There once was a girl who lived on an island.

She had everything she had ever dreamed of; a farm to give her energy to, friends to give her love to, and beaches- miles and miles of beaches- on which to run endlessly. She lived in a tent beneath the cashew trees and shared space with the spiders and centipedes. Not even the mosquitos and cockroaches bothered her. Her life was perfect and she thought it would never end.

But, as all things do that are too perfect, the happy girl’s island life did come to an end.

Like a dried-out washcloth, the beaches no longer washed her clean.

Like a plough that had given all it had, she finally became stuck in the dirt she worked.

Even the mosquitos began to test her patience, until one morning, she woke up knowing the illusion was fading. One morning, she woke up knowing- it was time to go back.

9 Months Later

I stand at the stove, basking in the smell of coconut oil-covered beets. I inhale the sweet, earthen smell and am overwhelmed by a memory- a memory that has been dormant, overlaid with so much that now exists between me and the first time I caught a whiff of beets cooking in coconut oil.

Though I stayed on the island for just over a year, and felt much magic in those passing months, the most magical of them all, was the first.

Kind of like the way most people hope their first time for anything will be, in that first month, my innocence was respected, my autonomy was recognized, and my passion was admired. As my first month began to take shape, so did a happiness, a contentment, that I had only ever feared would be crushed by the weight of all that had come before me.

But I found that rather than be crushed, it was nurtured. I found contentment in everything from the three women who picked me up from the airport where chickens roam, to the impossible mountain forest that emerges from the desert like southside.

The first time I walked through the door of the community kitchen space of Rising Sun Organic Farm, the sun had sunk, and the sky was alight with the millions of stars of the Milky Way. Lina parked her car- affectionately called Roma- and the other two girls- Justine and Amanda- helped me with my suitcase and longboard (of the wheeled variety). I hefted my pack and ducked after them through the Noni trees- a plant whose fruit we would become intimately familiar with during the time of Mystery Itch and the Great Staph Panic- into a dimly lit, red, yellow, and green painted rectangular kitchen. Christmas lights were strung from the beams and a strand of strawberry lights lit the shelf that held the dishes. A picnic table rested in the back corner, between the bookshelf and the refrigerator.

The air was balmy and warm. Not even the banana spider webs moved. The voices of my new friends were low but filled with laughter. Justine disappeared and returned a while later with two handfuls of carrots and beets, and soon the sizzling sound of vegetables in coconut oil filled the small space.

I was tired; I had just raced fourteen hours across the United States, half of the pacific, and six hours backward in time to arrive at This Place, but I was glowing with happiness. Excitement and love flooded through me and that first month is forever enshrined in my memory as one of a cozy cocoon, where for the first time, my five closest companions were women.

Together we cooked, harvested, conversed, laughed, cried, and went wild. Our friendship was immediately unconditional, our bond as strong as the ancient island upon which we lived. With Lina, Amanda, Justine, and soon-to-be Jess and Jenna, I enjoyed something I had only caught glimpses of: Sisterhood.

Walking into that dimly lit kitchen to find myself surrounded by women was to walk into a mother’s womb; perfectly suited to nurture you into who you are meant to be.

There is so much I have to say about my time on Kauai, and it will seep out of me in due time, but for now, it is enough to share this memory with you. Triggered by the beets cooking in coco oil on the stove, I remember the women who embraced me and sank into my embrace in return. I remember the warmth on my skin, and in my heart. I remember the contentment and exhilaration of calling a dream out of fear.

I remember the moment my life began, truly, to take its own shape.