Oh Maui...

We planned to use some of our tax return money to take the children to Hawaii. Okay, we planned to use some of our tax return money to take US to Hawaii. Maui to be exact. Every time I decide to go home for a vacation it doesn't feel like a vacation at all. It feels like WORK. We are required to visit family. In Hawaii, family isn't just your immediate family. Family is the entire island. Word spreads quickly that you're there. Someone who knows someone who has a cousin who knows your dad spots you at the airport and it is no longer a vacation, but a family reunion. You visit immediate family first, uncles and aunts and cousins next, there is a myriad of parties you must attend, a luau of course, there are phone calls to be made, dinners to attend, and lots of conversations to be had. Only after those things are through are you allowed to go to the beach. Oh, the beach.

There is something so soothing about sand in places you never had. You jump off rocks to remember that the real thrill isn't the ocean below, but the fact that you're able to keep your top on. No one wants to see working breasts from above. Gravity does exist.

Before Robert and I became parents we spent payday Fridays doing anything we wanted. Late night shows. (Matinee? What is that?) Sushi at 10pm at 1/2 price. (Delish.) Sneaking into the Grand Wailea for a quick swim. (Then, being chased by security guards.) Night trips to the bamboo forest to find some prawns. (Then, taking the long way home through Hana.) And, Sunday mornings going to Kapalua. (Taking the other way, of course.)

We moved shortly after Isaiah was born to seek adventure. We moved to become our own family...away from family. We moved to discover ourselves while discovering America. Eventually, we settled in the northwest, but for those few months that we were in the truck we still lived on an island.

I got pregnant with Josiah in Sunriver, OR. I found out I was pregnant in Vancouver, WA. I spent my 1st trimester on Maui, Hawaii. Now that Josiah is here I want so badly to take him to Hawaii. I want to show him off. I want to show Isaiah off. Robert's cousins LOVE Isaiah and I want them to see Josiah in all of his baby-ness.

I think that the problem with raising children away from your home-home is that when you have more children the feelings of home-home grow stronger. When you are from Hawaii, when the ocean courses through your veins like your own blood, you feel a strange connection to it. It calls to you when you are not expecting. You hear the waves in the middle of the winter. You smell salt water when you're in the tub. You see palm trees when you're staring at pine. You imagine things when you miss it most. I want so badly to give my children memories of home-home. Washington, Oregon, the mainland...these places don't really belong to them. They eat local food. Isaiah browns like me. I want to feed Josiah fresh mangoes and bananas and avocados from my dad's property in misty Haiku. I want them to ride their horses in damp Kula air. I want to take them home.