As I begin to rekindle the flame of memories that are embedded with my earliest childhood, I find them burning with association of places. I think about the feeling that comes over me when I revisit them and see how much they have changed. I begin to reflect internally on the thought that maybe it is not entirely the place that changes, but rather us- the people. Maybe it is the place that stays very much the same, only now we are experiencing it through the eyes of a different perspective, almost as an entirely new person- a grown up. As grown-ups we have a sense of nostalgia that we feel for a place that no longer looks the same as it did when we were children. As grownups, we are usually lacking of guilt for the responsibility we had on the changes that these places underwent.
The Big Island of Hawai’i
I climb into the jogging buggy. My father closes the see-through cover so that neither insects nor pieces of asphalt from the road fly into my eyes. I feel the gravity of the hill of Royal Poinciana Place drawing us along as we start down our street. Almost as if the island is too happy I am visiting, it wants to pull me out of the buggy, but I am strapped in. I remember seeing the same sights I see today when I walk the same path. Now that I am old enough to recreate this journey, I am able to compare what once stood and contrast what has fallen. My memories are something I hold onto dearly, and something I fear future generations may not be able to experience if we continue to offload the responsibility of re-correcting climate change on the younger generations, as there might not be one.
We reach the bottom of the hill and turn left. It is a smooth ride. My father and I tuck right into the parking infrastructure of Kona Bali Kai to dodge the traffic, not that there are many cars to begin with (perks of living on a small island with a population of 120,000). The speed bumps are my favorite part. My father slows down his running a little, but not so much as to fully eliminate the experience of my rollercoaster ride. It is nice to be out of the hot sun and have to experience the temporary relief of shade under the coverage of a building. At the end of the parking lot, we exit back onto the street and pass Banyans. I see the surfers in the water and some on the street too, barbecuing before they catch their next wave.
Now that I am old enough to recreate this journey, I know now that most of the barbecuers weren’t surfers, but homeless drunk men partying together. I know that this is how most of our memories as children become slightly tainted as we grow up. We walk the same path that we did when we were five, seeing it as it truly is. But is that to say how it truly was as well? Maybe it actually isn't the place that has changed, but rather it is ourselves. Maybe the place stays the same, and it is the people that don’t. With a new population of 201,000, it is quite possible that the 33.7% increase in drug use from 1990 to 2017 is one of the reasons why Banyans is no longer just a place to barbecue, and why what I am seeing now differs from the sights I saw passing by in my buggy.
Each time I land at the same airport, and feel the same warmth. Air that is warmer outside of the plane than on the inside. It takes less than three minutes to walk from the plane to the curbside, where my father picks me up in the same car I rode in as a child. A 1975 gold Ford Bronco with the same dust pan brush sitting in the same place, waiting for sandy toes. We drive the upper road if we have somewhere to be and the lower road if we want to cruise through town. Nothing has changed except the titles on certain shop headings. The buildings look the same, have the same color of paint, the same aesthetic. I see more tourists with each visit, as the places that were once secret, have been shared as stories with all. It doesn’t ruin the memories for me, it just helps me create new ones.
Now that I am old enough to recreate this journey, I know know that our earth’s temperatures have increased by 0.50 since 1990. I know that global warming is expected to increase by another two degrees by the year 2050 and four degrees come 2100. I know that while this warm air can feel nostalgic to my skin, mother earth does not appreciate it upon hers.
My father pushes my buggy along to Holualoa Bay where I feel at peace. It is always a calmer, more slow pace when we run by and now that I am old enough to recreate this journey, I think it was my dad’s way of subconsciously slowing down to look out onto the ocean- to imagine what it once looked like when he was a child. I know when we’re past this bay we are at the home stretch of reaching Magic Sands, my favorite part of the run. To this day, my favorite beach. It got its’ name from the seemingly magic that happens from each day to the next. Tuesday might be a beach filled with soft white sand while Thursday it is nothing more than a bed of lava rocks, the waves having taken the sand with them on their way out, hence Magic Sands.
