March 31, 2006

Leaving Paradise, the Year-Mind

The stony shore of Laupahoehoe taken in 2003 on the Big Island of Hawaii

In the old days, the time after a death or tramatic event was marked by a month-mind, for a year then there was a year mind...

I was telling a friend this morning that my Pastor reminded me that leaving Hawaii was a tramatic experience. No matter if it was the right thing to do... I still miss it terribly. I was looking for a poem I wrote about it when we first got here and found this peice about my missing the 'aina

It will haunt me forever. Those that I have met both Hapa and Haolie, that for one reason or another have come to the mainland to live seem to have similar feelings, that no matter how good right noble and rewarding life is here, something is missing... The Aina the land and all that goes with that.

I was having lunch with our neighbor of ours that is heading off to Kenya this summer for two months of work at a Bible School. I told her of a Pastor that we met during our travels that had spen much of his life there and how he was changed from the moment of his arrival. I quote that post below


I understood... As we shared, the similarities and the differences I could hear in my mind's ear the roar of tropical rains coming towards you, like a giant thing pouring down and the sweetness of the smell of the air, when this was through...Traveling through the bush, viewing the great land, thundering herds of animals, the tribal people, hearing Swahili in his sleep... I could relate to every word, and the knife twists in my heart for him and for me....

There is a place
called the Great Land
Where the ancient people
gather to celebrate the rains

Killimanjaro's mighty shadow
Snow shrouded beauty
Holds his heart with
an eternal longing

There is a Island
Hawaii- Water of Heaven
Where the People of the Journey
gather to dance before all nations

Mauna Kea's mighty shadow
Snow shrouded splendor
Holds her heart with
the longing of the exile...

I still feel like this, as I miss those things that were dear and try to keep the hard things that assailed us truthful in retrospect, today marks a milestone that I can look at and say "it has been a year..." and grief passes...as the Welsh say "for every grief the ointment of time" How true it is...

Oh Hilo, if I forget thee....

Hilo Big Island of Hawaii photo courtesy of Blue Hawaiian Helecopter Tours