Just let me explain

Should I leave Maui, Hawaii — where I was a reporter also for the past five years at The Maui News — and where do I want to go? What are the tradeoffs?

What really matters most to me?

Yep, I said I wanted to leave Maui. Paradise lost.

My apartment was three blocks from the beach (and cost per week was what my apt here in the Borderland runs a month). My daily morning regimen of surfing and swimming in the Pacific as the pink sun rose over Haleakala volcano to my back is suddenly a memory. The constant sunlight, sunglasses always at the ready, and 80 degree days, 365 days a year.

Gone.

No more challenging but ultimately fun Hawaiian or pidgen (the latter a dialect/language made up by the collection of sugar and pineapple plantation workers from Japan, Korea, Hawaii, Portugal, Spain, England... so they could understand each other). And clearly, I am no longer in the minority.

But I really got pretty comfy being the only haole, or white guy, in the room. It was not unusual for a Native Hawaiian to angrily decry yet another development on pristine land covered with iwi (ancient human bones), hale (home) and heiau (temple) remains in addition to wiping out the natural beauty of monkeypod trees and oceanfront access for more houses.

Often, I heard the indigenous representatives call haole “invasive species,” but I usually knew the speaker who would politely say he or she wasn’t talking about me. I was OK, I guess, or so I was often told to my face. I think of myself as a friendly and fair guy, even if inclined to boasting and obnoxious behavior in general.

Hmm, I did also write for the newspaper, and they were essentially espousing racism while needing to get the rest of their message out.

Anyway, the Rainbow State isn’t what people think. For the most part, the melting pot exists. But the U.S. government did support a group of businessmen who essentially stole away Hawaii and abolished its proud monarchy – after the fact. So there are some rightfully hurt feelings.

And then the Asian influence is the largest and, that can come with it’s own sense of entitlement. There were a lot of different groups who believed Hawaii belonged to them. Outsiders are welcome, welcome to spend their money and leave.

Do not get me wrong. Far more often than not, I was treated very, very well. I was kama’aina, someone who lived in Hawaii, respected da culture and did little to impact the aina (land), beyond my own carbon footprint. I made friends and otherwise lived at work.

Here, my face blends in like the fresh-fallen snow. I don’t know how I feel about that. It’s off. Not wrong. Just is what it is.

I also don’t have to pay $7 for a gallon of milk or $70 for three-quarters of a gas tank. I went to the grocery store here on Sunday to buy some essentials, and the three paper bags I filled would have cost me three times what it would have been in the most isolated chain of islands on Earth. I like that part a lot.

(However, I also was well paid. Wow, as I write this, I’m starting to develop a headache and pit in my stomach suddenly.).

No more VW Jetta either. Bye, Veronica. Hello, Betty, my Ford SUV. And, yes, no more living, breathing, gorgeous mocha-skinned Maui girls, too. Ouch, that one is really gonna be difficult, frankly.

It’s all 4,000 miles and a re-culture shock away.

I say re-culture because I am a Minnesota boy. I was born in Duluth, went to high school in Minneapolis and returned to Duluth for 10 years after graduating from the U of M-Twin Cities, where I received a journalism degree and wrote for The Daily school paper with a circulation that is the equivalent to the combined population of the Iron Range.

Honestly, I had grown deeply to miss my beloved Land of 10,000 Lakes. She and the people who live here started tugging at me, especially in this digital age of constant contact, ubiquitously invading my thoughts and pulling at my heart.

I am quite lucky to have a large, happy, tight-knit family and my closest friends still live in the Gopher State. Not in I’Falls, but not too far away.

I guess I had reached the apex. At half a decade, I had to decide if I should continue the life I was building, serious girlfriend and all, and probably get married and live there for the rest of my life – or find another adventure in my home state or nearby.

In the end, it was no contest. Minnesota wins.

That ‘s even if I can barely even write this, although I’ve been in the office here at the International Falls Journal for more than an hour. My fingers still barely move. I left my core temp by the equator.

How I ended up in International Falls is part of my quirky and curious DNA. Before Maui and I guess after because it’s a far off and challenging place to cover, or so a few interviewers said, I was on a big-time reporter’s roll. My regular job was rewarding. I covered City Hall in my hometown for the Duluth News Tribune.

Also, I was a member of the regional reporting team for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, where I had more than 100 bylines, and on the national and international reporting teams for our parent company, Knight-Ridder Newspapers, which at the time was the second-largest bird cage-liner chain in the world. I’d had internships at the Star Tribune and was a stringer for The New York Times as well. I was on the path to head to a large paper.

I had covered the Donald Blom ordeal, Hurricane Katrina, Red Lake school massacre and went to Iraq to cover the war. Instead of offers from places like Memphis, New Orleans or Washington, D.C., I decided on Maui, which I’ve been told turned out to be a good career move exactly because it is so far away and complicated.

Our industry has since deteriorated in general. We adore it. We just wish more of you did so we didn’t have to survive layoffs and buyouts, then exoduses by those who endured but didn’t like what was left.

Even when my career became a jack-of-all-trades job with editing, blogging, shooting photos, proofing and covering spot news, government and sports, I still salivated at the chance for good controversy or feature. I found journalism opportunities still exist, and there are always great stories to be told. Everywhere.

On paper, I am supposed to be somewhere else, again, or so I’ve been told. Really, it will be up to you and my bosses to decide if I’m just as good as anyone else. This is a talented, hardworking staff who I’ve already learned already care deeply about you and this place.

I played around with the Twin Cities’ papers again, but I’Falls seemed like fun. Probably not the best way to make a major life decision, but I don’t have a wife or children who rely on me.

To me, this place is just as beautiful as Hawaii (Of course, I say that after living there and being everywhere a dozen times or more.). And the people are just as interesting so far. I’m liking the Nordic women, too. Ha. No more West Coast “aura” readings. Instead, it’s watching the aurora borealis, I hope.

I know. I know. It’s not the most solid reasoning, but I wanted to get back to Minnesota and knew the hustle and bustle of the Midwest’s big cities might be waiting, eventually. That is if I have good work and fortune, and it’s really what they want and I want. Who knows? I decided before getting far into that process with the others.

A lot of my colleagues who are friends in the newspaper business think I’m nutty, too. Or that I should have held out. However, a lot of them honestly aren’t so happy either these days. Some barely see their families and are going gray much faster than me as they scramble to feed what we call the daily beast. It was like that in Maui, actually, too, and probably here.

To me, just not having to spend 14 hours on planes and more than $1,000 in just tickets to see my loved ones is thrilling.

I wanted something new. Again. And I certainly got it. So far, I’ve had nothing but good interactions with the people here. Everyone genuinely has been so kind. The city and paper are vibrant, Canada is next door literally, and I am into camping, fishing, hunting, cross-country skiing, hockey — pretty much anything outdoors. There’s no shortage of outdoors around I’Falls.

So here I am. Chris in The Morning in his own version of “Northern Exposure.” I don’t need to be liked really. That’s my family’s obligation. They have to like me. In the end, I just want to tell compelling, accurate, concise and fair stories about the issues you care about. Then I can stick around and fish.