It's dark when we leave Los Angeles, darker still when we arrive in Fiji, pre-dawn, almost 10 hours later. Exhausted, my wife, Janet, curls up in bed in our room at the Westin Denarau Island Resort and Spa and instantly falls asleep, leaving me restless, anxious, unsure whether to stay with her or leave. In the darkness of the air-conditioned room, I slip on a new green swimsuit and pad barefoot down to the beach, silently slipping into the glassy lagoon. Like a frog in a pond, I crouch on my haunches in the warm and shallow water, waiting for the sun.

A young Fijian raking the sand makes his way up the beach along with the first rays of light. He stops what he is doing when he spots my dark, mounded shape out in the lagoon, not certain, I imagine, of what I am or where I might have come from.

We stare at each other. He picks up a baby coconut the size of a golf ball and tosses it in my general direction. It lands with a plunk a few feet away. I don't move. He glances around, as if hoping that someone will appear on this deserted beach to explain to him this watery apparition. Small waves lap against the shore. Other than that, it is perfectly silent. In a weak voice, he says, "Ratu, are you OK?

"I think so," I tell him. "Just a little tired. I've just this moment arrived, and it's been a long journey."

He asks me why I have come. I tell him I've come here to change who I am. He looks past me, out to sea, as if I'm one of his ancestors and have come from some distant island - or from the depths of the ocean itself. He is obviously concerned about the situation but unsure what to do. Should he go for help or stand guard on shore with his rake, waiting for me to transform myself back into a big fish or a turtle and swim away?

I stay in the water. It is my first day in Fiji and I'm going to wait for the sun to rise over the coconut trees lining the beach.

The young man puts down his rake and cautiously walks a few feet out into the lagoon. Slowly he claps his cupped hands, making a hollow, rhythmic sound. And then he starts singing. Softly. Like a man singing a hymn in church. His voice is high and delicate and seems to come from the water, from the small waves lapping around his feet. His voice is the ocean and the ocean is his music and the music surrounds me in warmth. Even though I haven't a clue as to what he is saying, his song is so beautiful it gives me goose bumps. It's like I've heard this song before but, of course, I haven't. I just couldn't have; I've never been to Fiji until this morning. But my heart disagrees. My heart knows the feelings of this song if not the tune or the words. My heart says, Listen and remember. It's all there.

When he stops singing, I can still hear the music rising from the water and cresting in the small waves that fall along the beach. But the only words I can remember are isa lei.

"Thank you," I say. I cannot see his face. He is a dark silhouette against the morning sky.

"Vinaka," he says softly. He walks out of the water, picks up his rake and disappears down the beach. The sun rises. The ocean continues to sing his song long after he is gone and I have left the lagoon. For the next two weeks, whenever I approach the shore, the ocean will murmur isa lei. In the water, through the music, I will try and remember what my heart says I have forgotten.

I have not come to Fiji to learn to scuba dive or to feed sharks. I am not interested in fire-walking, parasailing or windsurfing. I have not told my wife this, but I have traveled some 6,000 miles from Los Angeles with a split of Veuve Clicquot wrapped in a T-shirt in my luggage hoping that something in Fiji will jump-start my heart, awaken my soul, fire my imagination. I have come to Fiji with a split of champagne in my luggage looking for intoxication, for that feeling that, as Joseph Conrad said, "lures us on to joys, to peril, to love." When I find it, I will open the champagne and tell my wife my feelings. There is a certain reckless abandon in my quest, for my plan is to rekindle the flame or let it go out altogether. One or the other.

Penioni, an assistant manager at Tokoriki Island Resort, claps his hands and a young woman in a fuchsia sulu, a Fijian sarong, brings us tall glasses of island punch made from pineapple, papaya and mango juices with a dash of grenadine. I pull out a travel-size plastic bottle of lemon vodka from my camera bag and add it to our punch. After two hours of transport aboard first a catamaran and then a speedboat, we have arrived at this, the only resort on Tokoriki, part of the Mamanuca Group of islands west of Viti Levu, just in time for dinner.

The young woman directs us to a table near the edge of the infinity pool beneath swaying coconut trees. Penioni joins us. Just to make small talk, I ask him what we should do tomorrow. He brings his hands up under his chin like a professor waiting for an unruly class to settle down and says, wistfully, "There's nothing to do here." And then he shrugs the way Italians do when there's simply nothing to be done about the situation. I don't believe him, of course, but even if it were true, that would be fine with me.

