Juliet Lee:  

Places and their communities are as varied as the people who live in them. Small, large, or middling, they possess the heart of our longing, anguish, and joy. I was born and raised in Hilo, Hawaii. Characterized as a backwater and a year or two behind the rest of the country, it was a place that I loved; a place that I hated. It was a town where the sidewalk rolled up at five in the evening, and a siren sounded at eight at night as a curfew for children. We had only one traffic light back then, and most establishments were closed on Sundays. Early in my childhood, the breadth and depth of my daily existence revolved around Chiefess Kapiolani School at one end, the rental where my family and I lived on Pele Lane at its center, and the Honpa Hongwanji Temple at the other end of it. Any other place away from this area seemed so distant, places like California and New York barely in my consciousness. Back then, I never understood my parents' love for our small town. They had no desire to move away or live anywhere else; they had no ambivalence, as to where they belonged. Unlike my parents, as I grew older, the perimeter of my youthful, restless existence widened like ripples on water, whereupon Hilo began to feel narrow, claustrophobic. After I graduated from high school, and like many of my classmates, I left Hilo, leaving it with the promise that I would never go back. For many years I kept this promise, that is, until I began to write seriously. It was then that I broke my promise, and ever since, I have gone back to Hilo time and time again. But my going back has ...Expand for more