Christmas Eve in Honoka'a Town - Bela Johnson Intuitive

We are home again
in our sweet old plantation house in Kohala,
after a day in Honokaʻa—
a town we hadn’t visited in years,
and how it has changed!
Not loudly.
Not falsely.
But with a kind of quiet dazzle,
the best kind,
the kind that surprises without asking
to be applauded.

We ate at a Japanese café,
a small time capsule of midcentury joy:
vinyl seats hugging chrome frames,
jade-green Formica counters,
art-deco curves softened by use.
Old arcade games along the wall,
a pinball machine whose nails
still guided the ball’s erratic path.
Japanese colors everywhere—
playful, precise— black ceiling beams,
pink plastic trays,
celluloid-looking chopsticks,
nothing pretending to be new.

The menu felt like a doorway:
ginger pork gyoza,
ube, ahi belly, curry kabocha—
combinations I didn’t know I was missing,
likely ordinary somewhere else,
and extraordinary here.

The bathroom lay far behind the dining room,
down a narrow alley at the back of the building—
old towel dispenser, spotless floor,
a small, unspoken reverence for care,
the understated comfort of a "rest" room.

Outside, the town revealed itself slowly.
Shops hand-curated,
thoughtful, idiosyncratic—
nothing spat out of a catalog
for passing cruise ships.
A town remembering itself,
not selling it.

And then—
a bookstore.
A real one.
One of only three left on the island.
Books, cards, small treasures,
the quiet miracle of browsing
without being rushed toward a register.

As we left, already promising ourselves
we’d return sooner than later,
the holiday felt complete—
as if unseen fae hands had gently dusted
the ornaments of the season,
restoring their shine.

Blue fairies, perhaps.
A particular shade of electric blue.
The kind that sparkles briefly,
just long enough
for gratitude to germinate.