I value time alone.

It's not that I don't enjoy being around my 'ohana. It's just that sometimes I need a place to meditate.

So I seek refuge from the testosterone-laden men who occupy my living room.

I don't mind their bodies flopped on the pune'e (day bed) their minds fixated on ESPN Sports Center. Nor do I mind their pinching and prodding of one another during commercial break.

I've even ignored the shouts that ensue when "Shaq Daddy" slam-dunks the ball.

I have routinely tried to seek comfort in an area where I can have a little privacy, but like bounty hunters, they track me down, uncovering my pu'uhonua, or place of refuge.

In ancient times, Hawaiians could find solitude when they needed it. Their housing system, called kauhale, or group of houses, prevented discord among family members.

The men ate and honored their gods in the hale mua or men's eating house. The hale 'aina was where women and young children ate their meals.

"There were separate houses for crafts, for storage, even for vacation use," wrote Hawaiian language and culture scholar Mary Kawena Pukui. "A menstruating woman was restricted to the hale pe'a (unclean house or menstrual house). There, the very isolation of her kapu state let her get a good rest."

I'm an advocate of the kauhale system. I like the idea of having a week off every month to tend to my "womanly functions."

I also like the idea of having a separate hale where men can converge — shout, scratch and wrestle to their hearts content.

But unfortunately, I don't have the space nor the money to implement that plan.

I think my family is so used to living in such close quarters that when we do have space, we don't know what to do with it.

For example, we were recently at the dentist's office. The waiting room has several chairs. I was flipping through one of the magazines.

My 16-year-old and 12-year-old plopped down on either side of me, sandwiching me between their 240- and 150-pound frames, respectively. I felt like a hamburger patty being squished by a spatula.

"Can you guys spread out a bit, please?" I begged.

"But, Mom," my 16-year-old said with a hint of mischievousness in his eyes, "we love you."

"Yeah, well I love you too," I said, moving to a chair across the room.

I think everyone needs a place to call their pu'uhonua. Even my husband.

"My shack is the only place that I can keep the last vestiges of what I call my sanity," he says.

Reach Ka'ohua Lucas at Family Matters, 'Ohana section, The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802; fax 525-8055; or at ohana@honoluluadvertiser.com.