Going to the Pali

Six weeks on the island today and still sane. If I think I'm sane I have nothing to worry about. Maybe it's just a protective way of thinking, guarding myself against going off the cliff, or in Hawaiian, the pali.

At night when I wake up and cannot fall back to sleep, because I start thinking about my failing IRA, questioning my cough and other dire threats, I read.

My latest book is Moloka'i by Alan Brennert. The story takes place in the mid-to-late 1800s when the Europeans were taking over the islands. The small island of Moloka'i is where people who were diagnosed with ma'i pake, the disease of leprocy, were separated from their families and exiled to by boat.

The trip to the island alone was an unreal experience of bodies being pushed together, people becoming sick and finding no relief for normal bodily functions other than to hold on as the ocean currents sloshed them around.

It's not all gloom and doom because the story is about people, their beliefs and faith and hopes and love. It is partly about a clash of cultures that boils down to Christian versus pagan. The story is also about stigma, how people treat others who contract the disease, or are simply related to a diseased person.

When I first began reading this historical novel, I wanted to put it down. It was too close to home with our world going through what is and will be considered an historic pandemic. I didn't need to be reminded.

Little by little, however, I became hooked on the story and the wonderful characters who are never drawn as black and white. Rather, they are humans struggling to find their way, questioning their faith and their affections, their allegiances.

Only two-thirds through the book, I don't know what will happen to all of these people. I do know the Hawaiian culture will be subdued by the invaders. Did they bring the disease to the islands? I don't know. They certainly brought a different perspective and way of life.

Last night I read about a Catholic nun who went to the pali. Her core beliefs had been challenged. She was caught between two worlds neither of which brought her mental or emotional peace. She stood in a state of curious disinvolvement at the precipice overlooking the roiling, crashing waves and jagged lava rock.

Her story and those of the other characters seem particularly closer because of our isolation on one of the same chain of islands where a sovereignty movement exists. Some even express the belief that Hawaii Nei (their aina) will eventually be returned to their people.

I don't know what will happen beyond this moment. Here or in the book.

I really don't want to think about it. Stay in the present. Practice compassion and aloha. If anything, that's the message so far.

Lest I go to the pali.