Editor’s Page: Sometimes Returning to Normal is the Biggest Mistake of All

When it’s time to change.

PHOTO: KAREN DB PHOTOGRAPHY

I never rode with the popular kids in the back of the bus. Me and my French horn were more likely to be in the front or, at my coolest (according to intermediate school seating hierarchy), somewhere in the middle.

Even today, I often move amid a pack. While others at HONOLULU began buying everything from local quail eggs and cheese to pounds of produce from Farm Link Hawai‘i last year, it took COVID-19 to finally inspire me to sign up in April, along with thousands of others. We all made changes during the pandemic. Now, even as the initial headway we made against the virus slides back a bit, we have to decide which of those changes we’ll keep for good—hopefully for the better good. I’m certainly not a vanguard. For my family, it means stocking the kitchen with Hawai‘i-grown ingredients and brews; ordering takeout from local restaurants at least once a week, sans plastic utensils; recommitting to a home garden; and consistent donations to the Hawai‘i Foodbank and other nonprofits that are in even bigger need right now.

It goes beyond just me. It goes beyond just you. What changes do we have the unique opportunity to enact now for a better life in the Islands? That was the question we asked experts in energy, tourism and our food for an actionable guide to creating the Hawai‘i we want. Finding a balance between our economy and ideals is certainly complicated, but to waste this moment with a return to the status quo would be an even bigger blunder. Sometimes all it takes is for everyone in the middle to take one step forward.

Here are some stories that can inspire you to support local businesses and nonprofits at this time:

• Meal Kits to Grocery Delivery: How to Eat the Best Local Food at Home
• Hawai‘i Foodbank Has Distributed More Than 3.7 Million Pounds of Food on O‘ahu in Less than 2 Months
• Find great local stores and designers on our shopping page on honolulumagazine.com

NOTICE TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS

As you are aware, we combined our normal June and July issues into a special summer issue celebrating the Best of HONOLULU, which you received in late June. Please trust we have added one extra issue to your subscription term. Mahalo!

Got a good story? Reach me at christiy@honolulumagazine.com

Read all of these stories in the August issue of HONOLULU Magazine. Available on newsstands in August, or purchase the issue at shop.honolulumagazine.com. Subscribe to the print and digital editions now.