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The Day After

Wednesday, my husband and I headed down to Ahalanui County Beach Park in the afternoon. The night before, November 8, had been a little stressful, a little depressing, and those feelings had trickled into the next morning. By midafternoon, we needed a break from our respective jobs around the house.

The warm pool -- closed off from the ocean by a seawall -- is filled with a mix of volcanically heated water and fresh seawater. It's lovely to just float on one's back, look up through the trees, and relax.

I was given a little hope visiting on Wednesday. There's a mix of tourists, locals, and recent relocators to the island. But I heard several different accents, languages, and points of view. There were the sort of crusty people selling fruit in the parking lot, visitors to the many eco-resorts around here, retirees from up the road. Asians, Hawaiians, African-American, white. Australian, French, Moldovan, American... Some here for the long-term, some not, but coming together, relaxing, enjoying life.

The pool was the most crowded we'd ever seen it on Wednesday afternoon. I think a lot of us, in a district which overwhelmingly re-elected our representative who resigned from the DNC after their treatment of Bernie Sanders, needed to reconnect and relax on Wednesday, and the warm pool was the place to do it.

I hope other people find a place in their community to reconnect, regroup, and take a breath. On both sides.

Anyway, if you are ever on the east side of the Island of Hawaii, you can't miss a visit to Ahalanui County Beach Park.

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