Whakangākau
Buttery pipis salty but not sandy
Don’t forget to leave them sitting in water overnight
Is it ocean water or regular water? Shit, I forget
Māori songs that awaken warm memories play through my car speakers. Though I’m in LA, it feels like my heart and my feet are in Oakura. I recently permitted myself to dream of returning to my whenua fully. I’ve always longed for more connection to Te Ao Maori, my whānau, their songs, haka and stories.
When I was a mentally ill and PTSD-stricken teenager, I felt my whenua calling me to safety. I still feel that call now that I am stable, healthy, and grounded. It reveals that regardless of times in my life when I’ve felt the most disconnected from my surroundings, no matter where I am or how I am, I will always be longing for Aotearoa.
I’ve realised that the happiness and wairua I feel--standing on my whenua, toes in my moana-- is compelling. Everlasting. No matter what I do here in LA--read mana wahine scholarship, study history books, listen to Māori songs, practice kapa haka alone, cut my neighbour’s harakeke to practice what my kuia taught me-- I can’t escape this feeling.
This pull, it scares me. I’m comfortable in Los Angeles--born and raised here. I have roots here too. Yet, as a diasporic Māori, I always felt too distant from what I also call home: Whangaruru. I am Pākehā, and I am Māori. I am torn between culture and place-- where do I belong? Am I even deserving of learning tikanga when I’ve lived with so much Pākehā privilege in the U.S.?
I hope to return and immerse myself in te ao Māori in the next few years. for the sake of myself and my future tamariki, realising this dream can’t wait. I want to go to grad school for indigenous studies, learn te reo, cultivate and weave harakeke, and give BACK to my iwi, hapū and whānau. I don’t know yet how to achieve these things, but one thing I do know is that;
Learning where I came from means discovering who I am now and where I’ll be next.
