Waikiki Does Thanksgiving

I am walking on the sand at Waikiki at 9 a.m. To the left is the pale aqua milkiness of the sea. And about a thousand tourists playing, everywhere I look. To my right is the densely packed hotel playground area of the Sheraton. Pools, chaise lounges, fake waterfalls, chairs, snack bars, showers and toys of all kinds are stacked and ready for everyone to have fun, everyone to indulge in tropical water play.

It's Thanksgiving Day today. I am on a morning walk after an açai bowl with good coffee at Honolulu Coffee Roasting Co. Waikiki Beach itself seems happy, screaming, all of it posing for pictures. Girls are signing up for outrigger canoe rides, surf lessons and stand-up paddling. Little kids with floaties on their arms run in and out of lapping wavelets. Japanese ladies, sun phobic, are dressed from head to toe in dark fashionable clothing and carry parasols to shield their pale skin. Business has not slacked off at all for the feast day, probably because a good number of tourists have no idea what Thanksgiving is. Many are from Japan, Korea, China, Germany and Italy.

Waikiki is a big backyard pool, a safe and energetic playground rocked by a gently surging ocean. It is so iconic and so easy, a place to be out in nature without really knowing nature at all. You just go play and have a good time, no matter who you are. It's like you're living in a post card all the time, with "Aloha" written up in the sky in red and gold lettering.

As long as you are at the beach in Waikiki you can ignore the whole world, all its problems and anything that used to be important back home. Refreshingly warm water - not too warm - and puffing trade winds are a balm for the child in your heart. Just play and play and play some more. Live the simple life at the beach. On Thanksgiving, your sense of play is in some way a form of gratitude, I suppose, employing the health and vitality that you were given at birth. It sure beats sitting indoors in the cold, worrying about difficulties and feeling burdened by responsibility all the time.

I walk to the Royal Hawaiian to find quiet peace in the inner gardens, take a look at the fine panama hats in one of the shops on the grounds, consider one for $450 and decide I have become delusional for even considering a hat like that - even though I look fabulous in it, I must say - and walk back to my hotel, watching people along the way. It's still early in the day, and it's possible these out-of-towners will enjoy traditional food later in the afternoon, but nothing I am seeing right now indicates that is even a remote possibility.

My six-block walk takes me past the Apple store where a line of maybe 12 customers is being herded into a very straight queue before the store opens, an employee exerting his line-forming skills in a loud voice that surprises me. I'm glad I'm not in line; it's a different kind of gratitude than I'd been considering just a moment before. So-called Black Friday, an ominous term recently coined, is tomorrow.

Finally back at my hotel, my husband and I gather up our things for the holiday meal, drive over to Kaimuki to our family's house and commence chopping, slicing, stirring, baking and otherwise preparing our fine feast. Friends come over at 4, I meet Noah, age 2 months, and I reacquaint myself with his parents. They are probably going to earn a prize for most loving and alert parents of the year. The meal is delicious, conversation and games are fun, and I am grateful over and over again to be right here, right now, in this least likely version of the pilgrim's first celebration.