September 06, 2006
Pulling Up Stakes
My freinds from Oahu Claudia and Mike. Pulling up stakes and Coming back to the mainland... leaving that adorable grandson behind...
"Hoku, I feel a great deal of peace about this and know in my heart its the right thing and we are doing this at the right time. We came back to pack and it just feels like Hawaii is no longer home for us, and we are so looking forward to starting over in the Bay Area...."I am so glad for them. After nearly seven years in the wilderness of living the Hawaiian Dream, struggling to make a living, missing family and not making the freinds that they hoped to make, they are pulling up stakes and heading home...Elderly parents needing care was the final straw that pushed them forward, but they knew even before we did that the Hawaiian Dream has a terrible price tag. Everything from the misunderstanding that somehow you are rich if you live there, to the outright hostility, racsim, and discrimination that no American in any state should have to put up with...
As Claudia discussed her plans, I found myself thinking of our own journey. As Hawaii becomes more and more a part of my past and the Ozarks become more and more my home, I want to remember the good things...The language and the music, my experience owning Azure Seas has been dicussed a lot recently, the closness to the ocean, and to the land.... Woody and I found the drawings and plans for the home we owned there, which I miss at times and other times am grateful that I no longer own... Like Claudia, I came to understand that the enviroment rejected me just as surely and the culture rejected me... but like a lover jilted I love her just the same...
I will be keeping her in my prayers as she settles down in her home town again. She is doing what I felt I couldnt do, which was to go home to my birthplace. I didnt find it to be home for me when I visited in 2004 and once my Mother is no longer with us, I dont know how often if ever I will return there...
God Bless you both on you journey, and keep in touch...
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Admiring our babies. A porter at the interisland terminal in Honolulu tries to calm Makoa as we head out to find a cab to take us to the next stage of our journey. Taken April 15 2005
