I’m writing this next to a stream in Hawaii, where my husband and I spend a few months each winter to escape Alaska’s darkness and cold. The stream originates on the slopes of Kohala Mountain, an extinct volcano, the oldest of five volcanoes that form this island. Less than a mile from here, the stream pours from a lava tube and plunges fifty feet into a pool before heading seaward.
The sound of water has always comforted me, especially fresh, shallow water rushing over stones. I grew up in western New York, in a small town bordered on two sides by creeks that cut deep gorges into the landscape before emptying into Lake Erie. I waded in and skated upon and hiked up and down those creeks all through my childhood. After college I took a job at a remote salmon hatchery on an island in Prince William Sound, Alaska. There I met my husband, Craig, a commercial fisherman and orca biologist. I volunteered on his research boat and, once I’d earned my master’s in biology, became his colleague. We lived on his boat for several months out of the year, counting orcas and humpback whales. Finally we became lovers. I helped him raise his three kids, and every winter he brought us all here to Hawaii, to this piece of land on the wet, windy north coast of the Big Island.
