My aging cat

5 04 2011

Ula

Her name is Ula, for the red-brown color of her fur. She adopted us, sitting outside the door for several days. When no one answered the ad for “Found: big, brown bossy cat,” we surrendered to letting this beautiful creature move in. She’s old now.

I realized that yesterday morning when I made this portrait. I stopped a split-second-in-time and saw in another way the familiar soul I’ve lived with for at least 15 years. It’s an image of an aging cat.

Ula is the queen of the household, and she has both good (DH) and reluctant (me) staff. She rules with a loud, irritating New York meow that means one of four things: “feed me,” “let me in,” “let me out,” or “pet me.”

She can bang on the screen door as though to break it down. She delights in lying between the dog, who is smaller and arrived after her, and the dog’s way out to pee. It pains me to let her have her way, but I do because otherwise she’d continue to nag or, worse, scratch or nip me.

She is so crotchety, her vet once said, “Why don’t you take her to someone she likes?” On the last visit, we all agreed that she doesn’t have to make the trip to the vet any more.

But though old, Ula’s still got it. For hours last week she stalked a dove, who mistakenly flew into the studio, and nailed it. Feathers everywhere.

DH prefers to think of Ula as ageless and not aging. I ask, “Is she complaining because she is in pain?” because lately she’s barfed more than the normal hairball barf. He replied, “Ula always complains.”

When I reviewed the photo, I thought, “Ula, you grew old before my eyes, and I hardly noticed until now.” It gave me pause.

How we love to chronicle a child’s growth and development. Yet how easy it is to miss the physical changes of life’s winter, especially of those closest to us, unless we make a conscious effort to truly look and “see” them enough to extend some kindness.

Copyright 2011 Rebekah Luke

For more on Ula, click on the word “cat” in Favorite Topics (see the right-hand sidebar). Then scroll down to see previous posts about my cat.


Comments : 5 Comments »
Tags: , ,
Categories : Friends & Family, Memoir

Eye on the ball

23 03 2011

Photographer Me Ra Koh on TV’s The Nate Berkus Show on Monday had a tip for people who shoot digital pictures. I think that includes just about all of us! Her specialty is photographing children.

You know how, every time we take a picture, the tendency is to stop to look and see what kind of image we got? Her advice is to resist the temptation and to just keep shooting. The reason is, when we are photographing, we are using our creative right brains. When we stop to analyze, we are switching to our left brains. Not to mention the images we might miss when we pause.

This morning I accompanied Miss Marvelous to her family-child interaction program and recorded her being so very pleased about catching the yellow ball her Papa threw. Luckily, there was no voice saying, “Lemme see!”

Copyright 2011 Rebekah Luke

Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , ,
Categories : About me, Fine Art, Friends & Family

Checking in with Miss Marvelous

19 03 2011


Here’s Miss Marvelous, with her mom, modeling fancy clothes at Nordstrom today. I think she was more herself after the fashion show was over. After all, she’s not yet 2.

😉

I’m lucky to be her Popo.



Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags:
Categories : Friends & Family

Happiness in the neighborhood

16 03 2011

After the children went home, the adults looked in on the neighborhood

It’s such a happy place! The Omidyar K-1 Neighborhood at Punahou School. What a joy for students, families, and teachers alike!

The new state-of-the-art learning facility was open to alumni yesterday, so DH and I went to visit.

Whenever we drove up Punahou street since the school broke ground for the Neighborhood, we’d glance over at the construction going on on the side of Rocky Hill, wondering if Miss Marvelous might attend school there in a few years.

The new award-winning space opened to 150 kindergarteners and 150 first graders in the Fall of 2010.

The welcoming landscape design, planned with curricula in mind, captured my childhood imagination. Child-size garden pathways, native plants, soft surfaces, an amphitheater.

Arched wooden bridges over dry streams lead from classrooms to play areas where the absence of playground structures is refreshing. (There are a few in the phys ed area.) Just a couple of large soft boulders in the middle of a beautiful lawn.

