Peeking over the ledge, all that is visible arranges into peril, maybe heart-wrenching, maybe not, yet the free fall of several hundred feet means a direct landing. On the cliff side, during the launch downward, are lauhalla trees to spike a rib, volcanic boulders to break an arm, and medium boulders to smaller sizes to pebbles to fine granular black sand—as many centuries of ocean waves create of volcano rocks—to brace the disfiguring fall. Maybe you live.

When I gingerly placed a foot and then another taking this corner cliff turn down into Pololu Valley my imagination kept firing. Damn creative muse, when will she gift me just a walk? What I could admit is that a hundred years ago many donkeys made this same descent from above, probably a thousand feet declining with hundreds of pounds of people and packages.

Even my imagination finds this hard to believe but so it was. We must have lost a donkey or two and her traveling companions, the essential items for colonizers to survive in the valley, like sugar, flour, and coffee, and the person requiring these to spend time and maybe even live in this ancient Hawaiian basin, a valley that sings lyrical to please give the donkey respite and those aren't essential goods anyway. The aina (land) provides sustenance that doesn't need carting down.

For centuries Native Hawaiians grew kalo (taro) and other thriving vegetation to sustain life, relying on a fresh water river running mauka (mountain) to makai (ocean). Water falls from one of several mountainous rivulets formed when volcano lava poured in another world's lifetime, so many years ago we strive to imagine. Native Hawaiians lived in this valley; one stays creative and guesses peacefully. In the hum of tall trees gently cracking high up as they stretch in might and height, ocean waves sloshing and caressing the black sand, and mostly ever present trade winds that are warm then stingy cold and ruffle all surfaces: water, sand, trees, rocks, and peoples—in this soundscape, I stand. I face the ocean horizon without end. And I turn around and face the mountains that appear to go on forever as clouds welcome them that high.

These sights and sounds ask me to ask what is the pattern? Me and my imagination, as you have read, are in active conversation and not always amiably, so I flip her channel (she always returns, dammit) and go into science observer mode. Speculative I become on massive trees that are not growing on the beach or adjacent land. Yet they have washed up on the shoreline. From where do they arrive? Shift I do to mystery which science requires, I guess. Big Island exists in a wide ocean so travel paths from all over the world are the option I select. Probably so. And I flip into comparison for one urban lesbian standing on this shoreline seems just about as likely. How did I get here is a question best kept as a prayer on mystery for I have little to no idea. And here I stand, still.

Love science as I do the material is not my forte so I return to imagination. Picture a one room cabin, space enough for a few cots, stove fireplace, maybe even a sink if I run wild—and I always can in my thoughts. Can you hear the night sounds way deep here in this Pololu valley? Does bright moonlight have a sound? And having bought a few store batteries I can read by artificial lamp light (some modern amenities are a must). As I stare into the valley assessing how much an architect might charge to design the cabin and where best to locate the dwelling, I snap back into reality. A few cows are grazing this close to where mountains begin their climb. Who placed them on this stretch of valley grass?

The point I am trying to make is one of history—this place and my own. These are Native Hawaiian sacred grounds and so I am jazzed to experience the hike. What I borrow through imagination and observation are not scraps of litter that I leave on the aina. Through grateful energy my hope is I reciprocate the generous mana (energy) Pololu Valley gifts any walker. Absorbing through my senses while sitting by the ocean, waves wash over me, ones that are peaceful, adventurous, and curious. So from the flat valley I begin the steep ascent back to the top, a sweaty muscle-pumping affair.

The day is warm yet I welcome my long pants and long sleeves, a soft cloth coverage to go interior, wrapped so well as I am. Sturdy walking shoes mean that each foot I place takes hold in the instant I secure the next right footing. Scanning the sandy pebbled path for signs of stern leverage, I observe what used to be one plank of wooden steps. Years and years of trample and now gritty dust have worn the wood to appear metallic. When I pause, running my hand against the grain only molecular smoothness greets my touch.

Feels like a prayer to my past as I recall how forgiveness works. We change as life changes us and for those who brought me harm, I forgive, and for those who I brought harm, I live to conduit forgiveness through my in-the-now behaviors, and in some pausing moments life is smooth—like steel, unbreakable and shiny and real. This is how the wood plank seemed when I stared down, a glint of light that caught my eye as I stepped quickly. Then I stopped. To give space for forgiveness, a nanosecond in time that felt like a millenium, the way healing works us over, a fierce effort to let go and say hello to the exact moment one is hiking in.

What brought me a chuckle next is that I misunderstood how many cliff turns the path had. Breathing laboriously I planned to rest soon. Not so. The steep cliff that I describe a donkey plunging from reminds me that I too have a heart easily able to leap like an ass. Several years ago I did that and as I tumbled, the symbolic fall our hearts make when caught by love's surprise—the lauhalla trees spiked my ribs, volcanic boulders bruised my ego, and beach sand often wiped away a few tears when I fell there. Thank Pele, and any other island deity who can assist, that some time has passed. That is why I open this essay by describing the cliff fall for we need to forgive when love strikes us haphazardly and watch our step.

One woman fell in love with another woman and the rocks in their worlds were tumbled. Caution is not what I suggest, more like take steps forward that you did not know were possible—new walking routes, meet fields of flowers, plunge into a chilly river, and expect nothing other than stay tuned. The universe has a plan for you two (us two, she and I) and that reveals only when we admit staying present is the way to make the climb up. When I completed the hike and took a few last steps for the day, endorphins and mystery and forgiveness and love energy fired off sparks invisible to the naked eye. So grateful and splendid.