Beginning to Acclimate

My first clue was last friday. I was ushered out of the comfort of internet and an oscillating fan by a thirsty coworker. Upon arrival, I promptly ran into two people I’ve meet before. This was miraculous. I keep noticing people I hang out with seem to know at least seven random people everywhere we go. But this has yet to happen to me. Finally, I was getting somewhere. Interestingly enough, one of the guys was from the cool kids party. He goes - “We took that tequila shot together… remember?” (hmmm... sorta).

As I begin to release myself of obsessively comparing and contrasting things to Portland, I’ve started to get some perspective on what gives Hawaii what I want to describe as a slight magic energy.
Continued...

There is a connection amongst the people, like a family. Locales Locals refer to each other as bra or sista assuming who they are speaking with should be as close as siblings even if they are not aquatinted. And every so often someone will say that to me, which makes me feel awesome!

When something I would think of as lucky happens, it’s referred to as a blessing. Not in a crazy from specifically god way, but still with special spiritual essence.

I attended my first hula during the opening of the new store. What was so weird to me and didn’t seem to bother anyone else was the infiltration of corporateness to their cultural spirituality. Apparently every time a new store is opened, it gets blessed. So I get that it will bring business and prosperity to the people and the land, however it just seems odd to be blessing a business.


The whole experience was really wonderful. We all got lays leis and I got to see dancing and hear beautiful chanting. The real plus of all this is that my new place of employment does not have bad juju, which is always a good thing.