Ill in Oahu
By Stan Morse
November 10, 1997

Having left the train station and arrived at LAX shortly after midnight, I spend the rest of the night in the International Terminal. Only the ice cream shop is open, and the terminal is soon deserted of passengers. The maintenance crew begins to sweep and buff the floors.

In the lonely, wee hours of morning I lay my head on my arm at a small round table, and try to rest. This was a poor choice; I should have gotten a hotel room. I knew better. But I was set upon saving a few dollars.

I manage to doze, but my dreams are troubled, and when I wake my back, shoulder and elbow are sore from the awkward position.

By the time for my flight, I'm exhausted.

Arriving in Honolulu with a scratchy throat, I think of the table where I lay my head, and how many people must have put their hands, their food, their handkerchiefs on it.

I check into a hotel the flight attendant recommends, take a long hot shower, and go straight to bed, even though it's only mid-afternoon. The sore throat will go away, I assure myself. I just need rest. I drink several glasses of water, and gratefully climb between clean sheets and immediately fall asleep.

But in the morning, my chest is tight, my body achy. I have a rattling cough and a touch of vertigo from plugged sinuses. The vertigo scares me. I return to bed immediately after I shower.

I spend the next few days cooped up in the hotel, too sick to look for the bargain-rate room I'd hoped to find. Saving the price of a room in L.A. has cost me dearly, and I've also lost the opportunity to go exploring.

There is an irony here.

In preparation for this trip, I got inoculations for Hepatitis A and B, Yellow Fever, Typhus, Tetanus-Diphtheria and the Flu. I was determined not to let an illness derail my trip. Yet I've been sidelined, on just the third day, by the Common Cold, and it's my fault.

I'm learning the hard way that every night I need a clean, safe place to sleep. I'm 43. What I got away with in my twenties no longer works.

I'm lucky to get off this easy. I might have caught something worse than a cold. My luggage (containing my cameras and computer) might have been stolen while I dozed. I could have stressed the skin on my rear, and gotten skin breakdown. Yes, I'm lucky...this time.

Fortunately, the cold doesn't bring a high fever, although on the second day it seems oppressively hot outside (mid 80's) and I get near-chills in my room (74 degrees).

A week passes and my energy gradually returns, my sinuses finally clear. I'm ready to take the next step in my adventure, but another disappointment awaits.

I call the Harbor Master, who controls shipping in Honolulu. I've rehearsed this over and over, how I'll persuade the powers-that-be to let me onto a ship to Australia. A voyage that will absorb much of my "unplanned" November. But that hope is crushed when he says that the only ships currently plying the waters between Hawaii and Australia are cement boats which don't take passengers. A major shipping line in Honolulu confirms this.

I won't be traveling by ship to Australia.

Now, I truly feel discouraged. What am I supposed to do with the month of November? I don't want to stay in Hawaii, but there's nothing between here and Australia except water and islands. There are two cyclones presently ripping their way through the central Pacific. Papua New Guinea has civil unrest and is dangerous. Someone I talk to about another island reports sand fleas and mosquitoes. And the smaller islands are difficult and expensive to reach. Besides, it's hot and humid near the equator this time of year; hardly the time for an island adventure, especially while recovering from a cold.

I feel foolish and naive about "leaving November open." What was I thinking? I spend a restless night, considering options.

On the eighth day I pull myself together and find a cheap air ticket to Sydney, via Fiji. I email a wheelchair-accessible homestay in Rose Bay, a suburb of Sydney, and miraculously they have a room available for a week. It doesn't solve where I'll be for the last half of November, but it's a hopeful start. I make the bookings for room and airline, and suddenly feel optimistic. Sure, I hadn't planned to visit Sydney until the end of the year, but spontaneity is supposed to be a part of this trip, isn't it?

I'm ready to resume the adventure. My health has returned, my enthusiasm is back. The time in Honolulu was completely different than what I'd anticipated. But it probably won't be the last time my plans take a hard left and leave skid marks.

And now that I'm leaving, the time I've spent here doesn't seem so bad. The room was comfortable and wheelchair-friendly. I've made friends, even while ill. Linda, a hostess, who "found" three complimentary brunch tickets for my meals at the hotel, tells me she has a flower lei to give me on my last day. Timony, a waitress raising two small children and helping put her husband through medical school, inspired me with her energy and commitment to family and the future. Bonnie Lee, Mapu and front desk manager Debi Streeter, gave me breaks on the room rate.

Open your heart, and people will reach out to help. And most important, they will let you know that they care.

And near the end, I did manage get out, mostly to the nearby Ala Moana Shopping Center. I especially enjoyed lunch in a Japanese department store -- tempura with udon noodles and broth, while watching an amazing diversity of people walk by. Skinny Japanese girls in high pumps carrying Gucci bags, an old man with paste-white skin and a cane barely able to walk, men and women of Hawaiian and Chinese descent smoking on their lunchbreaks, mothers pushing strollers, young people tanned and healthy from a life centered around the beach.

I bought a t-shirt for a picture with the lei Linda has promised for tomorrow. It's a Hawaiian custom to give those departing a necklace of flowers. I want to remember this act of kindness, and have a pleasant reference point for this rough time.

I'm stronger for these past ten days. And because of that, I look forward with renewed energy to Australia and Egypt and Italy, to Auckland and Singapore and Paris, and to the unknown places in between; to the new friends I'll make on trains and in cafes and just out exploring.

I've been reminded that the unknown makes this an adventure, and the unknown sometimes requires extra work. But that is no reason to fear it.