Aloha

May we face whatever is to come in your divine will with courage and open hearts of acceptance. Amen

Don’t Look Up

As a kid, the first thing I learned about Hawaiian culture was that they used the same word for hello and goodbye. Aloha.

We’re moving to the tropical rainforest on the island of Hawai’i. 12.5 acres on the Hamakua Coast.

How we landed here, I can barely retrace the steps. Literal sleepless nights; tearful goodbyes; a roller coaster of a real estate process; doubt, insecurity, fear.

Also, excitement; pinching ourselves; books and videos to orient ourselves to tropical life.

“It feels crazy,” we’ve said to each other many times, feeling our heartbeats flutter with fear — fear of the unknown; of the ear-splitting coqui frogs; of the parasitic rat lungworm; of the heat and rain; of elephant grass; of the responsibility of 12 acres; of moving to the most isolated population center in the world… oh, and it’s on fire.

When trying to make a big decision, we project ourselves forward in time. We imagine ourselves in either scenario. But when the decision is transformative, that strategy breaks down. The future self will be too different from the current self to make a useful guess as to “how we will feel.”

Most of the time, I knew it didn’t really matter where we settled. In the best of times, I knew we could be content just about anywhere. In the worst of times, I knew we could be miserable just about anywhere.

I don’t think I feel what I’m “supposed to” feel about moving to Hawaii. Comments from strangers range from “relaxing on the beach — what a life!” to “everyone’s dream is to move to Hawaii!” And I cringe. I hesitate to tell people. Few places are laden as heavily with cultural connotations as “Hawaii”. My cringe is shaped by the chasm between what someone imagines our future life to be and what we imagine it to be; between why someone assumes we’re moving there and why we’re actually moving.

Hawaii connotes paradise, beaches, and mai tais. Palm trees, ocean breezes, and luxury resorts. An escape. But Hawaii is not an escape from the troubles of the mainland. Many have written about how the islands are a microcosm of the world’s troubles.

Questions of food security — Hawaii famously imports about 90% of its food.

Of energy security — most electricity is generated from imported oil.

Of confronting its colonial past — as troublesome of a past as anywhere in the Americas.

Of invasive species disrupting native ecosystems — Hawaii has been called the “extinction capital of the world.”

Of wealth inequality — you better believe it.

If anything, the troubles are harder to ignore due to the island’s size and isolation. “It feels crazy.” I still can’t articulate why we’re moving to Hawaii. There is no clear why.

Much of the angst of my adulthood comes from the play between two of my strongest impulses. My sentimentality to my past, and my grass-is-greener beliefs for my future.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

Our search for clarity in this decision failed to reveal any. Our attempts to “get in touch with our gut” failed to uncover a master self calling the shots from above. We are multitudes. We are our eagerness for Hawaii. We are our attachment to Virginia, to four seasons, to black walnuts, yellow beeches, and white pines, to our family and friends.

Our entire lives, histories, our family histories are wrapped up in the temperate climate of North America. Sailing west has, at times, felt like dying. Our last kale salad from the garden. Saying goodbye to our friends. Saying goodbye to the juneberry tree. Our first home, our first garden, the living room where our first child was born. Not knowing when we’ll be back. Ruthlessly curtailing our possessions and childhood heirlooms. Recognizing all our treasures will eventually face the same fate, to be hauled to the dump after we die. A painful separation from each object — drab and unremarkable, but infused with thirty years of memories.

The journey of our last five years has been a run-away-and-come-back-again with that identity. Our story is about how hard it has been to pull away, how liberating and how sad it’s been to let go of the ideas and dreams that our younger selves held in great esteem. We’ve tried to peel back the layers of our built environment, unshoulder the weight of our cultural baggage to get to the heart of what it means to be alive — not just as an American in the 21st century, but as a breathing mammal immersed in this existence alongside other breathing mammals, supported by, surrounded by, touched by photosynthesizing leaves, decomposing fungi, metabolizing bacteria, all thriving, struggling, competing, cooperating, shaping their world to keep on metabolizing a bit longer.

Oliver Burkeman writes about how the word “decide” comes from the Latin root “to cut off.” 

Any finite life — even the best one you could possibly imagine — is therefore a matter of ceaselessly waving goodbye to possibility.

Oliver Burkeman

Adam Phillips writes about FOMO.

Our lived lives might become a protracted mourning for, or an endless tantrum about, the lives we were unable to live. But the exemptions we suffer, whether forced or chosen, make us who we are.

Adam Phillips

One identity fades, another grows. Though I can’t succinctly make sense of this move, I can say what excites us:

Living in single-wall construction with less material separation between “our dwelling” and the Earth; the farmer’s market down the street and the community of small organic farms; the welcoming neighbors; year-round inundation of green; the warm rain, rain, rain and the warm, humid evenings; the cascading, gushing rivers racing to the ocean; the powerfully blue ocean; discovering the diversity of tropical food crops and getting to know entirely new families of trees and shrubs; living in a climate where “food forest” is the traditional mode of agriculture; the wild diversity of biomes crowded together on one island; most of all, that we will be collaborating with 12 acres of land in need of new collaborators, that we will be settled in one place without the constant scheming of what’s next, of how to get there, the Zillow scrolling.

Aloha means both hello and goodbye.

I called it a tropical rainforest. It’s tropical, yes, a few degrees south of the Tropic of Cancer. And rain, yes, to the tune of over 150 inches per year (Charlottesville gets less than 50. Seattle less than 40). But forest — not so much anymore. Not for over 100 years. The land was cleared in the 1800s for a century of intensive sugar cane production. The sugar mills are gone today and these 12 acres are now under a sweet potato monocrop, with all the herbicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizer necessary to wring sweet potatoes from the Earth without rotation year after year.

We just bought 500 pounds of cover crop seeds.

Hawaii: a history of unique endemism and a future of novel ecosystems.

Aloha is much more than hello and goodbye. It is an expression of compassion and kindness. It is an expression of love. We want to get past the connotations of “Hawaii” to the heart of what it means to infuse every greeting and every farewell with compassion, gratitude, and love.

My attention inexorably turned away from the crumbling species interactions of the past, and toward the nascent interactions of the future.

Joseph Mascaro

The journey of our last five years has taken us to a Vermont winter, a Virginia summer, a New Zealand family, and a Chilean commune. To singing circles, spoken word, writing groups, backpacking, gardening, and book clubs. And now, to a volcanic rock in the middle of the ocean.