What a trip: the morning I took LSD

I started walking before realizing my legs were moving. I was close. The damp asphalt tickled my feet and the rhythm of the atrium base line under my chest felt familiar and scary. Like the feeling you had back in high school, sneaking home past curfew.

I inhaled the salty air as if sipping through a straw, exhaling slowly with deliberation. My feet kept walking on and I knew. This was going to be badass.

Walking the streets of Waikiki alone at five o’clock in the morning may seem odd to some. For me, it was Tuesday.

There were only three taxis circling the block. Four wheeled vacancy signs wiggling the toes of the otherwise empty streets. The sparseness was a vast contrast to the four-wheeled cattle that would blanket the roadways in the hours waiting to unfold. I imagined restaurant and shop merchants still hiding from snooze alarms while sunburnt tourists were tucked in their hotel beds.

With every step I took, my mind wrapped around the amplified sounds in my skull; a street symphony in the making. Waking birds hovering in the trees, the swooshing roll of tires from lonely taxis, and my own internal heart-pounding were the perfect soundtrack to carry me to the water’s edge.

When my toes sunk through the tiny grains of sand, I closed my eyes to hear the melody of the tide weave its way through the sounds of the dawn. No doubt about it. This was Grammy Award winning acid.