Janet and I are marveling over the kokoda (koh-kon-dah), reef fish marinated in coconut milk, lime juice and hot peppers - a sort of Fijian ceviche - when suddenly Penioni starts singing along with the Fijians gathered around a couple of guitar players and someone playing the yadua, an island bass instrument made of a square of wood, a stick and a single string. Penioni sings harmony in a falsetto. He sings carefully and from the heart; he sings as if we were not sitting at the table having dinner with him. When the song is over, I ask Penioni if he often sings. He shrugs. "All Fijians sing," he says. "It's what we do."

He's not exaggerating. Fijians sing as naturally as the birds in the trees around our bure. They sing without even knowing they are singing. The bartender sings when he is making us drinks, the boys in the water-sports shack sing when they are rinsing the snorkel gear with fresh water, and the gardener sings as he trims fronds off the palm trees. They don't sing the way we do; we imitate someone singing. We drive with the radio blaring and pretend we're Eric Clapton or Kelly Clarkson. Not the Fijians. They sing as if each song is their own and they're the only ones who have ever sung it. They sing the way we breathe - without thinking about it.

Fijian music is infectious. On our second day at Tokoriki, I come out of the ocean carrying my snorkel and fins, and as I walk up the beach to our bure, I hear an unusual sound - my wife singing in the outdoor shower. It's just gibberish, bits and pieces of various Fijian songs we'd heard the previous evening. I haven't heard her voice in years. I'd forgotten how lovely it is. Perhaps she'd forgotten as well. Rather than disturb her, I sit down on my towel on the veranda. Sitting there listening to her sing in an outdoor shower, without her knowing it, makes me happy for some reason, like suddenly coming across a child having tea with an imaginary friend.

That afternoon, I ask Penioni to reserve one of the special tables beyond the pool for us for dinner. I think about getting out the split of Veuve, but it seems a little forced and much too early. One does not rekindle the heart's fire in two days. I have an ember glowing, that's all. I will carefully fan it and hope it grows. What my heart tells me is that I will know when the time is right. Nevertheless, our candlelit dinner - fresh Yasawa lobster with a mild pawpaw coconut sauce and a bottle of Oyster Bay Marlborough sauvignon blanc - is encouraging. We talk about everything and nothing at all, and when the conversation comes to a natural halt, Janet leans over and kisses me softly on the cheek. Her skin smells of coconut oil.

Just as we are finishing our passion-fruit ice cream, it starts to rain. A hard, warm rain. We run barefoot down the windy path to our bure, getting soaked. Distant lightning illuminates the sky. Several times during the night, coconuts fall from the trees and crash like thunder on our tin roof, waking us with a start. Unable to sleep, I get out of bed, open the shuttered doors to our veranda and stand there listening to the rain. A heavy coconut rolls down the roof like a bowling ball and crashes through the jungle undergrowth. The storm is ridiculously dramatic and quite wonderful.

Follow your heart. That is what I have always told my children. But I have not been a great practitioner of this philosophy; too much of my life has been spent "with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts," as Conrad said.

What my heart says at this very moment is that the song I have forgotten will come back to me at the proper place and time if I am open to it. So we leave Tokoriki and, on a blindingly bright morning, take an hour-long speedboat ride across the sea to Vomo Island Resort, where we are greeted by Jimmi playing a red ukulele singing the Bula song. After we don our plumeria leis and sip our chilled fresh coconut drink from green coconuts, Jimmi escorts us to our air-conditioned bure on the beach. There is a plate of fresh tropical fruit - pineapple, papaya, kiwi - in our room as well as a bottle of chilled champagne.

Not bothering to unpack, we sprawl on lounge chairs, nibbling on fruit and drinking champagne. For the next couple of hours we do nothing more than listen to the soft break of the waves over the coral reef and watch the mynah birds march like toy soldiers across the lawn beneath the coconut trees. In the afternoon, we roust ourselves and manage to make it to the resort restaurant for tempura-battered seafood and gazpacho with olive tartar. In the middle of the restaurant is a round table with Xeroxed sheets of the news, condensed from such publications as the Asia Pacific Journal and the Taipei Times. We'd completely forgotten that the Oscars were yesterday - very unusual for people from L.A.

We decide not to bother looking at the Xeroxed sheets during the rest of our stay. The news, such as it is, is just an irritating, high-pitched hum that interferes with the music of the islands. It is white noise that dulls the ears, and if I am going to listen to my heart, I need to eliminate white noise.

