Pure Manaʻo

When I am weary, I remember a picture of my grandmother, Mary Uilani Kaumeheiwa Sodetani. She is sitting on the puʻunene with her feet up  Her long legs stretched out toward the ʻAuʻau Channel Her blue bandana Her long, brown arms clasped gently around her stomach Her eyes looking into her beloved yard. Once as a young child, after some nasty comments my grandfather said to her, and after his swearing that stuck out to my young ears  as sounding very much like the way my father talked to my mother, I asked grandma, "why do you let him talk to you like that?" Her eyes were tearless, steady. She looked at me and the sides of her eyes crinkled and her mouth, in the side smirk said,  "I just let it go one ear, and come out the other." I thought as a kid it was a way of forgetting. As she stared into her yard in that picture, I always thought it was what Sandra Cisneros described in House on Mango Street, "My Name," She looked out the window her whole life, the...