Becoming Kama'aina

Life transformation. This is still so much work...we have spent our first full week here on the island and thanks to my insistence on forward motion, we have taken care of quite a good amount of business. We have visited Princeville, Kilauea and Hanalei on the north shore, stayed in Kapaa on the east coast, and are now staying in sunny Poipu, on the south shore. We have secured a beautiful rental home for the next 12 months, picked up Keanu (our Honda Element) from Nawiliwili Harbor, and opened up bank accounts. We will move into our new home next week with more details and photographs to come....

Today we signed closing documents for our home in Danville, so that chapter of life will be ending in a few days as well...so much change in such a short period of time, and life right now truly is a bit of a 'free fall,' but I hope to be landing on my two feet fairly quickly.

In addition to the numerous sunrises I have seen over the past week, I awoke at 4am on Saturday to view the lunar eclipse. I have laid by the pool, on the beach, and have had to rethink my relationship to sunscreen...on vacations I normally use Hawaiian Tropic dark tanning oil with little or no sunscreen, but my daughter told me I ought not get so dark, so I will have to alter my sunscreen habits to suit the long term. I have made friends with tourists and locals, I have had sticker shock at the grocery store, eaten at fancy restaurants and local family eateries. I have perfected the pineapple martini and look forward to raising a glass with my friends and family that visit...

The locals that I have met so far have been welcoming, encouraging and absolutely delightful. Because we are accustomed to taking longer vacations, and because we are staying at resorts with other tourists, the reality of living here has not yet sunk in. But now driving Keanu around with out of place California license plates makes me realize that my transformation to kama'aina is getting closer to becoming a reality.

Kama'aina is a term that is used for Hawaiian residents, regardless of their racial background, so it is this transformation that I am trying to currently make. It is a shift from tourist mentality to the mentality that the sunrises over the ocean are not going anywhere, that the sunshine and the warmth will be there again in the morning...it is how you conduct your life when you know internally that the beauty and magic that surround you will always be there. Such a feeling of peace and tranquility, and it is this magic of the islands that drew me here to begin with...I hope to never have to leave it behind.