This is the time of year we start to remember the moments when our lives were turned over three years ago. We recall the stoppages, the illnesses and the deaths.

We remember the lessons we learned and we wistfully recall the lessons that didn’t stay with us. Especially, those around coming together and making do with less.

Last week, while notarizing documents at a UPS store, I was surprised at the pile of boxes dropped off by a delivery person. We joked with the notary that there sure were a lot of St. Patrick’s Day presents this year. She laughed and said that the number of boxes was crazy and that the volume hadn’t slowed since the holidays.

She pointed to a wall of boxes and said they were there to be picked up and she pointed to the other side of the store and said, “Those are the returns. It’s way too much.” 

I saw the boxes and immediately thought, this is not island living. The boxes were stacked to the ceiling. The resources needed to move those boxes to this corner of the planet were considerable. As were those needed to return the goods to the retailers.

I thought back to one of the lessons learned during the pandemic when the disruptions in the supply chain caused scarcity and forced us to adapt. That situation was a reminder of growing up on an island near the intersection of the equator and the dateline. 

On our small and remote island, Kwajalein, if Christmas presents weren’t ordered around the beginning of the school year, Santa would be showing up in January. Those images of Santa kicking back on a beach? He wasn’t relaxing — he was working overtime because Santa’s helpers had missed the monthly barge. 

And if staples weren’t available, you improvised. No tomato sauce for pizza? Try ketchup.

Dealing with scarcity and busted supply chains during the pandemic meant empty shelves, temporary desperation and then making do. We all were resourceful and it made us feel good when we had our “Castaway” moments where we made fire, cut our spouse’s hair or baked bread and sweet treats. 

I found an echo of “the making do with less because you live on an island” ethos when I made a special birthday cake for my sister who lives in Volcano. My plan was to bake sweet bread, turn it into bread pudding and top it with haupia. To start, I pulled out the family cookbook my Aunty Violet authored and found our ohana’s original recipe for “Aunty Ida’s Sweet Bread.”

The ingredients were simple and the measurements were standard, except for one thing: One can cream.

I was stumped. One can cream? What kind of cream and what size was the can? Baking recipes are supposed to be precise. If the numbers are off, you end up with a mess. I was stumped because a modern day supermarket had too many answers for a simple ingredient.

Did one can cream mean heavy whipping cream? Which was sold now in two different sized cartons? Condensed milk? Now sold in two different sizes of cans? Evaporated milk? And again, two sizes of cans. There was also Mexican crema, table cream and creme fraîche available. I had too many solutions.

Sadly, Aunty Violet passed eight years ago and I couldn’t call her to ask, “Aunty, what’s one can cream?”

My solution was to search the grocery store for any of the aunties who might have known what “one can cream” meant in Hilo in the middle of last century.

Thankfully, I found one who looked at the recipe and laughed. “Evaporated milk. Big size can. That’s one can cream.”

One can cream. This was an ingredient before the conveniences of the continent became readily available here in Hawaii. A lot of delicious food was made with the limitations of island life.

On the continent, having everything available to you in less than 24 hours is great for consumers. It can be tough to leave those conveniences behind when you move to a remote Pacific island.

When my wife decided on the car she wanted, she called a local dealership and found out she was in luck: There was one left on the island. However, she didn’t care for the color. She asked when they might get a car in the color she liked and they told her: Maybe six to nine months. 

I reminded her that she lived on an island and this was one of the compromises she needed to make. Just say yes. She acquiesced and her decision was validated when her teenaged cool kid nieces saw the car and told her how much they luuuvvved the color.

Our politicians and activists are in deep discussions about the notion of what sustainable living looks like in 2023 and the future ahead of us. A first step is to realize that we live on an island and that the conveniences of the continent aren’t suitable for our ecosystem.

Globalism has made it too easy to click and have anything we want shipped to us. We know that we don’t own stuff, stuff owns us. And what’s shipped here, stays here. 

Most of us learned during the pandemic that we could do with a little less and be patient. That has always been a lesson learned living on an island.