“When the eruption began,” Kanani told us, gesturing towards the distant volcano. “It was old lava, not fresh. Heavy. Thick. Viscous. Lava that was trapped underground, left over from previous flows.”
As we sat cross-legged on Honoli’i Beach, she told us to close our eyes and listen for the voice of the land. The river meeting the sea. The
waves hitting the smooth gray pebbles. The soundscape that’s unique to this beach and this beach alone.
We sat quietly, listening, as she told us her theory about the eruption
“Everything old, everything that needed to be purged and released, everything came to the surface.”
“The lava swallowed the road,” Kanani continued. “Many homes were lost. And our favorite swimming hole,” she added, pointing south, “The lava took it from us. It’s gone forever.”
I remember that exact swimming hole. I’d been there just a month before the eruption began. A natural thermal pool, gently heated from beneath the earth. Sweet and serene. It had been there for generations. Now it doesn’t exist.
Erased.
“We lost our favorite swimming hole, but we also received a gift,” she told us. “Because of the volcano, we gained four new swimming holes and a new black sand beach. Now, there is more than before.”
It was almost seven years ago when Kanani spoke these words. A hundred times since then, they have echoed in my mind.
Because of the 2018 Kilauea eruption, one of the most destructive in the last 200 years, Hawaii has more than 800 acres of new land that didn’t exist before.
