Here’s the thing: I left home to become a writer and now all I want to write about is home. 

But before I tell you about that, I must tell you about the Night Marchers, the way they circle the island like the beads of a broken necklace. Hundreds of years ago, they chose to leap from the Pali before the enemy could take them. Their heads opened against the rocks like roses. They are no longer warriors, which is to say, they will not hurt you if they don’t have to. 

But before that is the Pali. One summer we drove to the Pali and our car broke down on the highway because we angered the goddess on the other side. I didn’t think I had pork in my car, but now I’m not so sure. And besides, the goddess is not always angry. But if you see her on the side of the road, her white dress billowing like a memory, the hem hovering above the asphalt, you will stop for her. You will take her wherever she needs to go until she decides she is bored of you. 

I must tell you all roads lead to the same ocean but not all oceans are the same. Every summer, my father takes me to the bay where he nearly drowned as a boy. We watch a seal slip through the water like an afterthought. In shallow water, he shows me a fish holding another in its mouth, two pairs of eyes turned up as if in prayer. All the while an eel stares at us, yawning. I sit on the sand and watch my father swim beyond the wavebreak. 

I must tell you I have never been a good swimmer. I have never trusted myself enough. Before I came back to the mainland, though, I loved jumping from the rocks into the water. We had to swim out, then climb with slippery fingers, and suddenly we were high in the air, and the ocean was flat as glass. I watched the waves roll in, gentle as breath. I jumped with the tide. This was how I learned I am better at falling than staying afloat. 

I must tell you I’ve never seen a group of boys happier than when they were throwing rocks. We were in sixth grade. It was a class camping trip. There was a beach and a zipline and a ghost story told around a fire. We kept the lights on past ten, and one of the chaperones yelled at us for it. The next morning, before breakfast, a group of boys stood on the lookout above the beach and threw rocks at the crabs below. They stopped when they finally hit one. Its body turned inside out. The boys went quiet and left for breakfast. 

I almost forgot—I must tell you about 7-Eleven Spam musubi, the kind my dad and I always buy on the way home from the beach. Saimin from Zippy’s, the first meal I eat once I’m off the plane. Spicy ahi poke from Foodland. Manapua from the shop across the street from the radio station. Loco moco from Rainbow Drive-In. Malasadas from the Leonards truck at Koko Marina (my favorite). Malasadas from Agnes Bakery in Kaneohe (Dad’s favorite). All the things I didn’t know to crave until I moved halfway around the world. 

I must tell you we were always told we would leave one day. Our parents fed us this notion the way they fed us Spam and rice. We talked about college as if it were a pilgrimage. The mainland, we were told, is where we would find success. Whatever we wanted to do, we couldn’t find it at home. The island was too small to hold all of us. 

I must tell you this island will always be big enough for those who do not live there. My sister and I drive through Waikiki, yelling through the windshield at a gaggle of sunburnt tourists jaywalking across Kuhio Ave. Move, I shout. I will run you over, she says. And the whole time we are laughing because we know they can’t hear us, as if there will ever be a time we no longer have to stop for tourists.

I would tell you what it means to live in a place that other people see as a destination, but I’m still not quite sure. All I know is the way it felt to watch the fires on the news, listening to the journalists describe charred bodies in the streets. The way my mom spent an entire day calling her friends on Maui to make sure they were safe, the panic in her voice when she couldn’t reach them. The way people posted photos of family members on Facebook: My uncle lives in Lahaina, has anyone seen him? And beneath that, a photo of a blonde woman lounging on the beach: My honeymoon spot is gone :( 

I must tell you how I felt like crying, watching Front Street burn over and over. I told my dad so, and he said, Of course you feel like crying, this is our home. But a few weeks later, when I was on the plane to Boston again, I thought about all the people stuck in hotels because they had nowhere else to go, and I wasn’t so sure. 

I must tell you my parents work for the airline. The pandemic was the first time I saw an empty beach, and it was also the first time I thought my parents might lose their jobs. As much as I hate the way haoles have turned my home into a destination, my family’s livelihood—my livelihood—relies on that perpetual image. 

I must tell you that I am from Hawai‘i, but I am not Hawaiian. I don’t know how it feels to have the land taken from me. I don’t know how it feels to fight for it back. All I know is that, although this land was never mine, it is the one that raised me. It is the only thing I want to write about. I’m turning my memory into mythology for you. 

But before I say any of that, I must tell you that the longer I spend trying to explain my home to you, the further from home I feel.