Just outside our kitchen door in Mānoa Valley, go to the other side of our carport, take one step up and try look. A nani red hibiscus bush. I loved that bush; I could pick pua for my hair, or just be happy that the flowers enriched my world.

Today I have a garage. I walk outside my kitchen and go through the breezeway and up three steps. There is no hibiscus bush there.

There are stately Douglas fir trees standing guard, and there are Oregon Big-leaf Maples that turn golden in the fall.

So I compensate by having a small red hibiscus bush on the lānai, and its lovely flowers remind me of home, kuʻu one hānau, and it helps the homesickness I feel for the sands of my birth.