Whenever I travel back to Hawaiʻi, the concept of "home" gets a bit confusing for me.
"Home" implies a place where a person feels most comfortable. It’s more than just a dwelling — it’s a state of mind, an emotional anchor.
Once this visit is done, it will have marked the longest time I’ve been away from Austin. Four weeks, which is pretty much a month. Last year, I took a three-week vacation, one of them spent in Japan. But for this trip, I’ve been tied down to the house. If this were anything remotely resembling a vacation, I would have flown to Maui.
It’s not.
It’s me coming back to my first home and tending to it through some extraordinary circumstances. And as much as I’ve come to resent Austin in the last few years, I really can’t wait to get back.
But it’s not the Alamo Drafthouse, Waterloo Records, Azul Tequila and South Austin that I necessarily want to get back to. It’s the shower head in my bathroom, a TV on which I know where the channels are, the guitars suited for my hands, computers configured to my own settings. I want to go back to the place I carved out as my own.
At the same time, certain things about Hawaiʻi never stop feeling like home — the proliferation of Filipino accents, the fattening but oh-so-delicious food, easy access to Japanese pop music, and a day-to-day dress code that makes Austin look overdressed.
Other things remind me of why I left — Hawaiian music, a genre just screaming for its own Astor Piazzola; passive-aggressiveness masquerading as "aloha spirit"; tooth-rotting sentimentality. (If I have to sit through another Lokahi Tree segment, I might have to find a gun to eat.)
In the past, I would never consider moving back to Hawaiʻi as a viable option. I’ve tempered that outlook dramatically in the last few years, but I’m not convinced that time has arrived for me yet. At the same time, I do another spit take when I find myself thinking, "I can’t wait till I get back to Austin." It’s not Austin — it’s the place within Austin from which I barricade myself against Austin.
In short, I need to move.
I resented Hawaiʻi. I moved away, and now I appreciate it.
If I want to appreciate Austin again, I need to do the same. I need to leave so that I can appreciate Waterloo Records, Azul Tequila and South Austin.
But what the hell am I going to do without an Alamo Drafthouse?