During dinner one night we meet a young Australian couple who are getting married at the resort. He is tan and athletic-looking; she is blonde and vivacious and six months pregnant. They are getting married on the beach on the island's point at sunset. She will be carried down to the sand on a chair hoisted by Fijians. "I just hope they don't drop me," she says, patting her stomach. They invite us to stop by the outdoor bar above the beach and have a glass of champagne with them.

The wedding is lovely. The bride and groom, barefoot and sunburned, holding hands on the beach, are surrounded by Jimmi and the boys singing Fijian wedding songs. The gospel-tinged music floats out over the water and is carried by a sea breeze across the resort. You can hear it in the swaying coconut trees and in the lapping waves and up in the bar above the rocks where Janet and I lean over the railing, listening and watching the ceremony below us.

That night, while Janet sleeps, I turn off the air conditioning in our bure and throw open the doors to the trade winds coming across the South Pacific. Lying on top of the sheets, hands behind my head, I listen carefully for any strains of music still lingering in the night. Every so often I think I can hear it. But maybe it's just the wind.

It is not easy to get to Vatulele from Vomo. First we must take a helicopter back to Nadi, on the mainland, and then transfer to a seaplane that slowly rises, like a lumbering pelican, over the western peaks of Viti Levu and out across the ocean before plopping down inside the small island's green lagoon, where a dozen islanders in pale blue floral shirts and navy blue sulus stand on a magnificent white-sand beach welcoming us with the Bula song.

We are led down a jungle path. Small green lizards dash up the twisting roots of an ancient banyan tree; yellow plumeria and red hibiscus flowers spell out "Bula" on the sandy path leading to our bure. Inside our saffron-colored villa is a coffee table made from a large block of ocean-floor sediment, and on the table is a bucket of ice and a chilled bottle of champagne. I feel as if the Fijian gods are trying to tell me something.

In front of our little thatched house, on the beach, is our own miniature beach bure and a couple of green chaise lounges where we spend most of our time reading, snoozing, listening to the ocean. The resort makes it ridiculously easy to stay sequestered. Next to our mini beach bure is a blue flag on a stick. When we need something, I take the flag and plant it on the white sand near the water. Then I go for a swim. A few minutes later, Jon and Titi, who have spotted the flag, approach me in a boat as I float on my back in the crystal-clear water. Bulas are exchanged. Titi stands at the bow of the tender, paper and pen ready, waiting for my order. "Could we get a couple of bottles of sparkling water?" I ask her. "Of course," says Titi. "Anything else?" "And maybe a couple of Fiji Bitters," I add. Jon guides the tender through the shallow lagoon back to the resort. A few minutes later, Titi returns, walking up the deserted beach carrying an ice bucket holding two beers and two bottles of sparkling water. Like a village chief, I take the offering of chilled beverages. "Vinaka, Titi." This is room service on Vatulele. One afternoon Jon takes us to see the island's famous red prawns. You cannot eat the prawns, Jon tells us, because the islanders consider them sacred. As we walk through the jungle to the tidal pools at Korolamalama Cave, in the northern part of the island, he tells us a Fijian legend about the prawns: Long ago, the chief of Vatulele had a daughter who was so beautiful that all the young Fijian men tried to take her for their bride. In order to win her heart, a handsome and dashing chief's son brought her a bundle of giant prawns cooked in coconut milk. But the princess was unmoved. She had him seized and thrown off the cliff. As he tumbled down to the sea, his gift of bright red prawns fell from his hands into a rocky pool at the base of the cliff where they came to life. To this day, the tidal pools under the cliffs on Vatulele are filled with bright scarlet prawns.

You can tell this isn't a Western story - the chief's son doesn't get the girl. And it doesn't sound like she exactly lived happily ever after. But the red prawns are there - as a symbol of unrequited love, I suppose. The thing is, you don't see them at first; you stand there on the edge of the pool, and you look around and think, "They must be hiding." And Jon doesn't do anything to help. He just stands there looking at you. Waiting. But if you are patient and if you look carefully, there they are: dozens of scarlet-colored prawns in the knee-deep pool. Jon wades into the pond and carefully herds one of the prawns toward shore and gently scoops it up in his big, wide hands. With a smile, he cautiously gives it to Janet.

"It's so beautiful," she says. With cupped hands, she holds it out toward me. As if she were a princess, offering me her heart.

Great love and great achievements involve great risk. That's another thing I always tell my children. Yet I don't feel as if I've ever risked anything for love or achievement. Until now.

There is a tropical storm festering out over the ocean when we hop aboard the seaplane for our flight back to Nadi. The aircraft leaps and dips in the wind and rain as Janet and I exchange alarmed looks. As the plane bounces around, Janet closes her eyes and hums the Bula song.

