The Things I Miss the Most...and a Happy Birthday Wish

These two:

One of my nephews and my niece.  Also known as Favorite Guy and Mini-Sis, because they're minors, because he is in fact my favorite guy (I tell this freely to all who will listen), and because she is the spitting image of what I imagine my older sister would have looked and probably acted like at this age.

It's both their birthday's this week, and once again I'm here, 2,000 miles away, when I wish I could be there eating chili and ramen (Mini-Sis's birthday dinner of choice) -- really, what is she thinking? -- or pinning the 'stache on the sensei at Favorite Guy's ninja themed party.

Kids really do have all the fun.

This has got to be the hardest part of being away -- missing the family dinners, the special occasions, the important moments.  My youngest nephew, we'll call him Little Warrior, is growing up so fast and I'm missing so much of it.  One second he's this round tub of baby, and the next he's babbling up a storm and all of a sudden mobile.  I get to be a part of it through iPhone pictures and voice memos, but it's not the same.

I miss them when I'm away.

So here is my birthday wishes for them:  I wish for you both everything in the world this year.  I wish you so much laughter your belly aches, so much love your heart seems to overflow, so much happiness you wonder why you were ever even sad.  I wish for you passionate battles of wills with your parents (because those are the most fun, and are the most likely to make you appreciate your aunts more!) over silly things like when it's time to quit playing Xbox, whether or not leaving your toys on the kitchen floor will really kill someone (remain unconvinced), how much candy is too much candy, and whether the dog should be able to sleep in bed with you.  I wish for you lots of time with Nana and Grandma, and even more time driving your other aunt up the walls.  I wish for you more soccer championships and hunting with dad, more singing LMFAO and pedicures with mom, more childhood, more wonder, more excitement and more adventures.

I wish for you both the knowledge that you are absolutely, positively, without a shadow of a doubt in the universe, loved beyond all measure.

Happy Birthday, kiddos.

The Last Few Weeks: Part Deux

There's little in the world that's more important to me than my sisters.  They are my best friends, my favorite people, a constant source of fun, support and worry.  I'm the middle child, smack dab in between a sister three years older and another three years younger.  Our big sister is a rock.  She's someone I know I can count on to take care of something if I can't do it.  I can just lay whatever burden I have down at her feet and she'll handle it, no question about it, no problem.  Our little sister is our baby.  She's young and funny (she's always making me laugh) and it's been this insane privilege watching her grow into this responsible young woman who doesn't need us to baby her as much as, perhaps, we need to.

But, of course, we still do.

So when her life took an unexpected turn and she needed to move from Texas to Hawaii earlier this month, I hopped a flight over to San Antonio to take on the first leg of the trip with her.  Our route:  San Antonio, up through El Paso, stop in Albuquerque, head over to the Grand Canyon, stop a night in Lake Havasu City, drive through the endlessly boring Central Valley (I'm sorry if you're from the Central Valley, but you have to know what I mean, amiright?) and end back here in the Bay Area.  At that point, my older sister would fly in and spend a few days with us as we went sight-seeing around Big Sur, and tried to sort out sister, dog and car, then they would all take the next trip -- sans me -- back to Hawaii.

This all happened in a week.  A week of subsisting off of M&M's, Chex Mix, sodas and fast food.  A week of rest stops and driving in a straight line for hours.  A week of realizing my baby sister is all grown up.  And a week of incredible country, most of which I've never seen before.

The thing about the desert is that you think it's all the same.  You do.  I mean, it's brown, right?  Dirt and sand with small shrubbery?  That's it, isn't it?  That's what I thought until I spent so much time staring at it, and until I drove through four states' worth of desert.  As it turns out, it isn't just brown.  It's a million shades of brown and tan and red and orange and white.  It's different in Texas, in New Mexico, in Arizona and California.  And it's beautiful.  I wish I took more pictures, of the desert, the trains, the red rocks in Arizona, the hot air balloons rising above Albuquerque in the early morning light, the Sierra Nevada's.  Of everything.

And the Grand Canyon is...well, humongous.  It's wide and deep and unlike whatever I thought it was going to be in my mind.  It was one of those moments in my life where I felt small, but not in a bad way. I felt small in a kind of awestruck way that was sort of...humbling, and definitely comforting.  It reinforced for me that life is so much bigger than me and whatever I was thinking was a huge deal at the moment (i.e. the fact that I was hungry, that I had to pee, that my legs were cramped in the car, or that I was tired).  No, life is BIG.  So much bigger than me.  And I should try to live it as big is I can as well.

We also saw wolves while at the Grand Canyon.  It made my day.

Back from the Holidays

Waipi'o Valley, Big Island, Hawaii.

Being away from home isn't easy for anyone, I don't think, especially around the holidays.  2010 was the first time I spent Christmas outside of Hawaii and away from my family, and while Nate made that Christmas beautiful and special, it just wasn't the same.  So you can bet your ass we went to Hawaii this past year, for a lovely 10 day trip that, in the end, still wasn't enough time.

My family is large.  And loud.  And in-your-business, most of the time.  Any given meal will involve no less than 15 people, and a trip to the nearest town 20 minutes away takes strategic planning and an attention and sensitivity to detail and everyone's needs and feelings.  Our household is dominated by strong women with opinions on the "right way" of doing just about everything.  At any given time, my baby nephew will be crawling around your feet, my niece will be laughing hysterically at something in the next room, and my other nephew will be running in and out of the house with his little neighborhood friends offering promises like a priest and crossing his fingers behind his back. They are the cutest kids in the world.  There are dogs milling about everywhere (the yard, the porch, the house itself), 2 cats (one of which may actually think she's a dog as well), and most likely a full-grown dead mountain boar packed away in the ice chest in our garage (I come from a family of hunters, after all).  My mother and my sisters and I get along like best friends.  We also probably annoy one another like best friends.  My father makes me laugh like no one else in the world can.  I missed my grandfather every single second I was home this year.

We are related to half of our village.  We live in a sleepy country town on the slope of a mountain.  It used to be a sugarcane plantation, and my grandma will still identify areas of our village by camp number.  There was snow on our mountain this year, and someone brought some down in a pick-up truck and built a snowman just across the street.  I think the rain melted it within a few hours.

Hawaii -- the place, the land, the air, the ocean -- it grabs at something inside you.  For all of it's problems and pitfalls (and believe me, there are many), those islands are the most alive place I've ever been.  Regardless of however long I stay away, however long I choose to live in the mainland, I will never not be intricately connected to it.  It's at the center of my history, my family's history, my ancestors histories.  It's home.

This is all just to say that I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season, and that you were where and with whomever you needed to be with this year.  I was!

Happy New Year.

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