by Bela Johnson | Dec 29, 2025 | Hawaii, nature, Observations, Uncategorized
When we bought this house,the attic was full of ratsand mynah bird nests,one in every corner.Chris calls them Hawaiian crows—there are similarities:clever, persistent,strong-willed. A year later, despite sealingevery possible entrance—each hole that once invited...
by Bela Johnson | Dec 25, 2025 | Hawaii, holiday, Honoka'a, Uncategorized
We are home againin our sweet old plantation house in Kohala,after a day in Honokaʻa—a town we hadn’t visited in years,and how it has changed!Not loudly.Not falsely.But with a kind of quiet dazzle,the best kind,the kind that surprises without askingto be applauded. We...
by Bela Johnson | Dec 7, 2025 | happiness, Hawaii, live aloha, Uncategorized
Daily writing promptWhat positive events have taken place in your life over the past year?View all responses It’s astonishing to realize that a year and a half has passedsince we found our way back home to Hawai‘i—and exactly one year on Thanksgivingsince we stepped...
by Bela Johnson | Nov 21, 2025 | Hawaii, healing, nature, Uncategorized
Daily writing promptBeach or mountains? Which do you prefer? Why?View all responses Beach or mountains? Which do you prefer?The question lands lightly, but the answer feels impossible. How does one choose between wonders?When I think of “preference,” what rises...
by Bela Johnson | Oct 24, 2023 | Hawaii, high desert, lifestyle, musings, perspective, Uncategorized
We’ve been flung out over water like skipping stones,not on a lake or pond, but the long, wide, never endingturquoise blue ocean of the Pacific, soaring in a metaltube while everything that followed us arrived by bargeas these things do, back and forth to the...
by Bela Johnson | Jul 26, 2021 | family, Hawaii, perspective, spirituality, Uncategorized
Sometimes known as death dealers, these littlepeople of old marched through our Moloka’iliving room one night, nearly thirty years ago; My own father was visiting, as he rarely did,forced into life in the moment after receivinga prostate cancer diagnosis; hopped...