When we land at Labasa, Janet says, "I need a drink." I do, too. But we've still got a 45-minute van ride along the coast and a boat ride across the bay to Nukubati Island Resort. Janet hasn't said anything during the six-hour journey, but I know what she's thinking: Why did we leave Vatulele? Why did we risk that awful weather to come to Nukubati Island?

I can't really say. It was just a feeling I had, a risk I thought we should take. After all, I still have that split of Veuve in my luggage.

That evening we sit in wicker chairs on our veranda drinking rum cocktails and watching the sun slip beneath the swollen storm clouds and contemplate skipping dinner. After all, there's only one other couple here, and Jenny Bourke, a resort owner, has told us that they've also just arrived and are jet-lagged and won't be dining. The idea of just the two of us dining alone seems more desperate than romantic, but we know Jenny and the staff are planning on us, so we go anyway.

The pavilion is not empty as we'd expected. There are a dozen or so villagers sitting on woven mats singing and playing instruments in front of a small group of Australians. While the Fijians sing, an elder mixes a large batch of kava, the dried root of the pepper plant that numbs the tongue and lips, with water in a black tanoa, or kava bowl. He dips coconut shells into the tanoa and offers some to me. I clap once, drink the kava straight down, then clap three times, in thanks, after handing the coconut shell back. Janet does the same.

Drinking kava is usually part of a village ceremony to mark special events. This is an impromptu event, Jenny tells us, to thank the Australians, medical practitioners who have spent their holiday working at a clinic in the village across the bay. The elder then offers a prayer and presents the doctors with gifts - woven mats, brooms made from the midribs of coconut branches and old soda bottles filled with a clear liquid.

"It's coconut oil," Jenny tells us. "Very precious. Made in the village. And it takes a lot of coconuts to make that much oil."

After the presentation, we all have dinner - clams in coconut milk and lobster in lime butter - at a long, candlelit table. Toward the end, the villagers gather in a circle around the table and sing.

Isa isa vulagi lasa dina
Nomu lako, au na rarawa kina

Their voices rise and fall like small waves on the beach. The heartfelt song floats across the tropical night and carries me with it back to the lagoon on Denarau Island. It is the same song the young man sang to me out in the water our first morning in Fiji. Listening to it again, I feel as if my heart has stopped in my chest.

Isa lei, na noqu rarawa
Ni ki sana vodo e na mataka

I whisper into Jenny's ear and ask her what it means. "It's about always remembering the good times you had with someone even as things change. It's about how we grow older yet love stays in our hearts. It says, 'Your heart will be filled with pleasure if life is long enough.'"

That night, I can't sleep. I go outside and sit in a wicker chair on the veranda. There is a rain halo around the almost-full moon. Silver shards of light sparkle over the dark water. The night is calm and still. Silent. Except for the Fijian song that floats across the water and echoes in my heart.

Sunday. Our last full day in Fiji. Jenny has arranged for the choir of the local village to come over to the island and sing Fijian gospel songs for us. Late in the afternoon, the old ladies, as Jenny calls them, dressed in long black or blue gowns covered by white surplices, arrive by boat and gather on the beach. They are joined by men in crisp shirts and ties from the resort and a few young women in long red floral dresses. The sky behind them is biblical - billowy gray clouds from the passing storm and a magnificent orange and pink sunset.

Janet and I listen in awe as the choir sings Fijian hymns on the shoreline. Their voices majestically rise together, swelling into an a cappella crescendo that rolls over us like a breaker over the coral reef. It is warm and fluid and comforting and I want it to go on and on. But after a few songs, Jenny stands in front of the choir, and, just as I'd arranged a few hours ago, announces that Janet and I are now going to renew our wedding vows.

Standing barefoot in the sand before these solemn old ladies clutching hymnals and the elegant young Fijian men and women, I am as nervous as I've ever been in my life. Everything I'd planned on saying seems to have fled my brain. So I take a deep breath and just wing it. I tell Janet about how I feel about her. How my feelings are all somehow connected to the Fijian music and the music is the water and the water, though it rises and falls, is always there. And how I hope, as we grow old together, that our hearts will go on being filled with this music. If life is long enough.

Janet, wearing a lei of red and yellow flowers, cries as I kiss her and the choir begins singing Isa Lei. It is the most beautiful version I've heard.

Late that evening, sitting in the sand with our feet in the water, alone, we drink the well-traveled split of Veuve, silently listening to the healing music of the Fijian night.