Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

It is funny how different locations activate different energy in the body.

Our experience is a coming together and dispersing of causes and conditions. When you associate a way of being with a particular location, it is much more likely that you will adopt that way of being the next time you find yourself there. I find myself precisely here, in that space of humble familiarity with the joys and pains of home. My teacher always said it takes 72 hours with family to regress into childhood patterns. I think 72 hours is a stretch. Only a fully enlightened Buddha could make it to the 72-hour mark. For me, its like 20 minutes. I say this with levity because the humor of regressing to an earlier form of oneself is not lost on me. The humor is what makes it bearable.

I drive past the old places where I made stupid choices, and suddenly I have a craving for tequila. (I hardly ever drink, and tequila is NOT what I would choose to drink on most occasions.) I see the teenage girls fawning over their phones, and suddenly I become self-conscious like even though I’m twice their age, I’d still like them to think I was “cool.”

To be fair, I don’t always feel this way when I come home. Usually, I get to experience what most people who come here experience. As I sip my morning coffee, I watch the hoards of tourists experiencing these islands in the carefree way I usually would, fully immersed in an experience of beauty and relaxation and fully present in the moment and its gifts. I’m jealous of the way they saunter about, without a care in the world, but I’m here for a reason, which makes those moments of innocent connection more rare and precious. 

My dad is sick. It is hard for me to say that. Because when I say it, it feels like it’s true. And while it is true, at this moment, my focus on working to help him get better lets me stay busy enough not to have to look at it. My dad is sick, and I am home to help. I am here to be of service. I am here to hold space and energy for healing on all fronts. I am here to practice loving-kindness. I am here to honor the man who gave me life in his time of need. I am here to put aside my discomfort, self-clinging, and expectations of what my family should be like, in favor of seeing and loving them for exactly who they are. The cause of my regression into the depths of childhood insecurities is how utterly out of control I feel. I am walking the tightrope between perfect surrender and sheer terror for what lay before me. But the illusion of control is something I’ve built up around my normal life to hide the insecurities I am now being lovingly forced to face head-on.

These islands have magic. Whatever you have built up around you as an attempt to define yourself will be washed away. Whatever you need to learn will be served to you first on a sweet breeze, then by the sound of a rooster, and then, if you fail to listen, by a tumble on the rocks. The Menehune will steal your keys to make sure you are really listening. The waves will overtake you right when your confidence errs on the side of bravado. Each misplaced grain of sand will pop up out of nowhere to ensure you aren’t taking yourself too seriously.

So here I am, on slopes of the House of the Sun, with only one thing I know for sure: Everything will be alright.