There is something quite unique
about how children experience the world. Oftentimes, they are more insightful
and wise than we expect them to be and the precious moments in which they
surprise us with their blossoming worldviews are something to be cherished. In
this passage from Hob Osterlund’s new book, Holy
Moli, we see into the world of Osterlund’s young friend Talia and the special
effect she has on others.
Part 2 of Holy Moli: An Interview with Hob Osterlund is now available! Click here to listen! Listen to Part 1 here.
I returned to Kauaʻi from my three-week stint at Midway
Atoll. In the end, the Survey Team had counted nests representing more
than a million albatross, not including at least another million untallied
non-nesters. A week after I got home I was invited to a small social function
on a bluff where a few mōlī nested. At the event, the property manager
introduced me to his daughter Talia. She read me like a book.
“Let me show you an albatross,” she said. She was strong and
slight and eight years old.
“Good idea,” I said. As if I had never. As if I could ever
get my fill. As if I had not just returned from the worldʻs largest
colony, from an island functioning like a magnificent centripetal force,
condensing birds from vast open oceans onto a tiny sandy atoll in the remote
Hawaiian archipelago. As if I had not felt the wild comfort of their throbbing
rock concert. As if I had not spent countless hours with them over the last
decade on Kauaʻi.
As if I had not searched for them all my life.
As if they had not guided me, lifted me, rescued me.
As if they were not my ʻaumākua, my guardian ancestors, my guides.
Talia urged me to hurry.
“When’s your birthday?” I asked as we headed toward a nest.
I remembered very little about the language of third-graders.
“Earth Day,” she answered. “That’s why I love animals and
why they’re not afraid of me.”
“That is so cool,” I said.
“I can crazy climb trees,” she said. “My mother says I’m
part monkey.”
“That is so cool,” I said.
“If you trust me I can take a picture,” she said, eyeballing
my telephoto.
I slipped the camera strap over her head and showed her how
to focus. Her first attempts were blurry. After that she fired away like a pro.
“What if I take a shot of you,” I said.
“I gotta get Grace,” she said, and ran to fetch her doll.
She settled under a mango tree and gently planted Grace like
a seedling at her side. Talia knew how to stay far enough away from the bird,
how to leave him undisturbed on his egg. She laid a comforting hand on her
doll, which listed slightly toward the mountains.
“You make me feel happy,” I said.
“I’ve been told I have that effect on people,” she said.