Indigenous Disapora Something Something Feelings Are Hard
Ugh I'm always so depressed when I come back to Seattle after a trip back home. I'm especially feeling it today since I'm headed out for hula in a little bit and the lessons I'm taking here aren't nearly as good as the single lesson I took at the hotel condos where we stayed. My instructor (she's not a kumu hula because that's a specific training and passing of the torch) doesn't even know the proper names of some of the steps. I adore her and her family, plus it's nice to only go to Magnolia for lessons rather than driving much farther to one of the more "legit" halau, but I keenly feel how much I'm making do here rather than immersing myself in my culture like I need.
Whenever I talk about being homesick this much people invariably urge me to move back home. And that's great and all, but it's really not helpful. I mean, I do know about this thing called moving. I have thought about it. It's pretty much all my sister and I talk about, and we talk every day. It's just not happening right now for a lot of reasons. I have a lot of feelings about that. And I know people are just trying to be helpful but sometimes people are sad and in ways that are unfixable, at least immediately. And telling me to move back home whenever I'm sad about not living back home just makes me feel like I'm being told to shut up. And if you want me to shut up about it, you're just going to have to find your own ways to not listen. I ain't shutting up. Damn.
Sometimes people ask why I can't move home and I can never tell how much they're actually asking. I mean, it's a long fucking list friend, how much time do you have? And every bullet point on that list is a long-ass story, so. Buckle in if you really want to know. Otherwise, just trust that moving back home isn't in the cards for me today, and today I am really fucking sad about that.
Also, it's funny how many people remark that they just don't relate to my gut-wrenching sorrow that I'm not back home. They say they don't have that same kind of relationship to any place, blah blah blah. And I'm like, yes, settler, I know. You don't have the concept of homeland the same way I do. Good talk. Which, I told Ian that the other day when he said that shit to me and he started to get offended I think. And I had to tell him look, settler isn't a judgement for crissakes. It's an acknowledgement. Now, can you please acknowledge that being Native Hawaiian raised in a Hawaiian family but now living away from Hawai'i and my people might come with a profound sense of loss? Being indigenous doesn't make me a better person, it just is the way I am a person. Like, damn. It's not that difficult. Or, maybe it is. I dunno.
I mean, I do get that it can be difficult. Jonas' girlfriend is Cowichan so while we're not precisely living in her homeland, her people are up here. She goes to her powwows and has deep connections to the region. She is also one of those people who, being well adapted to the PNW, wears fricking shorts all year long even when I'm cursing February's very name and wanting to burn my house down just for the warmth. Damn. Summers here are brutal for her in the way that the entire rest of the year is brutal for me and my sister. Anyway, Jonas is always lamenting that she won't ever move back to Hawai'i with him because she literally cannot handle the heat and I told him, yeah, that is how it's going to be. If you and Baby Girl are going to be together, long term, part of your relationship is going to mean either one of you or both of you dealing with homesickness. Move her to Hawai'i, not just away from her land but from her people, and she's going to feel it, in her bones. Stay here and never move back, and you're going to continue wanting to die a little bit every day. Okay so that's me projecting but he knew what I meant.
I told him that even if you split your time between the two - which, good luck figuring out those finances and I mean that sincerely because maybe you could then teach me how to do it - somebody's always going to be away. And it doesn't matter that Jonas has lived his whole life in Washington State. When he goes back to Hawai'i, he feels that visceral connection to home that he just doesn't have in Seattle. "I feel like I make more sense here," he tells me every time we're back and I'm like I know, I know Boy-san. That's how it feels to be around your people. It fills your soul the way nothing else can.
It really sucks to lose that. The end.
Whenever I talk about being homesick this much people invariably urge me to move back home. And that's great and all, but it's really not helpful. I mean, I do know about this thing called moving. I have thought about it. It's pretty much all my sister and I talk about, and we talk every day. It's just not happening right now for a lot of reasons. I have a lot of feelings about that. And I know people are just trying to be helpful but sometimes people are sad and in ways that are unfixable, at least immediately. And telling me to move back home whenever I'm sad about not living back home just makes me feel like I'm being told to shut up. And if you want me to shut up about it, you're just going to have to find your own ways to not listen. I ain't shutting up. Damn.
Sometimes people ask why I can't move home and I can never tell how much they're actually asking. I mean, it's a long fucking list friend, how much time do you have? And every bullet point on that list is a long-ass story, so. Buckle in if you really want to know. Otherwise, just trust that moving back home isn't in the cards for me today, and today I am really fucking sad about that.
Also, it's funny how many people remark that they just don't relate to my gut-wrenching sorrow that I'm not back home. They say they don't have that same kind of relationship to any place, blah blah blah. And I'm like, yes, settler, I know. You don't have the concept of homeland the same way I do. Good talk. Which, I told Ian that the other day when he said that shit to me and he started to get offended I think. And I had to tell him look, settler isn't a judgement for crissakes. It's an acknowledgement. Now, can you please acknowledge that being Native Hawaiian raised in a Hawaiian family but now living away from Hawai'i and my people might come with a profound sense of loss? Being indigenous doesn't make me a better person, it just is the way I am a person. Like, damn. It's not that difficult. Or, maybe it is. I dunno.
I mean, I do get that it can be difficult. Jonas' girlfriend is Cowichan so while we're not precisely living in her homeland, her people are up here. She goes to her powwows and has deep connections to the region. She is also one of those people who, being well adapted to the PNW, wears fricking shorts all year long even when I'm cursing February's very name and wanting to burn my house down just for the warmth. Damn. Summers here are brutal for her in the way that the entire rest of the year is brutal for me and my sister. Anyway, Jonas is always lamenting that she won't ever move back to Hawai'i with him because she literally cannot handle the heat and I told him, yeah, that is how it's going to be. If you and Baby Girl are going to be together, long term, part of your relationship is going to mean either one of you or both of you dealing with homesickness. Move her to Hawai'i, not just away from her land but from her people, and she's going to feel it, in her bones. Stay here and never move back, and you're going to continue wanting to die a little bit every day. Okay so that's me projecting but he knew what I meant.
I told him that even if you split your time between the two - which, good luck figuring out those finances and I mean that sincerely because maybe you could then teach me how to do it - somebody's always going to be away. And it doesn't matter that Jonas has lived his whole life in Washington State. When he goes back to Hawai'i, he feels that visceral connection to home that he just doesn't have in Seattle. "I feel like I make more sense here," he tells me every time we're back and I'm like I know, I know Boy-san. That's how it feels to be around your people. It fills your soul the way nothing else can.
It really sucks to lose that. The end.