Until now, as I glance below at the pillowy, cotton clouds
below, it didn’t feel like we were actually doing this, leaving behind our
lives in Seattle to take a chance at a life that felt like a fantasy,
perpetually out-of-reach. When we first made the decision to leave, to finally
give in to our desire for a different, more authentic life, it seemed like such
an obvious, logical choice. We want to one day have a farm, to build a home,
and to live as much as we can off of our own land. The longer we stayed in
Seattle, as much as I really did love and do miss a great many people and places
there, just felt like procrastinating, or perhaps avoiding our dream
altogether. As the lease to our house there drew to a close and we contemplated
once again packing up and moving to a new place and another year in Seattle,
our desire for change finally outweighed our fear.
It made sense to move out to Seattle when I finished
graduate school and we were twenty six, but now that we are two years closer to
thirty with a few years of city life under our belt we had the firm
understanding that this place that we had tried so hard to love would never be
our home. We grew tired of the daily commute, the rush of the city, the people
everywhere you turn and the endless, overwhelming options of where to eat
dinner and spend all our hard-earned cash. What was at first so alluring, had
become tiresome and city life was beginning to take it’s toll on us, especially
Dylan who is far less of a city person than even I am. So with a month left to
go, over a flight of Pumpkin beer samples at the Beer Junction after work one
night, we discussed and debated and ultimately decided that it was time to move
on.
The prospect of returning to New England in the height of
winter did not sound particularly inviting, however, especially if we planned
to take our first step toward this new self-made life of farming and creative
endeavors. Thus, the idea of Hawaii was born. I had heard of the WWOOF program
from friends who knew people who had traveled to all sorts of different farms
of the world to live and work and learn on various kinds of farm skills and
though they had always urged me to consider it, I never bothered to follow up
on this advice. But that night when we got home from our beer tasting, we
joined the WWOOF Hawaii network created our own WWOOFer’s couple profile and began
browsing the 250+ farms in Hawaii that participate in the program.
 |
| Our WWOOFers profile picture |
There are coffee farms, and orchid farms, and smoothie
stands on the beach, and acres and acres of tropical fruit trees to choose from
and we were immediately bewitched by the idea of spending a few months in
tropical paradise. In the beginning of our 3rd dark and rainy season in
Seattle, with a lifetime of snowy New England winters awaiting us back east, we
both agreed that a few months in Hawaii was exactly what we needed to get out of
the slump we had fallen into our last few months in Seattle. The chance to gain
precious farm experience, some much needed warm weather and vitamin D, and the
chance to engage in those creative endeavors we had both had to put off as we
poured all of our energy into our careers felt like a dream come true.
Though I was the one who made the initial suggestion, after
a particularly frustrating day of work after which I was exhausted and drained
of social energy and missing Dylan, who had been working nights and weekends
for months now as I continued my weekly day schedule at my beloved preschool,
his enthusiasm for this new prospect sealed the deal. I suggested it on a whim,
with only a short time to make the decision, find a farm, quit our jobs and
pack up our stuff, something I would otherwise never do, but as they say,
desperate times call for desperate measures and neither one of us was keen on
continuing down the same path for the duration of another lease. We had long
before decided that we would be leaving Seattle eventually, but it was
definitely a shock when we decided to leave just over a month before it was
time to go.
I never do things last minute, especially something this
major, but when I stumbled upon Heather and Paul’s WWOOF profile, I knew that
if we could work with them, or a farm and family like theirs and that this was
absolutely the right decision for us. They had a 3+ acre mango orchard and were
looking for a like-minded couple, one interested in growing food for personal
consumption (they sell only their mangos commercially), with an interest in
farming from a foodie’s perspective, an interest in developing new ideas and
improving the still-start up farm. But what really sealed the deal for me was
that they wanted one partner to focus mostly on farm projects, while the other
helped care for and homeschool their going on two-year-old daughter. Being a
preschool teacher and pretty devastated about leaving a school community that I
adored, their profiled immediately jumped out at me.
 |
| Sunrise over Ballard on my final walk to catch the bus to work |
As much as I want a life of the land, I love teaching,
working in education, and using my creativity to research and brainstorm
endless ways to improve the state of education. I was not ready to give that up
quite yet. Working with Heather and Paul and their little daughter Karuna would
mean the best of both worlds for me, farm experience without giving up my place
in education. When I first happened upon their profile, I wasn’t sure Dylan
would be interested since he seemed weary of sharing close quarters with just a
single family on a small farm, but as we explored our other options, mostly
large commercial farms and coffee farms seeking many WWOOFers at a time sharing
a common living space, the idea of being on our own with a single like-minded
couple he admitted was far more appealing than dancing around a fire with a
bunch of transient 20-year olds taking time off from or avoiding the
responsibilities of regular life (not to judge, but we just felt too old for
that).
