. My son is in high school, and he was assigned the story, and loved it so much that I thought I would share it with you, because you would love it too, given how much you love reading. But I never read it myself. I didn't know that's what it was about…. But you're moving to Hawaii?"
(Photo source: Pixabay)
Resteems always appreciated!