Still Life with Robin: Glad to Be Here, Not HI

Photo by Jerry Eaton, USGS
Public Domain

by Peggy Robin

There are lots of times I have Other-Land Envy. Like when I went to Hawaii – the word “paradise” did not seem to be mere tourist-hype. The average temperature all year round ranges from the upper sixties to the mid-eighties. Flowers are in bloom year round. Hard to get closer to perfect than that.  

Here in DC, on the other hand, the average day in January starts out at 25 degrees F and the average day in July is a steamy 89. That’s both too cold and too hot for comfort. And we have a risk of hurricanes from June to November every year. After December 1, we slide into Fear-of-Snowpocalyspe Season, when we know the city can be shut down for a week at a time if we get a heavier-than-usual snowfall -- and we don't emerge till March. Of course, the shelves of the stores will be stripped bare in panic-buying the day before anything hits.

So many times during the worst of the heat waves and the depths of freezes, I look back on those idyllic past travels to Hawaii and dream about how beautiful it all was. How amazing it would be to live in a place like that all the time. I recall the rainbows we saw, like this one:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Panorama_of_Rainbow_in_Hawaii_Volcanoes_National_Park.jpg

….and then I wake up today to the news that people are fleeing their homes in droves on the big island to escape from the toxic volcanic fumes, the spewing lava, and the earth-splitting quakes now wreaking havoc and raining down destruction -- all due to the activity of the most violent volcano on earth: Kilauea!

Take a look:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44012046

The Washington Post has both video and still pictures, along with an article to fill you in on what you are seeing in all its pyrotechnical power:

https://wapo.st/2HUTFk5

Updated Sunday, May 6 with more video -- scroll down to the last one!
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/watch-these-breathtaking-videos-of-lava-flows-in-hawaii-that-forced-evacuations.html 

And I am no longer jealous. Washington, DC, you are my cozy, safe home…come hurricane or blizzard but no lava!

--------------------

Still Life with Robin is published on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local on Saturdays.