Life as a turtle

(More photos on Flickr.)

My sister works at a local day-care center, and one of her co-workers is going on maternity leave. She asked if I could knit up something for the baby. Since her coworker is Samoan, I thought a turtle would make a fun toy.

I was surprised how quickly this knit up. I winged the whole schmeer, but it was so easy I think I'll try to write up a pattern. A great way to use up leftover green yarn, too. The shell is made of this beautiful Cascade Pastaza painted yarn, another that Dad bought me.

Hanauma Bay, on the north side of Diamond Head, is one of the best places to snorkel on Oahu. On clear days (and nearly all are clear) it's like swimming in an aquarium. Visitors are discouraged from touching the coral or marine life, and touching the sea turtles is actually illegal. It's easy to lose your focus out there, letting the waves carry you around, following Trevally and parrotfish. One day, out by the breakers, I bumped into a huge sea turtle, who didn't seem to mind. He was just munching flora, floating in the sunny tide, spending pretty much the perfect day being a turtle.

Grow roots

One of my new new coworkers, B -- formerly of Starbucks (like myself) and a local (unlike myself) -- was asking me what it was like to be an artist in Hawaii. For the most part, I said, you're only successful if you stick to making Hawaii-related art. Which is fine, except that as the whitest girl on Oahu, it would be laughably inappropriate for me to try to work in traditional Hawaiian themes.

"I mean, I've been here five years, and I'm still haole."

He laughed as we parted in the parking garage, "Five more to go, sister, that's the rule."

I still get crippling waves of homesickness sometimes, when I smell clover or hear an owl or wet flowers slap against the windows in the rain. I think I'll always be in love with Ohio. But a clever dude said, If you ain't where you are, you're no place. And he's right.

Spend ten years anywhere and you're bound to grow roots. Mine are coming along, inch by little inch.