This Place in Hana is a Good Spot to Begin Again
...And if you're lucky it'd be starting over for the last time
There's an empty lot next to me of old-growth California pygmy oak trees, which for eight of the last ten days have been getting rained on like no time in the last forty years.
They deserve it, and right now, they are thriving. And I am happy for them and at once angry and sad about the state of the world and the rolling mass death event, and the you're all on your own but get to work attitude that comes from the never-again competent top down.
But the trees are still with us so, scoreboard.
Their trunks turn from white to black when they get soaked like this, and the old brown leaves blow off to reveal a canopy of dark green that recalls the memory of a time when stands like this were legion and they watched over the entire area. When replenished, they crowd over the empty lot like a big top.
Buried in the ground beneath them, a millennia-old living history book in the form of the secrets of various dead pets, Indian arrowheads, and too many lost treasures from generations of children—along with the occasional unfound Easter egg or three.
This fall, a small family of deer took to the oaks as their home, traversing two mostly unbusy streets from the waterfront nature preserve to get there and birth their second fawn. The mother, father, and two yearlings are constantly on the move, constantly in peril.
I asked a realtor in town about who owns the lot as if a deed in my hands would somehow help the deer family. She said it was someone in Santa Barbara, an old man; only old people own things in this town.
She said she sent a letter to him on my behalf but no response. So there it will sit, unprotected yet not in peril. This isn't one of those communities that has many rules. It’s unincorporated and the closest thing to a governing body is a water board. The state runs the adjacent park filled with more than 50 miles of trails and five miles of cliff-lined beaches, which is a secret that is no longer hidden from the rest of the state judging by the emerging lines of cars on the weekends. Beyond the forested area, PG&E runs a nuclear power plant that is treacherous and will some day bring an end to this place but it is also beloved by a warped cohort who want to be able to use it as a cash machine in perpetuity.
Beyond this, we have a sheriff's substation that sends a couple of SUVs through town every so often, circling the joint before grabbing a burger and fries at the Valley Liquor then speeding off on the main thoroughfare between here and San Luis Obispo to catch speeders or harass someone pushing a grocery cart filled with their only earthly possessions from here to oblivion.
As for the oaks, they stay. My son scrambles up them in the spring., they're perfect for climbing, easy on the knees. Every so often, I threaten to place a treehouse in one, but I'm not trusting enough of my skill to not stick a nail on the wrong place and make it call out.
In the mornings like this one, where clouds cover this sleepy coastal town, the oaks provide additional cover, built-in black-out shades, hiding everyone involved from the day that approaches.
I realize today as much as I care for these living things, they don't care for me. They were here long before, and they'll stay long after. At the beginning of the pandemic, I spent long afternoons watching my kid build little forts, one day a pirate, the next a version of Tarzan, the next a ship's captain. It could've been any year at any time. He sat at the base of them and looked up and they filtered the light for him. It was their pleasure.
These trees have seen other neighborhood kids grow up and come back not the same. I wonder if they know what's in store for my boy. In the early days of the pandemic I sat there with my neighbor, an artist who lives in an old hunting shack on the other side of the lot. We'd talk about movies and books and all kinds of things related to the time we're going through. Or sometimes we'd just sit and watch him play, watch the oaks watch us.
This is the time of year when people try to catch their breath, the nothing-week ether between Christmas and New Year's. It's a time for board games and fires and lots of cookies and opening packages that came through late. But now because we live among the awful people who refuse to look out for their fellow man, especially the sickest, and weakest, and youngest among us—by refusing to wear masks or get a shot in the arm in the name of personal freedom that does nothing but bring death like wildfire—I sit in anger.
Changes are afoot for 2022, good ones and bad ones and ones that were easy to predict and that we can't see coming, though we should. And I suppose I should set aside the frustration over things I cannot predict or change and be happy for the year that was. I got to go to Disneyland right when it opened, and everyone there was allegedly vaccinated, and the capacity was less than 30 percent.
Imagine no Fastpass, no genie-whatever, no lines at all. My sister's family and mine ran from the Indiana Jones ride to Big Thunder Mountain railroad at the park's close, no lines there. We sprinted through the chorus of turns past the fake mill and the paper mâché rocks and up into the train cars. Hold on to your hats folks, cos this here’s the wildest ride in the wilderness, the recorded voice called out. And we thrust our hands up into the night sky and screamed.
That same weekend I saw Sohei Ohtani hit a home run off the second pitch of his first at-bat. His long elk-like stance unfolded over the plate like the second-coming of DiMaggio. His hands loosely gripped the bat which made a whoosh that could be heard five rows up in the stands, but when the wood connected with the leather, the sound it made in my upper stomach still echos today. The crowd, all spaced apart and seemingly OK with it—happy to be there—stood in unison. And we cheered at something together. And me being full of mush cried a little at the prospect of being there and turning the corner—so moved that I went and bought a stuffed monkey for my son.
I ran up many trails but none more memorable a few weeks ago in Palm Springs when I locked eyes with a bighorn sheep. Something tells me I'll meet my ultimate reward one day doing something stupid like that in nature, but that day wasn't it. I had things to do, lunches to eat, trees to admire, and so he assured me safe passage as long as I didn't try to pretend I was the good guy. It's their turf, after all. That much I’ve learned.
40900 Hana Hwy Hana, HI 96713
I'll end the year on an aspirational note, unburdened in Hana, Maui on a lot not far from where George Harrison once roamed and Bill Bixby, Vincent Price, and Jim Nabors had homes. Maybe from here you’d catch a glimpse of Kris Kristofferson, or Weird Al Yankovitch, or Woody Harrelson. Or maybe you—like them—could be just left alone.
The home seems like someone's gem someone needed to sell by necessity, or maybe simply grew tired of. And don't we all grow tired of things, even the irreplaceable kind?
Interior-wise, it needs a little help, especially some recovery time from some calculated missteps in the kitchen. But oh the koa- and redwood-adorned guest house master is a place you could find yourself lost in telling your own little stories of what dreams did take place to someone special. Or, if you don't have someone to hold captive with your morning breath, you could scroll through your phone by the earliest island light, spark up a joint and take a walk around the perimeter and thank your lucky stars that you are now a permanent part of the problem.
There's no denying that right now we are bringing disease to the islands by the planeload, and there's nowhere for those who deserve to be there, who was born with the right to stay and thrive, to escape.
But in this private slab of the arguably greenest and most well-tended 4.3 acres of earth, there's time and space to ignore all that. There’s a main home, a secondary cottage, a photovoltaic electric grid, a water system fed by a year-round spring, a workshop, a stable and tack room, and a giant barn.
There are fruit trees to sustain you. Banana, papaya, mango, star fruit, avocado, citrus, and a vegetable garden to boot. The furniture is included, too, so no need to ship from Ikea or anywhere else.
You can join up with several others and all go and hide and wait this one out. Or maybe this is the part where you set up shop and think only about the times that came before and wonder how it all came to this in the first place, what little things you could’ve done besides shouting over the void to someone you don’t know and who doesn’t care to know you. No matter what the year ahead brings, the trees, as ever, will be there, sentry and swaying, long after you glimpse the last sun setting.