Aloha! That means hello, and goodbye, and love. It is a very busy word, and I use it a lot out here, because people in Ohio smile when you say it.

My name is Malia Keawe. I'm 35, I'm a nurse, and I was born and raised in Hilo, on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, where it rains almost every afternoon and everything is green and the ocean is right there at the end of the street. Now I live in Columbus, Ohio, which is about as far from the ocean as a person can get. How did that happen? One word: Toledo.

~ How a Hilo girl ended up in Ohio ~
I was working in an emergency room in Honolulu in 1988 when a sailor from Toledo came in with a broken wrist from playing volleyball on the beach. I wrapped it. He asked for my phone number with his good hand. That was Mike. When he got out of the Navy we moved to Ohio "just for a couple of years." That was 1991. You can do the math. I do, every winter.

We have two boys, our keiki (kids): Kainoa is 10 and Jacob is 7. Kainoa got a Hawaiian name and Jacob got a Toledo name. That was the deal. They both yell at the TV for the Buckeyes every Saturday like their daddy, and they both think a sled is the best invention in the world. But they take their shoes off at the door without being told, so I know I did something right.

~ My first snow ~
Growing up, I could see snow on top of Mauna Kea from Hilo on a clear morning, but you had to drive way up the mountain to touch it, and we never did. So the first time it snowed in Columbus, in November of 1991, I ran out into the driveway in my slippers (flip-flops, you call them here) and stood there with my mouth open like a little kid. It was so quiet. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw, for about ten minutes. Then my toes went numb and the neighbor lady came out to ask if I was all right.

Eight winters later I own a real coat, real boots and an ice scraper. I still stop and watch every first snow. I think my toes have mostly forgiven me.

~ The great Spam musubi hunt ~
For anybody who doesn't know, Spam musubi is a slice of Spam fried up with shoyu (soy sauce) and sugar, pressed on top of a block of rice, and wrapped with a strip of nori (seaweed). It is the best lunch in the world and I will not be taking questions.

Spam, no problem, every store in Ohio has Spam. Good sticky rice took a while. The nori took me almost a year, until I found a little Asian grocery on the north side. The lady at the counter looked at my list and said, "Hawaii?" and I almost cried right there next to the rice cookers. Mike's family in Toledo thought musubi was the strangest thing they ever saw. Now his dad asks for it every Christmas. That's how it goes. Ono (delicious) wins every time.

~ My aunties ~
Back home, every older lady is your aunty, but I have three real ones: Aunty Lehua, Aunty Pua and Aunty Maile. They raised me as much as my mom did. Every couple of months a box comes from Hilo with macadamia nuts, li hing mui (salty dried plum, you have to try it), rice crackers, clippings from the Hilo paper, and always a note in Aunty Pua's handwriting that says, "When you coming home?" I keep all the notes in a shoebox. Our phone bill is a crime.

~ Hula on Tuesday nights ~
Last fall I started a little hula class in our church hall. I'm not a kumu (a real teacher); I just danced from the time I was six until I left for nursing school, and I missed it so much my feet hurt. Now I have eleven ladies, two of them grandmas and one of them a nurse from my floor, plus exactly one husband, mine, who stands in the back and does it wrong on purpose to make everybody laugh. We started with "Pearly Shells" because everyone already kind of knows it. When I count off and they all move together, for just a minute that church hall in Ohio feels like home.

~ Things I miss ~

• The smell of rain on the ginger in the yard
• The ocean. Any ocean. Lake Erie is very nice, Mike, but it is not the ocean.
• Fresh papaya with lime for breakfast
• Loco moco, which was invented in Hilo, thank you very much
• My aunties laughing in the kitchen, all talking at the same time
• Everybody knowing everybody

But I have my ʻohana (family) here too now, and the leaves in October are something else, and Columbus has been good to me. My heart just lives in two places. I think that's allowed.

If you're from the islands and you're stuck somewhere cold too, please write to me. We can be homesick together. Mahalo (thank you) for visiting!

A hui hou (until we meet again),
Malia