in 1955.

As written by my grandmother, Olive Jane Poe Whitmore.

I identify with Bekah’s journal entries. They could almost be mine. We graduated high school in the same year, Miss B and I. We began college the same year. We put ourselves through similar turmoil, and wrote about it with similar alternating sarcastic humor and raw emotion. Our choices were many and difficult.

Grandma lived in simpler times. There was never much question about her choices. She dated one guy before my grandpa, but married grandpa, who was the love of her life. She didn’t have sex before marriage. And her writing is more a record of inevitable events than a tortured exploration of possible life paths.

I find that really interesting.

Well guess what?! They’re here! Right here in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. They arrived Friday April 18, and have already kicked things off to a great start. On Sunday there was a pow wow at ASU. Two Navajo students from our travel group made sure our Maori friends could attend the pow wow. I didn’t get to go, but our friends were given the opportunity to perform at the pow wow after the opening ceremony. From what I hear, the pow wow community opened their hearts to our Maori friends, bestowed gifts during and after their performance, and really felt an instant connection. I wish I could have been there.

This video is from dinner after the pow wow, at the home of fellow traveler Nizhoni and her amazing chef husband Joseph. He fed us a four or five course meal that included a prickly pear cactus salad, his own version of surf and turf which included swordfish steak and buffalo burgers, and a custom dessert creation called “Chocolate Taranaki” in honor of the volcanic mountain dominating the landscape where our friends live. The meal was seriously amazing.

Between courses, our friends taught us a song. You can learn it too, here are the words:

He honore, he kororia
Maungarongo ki te whenua
Whakaro pai e
Ki nga tangata katoa
Ake ake, ake ake, amine
Te atua, te piringa, toku oranga (x2)
Toku oranga

Wendy Lewis is the woman teaching us the words to the song and what they mean. This song is an acknowledgment of ties to Parihaka, a Taranaki settlement whose two leaders drew on ancestral and Christian teachings to organize passive resistance to the colonizing army, and that is now is a manifestation of peace here on Earth.

Sorry for my crappy video & audio recording. I’m not good at both recording and experiencing moments at the same time, and I didn’t have my good mic with me either … so this is the best I and my poor little Xacti could do under the circumstances.

When I was a kid I was fascinated by moving clocks. One of our neighbors had several that were mesmerizing, including one of these. Overall, it’s a great gift and now lives on my office wall, where it can watch over me while I edit video.