Walking down Piha Kahuku Road in Nīnole on the Big Island of Hawai’i, half an hour north of Hilo, the Pacific Ocean stretches as far as the eye can see. The sloped residential road is lined with guava trees.

As I sit on my front porch in the well-loved yellow adirondack chair, I can hear the steady flow of water in our little front-yard creek and the birds singing each other to sleep