Hawaiian Sunset, 6/22/2021

We’re always looking for our places to belong.

2021 was a strange year for me—COVID lockdowns were lifting, but I shared none of the liberated cheer among my more extroverted cohorts. Zoom calls chased with full bottles of wine shackled me to a fraught group friendship I questioned more with each of my drinks, but Costco had a nicely-priced resort vacation package. So at the end of June, four of us in that group packed up to enjoy five days in Hawaii.

I swore to myself to step up, to fulfill the "vacation vibe" I owed to those friends. Drink with them. Listen and nod along, play up the camaraderie without offering my input. Say “no” or suggest something different as few times as possible.

All this despite the vacation I actually wanted to enjoy. Write and journal on the balcony. Sit on the beach. Stroll along with the scents of coffee and the sea in downtown Kona. Sip on cocktails until the drunken haze pulled my perception of the waves into kaleidoscopic multidimensions.

But in that particular friend group, at that particular time, where one person became the ostensible leader and tended toward judgmental huffiness when someone—(Me. Let’s not be coy. It's me.) I—wanted to wait out period cramps in the hotel room rather than strip down and join the crowd of bodies at the swimming pool, I chose to overcompensate.

So I got my hair done, got my legs and pits waxed, bought some sundresses and sandals and shorts, and tried to look the part of a vacationing social butterfly.

You know how this goes. I'm a writer, not an actress. Plus I booked a cheaper waxing while conveniently forgetting my own body's resilience, meaning my hairs and social exhaustion came back to roost within about three days.

The vacation, however, meant more to me than just those friends. I had another, greater question.

Could Hawaii—Big Island Hawaii—be my replacement, or at least my halfway house, to Okinawa?

The weather's almost the same. Everyone's equally chill. Plenty of Uchinanchu live in Hawaii, and the islands carry a similar remembrance of their indigenous culture, just like the Ryukyu Archipelago. Food, language, flora and fauna, history, sacred sites and festivals—I vowed to respect the native Hawaiians just as I hoped others would respect my Okinawan heritage.

On this sunset evening, however, standing in shoes and socks among the rough sands and tide pools of a beach whose name I can't remember, as I reflected on Hilo and Mauna Kea and Kona and the friendly Japanese uncle at the UCC coffee farm, my soul coiled back from rooting itself in Hawaii.

This isn't it.

The language isn't mine. The food is similar but not mine. The history of a past kingdom forcibly annexed by colonial powers mirrors mine, but isn't mine. The story of heavenly kings descending on the sacred summit is not my story of the creation goddess who descended upon the sacred eastern island. Even the black volcanic sand isn't mine; my sand is fine, white coral shaped like stars. Hawaii—Hawai'i—belongs to her people. Not me. My soul knows this better than I can narrate.

The sea unequivocally convinced me. The crash and pull, the roll of the froth, the lapping ripples among the rocks, the smell of it, the truly sapphire-blue of it. No place in the world can replace, replicate, or substitute the sea my soul remembers. Not Hawai'i's sea, but Okinawa's. That's why, when I came home and my father asked, as he always does when I travel out-of-state, if I would consider moving to Hawai'i, I gave him a definitive "no."

Still, thank you, Hawai'i. You've reminded me that my spirit will know when it's found its place to anchor. You gave me precious moments to meditate on my sense of belonging, not only in Hawai'i but also among the people I associated with. I've found my way since, found my soul's home since, and am much more confident in myself and how I inhabit this plane of existence.

In the end, I think that's what a vacation should be. See the sights, of course, but ultimately? Most importantly?

You have to see yourself in the world.