A Contemplation From Within the Tunnel
You generally can't win by losing, but perhaps there are times you just might.
What change a mere month can bring.
At the beginning of March I was finishing up the last of a fascinating (and thus time consuming) curriculum offered by the Context Institute and their “Bright Future Now” two month on line seminar. While having also been engaged at the time with a near-normal workload at TOTA (and not much down-time throughout the holidays due to extensive site testing), I had come to think of April as a “light at the end of the tunnel” which, upon reaching, would offer me a three week taste of tropical monastic life where I might then “…contemplate the deeper implications of context and its consequence.” Perhaps it would be prudent to now flip the calendar back and fill in some of the pertinent details…
On June 3rd, 2018, a lifelong friend (a true makamaka) and I were to land on the Big Island of Hawaii to revisit a house we had diligently labored 3 years to bring back from the brink of demolition. When this friend and his wife had originally purchased the place, it had sat empty for 8 years in escrow, and anyone who has spent significant time in the tropics knows any building sitting unattended for that long generally spells it’s doom: especially if it is a wooden structure. As soon as ownership was transferred, we flew to the island and spent nearly 3 weeks engaged in an interior tear-out, structural assessment/repair, and initial prep for its resurrection. This was the beginning of a labor of love that captured the majority of our attention in the years that followed. At biannual intervals thereafter we returned to engage in any 2-3 week long project that promised to be too costly (or logistically complicated) for any local crew to complete (such as cabinet installation, fine trim-work, hardscaping, rockwork, pig fencing, etc). On this particular trip we had planned to finally relax and enjoy the fruit of our labors, as this would be our first joint trip to the finished house without an itinerary overbooked with a constant workload (seemingly always involving 14 yds of gravel or soil) and related errands.
Imagine our alarm when a flurry of earthquakes began occurring within the Eastern Rift Zone region of Pahoa the first week in May of that year. We rode an emotional rollercoaster the entire month as volcanic rifts opened, collapsed, moved upslope, downslope, and then settled into a steadily-eruptive state. In the meantime we cancelled flights, and then rescheduled, all while debating the probability of becoming evacuees if we indeed decided to risk the trip after all. As of May 30th we still had our plane reservations as well as rather altruistic plans of hand-delivering care packages to all of our island friends and neighbors; but by the 1st of June the flow-front had finally cut off local access, driven all of the full-time residents out, and on the very day we were to touch down in Hilo the community was at last over-run. It was devastating in a way that is hard to convey: it wasn’t like a wildfire (I grew up in fire country, and am well familiar with its moods) where a house might be destroyed, even the surrounding forest devastated, but the actual place still remains essentially intact. In the wake of the lava flow, however, not only were the hale and ulula ‘au no longer there, but the entirety of the area -including the precious Kapoho Tidelands- were now under anywhere from 50-120’ of fresh lava flow. It is all, quite simply, gone…never to be experienced again. The only commonly recognizable landmarks to survive in the immediate vicinity were Isaac Hale State Park (Pohoiki), the Cape Kumukahi light, and Green Mountain (Pu’u Kapoho): although its freshwater lake (Ka Wai a Pele), once the largest on the island and tutu Pele’s bathing-place, had been reclaimed as well.
We did manage to return on May 16, 2019 for a ‘wake’ of sorts. During the trip we traveled the island in order to bear witness and grieve with our now scattered friends there who had already begun the slow process of rebuilding their lives; revisiting the places that had at one time felt so vibrant, so alive, but now seemed dampened by the ever present memory of loss, and burdened by the oppressive weight of this “new normal.” It was hard (for me at least) to not take it personal, somehow. What kapu had we broken to deserve such judgement? Had we forsaken our duty to malama aina? For the next 10 days we paid our respects (including an overnight trip “there and back again” to the approximate GPS coordinates where the house lay buried), and then with a heartfelt “mahalo” returned to the mainland morose and sullen but with at least some sense of closure.
In the months that followed, this still looming sense of loss didn’t seem to lessen much, but it did become more familiar: bearable even. For my makamaka, this gnawing ache seemed to find its counter in a compelling desire to resurrect some portion of what had been lost, a quest to find a replacement for the dream now dead and buried. With diligence and perseverance, he was indeed successful at long last: after nearly two years and many false leads, he finally found another worthy prospect in the same neighborhood where many of our displaced island family had most recently found refuge. Negotiations began, agreements were made, papers electronically signed, notarized, and another trip scheduled. It promised to be a ‘project reunion’ of sorts: only this time around with less emphasis on a list of tasks, and more time set aside for exploration and appreciation of the local culture. We had recently learned how foolhardy it can be to take such life experience for granted, and we intended to not make that same mistake again. Barring some form of “Cosmic Practical Joke,” we were scheduled to fly out for stage one of this newest “labor of love” April 1st, 2020.
What change a mere month can bring.
With a now-familiar mix of emotions I began hearing reports of a plague to the west: of a novel virus that brought an Asian city to its collective knees. By the end of February my fears became manifest, as its global spread became known, and its reach extended into my own region. A familiar debate began again regarding another now tentative flight to Hawaii. Similar to concerns I had previous regarding becoming yet another malihini refugee, I voiced real concerns over being a “Typhoid Harry” by choosing to travel into the isolate island chain from a literal viral hotspot. Perhaps it bears mentioning that within my country of origin, it seems there are many now whose compulsion for self-indulgence is no longer dampened by a broader sense of social responsibility: as for my own internal struggle with such, although I certainly felt I had labored years for a chance to fully experience the unique character of the Big Island, I also realized to do so during a global pandemic could potentially contribute to its very demise…a consequence that made my desires seem petty by comparison. In the end, any lingering moral dilemma I might still have struggled with was resolved for me, as on March 21st Governor Ige introduced a mandatory “14 day quarantine” for anyone flying to the islands.
With “shelter at one’s lodging upon arrival” the mandate, hypothetically we could have spent the majority of such time working as diligently and myopically on the new project as we had on the previous (as one can certainly have construction materials delivered on site). Alternatively, I could also have rather selfishly indulged in my desire for a true monastic retreat, and by the time of this writing would likely have already logged a notebook full of notations and insights. However, by doing so we would have been in defiance of the very intent of the proclamation: which I truly believe was to deter visitors’s from coming to the islands in the first place (while still maintaining the spirit of aloha)…
…so from my current viewpoint (now sheltering within the tunnel) I am sincerely hoping this brave new world doesn’t forget the hard-earned lessons of the old, but am also hoping that a ‘return to normal’ doesn’t include a return to old habits: especially the social complacency and/or dissonance of the past. I’m hoping we finally free ourselves from our now antiquated notion of “business as usual.” I’m hoping that, in the spirit of a broader cultural evolution, each of us can individually learn and grow from this experience, all while embracing a sense of greater strength and opportunity in our diversity. But most of all, I hope we finally stop taking that which is truly most precious for granted: life itself. Why should we now expect any less? After all:
What change a mere month can bring…
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