Sulfur dioxide clouds over my farm

Living with an active volcano river stretching 8 miles through your town to the ocean is anything but normal. When the fissures started to crack and smoke, they seemed close but comfortably far away from us. When you feel your land is safe, a false sense of relief occurs.

Each day, I study the flow maps and determined my status of safe or not safe. It’s very hard to look at the flow making a turn away from your land and feel good about it –even if you do. Nothing about it is good. I don’t feel good about someone else’s land or a community park being taken.

Countless times, our farm has been in a possible flow path. Yet it remains. Another day of salvation.

People in my town, do not ask each other how they are doing. Today, it’s not a good question. One simply says, “Aloha” and perhaps discusses the produce at Island Naturals. No asking if their house or farm is okay. Don’t go there.

My town breathes and exhales lava, we have a hard time responding to social media that isn’t about the lava. Likes and hearts are way down as we push past someone else’s pain or happiness. Flipping through post after post not being able to read or respond.

I’ve slept with my phone turned on since May, since it began. I had made a vow never to leave my phone on at night because no good news comes to you in the middle of the night and bad news can wait until you wake up.

Phones are the link to all the updates; the USGS maps and reports, the Civil Service messages, the Hawaii News Now broadcasts and our favorite locals reporting on social media. All telling us where the lava is now.

It’s very hard to plan. There’s no planning about what you’re going to plant in the garden, or fix at your house. Waiting for a time when the future is predictable. Knowing your house and land will still be there tomorrow.

Some people have begun to move on, their houses and land are buried under so much lava they can’t recognize their boundary lines. I’m almost envious. They have a future to plan.

Today, I will drive to my farm. While I’m there, I’ll almost forget I left. My house, my outhouses, my kitchen all look like the abandon homes at Chernobyl with things that were once on the shelf on the floor scattered. All the important stuff gone.

Yet, I have to remember the most important things are still there; land, trees, house, neighbors, and most of all my heart.