Hawaiʻi

I think Hawaiʻi feels like a fantasy in the freezing damp of New York. I’m drinking tea steeped with ʻōlena, sliced thin, with lemon and honey. I could’ve easily bought some here but instead I brought a little stem 11 hours across the Pacific so I could drag out this memory. The rest dries slowly in a covered ramekin on my kitchen counter. My ti lei browns on my bookcase and the woven banana leaf hat above it is fading from vibrant green to grey. The life of Hawaiʻi doesn’t do well in this cold, dry climate.

Ten years ago when I was last on Oʻahu, I felt at home and absorbed the life like a parched sponge. Now, 28, I was filled with joy over a simple meal with a feeling of aloha, of welcoming, and honesty, The streets that night were spotted with dirty snow and yet I felt like this connection was something I experience maybe one in a dozen people I meet in New York. I thought: Was it me? Is this where I belong?

Well, I am also a naïve and shallow girl. Who doesn’t connect with the Hawaiʻian people and love their paradise? Who doesn’t create narratives of some personal, individual, tie to their ineffable goodness? That’s why people are drawn to the islands, and spend thousands to be here. Maybe I think I’m better than most because I care deeply for the people and their stories. But that, too, is certainly not as unique as one (or I) might think.

I’ve never been good at reading people, or seeing past charades. So I mostly don’t try.

Maybe that is why I’m so drawn here; I can believe what’s presented. I see myself in the selfless generosity and service of people I meet, kindness and openness feels reverberated between us. Is it wishful thinking, or could I really be good enough to be one of them? I am not alone when I sit on the water’s edge on the side of the highway. I feel the power of the ocean tide and the weightiness of the fog over the mountain. I feel the presence of trees overhead and I know, if only whispers to me, these forces are real, because they are given life by a people who fought through millennia to continue their traditions.

I think travel’s value is in how it interrogates us. Why is Hawaiʻi special to me? Was every other place just different because of language, of my age, of cultural difference?

I don’t think I’ll ever have a connection to a place and people like I do with Hawaiʻi. I feel a bit silly for it, but at the same time I take comfort knowing it’s true.