Nighttime on Maui

I've just figured out why the nights smell so sweet here - there's night-blooming jasmine growing somewhere in our neighborhood, and when the wind blows it carries the smell right into our yard.

Nights here are silent, and spectacularly dark. The only sound is the wind in the palm trees, and when the moon shrinks to a sliver you can see the milky way spilled across the night sky. It's one of the things I missed most living in the city, that perfect scattering of stars across the darkness. I find myself resenting the one street light visible from our yard and plotting ways to escape it, just to see what the sky looks like when it's completely and totally black.