So finally, and I’ll admit a bit nervously, I shared Heather
and Paul’s profile with Dylan, trying not make my favoritism show, and to my
relief he was immediately on board, thrilled at the list of possible farm
projects listed, among which was building an outdoor brick oven, something he’d
been dreaming of for quite some time. So that night I sent Heather an email
explaining our bit of gardening experience, our desire to learn and our
interest in their small, start-up project in self-sufficiency, and my
experience and interest in education. She called me the very next day. I was in
the middle of an open-house at our preschool that Monday night and so I was
unable to answer her call, but when I heard the voicemail saying she loved our
profile and was interested in finding a time to discuss the possibility of us
working together I literally did a little jump for joy in the bathroom at
school where I had snuck off to check my phone. I was electric with excitement.
I was like a kid on Christmas Eve as I made my hour-long
trek home on the bus, bubbling with energy as I walked in the door. This
could be it, I thought, our
ticket to Hawaii and the start of a new life for us! I danced around the apartment for the 45 minutes waiting for Dylan to
get home with our leftover pizza from work. Normally I would have been starving
and exhausted after a 14 hour day but I could hardly sit still. I wanted to
tell him in person so I waited for what felt like an eternity, busying myself
with tidying the apartment, my usual way of coping when I am anxiously awaiting
something big. When he finally did come home I practically leapt on him, nearly
knocking the pizza box out of his hand and shared the good news. We opened a
bottle of wine and discussed exactly what to say in an email response to
Heather’s call. Finally, I sent her a message and she responded the next day
and just like that we had a Skype date planned for the following Monday evening
to “meet.”
 |
| Mt. Rainier from the plane leaving Seattle for the last time |
A week later when the time came, we anxiously turned on the
computer and awaited their phone call. It was Paul who called and we awkwardly
exchanged our Skype info and sat in silence on the phone as we tried to get our
computers set up. Finally we were computer screen to computer screen in a weird
“couples dating service meet-up” as Dylan so aptly described the experience.
The initial awkwardness quickly wore off and we found we had a ton in common.
It was easy conversation and we chatted like old friends for over an hour,
finally calling it a night when little Karuna began falling asleep in Heather’s
lap and we were all yawning profusely. Once we signed off, Dylan and I turned
to one another, breathed a sigh of relief, and grinned like giddy teenagers as
we discussed what we thought of them. Instantly we agreed that we wanted to
work with them, that they seemed to be offering the exact experience we were
hoping for and then some. So just like that it was decided and I crafted the
email that solidified our commitment to change our lives entirely.
So here we are, quickly approaching the Big Island of
Hawaii, just an hour or two now before we touch down at Kailua-Kona Airport,
just 20 minutes north of Captain, Cook Hawaii, where we will spend the next
four months of our lives living and working in tropical paradise. We will be
spending about 25 hours per week expanding and helping out in the gardens (it
is off-season for the mango orchard), building various structures around the
property, getting to know our new hosts through endless culinary adventures,
and pot-lucks with the neighbors. Not only will I get the chance to work
one-on-one with an adorable soon-to-be two-year-old, but to sweeten the deal,
once Heather learned the extent of my interest and experience in education, she
invited me to help design and create an entire cooperative preschool program
for the families in their rural, agricultural community! This is a dream come
true for me.
Until today, on this very last leg of our travels from New
England to Hawaii, none of this has felt real, not even a bit. As we dragged
our bags from house to house up and down the East Coast I hardly allowed myself
to think about what lay ahead. I don’t’ know if it was out of fear, anxiety, my
continual discomfort with ambiguity and the unknown, or that the whole thing
felt too good to be true. Likely, each of these pieces completed the puzzle
that I have now cast aside, allowing myself at last to be overcome with
excitement once again. It was hard to leave Seattle, there was so much I loved
about my life there, even though I knew all along that leaving was the right
decision. It will take me some time to process that loss but now here we are on
our way to live a dream-come reality and I am ready for it.
Who knows how this whole thing will turn out, what our cabin
will look like, how our new friends and hosts will like us an become a part of
our lives. And who knows what challenges and adventures lay ahead, but, I mean,
we will be in Hawaii, just Dylan and I relying on one another, a world away
from everything and everyone for four whole months. It sounds crazy but here we
are, we’re doing it, crazy and all. With a part-time work schedule and all of
our food and shelter provided by the land and our hosts, we will finally both
have the time to reset ourselves on this new path, to shed the bad habits we’ve
been dying to part with, and embrace the one’s we’ve been too exhausted to take
the time to develop.
This is our chance, to start fresh and set ourselves up to
truly be who we want to be and live how we want to live. I am pumped to take
full advantage of this opportunity to breathe, to read and write, to create, to
explore, and reflect on all of our experiences. Though I cannot speak for
Dylan, I know he is just as excited and determined to make the most of this
experience as well. I cannot wait to discover what Hawaii has in store for us,
but for now I will leave you with the same anticipation that I carry with me as
we grow closer and closer to our complimentary end-of-flight Mai Tai and first
view of the Island we will call home between now and early June. Aloha, be
well, and stay tuned.
Jo! You are seriously the coolest person ever. Best of luck on your 4-month journey! I'll be following your blog, for sure. :)
ReplyDelete