11/25/2013
My first blog VARDO FOR TWO (begun in 2008) is now re-opened. Link here to see what it was like to rebuild our life after homelessness.
6/2/2013
Langley, Washington
Not quite twenty years ago, but close enough to round up to it, I wrote a column for the local independent newspaper. The paper was new to the town, and the town back then was just that. A small town. My career in the corporate world had ended, and my marriage ... that, too.
Today Pete and I were hunting through black garbage bags wrapped around boxes of stuff looking for an old photo album. As diligent as my husband is about rummaging through things he couldn't find the album. Gone, too. Instead we did find an album filled with pictures, cards and a copy of the last column I wrote for the Mukilteo Beacon on July 20, 1994. I was leaving that town about to wind my way back from whence I had come move than twenty years earlier.
Makua O'o, this blog, is part of my current present. It changes and chances to include things lived now, or yesterday, or a hundred years past. I write it down. Who knew that I would be writing from the woods of Whidbey Island and sharing this old favorite about a time not long ago and not very far away? Who knew? I think it was the moon.
Mukilteo Beacon-July 20, 1994
Culture ... We all have it!
We share the moon ... and more
By Yvonne Mokihana Brown
Mukilteo moons are a captivating sight. From the corner railing of Doug and Lois's balcony we watched the first sliver of golden moon light the sky over Whidbey Island. I have watched this moon hundres of times before, but this July moon was the stuff of soul-making.
I will call up this memory when the need for friends and love of special places leaps fro me. Moving away from this good meeting place requires soaking up moments like viewing a Mukilteo moon.
As I peck out my thoughts from the Smith Corona, I look up to see the wall of cardboard boxes stacked and waiting to cross the Pacific with me on my trek back to Kuliouou Valley. During the past month I have sat with, sorted, boxed or tossed the evidence of 23 years in Mukilteo.
The recycled paper stock in many shapes and colors are witness to the fact that much of life does indeed get reshaped, reused and redistributed. But how resistant I was to give up the products of my creativity. An inventory of the cardboard wall tells me that BOOKS are import to me. More than half of the boxes are filled with history, myth, philosophy, psychology, poetry and journals.
No furniture, except for my computer and TV, travels with me. Instead, each of the pieces I had sat with, sat on, lived with, slept on, has been "hanai-ed" ... adopted out, to live with friends who I know will care for them until I need or want them again.
My little blue table and chairs from which I filled two journals each morning and evening during the past six months now live with Nikki, my Christmas day birthday girl. I have watched her grow, and know she will continue to fill journals of her own at this table.
Her brother Wayne cares for the large zebra skin drum. I am confident his strong yet gentle young hands will send warm sounds from my old friend. The tiny zebra skin drum has a place of honor on the LaMascus hearth.
Kela, the son of the Moi, lives with the beautiful parquet coffee table. When I saw his large hand run softly over the top of the table, I knew, 'that table is Kela's."
Flory needed a futon. I had one. Roy needed a bed for Dad. I had one of those, too.
Once the decision to let go was made, much space was available. The energy spent clinging was replaced with a wonderful sense of lightness. Hmm, freedom.
This is the last column I will write from Mukilteo. But my connection with Mukilteo will continue across the grand Pacific. "Culture...We All Have It!" evolves. I will write from Kuliouou Valley and include you the community of Mukilteo in that exploding definition of culture I so passionately believe is vital to humanity.
Look up at that Mukiteo sky as the moon rises over Whidbey. Soak it up. I too will view the moon, from the valley of Kuliouou. Together, you in this good meeting place and I in the valley of the protruding knee will share a common thread...joining cultures and remembering there are so many different places from which to view the same moon.
Aloha kakou and a hui hou. Love and until next time!
My first blog VARDO FOR TWO (begun in 2008) is now re-opened. Link here to see what it was like to rebuild our life after homelessness.
6/2/2013
Langley, Washington
Not quite twenty years ago, but close enough to round up to it, I wrote a column for the local independent newspaper. The paper was new to the town, and the town back then was just that. A small town. My career in the corporate world had ended, and my marriage ... that, too.
Today Pete and I were hunting through black garbage bags wrapped around boxes of stuff looking for an old photo album. As diligent as my husband is about rummaging through things he couldn't find the album. Gone, too. Instead we did find an album filled with pictures, cards and a copy of the last column I wrote for the Mukilteo Beacon on July 20, 1994. I was leaving that town about to wind my way back from whence I had come move than twenty years earlier.
Makua O'o, this blog, is part of my current present. It changes and chances to include things lived now, or yesterday, or a hundred years past. I write it down. Who knew that I would be writing from the woods of Whidbey Island and sharing this old favorite about a time not long ago and not very far away? Who knew? I think it was the moon.
Mukilteo Beacon-July 20, 1994
Culture ... We all have it!
We share the moon ... and more
By Yvonne Mokihana Brown
Mukilteo moons are a captivating sight. From the corner railing of Doug and Lois's balcony we watched the first sliver of golden moon light the sky over Whidbey Island. I have watched this moon hundres of times before, but this July moon was the stuff of soul-making.
I will call up this memory when the need for friends and love of special places leaps fro me. Moving away from this good meeting place requires soaking up moments like viewing a Mukilteo moon.
As I peck out my thoughts from the Smith Corona, I look up to see the wall of cardboard boxes stacked and waiting to cross the Pacific with me on my trek back to Kuliouou Valley. During the past month I have sat with, sorted, boxed or tossed the evidence of 23 years in Mukilteo.
The recycled paper stock in many shapes and colors are witness to the fact that much of life does indeed get reshaped, reused and redistributed. But how resistant I was to give up the products of my creativity. An inventory of the cardboard wall tells me that BOOKS are import to me. More than half of the boxes are filled with history, myth, philosophy, psychology, poetry and journals.
No furniture, except for my computer and TV, travels with me. Instead, each of the pieces I had sat with, sat on, lived with, slept on, has been "hanai-ed" ... adopted out, to live with friends who I know will care for them until I need or want them again.
My little blue table and chairs from which I filled two journals each morning and evening during the past six months now live with Nikki, my Christmas day birthday girl. I have watched her grow, and know she will continue to fill journals of her own at this table.
Her brother Wayne cares for the large zebra skin drum. I am confident his strong yet gentle young hands will send warm sounds from my old friend. The tiny zebra skin drum has a place of honor on the LaMascus hearth.
Kela, the son of the Moi, lives with the beautiful parquet coffee table. When I saw his large hand run softly over the top of the table, I knew, 'that table is Kela's."
Flory needed a futon. I had one. Roy needed a bed for Dad. I had one of those, too.
Once the decision to let go was made, much space was available. The energy spent clinging was replaced with a wonderful sense of lightness. Hmm, freedom.
This is the last column I will write from Mukilteo. But my connection with Mukilteo will continue across the grand Pacific. "Culture...We All Have It!" evolves. I will write from Kuliouou Valley and include you the community of Mukilteo in that exploding definition of culture I so passionately believe is vital to humanity.
Look up at that Mukiteo sky as the moon rises over Whidbey. Soak it up. I too will view the moon, from the valley of Kuliouou. Together, you in this good meeting place and I in the valley of the protruding knee will share a common thread...joining cultures and remembering there are so many different places from which to view the same moon.
Aloha kakou and a hui hou. Love and until next time!
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