Tag: hawaii

Stories and Rain

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A light Mānoa rain flicks
down so lightly you can’t even
really see the drops. Just cold,
tingling moments— like stars
in the milliseconds after they explode.

Painless, perfect, they
are the seconds after the splash
of your most perfect canonball.
They are the nerves on your lips
after your first kiss comes up for air.

Here, I walk at the foot of a valley,
a long trench flowing into the urban
mouth of movement. I go, I run
I hustle I work I live and then
a light Mānoa rain falls. I pause.

I used to be terrified of things I could
not see. Ghosts, demons, beasties
were waiting, their cold, wet fingers
creeping around corners, under beds,
just outside my window.

Now, tucked into the corner of
two colliding worlds, the future
creeps its fingers up the soft cheek of
an evergreen face. A white blanket rolls
down to cover them both. They rest now.

I look up and see them. Pinpricks cover
my face. The stars, the nerves, the splash
the kiss— their magic unquantifiable and
too quick, too grazing to even be registered.
They are only even real if you take notice.

And I hold out my hand and tiny pools of
rain collect, in the creases like magic.
The terror and the wonder of the unseen
are equally real and not mutually exclusive. They
are merely waiting to be seen in the stories we tell ourselves.

Yo No Sé Que Hablar — I Don’t Know What To Say

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The man sitting behind me at the restaurant last month was speaking Spanish.

So was the park worker the other day, which was a surprise.

There was the couple wearing “Great Aloha Run” shirts, asking each other about rain, parece que va a llover. Their accents were wonderfully soft, elongated, melodic and tripping. Dominican, I think, like my friend Carolina’s.

When I lived in LA, hearing Spanish was a given. It was everywhere– on buses, at the bank, on signs and on my radio in the car. Even though I lacked fluency when I moved there, it was omnipresent.

Now, living in a state with under 10% of a Latino population (a huge increase from before), hearing Spanish is a rare treat, something that immediately makes my ears perk up. I remember each time like a small gem, holding it close as a reminder of home.

I love living in Hawai‘i– I really do. People see me and know I’m part Filipina, which almost never happened before. It’s an exciting rush– “yes! You see this part of me! You get me!”

Like I’m sure lots of mixed kids deal with, though, I always have a hard time trying to navigate both cultures. I love living here and being seen as Filipina, but now I miss part of my Latina culture. I miss speaking Spanish with people. I miss hearing mariachi on the radio when I would scroll through channels. I spent all of McFarland U.S.A crying. Not just crying, really, but sobbing. From the quince scene on, I was a mess. The hand-painted signs selling aguas de fruta and the casual mix of Spanglish made my heart ache for something that I still don’t know how to fill. Continue reading →