I have made it most of the way through the day without tears, so let’s see if I can get through this.\u00a0 Conversations, images, moments, and memories have absolutely monopolized my brain for the past five days.\u00a0 I met Mahito ten years ago, and he was from the beginning and continued to be a rock in my life. Solid, strong, and safe.<\/p>\n
I was a freshman at CSUMB in my first few weeks.\u00a0 I had run into Mahito a few times.\u00a0 Penny Layton and I were walking around campus on a Friday night when we ran into Mahito and Bryan Schaefer at the U.C.\u00a0\u00a0 Mahito talked us into coming back to a party at his place. Penny and I were both, honestly pretty straight laced girls at the time, hadn’t been out to the apartments yet.\u00a0 We were both begging off apologies for not being able to come out, when Mahito stuck out his hand for a hand shake. “I always keep everyone safe.\u00a0 You can trust me. Promise.” And that, was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.<\/p>\n
So, the highlights:<\/p>\n
*Helping Mahito carry lumber up from the garage the night the dance pole and dias were built in his living room.<\/p>\n
* Many, many weekends that tended in the same direction. I was lucky enough to be a part of the group of six or eight that stuck around after parties ended.\u00a0 Crashing in his living room, waking up sometime before noon.\u00a0 Going out for burritos, then mischief on the beach.\u00a0 Back to his place for BBQ or hand rolled sushi,\u00a0 then another night.\u00a0 Somewhere along the way, 12 became my favorite number, pants made you weak,\u00a0 and jungle juice wasn’t the same if you didn’t drink it out of a sparklets cooler.<\/p>\n
*Mahito was a huge mentor in my technical theater education, but he taught me more than the skills.\u00a0 He taught me confidence.\u00a0 So many times, he’d tell me: People won’t really care what you know, if you aren’t 100% sure you know it. I grew up with him.<\/p>\n
*Badges at El Teatro Campesino.\u00a0 He and I practically lived at that theater between my Stage Managing and his Technical Direction.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s not a show I would have stuck with if he wasn’t there.\u00a0 Tough personality conflicts, artistic conflicts, my first time with non student actors.\u00a0 Many, many nights ended at the Crown and Anchor or back at his place for a beer.\u00a0 His ability to keep someone calm and centered was incredible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have made it most of the way through the day without tears, so let’s see if I can get through this.\u00a0 Conversations, images, moments, and memories have absolutely monopolized my brain for the past five days.\u00a0 I met Mahito ten years ago, and he was from the beginning and continued to be a rock […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270,"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions\/270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}