Now that I am old enough to recreate this journey, I know that our global sea level is four inches above what it was in 1993. I know that this is the highest annual average in the satellite record. The little me traveling along our buggy route had no idea that by the end of this century, that same sea level I looked out at would rise at least one foot above what is was, even if I had somehow been able to reduce greenhouse gasses by the time I was ten. Now that I am old enough, I know that my favorite beach might not be a beach in the years to come, and rather another bay with no magic left to bring back the sand at all.
I don’t ask my dad if we can stop because I know we will on the way back. We always end our run either here or at Kahalu’u. About two more kilometers and we reach the black sand beach that is locally known to be reserved for infants splashing in the shallow tide pools. Our refrigerator is covered in sun tainted photographs of my mother and my toes’ covered in a layer of this same black sand, and surfers in the background abandoning their boards before they reach us.
Now that I am old enough, I know that the surfers who once required much skill to fall flat-bellied so not to injure themselves on the coral, will soon no longer have coral to worry about. 50% of our world’s coral reefs have disappeared in the last thirty years. Although these reefs only make up 0.1% of the ocean floor, a quarter of all marine life calls it home and 30% of the ocean absorbs the human made carbon dioxide in the air and feeds it back to life under the sea. Ultimately poisoning the water, the life inside of it, and the food we expect to gain from it.
Now that I am old enough to recreate this journey, I don’t blame myself for what has happened to our world. Nor do I blame an individual neither. Most of us look out at our childhood landscapes, whether it be ocean, mountains, or desert, and want to preserve it to how it was “when we were young.” The Big Island of Hawai’i holds some of my first memories and first ones I can still visualize. The scent of the sheets as I lay my head to rest at night can’t be described into words, just imagine something that makes you feel most comfortable. I can feel the ice pack on my forehead because the air is so humid and we didn’t have air conditioning.
An inconvenience to my younger self is a “thank goodness,” now that I am old enough to know that air conditioners are a double burden for climate change. 1,950 million tons of carbon dioxide is released annually because of them. Emissions from air coolers, including the refrigerator that magnetically holds all of my childhood memories, are expected to double by the year 2030, tripling by 2050. With a rise of 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions today, the more we cool, the more we heat the planet.
Looking back on my childhood, I had no idea what these percentages meant nor was I aware what global warming or climate change was. My mom would press x’s into my mosquito bites to stop them from itching, which I do to this day even though I know it only helps if you believe it does. I can see the stray cats walking down our road and the barking of dogs down the street. I can taste the food I never liked when we would travel to the other side of the island to visit Uncle Norman. I would usually just eat the tortillas chips, because I never liked poi. I can feel the bristles of the mini dust brush my dad kept in his vintage car to wipe the sand off of our feet with. I can feel that same sand nestled into the end of my bedsheets because the shower didn’t always wash it all away. It smells, tastes, and feels like happiness. I can hear my father’s footsteps (he drags his feet on the pavement), as I now run along beside him. I can feel the speed bumps and the slowing and speeding up which assured his care for me inside the buggy. The increase and decrease when we go up and down hills. These details are small mundane things, and yet somehow they are the things that come to mind to describe my happy days. The buggy’s existence in itself representing my parents wanting to have me near even when doing things for themselves. The buggy’s route- a the path that I hope will be there for me to run and have my own children see.
I was just a child living life on an island, 2,500 miles in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with a year round summer. Only now, a year round summer doesn’t seem so desirable after all.
Childhood equals ocean. Childhood equals sun. Childhood equals the warmth that I feel when I open the oven from baking, rather that warmth comes from nature. It smells of plumerias and coconut oil. Childhood equals the route we used to take in my buggy. Childhood is not only our memories, but what we do now to make sure others can have them. If a childhood is no longer available to someone, it directly shifts the lifestyles people can have. Childhood equals preservation. Of our memories, and of our world for the future.