“Virtually Pau” is a life technique, a philosophy that’s abidingly optimistic. “Pau” means completed, by the best way, in Hawaii. Carried out. Over. Up to now. “Virtually pau” is a zen-like acceptance of the fleeting nature of minor inconveniences.
“Pau hana” means work is completed, actually, however it additionally embodies the time of day after we can loosen up into ourselves, freed from the temporal troubles of working life. “Virtually pau” is an expression of optimism.
I marvel on the energy of the phrase “virtually pau”. It gives hope. It guarantees an finish to struggling, a world freed from no matter discomfort a given second or a given day could maintain. It’s what will get me by airport layovers or different journey snafus that appear inevitable after I fly, regardless of my finest efforts to arrange. (The airport bar helps for that, too.)
I bear in mind clearly the primary time I heard the phrases “virtually pau”. My hanai brother had simply clocked me within the brow with a picket baseball bat (I do not forget that sound, too). I wasn’t paying consideration. I needed to present him a cockroach I’d discovered with out noticing that he was training swinging a baseball bat. My unhealthy, for certain. We had been, possibly, 5 years outdated.
The nurse within the ER stated, “OK, OK…Virtually pau,” as she swabbed the welt over my proper eye. I think about I used to be sobbing. “The physician’s gonna are available and repair you proper up. You’ll be house for dinner,” she cooed. Six stitches.
“Virtually pau.” The phrases had been therapeutic, proper there in triage at Straub Hospital. The ache would finish. I’ve by no means forgotten these phrases or how efficient they had been on a semi-conscious post-toddler just a few a long time in the past. They calmed me then, and I exploit them now to muddle by. I discover myself utilizing them on household canine who’ve kennel cough or IBS or no matter and have to be force-fed their medication.
I say it to bartender buddies in the midst of a tough shift, to buddies enduring a transfer to a brand new place, to nieces and nephews struggling by what feels to them like a semester that may by no means finish. “You’ll be a senior subsequent 12 months! You’re virtually pau!”
“Virtually pau” implies that stress free moments are quickly to come back. It implies that struggling is momentary, that candy aid is simply across the nook. It helps me be affected person with terrible drivers on the highway, with impolite consumers on the grocery retailer. “It will finish.” It’s a motto, a bumper-sticker, a t-shirt, an unironic espresso mug for the workplace (we guess, we work from home).
The other of just about pau is “What? Not pau but?” It’s a not discrete means of claiming, “I’ve put up together with your nonsense for lengthy sufficient.” Folks from Hawaii know properly sufficient that the query is rhetorical, that no reply is predicted. When you hear it, you have got exhausted the persistence of whomever requested it. And whomever requested it’s prone to say “Virtually pau” to consolation others. The tip of unpleasantness is anticipated.
We right here on the HAT Weblog want to recommend to Hawaii guests that embracing the idea of “virtually pau” is an effective way to really “dwell aloha”. It encourages calm. It gives hope. It guarantees a greater future. And we are able to all use a few of that, regardless of the place we dwell.
There. All pau!
Posted by: Jamie Winpenny
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