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When I first arrived on Maui in 1975 with my one-way ticket, the airport as I remember, was some counters under a roof and nearby one beautiful tree.
The smell of the tropics was in the air when I walked down the steps onto the runway, and while no one knew I was coming, a woman with a flower in her hair came up to me and placed a fragrant plumeria lei around my neck.
Everywhere, the sites, the sounds, the coconut trees swaying in the warm breeze, and the smiling local people, all communicated aloha.
There was an immediate feeling of having come home.
I've lived here ever since.
Yesterday I returned to Maui from travels, always so glad to come home.
The immensity of Maui's airport is still hard to take in. More so, everywhere I looked on my way to the baggage claim, rather than aloha, what was being communicated were all the things and experiences I could purchase.
Everything from jewelry to helicopter tours, fine dining, ziplining, lū'au-ing and shopping, shopping, shopping, all on big signs and bigger screens and all available for purchase.
Not really a surprise to me, having watched Maui transform over these last 50 years, yet still a sadness came over me, reminding me of what has been lost and what has replaced it.
Maybe that's the story in many places now. Fortunately for all of us, the aloha is so embedded in the land here, it can still touch us.
Reverend Bodhi Be
Ha'ikū