My Back-Up Plan - Melody Cryns

It was with great regret that I reluctantly trudged through the security gate at the airport in Maui last night, saying good-bye to the most special, magical place I’ve ever been to. I could hear singing and ukulele and guitar ringing through the airport, saying good-bye…music was everywhere in Maui – it seemed that everywhere I went, to Hana up in the lush green hills overlooking the most amazing part of the ocean I met a girl people in town call “Ukelele Donna” because she always serenades the people who come through town, either on their own or via tour – playing and singing. She showed me a few ukulele chords and she showed me her small four-string ukulele, which she plays left-handed and upside down even though she’s right-handed because she’d watch her Grandma play and mirror her…

She also laughed about how Grandma went through a lot of ukuleles because she sometimes smashed them when she got mad – and you had to watch out or Grandma would hit you with one of them. I laughed and said it sounded like something a rock star would do or something… She sang beautifully. Then, there were the dudes sitting at a picnic table overlooking the ocean, singing in harmony and playing guitar and ukulele…

We were constantly surrounded by the beauty and the music, enveloped…it was so hard to leave… and sometimes things don’t work out the way you plan it because I had to take a plane from Maui to Salt Lake City, Utah, then another plane to Seattle, Washington, change airlines and then catch yet one more plane down to San Francisco – the plane was late and they put my luggage on the wrong plane. I’d already been traveling all night, so I didn’t need to have to wait an extra hour and a half at the airport for my suitcase to arrive… so the backup plan was that Jeremy would have to leave and come back to the airport, and I’d just get as much done as I can before heading off to New York late tonight on the red-eye…right now I’m so tired I feel as if I could just lie down and fall asleep…but there’s places to go and things to do.

And the reality of life has hit me in the face. Last night at this time, I sat at a picnic table looking at the ocean…and I swam one last night and rode the waves and felt the warm water lap against my feet – one more time. I’ve vowed to get a ukulele and learn to play it, so I can just whip it out wherever I go and sing along… like those kids at Ioe Valley who sang to bless the water before they swam in it…