Anniversary day: @brandon.of.bjerke and I are celebrating 5 years of marriage and almost 17 years together.
We had a solo ceremony up at Kaniakapupu in Nu'uanu Valley on O'ahu. Just the two of us-- surrounded by our aumakua and kapuna in a magically rooted and sweetly simple lei exchange (courtesy of our aunties). We gave offerings to the spirits of the space (chico pears and fragrant flowers and song) and asked them to watch over us in this new phase of our lives.
We didn't speak vows. We didn't exchange rings. It was raining and very quiet. Just the wind, trees, and birds speaking. We walked among the ruins. Two souls at home, deep in that forest. Muddy feet and open hearts. We're still rooted there.
Every year we go back, praying for love to keep coming our way.
you are earnest, not ironic
A mantra came to me today when I was working: you are earnest, not ironic.
I repeated it to myself to see where it took me and what it brought up.
What I heard?
Make mistakes. Embrace the failures. Keep the work moving. And, above all, do not diminish your voice to be palatable to others.
What do these platitudes look like in practice?Not pretty🤷♀️
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I come up against places in myself-- physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, energetically-- that are very hard boundaries. Places where I am pushed to my absolute limit and forced to ask really hard questions. Who am I? Am I good enough? Do people like me? Will they keep liking me if I show them who I really am? Same questions I've been asking since childhood. Such purity of heart and sweet honesty.
So a little behind the scenes reality...every single week we have customers spit out our food. For a variety of reasons-- texture, flavor, expectations, experience. Food reactions are so instinctual and gut based and having that visceral response right in your face is a humbling and mirroring experience. I have been known to laugh at the honesty of it (maybe appreciate, maybe uncomfortable). As counterintuitive as it seems, this is why I love the transactional relationship of the farmers market. We see hundreds of people each week. We meet people who love what we do and people who hate what we do. It's a tempering process and exposure therapy.
This business has taught me to not attach my worth to the opinions of my food. As much as I am my food, I am not my food! The food is not a bearing on whether or not people like me. Lifelong practice.
It's taking me years to untangle my personal value from my work. It's vulnerable, strange territory. I still come up against hard feelings all the time.
The spitting out of our food is one of the most honest responses. How? It has really taught me to keep making, keep putting MY vision out into the world, do not attach expectations to getting better or changing what we do to be liked or more marketable. Lesson: Do. You. Boo.
Want to be liked? Don't be a business owner. Want to work through issues toward this insane version of radical success? Be a business owner.
me as a mother
Always straddling two worlds 🌈🌈 both sacred, both loved, both requiring my presence, both challenging in their unique ways
Callum Angus and Beatrix Ea
This is me as a mother.
death has defined us
More than anything, death has defined us. It has been a set of expert hands molding a lump of clay. It has turned so much of our shapelessness into beauty.
It has been hard. It has been ugly. It has led the most transformative shifts in our lives. It has been the spark for something different. Something new.
2009. 2017. 2019.
My dad. Our son. A friend.
An aneurysm. A death with no answers. A heart attack.
All stories end and some don't even have a chance to begin.
We are the ones to retell. The ones to keep our history alive. To pass along the significance of a life through the shared experience of story. These are things to hold on to.
My dad died without warning. Our son died without warning. Our friend died without warning. A garage floor. A belly. A driveway.
Their stories are now being told by others. We have a responsibility to keep them alive through our collective memories. We are their vessels.
This is the spark for WHEEL HOUSE.
My dad was many things. A demolition expert. A farmer. A giving, selfless, and troubled man. A man who gave me fun and respite during a confusing childhood. My best friend.
Our son felt like the wind. Strong, steady, and guiding me through the journey from pregnancy to death. He came to me in Scotland. He felt like Scotland itself. Wild, free, and deep.
Our friend was a master beekeeper and blessed storyteller. A man who kept himself humble and hardworking and in love with what he did. His activism was buried in his bones.
These are all voices we will never hear again or at all. We want to continue their legacy by honoring those around us with stories to tell.
Part of Wheel House will be this: the recording of story. We will share legacy from people we love, people we admire, and people we don't know. We will preserve. We will ask about their life, their work, their wheel house.
Benjamin. Callum. Wolfgang.
Our loves. Our pain. Our spark. (recitation in Callum's garden)
happy belly anniversary
Anniversary announcement: today is the 6th year anniversary of Happy Belly 🌈🙌 I started with very little expectations-- just an understanding of what was needed in our community, a handful of weird ideas, an anger that became fuel, and an openness to being guided.
I've had more failures than successes, more pipe dreams than golden opportunities, more reinvention than stagnation. More pivoting than you can imagine!
So much growth. So much pain. So much learning. About my self, my limits, my voice, my vision. How to work with others. How to take care of others. How to take care of me. Ahhh... the path of the entrepreneur.