The indoor-outdoor environment of each classroom is designed so that everything in this neighborhood is integrated – art, music, physical education, traditional academics, children’s ages – and in proximity. Each classroom has a raised box for planting what vegetables, fruits, and flowers the children want, a cistern with water pump, and garden tools. Punahou designed a space that nurtures the experience of being whole for the youngest of students.

Interior classroom and project room spaces are bathed in natural light. Oh, such pretty furniture and fixtures designed for little people! The teachers and children must be in heaven! Stimulation and wondrous things everywhere! It inspired me to improve the spaces at the studio for Miss Marvelous.

Last night, the remarks by the Junior School Principal Mike Walker and K-2 Supervisor JoAnn Wong-Kam were similar to the ones heard in this earlier video that speaks to the educational philosophy. http://www.punahou.edu/page.cfm?p=2951

A $6 million challenge grant from alumnus Pierre (founder of eBay) and Pam Omidyar provided the basis for the Neighborhood. The project received a  LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum Certification by the U.S. Green Building Council. What a wonderful gift!

Copyright 2011 Rebekah Luke

Comments : 4 Comments »
Tags: , , , , , , ,
Categories : Friends & Family

My new favorite book about healing

6 03 2011

Hi Everyone,

Oprah did the interview in 2008, but only today did I finish reading the book from cover to cover.

My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor is my new favorite that I want to share. It is a wonderful gift for healing and answers many questions I had about universal life force energy. The author suggests how we can radiate peace and healing onto the world.

Dr. Jill is a brain scientist, a neuroanatomist, who observed herself having a stroke in 1996. Because of her academic study of the brain, she knew what was happening to her. And she made a conscious decision to recover so that she could educate others. In 2006, ten years since her left hemisphere was wounded, she finished her book, providing a valuable resource for families and caregivers.

I recall her appearance on Oprah’s show, and later caught more of her talk on  Oprah’s website. (Just click on the link.) I recall thinking, “Gosh, I wish this information was available to me when my dad had his strokes.” The medical community was not forthcoming in our hour of need. Where was the compassion? Or perhaps I didn’t know what questions to ask nor where to go for help.

And perhaps only now would the rest of what Dr. Jill reveals make sense to me. In other words, any earlier I would not be ready for it.

Two weeks ago the WCC Tai Chi Club hosted a workshop series, and my tai chi sister Karen had a big part in planning and coordinating the hospitality for participants who included about 20 out-of-towners.  Although her husband just had a stroke a few days before, Karen was determined to show up and follow through with the plans. I decided to present her with My Stroke of Insight. “She can re-gift it,” I thought, if she had already read it. Karen is a librarian, so I was hoping she would appreciate it in any case.

The bookstore at the mall had two copies in stock, and I bought both: one for Karen and one for me. I thank Karen for her situation that reminded me to seek the book!

The first adjective that comes to mind as you follow Dr. Jill’s experience is “fascinating.” In itself, the detailed account is useful in the event that we (I) or another loved one should find ourselves in a similar situation in the future. Further, Dr. Jill explains how the left brain (hemisphere) works and how the right brain works. With only the right half of her brain working, she experienced what it feels like to be One with the universe.

She encourages us to acknowledge the workings of the left brain and to practice using the right brain that will cause us to live in the present, rather than the past or future. She explains how every emotion is paired with a physiological response (physical body posture) that takes only 90 seconds to run its course, after which we can decide to come back to the present. Which leads to healing, peace, and . . . well, you’ll just have to read the book! Dr. Jill tells it best. Thank you, Dr. Jill!

Oh, and I just read on Dr. Jill’s website that there’s a movie planned!

Related information: On the Thank You page of Rebekah’s Studio I list links to Jill Bolte Taylor’s information, as well as that of Devon White who teaches “how to be at your best” by adjusting your physical body—something that Taylor writes about. Eckhardt Tolle’s A New Earth also addresses being present.

