Ruggamuffin: Kauai from a Geek's Perspective

Do you ever think about words? I do. I'm pretty sure admitting this will up my score on the geek'o'meter. Even still, I will freely own the fact that I sometimes get preoccupied with the way certain words sound, or their meanings and origins.

Take the word "dirt," for example. If you read it on a page you won't get the whole effect so go ahead and say it out loud. "Dirt." The way your mouth has to force the gritty consonances past you lips make the word sound just like what it is: flat, dry and plain. By listening to the sound of some words you can learn something about what those words represent.

Now that my score on the geek'o'meter is on the rise, I may as well just confess something else- on a recent vacation to Kauai I became even more fascinated words than usual. I know, I'm a geek, right? Here I was spending time in one the most beautiful places in the world and my mind is running over endless lists of words.

On a helicopter ride that spanned the entire island I thought of the word "dumbstruck" as I experienced this phenomenon for the first time. I had no words to describe the wonder of what I was seeing. The white frothy waterfalls, the lush greenery, the shadowy figure of a whale in the ocean below us and the vibrant colors of the Waimea Canyon gaping up, all of these things were beautiful but they were so much more than that. I found my vocabulary completely incompetent. So I sat in silence.

There was a kayak trip then hike that ended at a massive waterfall. As Kedar and I swam toward the waterfall and felt the powerful crashing of water on water, then as we pushed passed the wall of water and my breath was ripped from my lungs I thought about the word "awesome." The word that has become synonymous with "cool" or "neat" was not a word that carried enough strength to communicate what I was experiencing. In that moment I was truly in awe of the majesty around me.

Boogie boarding in the ice blue ocean gave me a taste of salty sea water as it burned my eyes and the inside of my nose, but I also tasted the true meaning of the word "power." The power of a wave that can choose to bring you into the shore, joyfully riding on it's crest. Or on a whim, it can batter and bash you into the merciless floor of the ocean in it's churning, rolling innards. The power of the ocean left me exhilarated and humbled in the same breath.

Words like "incredible," "amazing" and "beautiful" grew to mean something different and deeper to me as I hiked the rugged Napli Coast. The more I thought about words and how they were changing, I realized that I was changing too.

The whirlwind of words that had raged in my mind for days stopped and in it's place just one word remained. "Love." Everything I had experienced that was beyond my ability to describe was a gift from my Heavenly Father. His Love led to the creation this world, in all it's glory, as a testimony of His infinite love.