Transient Society

There are the known travellers, the Snow Birds, who come to Hawaii in the winter months where their first homeland is difficult to tolerate. You expect these friendships to be seasonal and have to make a choice of how attached you wish to be to these irregular friends. I choose to be fully attached. Often, I see my snow bird friends more regularly than my neighbors. It's just geography.

I wonder how the people who grew up here and live here their whole lives view the snow birds. Or worse, the people who talk like they'll never leave paradise and move out three years later for a number of reasons. Hawaiians, both full-blooded and by birth on the islands, are notoriously welcoming. In fact, there are times when I think they'd prefer mainlanders to remain visitors rather than landowners, since prices keep getting shot out of sight. But still, I could learn from the open-armed welcomes that folks here give.

Due to the various things I've written about in this blog, we have made and lost many friends here. Most move away due to issues of health, wealth, or children. The inconsistent medical care, the vog, the allergies... they drive some away. The cost of living removes others. The poor education system and the drug problems are the clincher for many. For whatever reason, Hawaii is not the paradise that many people believe it to be.

We want to put down roots here. We want to know people across years as well as across states. We've been gypsies long enough to know that wherever we go, there we are. But it's really difficult living in a place that expels people by its nature. You want your friends to stay. You want to solve their difficulties and help them to be able to live here. But it's really no different than anywhere. We are a transient society, and there are always good reasons to move.

We keep seeking out all the good reasons to stay, vog permitting!

vog

When I first came to Hawaii, I remembered best the air. When you step off of the airplane, it's like a warm embrace, a hug from the atmosphere. I love the warm moist air of Hawaii.

Lately, however, the vog has added some substance to the hug. Instead of a vaporous embrace, it's more like working your way through a crowd. The air is substantial these days since the volcano is spewing masses of gasses into the mix. That is what volcanoes do. Some folks have expressed a wish that they (the government?) would do something about it.

So while they are sleeping on the job, we have to figure out how to live with puffy itchy eyes, black silt on everything, coughs and sniffles, itching, sore throats, grey skies, sometimes a hint of sulphur in the scent (when the nose can scent anything), and a general malaise of being that is making everyone move very slowly.

Ah, paradise.