Lava Land Part 21: Home

By Jill Steele

Author "Blood on the Orchids
Owner Hawaiian Magic Tropical Flowers

Beautiful anthuriums in our new neighborhood

I’ve realized the key to setting up a home is the kitchen, a bed, a desk and a comfortable chair or two if you are two.  Now that we have those basics (and that's actually the extent of our furniture), our rental is a home.  I’ve resumed baking.  My second try at sourdough bread was better than the first, good enough to give a baguette to a neighbor.  I am still homesick. Some days are better than others but at least now I am back to cooking for family and friends.  I’m looking into replacing my favorite cookbooks.  I’d love to have the digital versions, but most were written before the advent of digitalization.  I’m not sure why, but spicy Mexican chili has become my go to comfort food and somehow I was able to make a pot from memory that my husband said was better than the recipe I usually used.  I hope I can duplicate it the next time I make chili.

I’ve found I don’t care as much about housework, maybe because my brain thinks I’m a guest at this house.  Tonight I danced by myself for the first time while doing the dinner prep. That means something.   I am giving myself permission to feel joy again.

Luna is settling in. This is her new friend Pepper .

I am becoming more capable and less paralyzed by the effort of leaving the house, locking every door and hiding my computer each time I leave, even for a walk in the neighborhood.  For all the years we lived in Kapoho, the only time we locked the door was when we went away for the night, and that was only recently.  For most of those years, we had no key to our house.  This may sound like whining to you but it is an adjustment.

On the positive side, we now live close to town and culture.  This afternoon, my son and I will attend a matinee at the Palace Theater with some other friends who have also lost homes in Kapoho, something that would have been unthinkable just a few short months ago, when it involved a forty-five minute drive one way.  I will continue to look for the light and show my family how to move forward and in moments of weakness, I will continue to voice my fears to my husband, who brings me down to earth again.

By Jill Steele

Author "Blood on the Orchids
Owner Hawaiian Magic Tropical Flowers

Lava Land Part 20: Lokahi

By Jill Steele

Author "Blood on the Orchids
Owner Hawaiian Magic Tropical Flowers

Big Day at Pohoiki   photo credit: Jade Steele

I am heavy hearted now after waking up to see that the lava is so close to Pohoiki and it may go today. Shack's and Bowl's are gone and we can now only go back to those special places in our memories.   We had the hope, like we did with our house for the final few days before it went, that it would be spared because Kapoho, Ahalanui  Beach Park, Shacks and Bowls?  Surely we were due a miracle.  So strange that we were not physically there to bare witness to this passing, because it feels so personal.

One of many family days spent by Shack's & Bowl's.

Pulling up memories this morning. The first time I saw the raw beauty of Pohoiki and riding my first waves in 1st Bay, having newly arrived, then unmarried, from Southern California.  “Stay between that palm and that dead tree,” some local kids told me.  I got whiplash- the waves were much faster than what I was used to.

Fast forward to the first time we brought our kids there to surf Pohoiki after learning on the gentle waves just beyond Champagne Pond and all the days and years after. Aloha, Pohoiki.

We lava refugees need to choose our future, once we can think clearly again and not just let life happen.  What do we want to manifest?  I believe on this island we make a reality out of what we manifest, meaning the goals we make.  Despite our losses and with the lava continuing to flow seemingly without an end in sight, there is positive energy on this island.  I think you need to believe and do the work.  For me, I am making a new home for my family and wading through the sea of paperwork so I can get back to writing my second book.  Some days I feel like I’m accomplishing nothing but my husband and I refuse to let these losses, though so painful, defeat us.  

Lokahi is a Hawaiian word meaning harmony and balance and I strive to find moments each day to feel its meaning.

By Jill Steele

Author "Blood on the Orchids
Owner Hawaiian Magic Tropical Flowers

Lava Land Part 19: Last Days

By Jill Steele

Author "Blood on the Orchids
Owner Hawaiian Magic Tropical Flowers

Miss seeing this monkeypod.

Thinking back to our last days in Kapoho, time felt suspended. We were hyper aware.  When I look back on the writing I did during that time, it seems like another person wrote those posts. We were living in an altered time where our senses were heightened.  We knew what was in the realm of possible outcomes.  I didn’t believe the lava would take out our home, the community, Champagne Pond and Kapoho Bay, but I sensed that our life would be changed forever in some ways.  Each walk, bike ride and swim was supercharged, meaningful. 

