The Pink Palace of Peace

It was raining when I woke up this morning. I could hear the rain -- big, fat drops -- and just the rain. It had silenced the traffic, the birds, even the dogs in the park. It sounded a little bit like Peace. I knew it wasn't really peace, because I haven't prepared to teach on Monday or to give a talk on Tuesday or submit a grant review on Wednesday. But for a very short time, it was peaceful. 

And that reminded me all over again of our recent adventure, and our first stop in the adventure: the Pink Palace of Peace. 

Once upon a time, Tim and Jessica and Jonathan went on holiday. It started on a cold gray winter day in Melbourne, with a sky that wasn't raining but looked like it might. Also there were three suitcases, three backpacks, and a taxi. And then after the taxi left, there were some very long airport lines. Very long, winding through the deep part of the airport where the economy airlines live, back behind the shiny counters and tall windows of the Major Airlines. There, in the airport cave, we stood for a very long time, pushing our suitcases inch by inch, rolling our shoulders under our backpacks, fiddling with passports and vaccination papers and itineraries. 

One airport line led to another and to another, and then after a very long time we were able to fold ourselves with 300 other people into a small shiny airplane, bags tucked above, water bottles banging our knees below. With all passengers folded up neatly, the airplane took off into the sky and flew up up up over the vast dark ocean. It flew for hours and hours into the night, and the people stayed folded. The dawn peeked up over the other side of the horizon and the people were still folded. And just as the sun began to rise, after twelve hours over the ocean, the airplane touched down. The people tried to unfold themselves but they ended up somewhat sprawled around the airplane seats. They stumbled out of the airplane into a land where the winter had burned out and it was warm. And their long pants and coats were too hot. But first there were airport lines, snaking around the depths of the airport, and then woefully inadequate toilet situations. And then with three suitcases and three backpacks and three exceedingly more grumpy, if warm, people, there was a shuttle. The shuttle took them away from the airport, through the misty hotel-spotted hills, toward the magical land where the hotels grew tallest of all. 

The airport shuttle dropped them into a magical garden between two hotels. One hotel was white and tall. The other was smaller and pink. A pink palace of a hotel. The people at the pink palace gave them each a welcome necklace made of polished nuts, and let them rescue a summer outfit and a swimming suit from their suitcases, before they took away the bags to keep safely. And they laughed and laughed when our heroes asked if they might be able to check in early, with the laughter of people who deal with too many early morning flights all year long. But as they wiped the tears of laughter from their eyes, they promised to call if a room opened up early. And then chuckled into their fists as our heroes went to find a place to change. 

So. It was very early in the morning. And yet, we found ourselves in a magical oasis. We did, for of course our heroes were us: Tim, Jessica, and Jonathan.

Although we were surrounded on all sides by tall hotels, our hotel opened up into gardens with trees the size of hotels, roots reaching down to the manicured lawns. We found a group of pool chairs, kneeling in morning worship around the hotel pool, and we took three of them, in the back, where the shade was the deepest and thickest. 

 

We nestled the backpacks between us, and reclined the deck chairs all the way down, and put up our legs -- our crooked, twisted legs that had been folded into an airplane for hours and hours and hours. And then we slept.

And above us, the white clouds drifted through the blue sky, and the delicate palm leaves shuddered in the gentle breeze.

And after a while, we awoke, hungry, and we found that the pink palace people don't eat vegan food. But undeterred, two of our heroes went for a walk while the other carried on sleeping -- er, protecting the backpacks. And we found the beach, just a step down from the pool where we had slept all morning. 

And this story is now getting really kind of long and boring. So let's speed it up a little. 

Eventually we were able to check into a room, overlooking the gardens. And we signed up to make flower leis, and bracelets,to learn to hula dance. And by the time the rest of the family arrived, from a different side of the world that only required five hours in an airplane -- and come on, how is that even fair? -- By that time, we were calm and peaceful and happy. 

Making leis.

 Making bracelets. 

Learning to hula. 

And we all lived happily ever after.