Well, it's official...

It took three years, but it finally happened. I am the big, ugly, white man. Despite not being big, ugly, or a man. Or even all white. I got called a haole today outside of KTA supermarket. Since most of my family doesn't know what Haole means, a quick description: Haole typically means foreigner, but over the years it has become derogatory. Almost like calling someone a n*****.

Part of me wants to laugh about it. I have been inducted. I have surpassed tourist status and remained long enough for slurs about my non-brownness to head my way. And maybe tomorrow I can. I am still too mad right now. I realize, in the grand scheme of things, three years in one place is a bit of a joke but for our family, it's tantamount to homesteading. We're always moving.

It wasn't improved by the fact that I was on the phone with Jeffery talking about how we couldn't go to the camping site we originally chose because a white guy sitting around the campfire with his family got the shit beat out of him by six "Natives" who materialized out of the darkness. How I hate that fucking word. Native. We are all native. Native to planet Earth. Despite not having EVER treated someone poorly because their skin was a different color. Despite being a good law abiding citizen, contributing to the economy, sending my kids to public school, shopping for local goods. Despite an attempt to respect and learn and grow about a different culture. Oh no, it doesn't matter because I am a haole. Fuck that. Sorry to be so crude, but FUCK THAT. If staying in one place long enough to birth two babies and buy groceries for four children and say hi to my neighbors and go to church isn't enough to make this a home, then what is? Oh, respect the 'aina, respect the 'aina. And on my walk today, next to the horses is a used condom. Who the hell put that on Mud Lane?! Some bike riding tourist stopping long enough to get it on? Bull. Bitch and excuse and condemn me all you want, but I sure as hell wasn't leaving my car battery on the side of the road, was I? I was walking across a parking lot with my children and you almost back up into my daughter, but I'm the interloper of doom? I sent the smallpox and leprosy to decimate your ancestors specifically so I could arrive two hundred years later and own the asphalt. Kiss my technicolor ass.

Alright, that's enough ranting, but it was rather upsetting. Like finding a worm in my pristine apple. Okay more like walking straight into a telephone pole covered in dog shit, but nevermind. I love it here. And not just because it's "pretty." I love everything about here. And I thought...I thought...I don't even know what I thought. Yes I do. I thought this was my home. More than almost any other place I have ever lived. Silly me. I am just a haole.