First light at Loti’i was a little after 5am, my first morning in the rainforest. A distant rooster began to crow, then hit the snooze alarm for a half hour before he began his work in earnest. Unexpectedly and uncharacteristically I was already awake at his first call because I’d had a restless night, sleeping in short fits, then waking up, breathing hard, trying to believe this was not a dream.

I was camped in a little Airstream trailer on the Big Island of Hawai’i, at 3,900 ft altitude on the side of Mauna Loa  , the largest active volcano in the world. Loti'i, my property there is slightly over a mile from the Kilauea crater, and less than a mile from Ola’a National Forest. It's a small lot I’d purchased from friends a couple of years ago, thinking “Someday. Someday.” Economic conditions had been better then, both for me and for the country, and it all seemed doable at the time, but now everything had shifted over toward the “Nearly Impossible” end of the spectrum, yet here I was, risking everything I have on a dream.

The night sky had been dark, dark, dark, but dotted with as many brilliant stars as the reasons friends and family gave me that my quest for a place to call home in paradise was crazy, dangerous, ridiculous, and just plain nuts. And the Milky Way vividly displayed as many galaxies as I had second thoughts myself, coming close to backing out again and again and again, yet here I was, living my dream.

I had gone to sleep to the sound of tree frogs and crickets and the trees and leaves in the lush jungle around me rustling in the breeze. During the night the soft patter of a light rain was added to the sound track, but now, the first calls from the jungle birds began, and I was transported by a swelling symphony of melodic bird song.

Stepping out into the morning chill, a light mist still in the air, I was captivated by the circus starting up in the treetops. It was love at first sight when I spotted the honeycreepers swarming around the brilliant red blossoms dotting the ohi’a trees which are all over my property. At the base of each of the red bristles that make up the brush-like ohia’a flower is a tiny cup of nectar, and the honey creepers use their long curved bills like drinking straws to suck up their food.

The ‘I’iwi (pronounced: ee EE vee, a Hawai’ian name that imitates their song) is as brilliant a red as the flowers they feed on, with black wings and tail, and has a long and sharply-curved bill. The Arapane (pronounced: ar uh PON ay), are similar to the ‘I’iwe, but have a shorter bill and a white belly. The third kind, whose name I have not yet learned, are like the Arapane, but green in color. Rounding out the cast in the treetop circus are fat little finches and sparrows, and two kinds of Hawai’ian doves, which are much smaller than the doves in Texas, and a soft cooing call. And all of them are adept aerial gymnasts, flying around rapidly in tight formations worthy of the Blue Angels.

I made myself a cup of strong Ka’u coffee (pron: ka OO) from a neighboring farm, sat down in my folding arm chair, and watched the show for hours. Before I was full I’d seen a Hawi’ian owl fly silently through my new back yard (a good omen, they are considered the guardians of the forest), had a Hawai’ian hawk land on a big branch about five feet from me, and watched a troop of brightly colored Kalij (kuh LEEJ) pheasants waddle through the underbrush searching for breakfast. A tribe of perhaps 20 tiny iridescent lizards, first red, then green,  came out to sun themselves on dry leaves a few feet from my chair, playing an amusing rough and tumble game that ended when I stood up and they all vanished from sight in a flash.

I gave thanks for the bounty of the paradise I had wakened into, the paradise I intend to become my new home. And I was grateful that somehow I had managed to wade through all the fears and negative thoughts and break through all the obstacles that arisen to try and keep me away. But at last, I was here, in Loti’i, and it was beyond all my expectations. Spectacular. Overwhelming. Unbelievably beautiful.

And at last, after years of wandering and yearning, I felt I was finally home.

Yes, I am home, at last.

Love,

David

Photo & text © 2010 David Kinne