Around the neighborhood

“Remember this moment,” I often thought.  I miss my neighbors, even the ones I didn’t see daily and even the ones I avoided.   I also miss their houses.  I knew the story of almost every house in our neighborhood and every day when I walked Luna,  I thought about the people who lived in those houses both past and present.  “Remember when we found out I was hapai (pregnant) with Shelby?   You were working right over there.  I remember exactly where you were standing,” I said to my husband during those last weeks.  I’m trying to remember my last walk around the neighborhood.  

Those last days in Kapoho were unstructured.  We lived moment to moment, with water one day and none the next, sharing what news we gleaned from the internet with our neighbors.  

I am finding it hard to cope with world events right now.  Don’t judge me, but pretty much I search the internet for news of my neighbors and Pohoiki, praying for the lava to stop before it reaches Bowl’s and Shack’s.

There were some terrible moments the day our home and most of our community was taken, when I questioned my faith, but I have overcome my weakness and now hold strong.

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By Jill Steele

Author "Blood on the Orchids
Owner Hawaiian Magic Tropical Flowers

Lava Land Part 18: Pohoiki

By Jill Steele

Author "Blood on the Orchids
Owner Hawaiian Magic Tropical Flowers

Christmas Day Family Photo

As I look across Hilo Bay at the lava plume faintly in the distance I am worrying about what is happening 33 miles south and a few bays over at Pohoiki Bay.  I am imagining the waves glassy and the water sparkling in the morning light.  I am holding this picture in my mind as I pray for Pohoiki to be spared.  I yearn to be there watching my children surf, either sitting on a flat rock at Shack’s or on the little sand beach near 2nd Bay. It was always hard getting them out of the water.  You must have seen me.  I was the mom frantically waving and getting the one finger response, which meant one more wave.  Ten waves and one half hour later…  
Passages in my book “Blood on the Orchids” are about Poho'iki.  I am not my characters but their thoughts come out of my experiences.

Making Haupia 

“Pohoiki was beautiful in a wild way.  There were lush trails through the jungle along the coast by each of Poho'iki’s different surf breaks. The weekend afternoon scene could be a little hectic near the boat ramp because it was an ‘anything goes’ beach park.  While Violet and Ryan surfed, Lauren and Bruce sat on the picnic bench at Shack’s wishing everyone who walked by “Merry Christmas."  How could it be anything but, spending the holiday at the beach?  They watched everyone trying out new surfboards and body boards and winced watching the stand up paddle board newbies endangering other surfers as they careened off their boards.  It was a similar show each Christmas with everyone showing off their new bikinis and board shorts.  Christmas at the beach was their family tradition.  On this day, the ‘uncles’ were sitting around a picnic table telling fishing stories.”

Later on in the book as told from another character's point of view:

“Jenny went bodyboarding after work at Pohoiki. It was uncrowded since it was a weekday.  The water was warm and she felt better than she had all day from the moment she entered the water.  She loved looking at the dense jungle coastline from the vantage point of her bodyboard and seeing the peaceful expressions of other surfers and bodyboarders.  There was no need for conversation. She also loved the weightless feeling of when she first caught a wave- traversing the diagonal slope and then carving a path to the top once more if she was lucky. Her head felt clear after her time in the water.  While she was watching the sun go down behind the mountain it came to her that she was enjoying being on her own.  It had been a long time since she’d had this much time to herself.  She liked not being tied to a schedule.  She felt more creative.  Happiness bubbled up inside her. She had forgotten what it was to feel happy.  She didn’t remember what was possible, because she had been living with unhappiness for so long.  The unhappiness had made her feel dull and had carried over to every area of her life.”

Community 

Pohoiki isn't just about the surfers, it's about family and culture.  In 2016,  "Aunty" Luana Jones began organizing monthly Hawaiian cultural workshops.  One weekend my son Shelby and I, along with our neighbor Susan, learned to make haupia (coconut pudding), a process that began with the very physical husking and cracking of mature coconuts. It was an all day process that promoted community while passing down the recipe to a future generation.  

