Heart of Fire by Mazie K. Hirono

Author:Mazie K. Hirono [Hirono, Mazie K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-04-20T00:00:00+00:00

Part Four

ONE THOUSAND CRANES

The other side of the anger is the hope. We wouldn’t be angry if we didn’t still believe that it could be better.

—Jessica Morales Rocketto, As quoted in GOOD AND MAD: THE REVOLUTIONARY POWER OF WOMEN’S ANGER by Rebecca Traister

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A Modern Campaign

For the first time in twenty-two years, I was not an elected official. “Enjoy yourself,” Leighton told me. “You’ve been going nonstop.” Ever generous, he added, “We’ll be fine on what I bring in.”

“I hope you’re not expecting me to cook and clean, because if you are, I’m going out to get a job right now,” I joked.

“Of course I don’t expect that,” he assured me in his soft-spoken way. “You act as if I don’t know my wife. No, I want you to do whatever you want. You’re always so busy trying to make sure everyone else is okay. Time to focus only on you.”

You can see why some of my friends teasingly ask their husbands, “Why can’t you be more like Leighton Oshima?” They say Leighton’s motto is: “Whatever makes Mazie happy.”

The truth is I had never been more appreciative of the man I had married than in the aftermath of defeat. The months immediately following election night are a blur; Leighton recalls that I appeared to be on autopilot, as if I had blunted all feeling so as to get on with the business of doing the next necessary thing. Without my really noticing it, my husband orchestrated a structure for my days, giving me time to make peace with losing. For weeks afterward, he drove me to my campaign office in the morning and picked me up in the evening; in between, I would sit at my desk writing thank-you notes and making calls to the people who had supported me. Leighton knew that despite the grit and resilience I projected, I was mourning the loss of the life I knew. For two decades I had proposed and tracked bills through the state legislature, drafted complaints, argued cases in court on behalf of injured parties, and been immersed in public life. Now, time slowed, the hours stretching out before me. On those interminable days after my first losing campaign, as I organized my papers and prepared to close my campaign office, I concentrated only on the tasks at hand and forced myself not to think too far beyond my final task before stepping down as lieutenant governor—my role in the formal swearing-in of Linda Lingle in January. After that ceremony, I would fully close the chapter on my governor’s race.

One evening, I stood at my living-room window looking out over the city of Honolulu. From this distance, it glimmered like a spill of stars, and it occurred to me that for first time since I had become a state legislator, I was free to travel whenever I wanted, and for no reason other than the pure pleasure of seeing new places. In the moment I had the thought, the world shifted from muted grays and back to vivid color.

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