Hi, I'm Tommy...Like the gun

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Living Aloha

Tommy-pierucki-tattoo

It's funny, if you Google the term "Living Aloha", you don't get great results.  You really don't get the idea.  Although I believe that it means something different for everybody, Googling  the term won't bring you any closer to the idea.  I never really knew what it meant for most of my life.  I don't expect everyone to get the idea of what it means.  So if you read this and you can't grasp what I'm talking about, it's completely okay.  But what I am going to do for you is take you on the journey of how I learned my definition.

It all started with a trip to visit my sister Kelly that was living on Oahu.  Her and her husband were living there because he was stationed on the Marine base in Kailua.  They had been living there for a little over 2 years by the time I got the chance to visit.  I wish it would've been sooner.  I went to visit them with a friend of mine.  Neither of us had ever been to Hawaii.  We wanted to do so many different things, like visit Pearl Harbor, go snorkeling, try surfing, rent scooters, play some golf and basically just be as touristy as possible.  Little did I know that I was in for the biggest change in my life during this week.  Upon arriving to Honolulu airport, one of the first things I noticed about Hawaii was that a lot of signs and street names were in Hawaiian.  The first highway we saw was named Like Like.  We made a little fun of the fact that we were taking a highway named Like Like.  But my sister quickly corrected my pronunciation of the words.  It is pronounced lee-kay lee-kay.  And she explained to me how to pronounce words in Hawaiian, and from there on out it was fun to start saying all of the street names out loud.  There was my first lesson in living aloha.  Respect for local language.

Once we got settled in, we wanted to hit the beach.  Kelly lived about a mile from Waikiki Beach, and it became the first place that I stood up on a surfboard.  We took some surfing lessons in the shadows of Duke Kahanamoku's statue before we actually went out in the water.  And then once we went out and started paddling into some very small waves on some very large foam boards, we actually were able to stand up and have some fun.  It didn't hit me that we were riding the same waves that the originators of the sport were riding.  It's pretty cool now to think of this, the fact that I learned to surf on the same waves where it was invented.  It's equivalent to learning how to play golf on The Old Course at St. Andrew's in Scotland.  The view from our beach was breathtaking.  As long as you don't mind all of the hotels and urban feeling you got from just off the beach.  But those hotels weren't always there, of course.  We, as Americans after acquiring the strategically geographic islands, put them there.  But that's a whole different story.  Now that I had had a bunch of practice runs on Waikiki Beach, my Brother in-law took us to the spot he loved the most, Diamond Head Beach.  It was at the base of Diamond Head Crater.  Which is an old volcano, but now completely dormant.  The waves were great.  They weren't too big for us beginners to handle, and weren't as small as Waikiki.  But this was the day that changed EVERYTHING.  I had caught a few rides and was having a great session for my first day at Diamond Head.  I had paddled back out to the best place to catch another wave, and it was there that I took a look around.  I looked straight down and saw crystal clear water and beautiful coral right underfoot.  There was a slight breeze blowing, and it was the perfect temperature that day.  I took a look at all the other surfers having the time of their life.  I saw the smile on my friend's face and all the joy that came from all the fun we were having.  I looked up to see the dormant volcano.  THE DORMANT VOLCANO.  This thing used to spew lava and destroy everything in its way.  But now it's a peaceful backdrop for just another piece of paradise.  It was then and there that something inside me had changed.  I felt like I had a new found appreciation for what Hawaiians had been experiencing for generations.  I had just been smacked in the face by aloha.  And it was awesome.  I never had a feeling of being so small, and so amazed at where I was.  It was one of those moments that doesn't happen often.  It felt like this was where I was supposed to be.  Like I had found what I had been looking for all my life.  The one moment of peace and tranquility that was right in front of me and had come to me so suddenly.  I knew I liked the water, but I didn't expect to find my own personal sanctuary while sitting on a surfboard.  But there it was, staring me in the face and I was unable to ignore its magnitude.

The word aloha that everyone is familiar with means hello, goodbye, and love.  Aloha is really a state of mind.  It's more than just a greeting or a farewell.  It means having mutual regard, affection and extends warmth in caring with no obligation in return.  It means living in harmony with your surroundings, the land, and each other.  It's a life force according to Hawaiian law.  See the last paragraph in this link, http://bit.ly/bjgKk6.  It means loving yourself and returning and sharing that same kind of love with others.  It means doing things purely out of kindness.  Aloha is contagious.  Take 10 minutes after you land on any island and look around.  People are different towards each other.  There's unsolicited respect for one another.  You just don't find that everyday.  So take away what you will from my words, but what "Living Aloha" really means to me you will see in my day to day actions.  And if I'm wrong in that assumption, then correct me.  Remind that I need to live more aloha.  And I'll probably tell you you're right.

The picture you're seeing is the tattoo I designed.  It is a wooden surfboard stuck in the sand.  In the background is the view from Waikiki Beach of Diamond Head Crater.  This is my daily reminder of how, where and why I should live aloha.

Aloha and Mahalo for reading,

Tommy