Hawaii Sun and random musings

I find myself being struck with the face that I actually LIVE in Hawaii at random, odd moments. This morning I was sitting a low rock wall, drinking coffee and looking at the ocean with sweat running down my back (at 10 in the morning!!!!) and it just hit me. This thought that surfaces every once in a while. "I can believe I actually live here." For me, though, unlike most people I know here, it's not a though that brings with it the crazy feelings of  "Wow! I can't believe I live in this paradise where people with lots of money honey-moon and vacation," but rather, "Wow, I can't believe that I live in this foreign place where summer never ends and people I've never understood or related to dream of living."



Hawaii is not a place I've ever once wanted to go to. When my aunt and uncle moved out here I thought it might be fun to escape from the bitter cold of Montana winters for one week and see what all the fuss is about, but I never seriously considered it. When I heard of people coming here for their honey-moon I thought to myself, "How terribly cliche, can't they come up with something better?" And yet, here I am .

I am glad that God's plans for me are different from own. I'm glad that I'm here even though I don't really like much about his place at all (I'm praying for God to change my heart and give me a love for Hawaii, but right now, I must be honest about how I feel). I actually miss the snow. I miss long springs. The scent of new leaves budding on branches, the birds that somehow know just when to return from their summer homes in exotic places further south. The new feeling in the air every morning. I miss the days growing longer and that excitement that comes knowing that winter is breaking and summer is on it's way.  It just seems so stagnant here, so permanent. The trees are always green, there are always flowers in bloom every where you look. And it is always hot. Humid, sticky, unbelievably hot.

I've never like the feeling of permanence. In all the years since I graduated high school and set out on my own, it's been this way. I can't stay in one place for too long before I begin to feel that antsy, restlessness whispering in my ear that it's time to move on, it's time to go somewhere else, meet new people, see new things. But that's the thing about this place. It's permanent in it's impermanence. Every three months see new students coming and going. The students you have gotten close to, built relationships with, invested into, leave to go on outreach and a brand new group comes in to take their place not thinking that others have gone before, they are not the first once to tread these paths and fill these spaces with their laughter and hushed conversations. And I'm still here.

The wandering gypsy not wandering away like usual. Actually committed to being here for a defined period of time. COMMITTED! As in, no I could not just pick up and leave next week if I wanted to (well, I could, they wouldn't stop me, but it wouldn't be the right thing to do.).  This is the first time since I turned 18 that I've found myself in this position. I've always lived in such a way that I can leave whenever I want to. I never have to much stuff and even if I do, I never have any problems getting rid of it all. In the 8 years since I graduated and moved out of my parents house, I have moved somewhere around 25 times. Now, these were mostly moving from house to house, not city to city, but even so, I don't a single person who has moved as many times as I have in the same amount of years. I'm not good at staying. I'm not good and putting down roots and making a place my own. I'm good at living out of suitcases, knowing that it's probably not going to be much longer before I pack up and leave again.

And that's what I was expecting when I came out here. I was expecting three months in Hawaii then packing up and moving all of my stuff again to the Philippines for another three months and then packing up once more and moving again....... to where I had no idea. Never would I have thought when I came out here that I would be staying for at least nine months. But that was what God had in mind. And so until He releases me from here, I will stay. I will try to establish roots of some sort and ground myself in the here and now where I've placed. Even though it's hard, even though I dream at night of going back home and being with my family again.  Maybe the Hawaii sun and soil will be good for me and I, like all of the plants scattered around, will myself growing and thriving, putting forth beautiful blossoms filled with heady fragrance that will draw people near.

Yes, I think that is what I will do. I shall bloom and the wind will carry the fragrance of those blossoms far across the ocean and when I come home you will be surprised at how I've change but it will be oddly familiar at the same time because it will be the scent you've been catching on the breeze, and you feel like home has come to you.