wow. this is interesting... this is the fourth or fifth time i've written this weblog entry, and each time it has gotten longer and more detailed. and get this: it's exactly the same weblog, i'm just adding to it at the end but each time i go back to reread what i just wrote... it's all different. you see, i'm dreaming. even right now, i'm not sure i'm actually awake. each time i wake up, i realize that the previous awakening was actually a false one and i was just dreaming about writing in my weblog.

curious. that's what travel and time disorientation can do to you, i suppose. i better "save" what i'm writing somehow, so that i don't keep repeating myself in these successive awakenings. haha. so, am i really awake right now? is the sunlight angling onto the carpet actually there? the light breeze that tickles my naked feet dangling over my bed? the easy heft and weight of this blue machine on my lap onto which i scribble these words? who knows. ah well, i'll just keep writing. at least, i do keep waking up. i'd be in real trouble if i don't, huh?

*chuckle* But change has always been the hallmark of my family's existence. Both my parents are clergy, though my mom didn't become a minister until later in life, when she got her Master's in Theology from Princeton, in the mid-80s, as her second career. Now, my dad's retired but mom continues on with the work he began. On the drive home, I commented to my dad that our family has actually had a very rich life, although our wealth is certainly not counted in terms of money or material goods. We've never had our own house, for instance. We've always lived in homes provided by churches, or rented our own house or apartment with the living allowance provided by a church. And we've always been on the move. I have vivid memories of every single house we've lived in in our life as a clergy family, and this one in Lahaina will be the sixteenth.

Some interesting names/people encountered today:

On the drive over to Lahaina this morning, I saw placards for various candidates for political office in Maui. One of those names: John Wayne Enriques, a Flipinino-American councilmember whose primary claim to fame is that he was involved in authoring a "barking dogs" law. Some communities are lucky to have such innocuous concerns, aren't they?

The Waiola Church gardener is a Eurasian fellow named Charlie Brown. He got that name when, as an infant, he was simply given it by his early guardians. Charlie lives in the room under the parsonage where we'll be living, and takes care of the ample yard. He was a Vietnamese orphan, fathered by an American GI, and who came over as one of the last 'boat people' in the aftermath of the U.S. debacle Vietnam in the 70s. My brother Peter tells me that Charlie is given to telling wild, suspiciously implausible tales of his life, for example Charlie's claim that his father was the notorious Southeast Asia CIA operative Col. Edward Lansdale. Clearly, Charlie will be giving me fodder for some upcoming outrageous weblog stories, eh? *lol*

Bill and Jana (don't know their surnames yet) are an artist couple who live right across the street from the parsonage. Bill was showing me his artwork, and his medium is mostly watercolors. He has two styles: one straightforward and figurative, mostly landscapes of the Lahaina coast, the other quite abstract, reminding me of Picasso in his "blue" period when figures of females or violins were blocky and squarish. Bill and Jana (the J is pronounced hard, i.e. not Yana) have at least 4 cats in their cottage, and I'm sure Skie will have a very interesting time establishing himself in the neighborhood.

The thing is that the notion of home for me and my family has always been a dynamic one. It isn't anchored to a particular confluence of streets, or tied to a certain yard, or the foyer of whatever apartment building. "Home" for the Nebreses has always changed through the years, at a steady pace, and the venues have always been remarkable, regardless of the particular structure -- and we have lived in some dreary houses, as well as some wonderful ones. It has been remarkable because it is intimate with the idea of impermanence. Like life itself; like our human histories, both on a personal scale and that of tribes, countries, cultures. My family knows that wherever we live, we'll be moving again sometime, and it's the dynamism of this change that charges us, and keeps us going. For my parents, a driving force has also been the notion of service, in the church.

As I started another chapter in my life, a dozen years ago, I realized that my parents' career and life choices had become mine, too: serving others, but with a twist, an altered angle, a different dimension.

A (chronological) list of cities/houses my family has lived in:

1. 1960-62 Baguio: Palma Street house
2. 1962-64 Baguio: Bukawkan Road quonset hut
3. 1964-66 Dumaguete: Theological Seminary Compound
4. 1966-67 Davao: Rizal Street apartments
5. 1967-72 Davao: Legaspi and Bonifacio parsonage
6. 1973-74 Davao: Barrio Obrero apartment
7. 1975-76 Manila: Project 6 house
8. 1977-78 Manila: UP Diliman house
9. 1979 Manila: Kalayaan Avenue (Sunny Acres)
10. 1980-82 Honolulu: Moanalua Valley house
11. 1983-85 Pearl City: Palekaiko Street house
12. 1986-88 Honolulu: Craigside Apartments
13. 1989-92 Honolulu: Salt Lake Blvd. condo
14. 1992-97 Honolulu: Bougainville Drive parsonage
15. 1998-00 Maui: Pukalani house
16. 2001-... Maui: Lahaina parsonage

{ net.casting }
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