Would you agree that a back muscle stretches when reaching on the grocery store shelf? I can picture you pulling a plastic tub, maybe Folgers or another popular consumer selection, from up high. Or perhaps right there on the middle shelf is a well-designed bag of expensive coffee, still whole bean, yet to be ground. Whether high-quantity brands like Folgers or high-quality boutique small-batch coffee labels, the bean starts on a thriving tree. And I am standing smack dab in a tree orchard in rural Hawi on Big Island Hawai’i. You know, where the coffee bean originates?

On my birthday, I sometimes stroll through graveyards to celebrate. In Kohala’s countryside the cemetery plots tell stories on tombstones. Peculiar timelines, diverse names, and life roles are etched into cement or marble. Relying on fiction to respect and imitate reality, one sample name reads Pedro Alfonso, son, born September 17, 1982, and died May 22, 1988. He was six years and ten months old when we lost him. Another plot exhibits the bare minimum place marker with a one-foot picture frame, a printed piece of paper inside, stating the person’s basic info, which the adjacent church has stabbed in the grass. I suppose the family got busy.