There is an old shed at my family’s farm in Waiehu, next to the charming yet weathered plantation home that sits overlooking the taro fields, giant jabong, towering avocado, and tilting mango trees. At first glance, the dilapidated shed looks beaten down, tattered, and without much use. Stepping in through its large open entryway, I was surprised to find so much life. The split leaf philodendron and monstera, with their vibrant lumbering leaves roam and canopy the crags and cracks of the room. Light streams through the broken slots in the roof. Water trickles down those same pukas. Peace permeates the quiet space. I wonder what stories the shed would whisper of its purpose throughout the years. This wooden enclosure borders on ephemeral, a tangible way for me to grasp how life both blooms and dies, returning to the land.
As this shed slowly dissolves back to nature, I find myself grieving. Much of my childhood is tied to this place, here at my grandparent’s farm, where my sisters and I would help my parents gather fruit as keiki. The sound of coconuts being husked, the smell of overripe mangoes and buttery, squishy avocados covering the driveway as the harvest rolled in – these along with the vibrant tropical flora, represented a wild landscape brimming with life. I could taste the promise of youth, which felt immortal, in each bite of warm spam musubi, sip of cold Hawaiian Sun, and dip in the frigid stream waters at the farm. Shared meals with cousins and aunties and uncles, so many holidays spent here, altogether.
But now, as I walk through these same spaces in my later 30s, I see how worn these once magical vistas have become. Weeds overtake the lo’i. My aunties and uncles work tirelessly to maintain the property, and yet we are all growing older. Cousins and aunties and uncles do not all live here on-island, as it once seemed so. Celebrations here are fewer, and further between. Change is a part of our collective story, and yet I struggle to let go of the memories that hold such a deep and steadying place in my heart.
Grief mixed with joy, over what once was.
My desire to move forward, without forgetting the past.
Thoughts rush in, as I walk the trails I once ran barefoot in my youth. Mud clinging to the soles of my feet, seeping into each crack and crevice. With tender care, I slip my toes into the cool mountain stream that runs along my grandparent’s property. Then I feel it. A jolt from the cold followed by the slow, steadying peace of feeling at home. A place that has, like me, grown and changed and transformed.