Copyright 2011 Rebekah Luke

Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , ,
Categories : About me, Reiki Healing

The Hawaiian petitions protesting annexation

23 02 2011

In 1897 more than 38,000 Hawaiian nationals (the total population was 40,000) signed petitions, that were delivered to and acknowledged in Washington, D.C., protesting annexation by the United States. A hundred years later in 1997 Noenoe K. Silva, a Hawaiian, educated present-day Native Hawaiians when she found the documents in the U.S. Archives and brought them back to the Islands.

I was reminded of this last night over dinner with two woman warrior friends, Karen and Pat, who told me of the demonstration this past Monday at the statue of President William McKinley in Honolulu, where he is holding a so-called “Treaty of Annexation.” The point was, there is no annexation treaty.

Karen and Pat also alerted me to a controversial bill, relating to government, in the current Hawaii State legislature that is already set to be heard in the Ways and Means committee on Friday, Feb. 25. Hawaiian sovereignty activists, take note.

You may head on over to http://kalahuihawaii.wordpress.com for my Feb. 23 accounts and links to details of each. One is “Kue petition revisited” and the other is “Akaka bill: now what.” Noenoe Silva’s article is most sobering. http://libweb.hawaii.edu/digicoll/annexation/pet-intro.html

Copyright 2011 Rebekah Luke

Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: , , , ,
Categories : Hawaiian

Go kiss Uncle and Aunty

20 02 2011

Friday I went to a funeral and cried. Not for the deceased Barbara, an artist friend who I wish I’d seen more of in the retirement home where she lived, but for life. I was hoping I would see Nancy, and I did.

Nancy was Barbara’s neighbor and my late father’s late cousin’s widow. Although I hadn’t seen Nancy since both our men died about seven years ago, I recognized her sitting two rows in front of me by her tall Chinese stature and her impeccable attire from head to toe.

As the service ended, I went to say hello, knew that she would have a welcoming smile. “Rebekah!” she said. In a couple of sentences she brought me up to date on her in-laws. “It’s sad,” she said. “We’re all leaving.”

Then, another voice behind me said hello. It was Rita. Rita, Barbara, and I were Arts members of the National League of American Pen Women in Honolulu. I had not seen Rita for a long time either. As I browsed Barbara’s prints and paintings on display, Rita followed and chatted about a lot of things, as is her way, and offered me Kleenex while I was still trying to process my grief.

When I paused, remembering to be in the present, and decided to really listen, I found that she was telling me I should teach art to children. That it was so important. I allowed that I had thought about it, that others suggested the idea too, even before I left my last full-time job a while back. That I might start with the neighborhood kids who live down the road from the studio.

Satisfied that she had finally “reached” me, Rita proceeded to suggest exactly how to go about it—tools, supplies, age group, language, jokes to tell—and said she would send me her teaching materials. Rita still teaches in another part of the island, and, of course, teaching art was one of Barbara’s careers. “Okay … thanks!” I said, and gave her my mailing address.

Fifteen minutes later I met some of my “big” cousins (Mom’s side) for lunch. I brought some old black-and-white photos from the Fifties so they could identify the people in them. Looking at the pictures of us as small kids and teenagers set off plans for the next family reunion in 2012.

I am a member of the third generation in Hawaii, and today there are three subsequent generations of this family.

The first relative I told about plans for a reunion was 13-year-old Jai, who found me on Facebook and asked me to be his friend. Jai is the adopted son of one of my first cousins. Jai and I chatted online last night—I have never met him in person—and he wanted to know how many relatives there were, how many cousins he had and was there anyone his age.

I wrote I didn’t know the total number because there are a lot of babies now, and that’s why we needed to have a reunion. I wrote I would look up the information and let him know this coming week. Promise.

Copyright 2011 Rebekah Luke

Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: ,
Categories : About me, Friends & Family, Memoir, Reiki Healing

« Previous Entries Next Entries »