When people coming from opposite poles meet in Hawai'i

The sound of ukulele music exudes from my computer laptop speakers. I am beckoned on a journey from the map of the Hawaiian Islands, to the island of Hawaii, to the regions within the island, and down to the level of the Ahupua, the strip of land running from mountain to beach, following a creek. I see paintings of pre-contact Hawaii alternated with current photographs. The Manoa valley is so majestic. As I listened to the poet Laurel Nakanishi read her poem, “Manoa,” the image of how “spray mossed the rocks” reminds me of my first visit to Oahu in 1990. I had flown in from Fairbanks, Alaska. My boyfriend at the time had flown from Antarctica. We rode our bicycles out to to Ka’ena point and camped on the rocky land. We stood in tide pools and marveled at water that was not frozen, our white skin quickly burning. It took our tongues longer to thaw out from the solo time apart.