Cinnamon Buns Saved Me

After graduating from my California college in May, I spent much of the summer in the kitchen of my childhood home in Mililani. It wasn’t what I had envisioned for myself. I thought I’d be renting a New York City flat, frolicking around the Big Apple, or walking along San Francisco’s hilly streets, living a big, glamorous life like the 20-something influencers I follow.

But alas. Despite my initial thirst for an Instagrammable city life, it’s not what the postgrad gods had in store for me.

Instead, I was drawn back to O‘ahu, as I have been every summer, by the promise of home: real beaches, double rainbows, Foodland chicken, my grandmother’s mango tree. I decided to spend a few months on the island, enjoying all of that while also interning at a local media outlet.

After moving back into the home I had grown up in, I fell back into the familiar rhythm of my teenage years, which had been largely defined by baking.

During early mornings and late nights, it was just me, my thoughts and a boiling saucepan of hot sugar and rhubarb. Or a pan of sage and lemon shortbread, slowly turning golden in the oven. Or a tray lined with madeleines, each one waiting patiently to be doused in sugar.

After four years in college housing with no kitchen appliances except for an often-broken microwave, I felt I had the entire world at my fingertips. Everything I had dreamed about baking, I baked. My kitchen became my palace.

In August, I set out to make milk bread cinnamon buns for my childhood best friend—the same thing I baked for her when we started high school. It was her birthday, and my plan was to tier the buns so they resembled, however vaguely, an actual birthday cake.

Photo: Courtesy of Annabelle Ink

As I began kneading the dough, pressing the heel of my hand into its thick, pillowy surface, my mind went quiet. And it stayed that way for the next 20 minutes as I folded the dough. I couldn’t remember the last time my world had been so quiet. And then, suddenly, I could.

Every sheet of cookies, chocolate tart or strawberry hand pie I’d baked over the years gave me that quiet. When I bake, I don’t text my friends or scroll through photos of other people’s lives or scoff at their AI-generated LinkedIn posts. In the kitchen, my hands are far too sticky for scrolling.

So there I was, left with just being present. And I found that being present isn’t quite as horrifying as I thought. The chance to escape the constant stream of stimulation that awaits us all on the internet is precisely what brings me back to the kitchen every weekend.

Because it’s only when I’m present and everything is quiet that I can hear myself—that I remember how lucky I am to be spending time at home with my parents. Or how much I hated Manhattan when I visited last spring. Or how much I truly love the place where I grew up.

My friend loved the cinnamon buns. We ate them at China Walls, sitting in a little nook in the rocks and watching people being obliterated by the waves. As we pulled at the sweet tower of bread between us, squinting out at the bright midday sun beating down on the clear blue water, I knew there was nowhere else I’d rather be.

Annabelle Ink is a freelance writer based in Honolulu. She interned at HONOLULU in the summer of 2025.