Adventureye: Shallow Roots or Flying Free?

There’s something weird about the light and the smells in the Caribbean. When I worked on a live-aboard dive boat down here, motoring up and down the islands, I always felt a vague unease. The light wasn’t right. The salt air had the wrong scent. I loved parts of being here, the food, the music, some of the people, but something was off. My personal vibration never matched the Caribbean vibration.

So different from my experience in Hawaii. From the first time I stepped foot on Maui at the age of 9, it felt right, I felt at home. Hawaii was unlike the Northern California coast I grew up on. The cold, fresh salt air smells of Inverness and Tomales bay were nothing like the smells of plumeria and pikake in Hawaii, but somehow Hawaii made sense to me.

I’ve left the islands now and with the recent devastation on Maui, although I feel pulled to go help, I will not return to use up much needed resources. Although I spent the bulk of my life there, basically growing up there, it is not my true home. I was not born there. I was a transplant, and although I felt accepted as a “local haole”, it does not feel like my place, like I belong.

I was born in Oakland, California and spent my first 15, sometimes harrowing, years there. But that is not my place either. So where is home? Where are my roots? I don’t know. My maternal grandparents were immigrants, hailing from Spain and Denmark, but I feel no compulsion to explore those roots.

So I wander, I move, I relocate, I explore. I guess there's nothing wrong with that, if I shift my perspective from feeling ungrounded to feeling light and free. I'm good at nesting wherever I am. I'm good at building friendships and keeping a nice cozy residence.

I'm feeling introspective here as I visit my ailing sister. Feeling the preciousness of life, and of family, and of home. It's interesting that us siblings have scattered, the sisters to islands on opposite sides of the globe. Maybe those immigrant genes have more affect than we know. Maybe we're all wanderers with shallow roots, meant to explore and change and discover new places, new cultures, new lives. Life is so mysterious.

Below are photos from Christiansted, including my sweet Airbnb.