Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run Away

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• November 6, 2024

Though I remain married to New York, Hawaii is like my much sexier mistress whom I’ve fallen head over heels for but am too afraid to leave my spouse for her in any permanent way. Limerence be damned, this is true love. My heart sings for Hawaii, the glimmering pellucid turquoise water filled with sea turtles gliding through the water like aquatic angels and the Jurassic emerald mountains decorated with rainbows in the valleys. Flying into Hawaii, I get this feeling, a sensation, that all that was promised to me when I was a kid— Heaven and Neverland— are real.

My parents say I can’t be trusted with money, because though I pay my bills on time, I have basically no money saved as I am quick to travel. The future, what’s that? They aren’t wrong. I don’t even really know how I’m going to make money in the new year, and once I’m back in New York, I’ll fret about it (writing jobs are scarcer than usual). It’s true that I have a tremendous amount of career anxiety, and my lack of relationship status that I once relished grows into a loneliness, but without either, I am free. That freedom feels pretty good when you can get on a plane during one of your worse mental health months and get to a place like Hawaii where depression feels like a foreign shadow instead of a consuming cloud.

Maybe you can run from your problems. Until your problem is your health. And I’ve watched friends, family members, hell, even a friend’s kid, go through living nightmares of diseases and treatments, a grim reminder that even our own functioning bodies aren’t guaranteed to us. So fuck it, I say. Live. Live, goddamnit, to a degree that would make your younger self cheer. There are no social norms or life milestones. You are here and then you are not. What do you really want while you are here?

Surfing is something that you sometimes put yourself in danger. Hale’iwa is my favorite surf spot on the North Shore because it breaks smaller than the famous big break beaches and is a relatively easy paddle out (as long as you don’t get stuck on the inside of the main break). While I surf the smaller sets, I’m still subjected to 10-12 foot sets that I must paddle over, praying to the Spaghetti Monster in the sky to not get wrecked by these waves. I made it through some of the bigger sets, but the thing about taking the smaller waves is, if you miss the wave, you’re now in a position to get dumped on by a double over head monster. It’s unlikely I can duck dive under a wave this big given my size/weight and the board I’m riding. So I’m thrown and tossed underwater, covering my head as best as possible in fears of hitting the reef. Surfing can be scary. Make no mistake. But the risk/reward ratio is worth it, when I drop in on wave with a long face, and get a little backside barrel. I love myself a backside barrel (sounds dirty, it’s not).

The night before I went away, I did a show in Astoria with two friends and funny guys Joe Zimmerman and Greg Stone. Zimmerman is working on a fiction novel. Joe and I have discussed writing projects in the past. While I have grown ever discouraged about my writing career, Joe gave some encouraging words about the world of writing and selling books. I have been consumed with the idea of what will sell and what won’t, instead of writing from my own weird heart. He encouraged me to do just that.

Writing is work. More so than other art forms. But when it’s a story or character you love, and you get into a groove of creation… there’s something pure about it. Playful. Like paddling out on a day that’s a little too big for your comfort, it takes a great amount of exertion. Until you’ve hit a break through, and your thoughts kind of fly away onto the paper, and you’re somewhere else, somewhere in a thought bubble over your own head, but you haven’t run away, you’ve returned to yourself.