Blanketing the trail in its blue-green shade, my banyan tree stands tall. Its underground roots extend far beneath my feet, and its vine-like aerial roots hang from thick, woody branches to surround me. The jungle tree envelops me, hugs me, assuring me that I am a part of it. I am entrenched in its complex root system. Water and nutrients pulsate all around and through me; I’m reminded of why coming to this banyan tree is always my favorite part of my family’s visits to my grandparents’ house in Hawai’i. Round, clustered leaves rustle as a warm breeze whispers through, making a humming sound that swells and softens in waves. Somewhere in the distance the ocean calls to me with its long sighs and million shimmering eyes. I’m reminded of how my mother’s eyes shimmered when she wrapped her arms around me, bringing me in close to tell me why Halmeoni is always so tired. 

I walk toward the tree’s trunk to play hide-and-seek in its gnarled knuckles and folds. I pretend I’m a forest gnome that lives in a cool, dark den. Through small openings between the roots, I spy on my parents as they eat coconut shave ice and talk about my Halmeoni who eats food from a bag connected to her stomach and doesn’t talk. Where they are standing, sunlight barely filters through the tree’s dense foliage, leaving my mom’s trembling face in the dark. I cannot see my dad’s face as he attempts to comfort her; I can only think to myself that I am safe and happy under the wings of my banyan tree, whose vines tangle my dreams in an unending network and whose branches hold the very marrow of my bone. Bringing my knees to my chest, I close my eyes and pray for waves of sleep to pull me away from this magical banyan burrow. I have a suspicion that I would wake up in a new world—a world where Time surrenders its unending crusade forward. Where the ocean is so flat it appears solid: waters placid, unchanging, certain. 

Unfortunately Time does not actually behave in such a way. It jumps and skids and runs and falls away from me. Or I fall away from it. It goes blank in some instances, and in others it screeches to a blaring halt, as it did when I saw my mom weeping over her sleeping mother in the flickering, fluorescent light of her childhood kitchen. All I know is that some disease has invaded Halmeoni’s body and mind, claiming her voice and motor functions and immobilizing her to a hospital bed in the kitchen. 

For this reason, coming to my grandparent’s house in southern Oahu—which we call Kiai Place—never really feels like a vacation (or at least the type of beach vacation most people go to Hawai’i for). Kiai Place is, however, the closest I will ever get to feeling truly Korean. My Auntie Liz tells me I’m a real Korean when I eat kimchi no problem—I feel fuzzy in my chest. I know I am Korean when I gnaw on kalbi with greasy hands and I let rich mango juice drip down my face, coating my arms in a sticky mess. I am especially Korean when I transform the mango pit into a hairy, elegant fish by submerging it in the sink whose drain I plugged. I do not know what being Korean means. I just know that my grandparents passed down Korean blood to my mom who passed it down to me. I do not speak Korean. My mom’s meager understanding of the language is not much better. My Korean blood is just that: blood. It is blood passed down after all—the very phrase implies my own lack of ownership over this seemingly exotic part of my identity. Outside of trips to my grandparents’, a rich cuisine, and a sense of community at family gatherings in which I struggle to immerse myself, my Korean blood offers little else for me to latch onto, and yet something still compels me to continue to claim this part of my identity with pride. Perhaps it’s in my blood.

—————

Back at the house the air is thick and sticky, no longer crisp and salty as it was at the banyan tree. The moisture blankets everything: the sparse patches of grass on the front lawn, the mangoes that molder to a perfect ripeness on the kitchen counter, my tender skin that itches to grow, the tired hands of my Halabeoji, the faded tile in the bathroom floors, even my thoughts that struggle to connect with each other in such a syrupy state. It is inescapable, leaving behind beads of dew everywhere it ventures. I don’t actually mind it that much, even though my mom tells me Trust me, it gets old after a while. It just weighs on you. I take her word for it. 

I bet that’s how she got Island Fever. I don’t actually know what that is, but doesn’t it sound nice? Exotic, intoxicating, like a drunken butterfly drifting through hot and golden sun rays, unknowing where it is headed to. For me, I could stay here in this humidity forever. I spend my days watching the rhythmic pulsating of the laundry machine, rattling against the yellow wall outside; it entrances me with its shakes and spins and its rackety tap dance. My brother and I play with the Dora the Explorer-themed cash register for hours on end, hypnotized by the satisfying clicks of its buttons—my favorite being the OPEN button which surprises me every time with its abrupt bell chime and violent release of the money drawer. 

I explore every corner of the house, finding comfort in the mildew smell in the guest room closet, the dusty living room couches, the forgotten koi pond in the backyard which has turned a deep shade of green from overgrown algae and moss. There is something indescribably comforting about an imperfect house. Yet I still watch from the living room as my mother trims the four perfectly cone-shaped hedges out on the front lawn. I’ve always wondered why those hedges were there. They seem so out-of-place—like they were from a traditional suburban home in a Homes & Gardens magazine, and still, the house wouldn’t be the same without them. They’ve been there since my mom was a child herself. I don’t think she could bear to lose anything else from her childhood.

—————

We come back to Kiai Place a year later. Halmeoni is gone. Halabeoji too. It is much quieter now. The house feels empty, and my brother and two cousins and I are eager to get out, away from our parents’ hushed whispers and long faces. But after we’re presented with the opportunity to come along with our parents on an “important trip,” we immediately agree. We drive with my mom and my two uncles to a séance. My mom tells us that kids aren’t allowed to come in and that we will have to wait in the car, so we occupy ourselves with playing Family and pretending to be on a road trip in the parked car. I am always Baby. Still, my brother lets me come up to the driver’s seat and sit next to him, where we pretend to steer the wheel left and right around hairpin turns and occasionally honk the horn on accident. We wish so badly to be older—to drive actual cars and be invited to important meetings like those with the medium. Seeing our somber parents coming back, our giggles fizzle and we pretend to be asleep.

—————

Recalling these memories I realize I have wasted my life. I will always hate myself for not trying to connect with my grandparents more before they were gone, but how could I have known any better? A five-year-old knows nothing but the urge to chase geckos and make crab hotels and squish his feet in mud with salt hair not-yet dry. Perhaps there is something to learn from that. Let us tickle our tongues with sweet laughter and cloud our eyes with a salty nectar that reminds us we are human. Let us hug our mother and tell her I love you a million times. 

I wish I could experience my life as a long exposure photo and abandon any linear conception of time altogether. But this is impossible—I am tethered to Time. It is an unstoppable current pulling me out into the open sea with no beginning and no end. In my own life my parents have aged. My dad’s hair is graying, my mom’s too. My dog, Mochi, does not run as she used to. A new family fills the remodeled walls of my mother’s childhood home with their laughter, perfume, tears. In my own life I have witnessed myself age. I can actually drive now and yet I feel no different than my insatiable five-year-old self. I would be lying if I said that this doesn’t terrify me. I am terrified of Time running out every time the sun dips below the horizon. How can Time fall away from me if I never avert my gaze from it? I stare and stare at the sun until all I can see is the green glow that remains imprinted in the back of my closed eyelids. Halmeoni and Halabeoji remain just the same—this I know. 

True liberation is to dissolve into a larger static. To become comfortable knowing my human experience is merely the universe experiencing itself. To know that birth and death do not exist to be understood—my loved ones aren’t really gone. I still see Halmeoni in my mother’s eyes. I see her in the orange light that cascades down my brother’s back as we run into the ocean’s open arms. I have made peace with losing her. I can let life wash over me as the ocean swallows my footprints in the sand. I have learned to carry each day with care, as they will continue to come.