29 days ago I moved to Hilo, Hawaii aka “the rainy side of the Big Island” to begin a new chapter. Coming with as much of an open heart and mind as I could muster, I honestly was not quite sure what to expect. After four years of medical school, and a half year of interviews, I think I was surprised as anyone to finally move to Hilo, the In Between World.
As a recent New York Times journalist describes in “On the Big Island, ‘Aloha’ is a Way of Life”, Hilo is both welcomes tourists on a daily basis while housing a proud Native Hawaiian culture and difficult history. Each year, hula dancers and spectators come from around the world to enjoy the Merri Monarch Festival that hosts the annual internationally acclaimed hula competition. (Can’t wait to go!) Most folks from the “mainland” know Hawaii for its vacation resorts or perhaps the Disney movie Moana, but it is important to remember that it is also a home for about 1.5 million people, with 10% of whom have Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander roots.
My experiences this last month brings back memories of my time working in the Navajo Nation. I regularly feel like I am in a country inside a country. But in Hawaii’s case, we are in between the East and the West. This means I get to see faces of all colors and shapes on a daily basis in the hospital, clinic and grocery store. And it carries with it its own set of geopolitical economic blessings and controversies in tourism, immigration, international politics, trade, military placement and even science with the latest Thirty Meter Telescope debate. What fascinates me the most is the trajectories of the people I meet on a daily basis. I am so happy when I meet high school students who are excited to go to college out of state, proud to be going to a local college or eager to get to work right away. And then during my hospital orientation, I sat in a room with traveling nurses from Alaska, to Maine, to Florida. Even my co-residents span from Oahu, Hilo, Huntington Beach and South Africa! When compared to Los Angeles, there is probably comparable diversity here, with the necessity to truly know one another (whether you like it or not!) that only a small town can offer. It’s truly something beautiful.
Well I’m on paragraph four so I’ll save my community health assessment for another blog post, since I promised to keep these brief. I’ll end with this: I recently stumbled onto this peculiar article on Facebook titled “Against the Cult of Travel, or What Everyone Gets Wrong About the Hobbit”. The author makes an argument that sometimes true meaning isn’t found “elsewhere” but within oneself and one’s local community. So while I thought I was leaving the confines of my Shire in Southern California to embark on my great rural adventure to Hilo, maybe in another way I am returning from the Los Angeles gates of Mordor back to the small town Hilo Shire where clocks tick slower and people are friendlier and a little nosier. But then again, maybe the Big Island is really Mordor since there is an active volcano here like Tolkien’s Mount Doom! …Or maybe Hilo is both my Shire and my Mordor, a new land to call home and have a great adventure within simultaneously? Maybe it is an In Between Kinda Place.
