Aloha 'Āina

When I arrived on Hawaii island mid-2017, running away from the impending holocaust of the first Trump administration, my primary goal was to find and acquire some land. By chance after only one night at a hostel in Hilo I found a small cottage rental in Fern Forest, a subdivision about 10 minutes drive below Volcano village and the National Park. I decided this was the right place for me to spend my elder years: three acres of native rainforest at a high enough elevation to be cooler and less mosquito-ridden, still highly undeveloped, but accessible to airports and educational institutions. I also preferred the name “Fern Forest” as opposed to “Royal Hawaiian Estates” or “Vacationland” something or other. Having already lived on Maui off and on since 2014 I knew enough about the real Hawaii on the other side of the fake “Paradise” that those who have never lived here imagine exists.

It took a bit of time to get all the paperwork to actually “own” this land, so the educational journey I had started at UH Maui in 2015 and continued online with UH Manoa all that past year was postponed until the summer of 2018 when I finally went over to Oahu for a field school and organized the plan to complete my BA (after decades since I first went to college briefly after high school in 1968). I accomplished this goal in 18 months, studying Hawaiian language for 4 semesters and graduating cum laude majoring in American studies. It was a great department and the experiences I had there were worth every penny. But this sojourn used up what money I had left from the sale of my house in East Orange. I came back to Big Island trying to figure out how to live here and make a go of it.

I tried working in a nursery for $14. an hour and would have been happy enough just doing that for awhile. But after only two days of work that job disappeared and I had to scramble quickly and find a cheaper place to live and some way to get some money for gas and food. I found a place to live and work on someone’s land in Kurtistown (midway between Hilo and Volcano) and managed to get by for another year there. 

It was covid lockdown when I came back to BI but by 2021 the schools had re-opened. I knew with my BA I could go to my “Plan B” (substitute teaching). After 4 months the DOE finally gave me my certificate and now, after 4 years, the phone rings daily with jobs and I pick and choose my schools and grade levels. But it sucks up my time and energy trying to civilize, educate or even control other people’s children. It pays the bills but it does not get me further along toward my true path and purpose in this one brief life. Lately, I often wake up from complex dreams reminding me of the person I used to be: busy, active, engaged and in control: managing people, creating and making stuff happen. My brain is telling me that this routine is not enough for me.

The time/money conundrum has always plagued me. When you have money you have no time and when you have time you have no money. But replacing the aggressive ambition of my younger years is the pressure of my numerical age bearing down on me. The separation of my time from the space I want to be in for the majority of it is my daily conflict. My life now feels defined by the finite number of years I can expect to enjoy living on this land before my ultimate dissolution.

The great fear post-70 is not of dying but of declining: not counting on your body to do the things you’ve always been able to do; losing the store of information in your head that made you an expert in your field; maintaining the sequence of thought that made thinking so pleasurable; not being able to drive safely and confidently to go wherever you want whenever you want; the fear of being helpless and having no one ever there to help.

We don’t really have community in modern societies. We replaced that with the nuclear family. And that’s fallen apart as a support system for most people. We created structures that were supposed to care for us elderly: social security (but that’s just money, not love); elder care facilities, where one could lose one’s compass staring into the faces of strange caretakers who are employees not companions. 

I want to live and die on my land. I’m grateful that a year ago I found an inexpensive cabin nearby that has all the basics: electric outlets, a toilet, a shower, a simple kitchen, a bed and a roof. For a year and a half before that, I slept in my tiny truck every night. I could not even stretch out my entire body and I had to negotiate over the seat belt hitch. When I woke up at night, I peed on the ground. But I also breathed my own fresh clean air and I knew exactly where the moon was every night. I miss that in this dark dreary cabin.

I go work on the land every day I am not at a school substitute teaching. On the days when there is little time, daylight or my own energy left in that day, I still always go check in. I walk around, deadhead some flowering plants, prune some overgrowth, pull a few weeds, and discover some surprise like a new bloom or a praying mantis on the roses. This gives me life. This is my life.

Mahalo to all my stalwart followers and most especially to those of you who support me financially — I know you are not just sending me money,  but also sending me your love.

Aloha ʻāina,

Pat