There’s a six-hour time difference between Michigan to Hawaii. Even though we stopped in San Francisco for a few days, our little one never quite acclimated to the time change. She normally woke up around 4:00am, wide awake and ready to take on the day.

Me, not so much.

But her early wake-ups did give me the opportunity to go running at Ala Moana beach park before it got too crowded or too hot. Twice I arrived before the sun came up. It was peaceful, seeing the moon quietly hovering over the water and later, exhilarating to watch the changes in the sky as the sun announced daybreak.

There are surprisingly a lot of people at the beach at this time of day. Mostly senior citizen walking in pairs, but there were one or two boot camp-style exercise groups and people like me, out for a morning run to jumpstart their day. The surfers were up, of course, and the fishermen, doing what they do.

I spent the early mornings of Good Friday and Easter Sunday at the beach, reflecting on spiritual things, life things and just getting my Zen on.

If it weren’t for the four-year-old’s internal clock, I wouldn’t have had these great soul-cleansing moments. Usually I’m not very good at going with the flow, but this time I relented and was able to reap all the benefits of giving in to what you can’t control…

..which is much easier to do in Hawaii while on vacation.