Kim

Salamat, Mati

Still not sure how to post or engage here, but thanks for witnessing me do what I do - bite size essays, mental note to write the damn book (the stack of notes is now bigger than most books), then disappear for many weeks. Think of this moa kāne as the current U.S. leadership, and be louder than it.

I wished her well and left her in the cul de sac at the foot of the Ko'olaus, which would always be a part of us even if home would show itself to look a bit different (but not entirely - the sisters, for example, are still the best part of the legacy) a few years and hundreds of miles away.

I told her, still tell her, that the undeniable and sometimes unbearable bursts of sadness are merely waves, but essential pulls to alert her that she is alive and everything is finite. Cont.

I assured her that her love of stories in book, song, and cinematic forms would be a crucial part of how she navigates her adult world, but not to look too hard for major resolutions or tidy happy endings in real life. Cont.

Quietly (maybe not so quietly, as one becomes their most operatic selves in the company of just the music playing in the car on a solo drive - that's another part of the legacy), I allowed her her tears and rage. Cont.

and it was a reminder that there was no place quite like the place where we grew up. That
neighborhood at that time is also part of the legacy. So I stopped by to see the spot that raised me and offer a hug across years to that former version of me (cont.)

That's not entirely true. Like I said, mixed bag of blessings and burdens. On another day,
we also ran into a few of our neighbors from the old hood (as well as some new additions, like the wife and two of the four keiki of one of the neighbors whom I met when he was a toddler) - cont.

and passed the striking green hills of the Valley of the Temples cemetery, a landmark I've often associated with my childhood house. At that second, The National's singer uttered "I never thought about love when I thought about home," and I choked up. Your girl also loves a well-placed needle drop.

and listening to some of my favorite sad dad music (my sister's car playlist includes a lot of bouncy reggae beats and ukulele strings, while a lot of mine comes from people who would need a lot of sunscreen on their trips to Hawaiʻi) - cont.

(the remnants of a shield volcano, because how much does a Hawaiʻi girl love a fiery mountain metaphor) was neither typical nor healthy. It's a mixed legacy, and not one meant for full display on a vacation pic's captions. But I was driving on the highway headed to the hotel (cont.)

Then, as bigger versions of ourselves trying to find our footing away far away from the windward side, we realized that a lot of what we experienced in and around that house at the foot of the Koʻolau mountains (cont.)

The hotel where we stayed is located so close to the house where my sisters and I grew up, and because I visited with Kate, we talked a lot about our childhoods and the daily phenomena we lived through.

I haven't slept on the windward side of O‘ahu in two fingers of decades. Something about being there, under the impassive stare of the Koʻolaus, listening to the frequent rains that douse that side of the island, made for a more introspective kind of trip back to the ʻāina. Cont.

Santo cielo

Google link to support Filipino families displaced and affected by the L.A. fires: tr.ee/ELwxMyUEh1

Here's a way to support the incarcerated firefighter community through the Anti-Recidivism Coalition: antirecidivism.org/donate/?fbcl...

Displaced Latine Families - LA Fires Mutual Aid Directory

Google link for Latino families affected and displaced by the fires: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Displaced Black Families GoFund Me Directory

Google link for a list of Black families in Altadena displaced and impacted by the fire: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...