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Gathering Place
Paul Costello |
University of Hawaii regents Walter Kirimitsu, Barry Raleigh and Joyce Tsunoda stood by as President Evan Dobelle, their new appointee, entertained questions during a July 2001 press conference on campus.
Warning to malihini:
Don't try to climb out
of the crab bucketTwo weeks ago I closed the door to the Manoa home that my family and I had lived in and loved for nearly three years. I had left Hawaii in January for a new job in California, while my family stayed behind to finish out the school year. As I walked out the door and looked back one last time at a magnificent view of the Manoa Valley, I couldn't help but think that when I arrived in Hawaii this was not how I thought the story would end.
Hawaii intrigues everyone, anywhere you go. It is the dream vacation spot and a destination that no one imagines he would ever call home. So it is no surprise that questions abound wherever I go: "What was it like living in paradise?"
Perhaps it's the word "paradise" and the implication of nirvana that gives me pause and renders me unable to answer quickly. I often find myself struggling to find the appropriate response. What was it like to live in paradise? I ask myself. What was it really like? After learning of Evan Dobelle's firing this week I find myself further unable to answer the question.
To be sure, there is an easy way out. I can answer with the simple truths. Hawaii is beautiful beyond description. There is an aloha spirit that is deep and embedded.
Yet after I scratch the surface, along with scratching my head, I consider a variety of additional responses from my alternate roles.
I could answer the question as a husband and father who watched my family's love for the islands flourish. We arrived not knowing what to expect, and as we boarded the plane to depart I watched my wife and daughters wipe tears from their eyes as we said our goodbyes.
I could also answer as a "mainlander" and state what I had been told many times: As an outsider, one is never truly accepted.
Or I could answer as a professional who worked at the university and describe a level of toxicity that to this day I truly don't understand.
When I try to scratch beneath the surface and fully express what the experience of Hawaii was like, I am always struck by the cautions that seasoned residents pass on to newcomers.
"You'll never last here if you don't get some shirts from Reyn's."
"You have to learn some local language. Try 'howzit.'"
"If you don't go crazy in two years, you'll stay for a lifetime."
"Did you hear the one about the crabs in the bucket?"
When I consider those warning lines and how often they have been recycled, it feels as if those who live in Hawaii are in on the joke. You've seen the soap opera many times before. The script was written long ago. The only thing that keeps the excitement alive is that the characters change while the plot stays the same, recycled for each newcomer who comes along.
It occurs to me that the Evan Dobelle story fits into the other narratives that have occurred before:
The visionary arrives with big dreams and high expectations. The visionary executes a long trail of accomplishments but rubs some of the establishment the wrong way. Maybe he talks too loudly or is too brash, blunders into local sacred ground or doesn't pay appropriate homage. The elders are told by their new leader to squash the visionary. Destroy him without fingerprints attached to the new leader. For on this island there is room for only one leader -- one visionary. A trial is held. Friends of the visionary who've whispered words of encouragement all along are now silent. The visionary is convicted in absentia. He is banished. The status quo moves on.
Those who live in Hawaii will have to decide if my perceptions fit reality. Yet years from now the story of Evan Dobelle will be recycled again and again. It will be a cautionary tale -- a warning to newcomers about fulfilling expectations and meeting definitions of success. "There once was a visionary by the name of Evan Dobelle ..."
Although I left well before the regents fired Dobelle, I could sense when I returned to pack up my family in early June that the plot of the age-old script was closing in on my friend and former boss. It seemed to me that the latest version of the tried and true narrative was about to become reality once again.
Perhaps I will always grapple with the question, "What was it like to live in Hawaii?" A swift response will never fall from my lips. There are far too many layers for simplicity.