Please let the lava stop and Pohoiki be spared so we might spend another Christmas in her waters and on the coastline with our Pohoiki “ohana”. 

By Jill Steele

Author "Blood on the Orchids"
Owner Hawaiian Magic Tropical Flowers

Lava Land Part 17: Instability

By Jill Steele

Author "Blood on the Orchids"

Owner Hawaiian Magic Tropical Flowers

My daughter Jade at 1st Bay Pohoiki

I was going to write about something other than the lava and our experience post lava but I am still working through it and it feels right to share.  Walking through my new neighborhood with my dog Luna, I am obsessed with cracks in the pavement, always wondering how they came to be there, if they are recent and if they are a sign of something to come.  Our rental is near the highway and the lanai shakes when large trucks pass.   That concerns me.  I have moments of instability, I am realizing.  

We are making our rental house a home.  This week we will get our mattress off the floor and onto a wooden frame and fingers crossed, we may also get a sofa. We have lately become big internet consumers. We do buy locally when possible but online shopping is easier in my sometimes fragile emotional state.  My kitchen is set up and I baked my first loaves of bread since evacuating.  I forgot to add salt until the end and the loaves are like salt bagels with salt on the outside, but it’s a start. It has taken a while to remember where everything is.  I hid a chocolate bar from my son one night and it took me a week before I found it again.

My son Shelby making the most of a small day.

Puna is a feeling and today I looked around the beach at Honoli'i and thought, “Where are my people? These people don’t look like my people.”  My people were at Pohoiki—they were people I knew and people I didn’t know.  We knew each other by sight. Where are the “Uncles” who watched out for my kids, hung out at the picnic tables and told fish stories near the boat ramp?  I miss the clean, clear water of Kapoho and Pohoiki.  I am grateful for what good has come into our lives out of this tragedy, but I think it’s okay to complain because this is a grieving process and we are all mourning a place and a lifestyle.

I mopped the floors of our rental house today, the first housework I have done in my new home besides doing the dishes.  When we first moved here, I refused to care about the floors but I am working towards acceptance and healing. This week my goal is to take a yoga class. 

By Jill Steele

Author "Blood on the Orchids: Murder & Mystery on the Island of Hawaii"
Owner Hawaiian Magic Tropical Flowers

Lava Land Part 16: Acceptance

By Jill Steele

Author "Blood on the Orchids"
Owner Hawaiian Magic Tropical Flowers

We've moved to a long term rental.  At first Luna, our dog, was afraid to explore the yard.  Too much change.  It  was our third move in a month.  I get it.  It has been a few days and now she as settled in and is smiling again.  Yes, dogs do smile. It feels so good knowing we will not be moving again in another two weeks.  I know we are so much more fortunate in that we have found a good rental, but that didn’t stop me from having a meltdown a few days ago while shopping for a kitchen trash can.  They were on a high shelf and I couldn’t reach. I am 5’ tall.  The lids were scattered around the ground, none of them matching by the time I was done.  Choosing a trash can is not supposed to be challenging.  I did finally choose one.  I never would have imagined needing to choose household basics again in my lifetime.   While I waited in line, I began crying and by the time I walked out I was all in.  I haven’t cried as much as you would think I would during this time even though I’ve been so sad.  I’ve been too busy looking for a rental house, making to do lists and working on our insurance claim.  I called one of my Kapoho friends while driving back to our temporary rental.  All of you who have been affected by this lava flow, whether you have lost your home or business, do not retreat.  Reach out, call your neighborhood friends and talk about it.  They will understand and it will help your healing process.  Some day we won’t feel so dead inside and will begin looking forward. 

Volcanic Fireworks

I was interested in Hawaii island's volcanic eruptions before this one began and had been researching lava flows on the east side of the island for my next novel.  One of my library books, “The Archeology of Puna”, a geological survey of Kalapana, was in my house when the lava came.  The library has given me a pass on this book and I won't have to pay the replacement cost.  That is better than "the dog ate my homework".  Just kidding, the book really is under many feet of a'a.

I am looking forward to having a boring day with nothing to do but lay in my hammock and I hope it's soon.  

Happy Independence Day!

By Jill Steele

Author "Blood on the Orchids"
Owner Hawaiian Magic Tropical Flowers