Hawai’i
If I knew a long time ago that there was a place with beautiful unusual plants, erupting volcanoes with pink plumes under moonlight, crystalline waves in hues of turquoise and sapphire that are home to many happy honu, and countless beach sunrises and sunsets along rocky headlands and pumice pebbled beaches, I might have asked to go there as a child, seeking refuge in nature’s balance. A speck in the middle of the ocean, the Big Island fully embodies the idea of “tropical paradise.” Truthfully though, this paradise has been altered over time by invasives of many kinds, transforming it so much that a “time and place” that I will never be able to see exists only in my imagination. We who love deeply and purely understand the tears that this brings.
