Never left?
I have felt a kind of kinship with kolea, the Pacific golden plover, while living in Hawai'i. It is a migrant bird. And over the last eight years I have measured the passing of time by the arrival and departure of these familiar birds. Like kolea I feel a pull to move on. I have not found a peace and sense of place here in Hawai'i. This urge to migrate increased once my son finished high school a few years ago. I started looking for opportunities elsewhere in earnest. The question for me is posed in this Blog's title, where should I go? For kolea where to go is automatic... and the when is somewhat fixed by the change in seasons. At least that is what I thought.
Over the last few years though I have seen some kolea on Oahu in the middle of summer. Why did they not leave with the others and journey to Alaska to feed and breed? There could be internal cues that aren't working in the birds. Maybe those individuals don't have enough body fat stored to provide them the energy they need for the flight. Maybe they have been wounded in some way and not able to fly. Maybe, there's something not working physiologically so that they don't 'perceive' the signals to move on the way the others do. A good scientific study would probably help answer this question. Maybe someone has already conducted such a study. But, for these birds to successfully migrate a number of boxes need to be ticked and the absence of any one of them could be an important driver for those that remain behind.
Like those birds that have remained over summer, I too am still here and so ask myself the same question, why have I not left Hawaii yet? My love for the place has not increased. I have not expanded my circle of friends and I certainly haven't found any increased pleasure in my work. There is nothing that binds me to this place. All the signals are there that it is time for me to leave. I feel it is time. Yet, I haven't because I don't know quite where to go.
Maybe, like those kolea that don't leave, I need to just accept and live until my internal readiness and the external cues are in sync. When will that be?
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| Proteas growing on Maui, Hawaii. |
Like those birds that have remained over summer, I too am still here and so ask myself the same question, why have I not left Hawaii yet? My love for the place has not increased. I have not expanded my circle of friends and I certainly haven't found any increased pleasure in my work. There is nothing that binds me to this place. All the signals are there that it is time for me to leave. I feel it is time. Yet, I haven't because I don't know quite where to go.
Maybe, like those kolea that don't leave, I need to just accept and live until my internal readiness and the external cues are in sync. When will that be?
