#rellsunn

[thearceffect]

In honor of International Women’s Day here is a photo of the late Rell Sunn, the Queen of Makaha, The Heart of the Sea. Thanks 🙏 to all moms, sisters, aunts, and daughters for making the world a better place. #internationawomensday #womenempowerment #thankyou #love #yourthebest #rellsunn (at Earth)

[mamiepeers]

Talking it out

When I ran down Hollywood Boulevard this morning shortly after sunrise, I noticed Mamie Van Dooren’s star on the sidewalk. I took a photo even though I hate it when people take photos of streets by their name. It’s vain and cheesy. It’s easy to find most people's names and I wondered why they were always so surprised to see Stewart.

Kate Winslet, in an interview on set today said, “There is no acting. There is being. Don’t act. Be.” 

Many of my early days began like today, before the sun rose. Mom would take me to the shore of Makaha when the sky was grey, the sand still cool. The stage was set for her to workout with Auntie Rell. They would begin with a run through the sand, pitted with holes. Kicking the sand back. They would dig even bigger pits and climb in for hundreds of sit-ups.

They had rock hard abs, long dark hair, white smiles, laughing, dark eyes, a strong bond of single mother sisterhood. It was the eighties - before botox, clean eating and Soul Cycle. There was no liquid eyeliner or pomegranate face serums. Instead, there was salt water, wind and Olay.

The clouds were huge overhead and even now I can feel myself between those clouds, the cool sand, the ocean pulling me in. There was also this fresh new opportunity each morning to potentially find the very most complete and colorful and unique seashell imaginable. It required quiet walking, looking, nudging shells up from the sand with your big toe. A level of focus your body gives you at that time of day. Most of the time I collected small white broken pieces, but never lost hope, naive. When the sun started to rise, we’d walk back up the Valley to our apartment, barefoot.

Those mornings created a habit of looking for the perfect shell in each moment. This morning I took that habit for a run, found my name, and am not ashamed to admire it.