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TO MY CHILDREN
AND OUR JAPANESE AND AMERICAN FAMILY
JUNE 2001
PREPARING MYSELF
Not enough room
for me to give
Mom space,
I crouch in my corner
fold
clothes for three seasons
into my suitcase
slide
pencil case, supplies box, assignments, notebooks, and textbooks
into my schoolbag
and slip my NASA pen into my pocket.
I do not want to go
to stay with Obaachan, my Japanese grandmother,
but it cannot be helped.
Every August
I pack my summer homework
shorts and swimsuit
to fly to Northern California with Mom
but this year
I am packing
on a school holiday
the longest day of the year
to go to western Tokyo.
I will miss six months of fifth grade at my school
I will miss our holiday by the sea with Papa before California
I will miss a whole month of having Mom’s old room to myself.
My friends will miss the cinnamon balls
wrapped in pepper-red plastic
I always bring back
as souvenirs.
JUNE 21, 2001
DEPARTURE
Our bags sit by the door, ready.
On the balcony
I look up into our patch of sky.
Good-bye, View.
At the door,
fighting tears,
I look into our one-room apartment.
Good-bye, Home.
In the elevator
down
floor by floor
we greet people we see every day
but do not know well.
“Foreigner,” says a kindergartener,
grabbing his mother’s hand
before they enter.
Somewhere someone
who has never seen me before
says something
at least once a day.
Clenching the NASA pen,
I say “I’m Japanese”
to the top of this boy’s head.
Mom and Papa say nothing.
The doors open
I bolt past him
running
to the lobby
to friends holding a sign saying
Good-bye, Ema!
The city’s afternoon chimes call children back home.
We would all be saying good-bye anyway
for the day.
No one notices I lose the battle with a tear.
THE LONGEST
We wedge the bags
into the trunk,
on Papa’s lap in the front seat, and
under my feet in the backseat
next to Mom.
The hired driver turns
in the opposite direction
of the airport
and the sea.
This trip by car could take twice as long as by train,
but two hours
with bus and train connections
would be too much for Mom.
Inching inland in traffic
on stiff white cotton seat covers,
I watch raindrops splatter
Mom vomits into plastic bags
Papa comforts her
each time
they apologize to the driver.
CROSSING TOKYO
Lights sputter on
lamp by lamp
along Rainbow Bridge.
Headlights blink on
car by car
along the highway.
Bulbs flicker on
office by office
shop by shop
street by street.
The driver’s eyes,
lit by the dashboard, study me.
A break in traffic
and his eyes are on the road.
We race a ribbon of light
through twinkling towers
with hours to go.
After eleven years,
I should be used to people
trying to figure me out.
I am not.
I usually try not to say anything out loud.
A BRIDGE
Papa would say I am
one foot here
one foot there
between two worlds
—Japan and America—
binational
bicultural
bilingual
biracial.
There, Americans would say
I am half
half this
half that.
Here, Japanese would say
hāfu
if they had to say something.
Some people here and there say
I am double.
Mom says I “contain multitudes.”
Like everyone else.
MULTITUDES
At home
with Mom and Papa
I am
between
two cultures
two languages
two time zones
every day.
Everywhere I go
here or there
I am different.
Everywhere I go
here or there
people think I know
half or double
what I should know.
Not like anyone else
here or there
I sometimes feel alone
on an island
surrounded by multitudes
of people.
Sometimes
I’d rather be on the moon surrounded by multitudes
of stars.
WATCHERS OF THE SKIES
NASA sent Chiaki Mukai,
the first Japanese woman,
into space in 1994.
Grandpa Bob airmailed me the NASA pen.
NASA sent Mamoru Mohri,
the first Japanese astronaut,
into space again last year.
To help map
millions of miles of Earth.
Think beyond borders
reach for the stars
map your own world
Grandpa Bob has always told me
I can make a mark
no matter what
the NASA pen will work if I’m
upside down,
underwater or in space.
Under any pressure.
I carry it wherever I go
I carry it to school
I carry it to visit Obaachan,
especially.
ARRIVAL
We tumble out of the car
in front of Obaachan’s wooden gate
she is all business
paying the driver
and
supervising the bags.
Jiichan, my Japanese grandfather,
is all smiles
being supervised
but
leading us through the low gate.
The palm tree Great-Grandfather
planted before he died
greets us in a waving breeze.
At the entry hall
Obaachan i
s right behind us
directing us each to our slippers.
Toe to heel, I nudge my shoes off,
slip into slippers, and
before I can do it for myself,
Obaachan turns the toes of my shoes to the door.
Papa helps Mom balance.
I step into the wooden puzzle box
of sliding paper doors
opening one room
to another.
I carry my bag
across the wooden entry floor
down the wooden hall
up the stairs to Papa’s old room
where we stay at New Year’s.
Then, this house is like an icebox.
Now, in the rainy season, it’s like a basement
(Mom mentions in English).
Soon, in summer, it will be like a hot-spring bath.
Jiichan slides the paper door
we slide out of slippers
before stepping onto tatami.
He has set the beds out for us
like always when we visit
three futons lie on woven grass flooring
side by side by side
just like at home.
NOT AT HOME
Mom is expecting a baby
and needs to rest.
Teaching English at the university
and attending PTA at my school
has made her too “sick and tired.”
Grandpa Bob and Nana
cannot leave their jobs
and come to Japan
so
Obaachan will take care of us here
Obaachan will take charge of my schoolwork
Obaachan will take charge of us
like she always does when we visit.
DOWN TO BUSINESS
Six a.m.
Obaachan charges the stairs
scoots out of slippers
plods across the tatami
and slides open the shutters.
Mom sighs and rolls over.
“Late,” Obaachan mutters.
Poor Papa,
tired after that long car ride,
is already up and out
on the train to work.
He forgot to reset the alarm.
Cloudy cool creeps
through the window.
No street noise just
neighbors’ tongue scraping
tooth brushing
throat gargling.
Moving a laundry hanger
of Jiichan’s underwear and socks
to a bar
outside the window,
Obaachan huffs, “Late.”
I stretch,
fold the futon into the closet,
wait for her cue.
Today is a school day.
My first day
at “Obaachan’s School,”
enrolled until summer break
at the end of July.
I don’t want to be late.
ORDER
Obaachan barges past my elbow,
empties my schoolbag
onto Papa’s old school desk.
Shoved into the corner,
it takes up most of the room.
She pushes the bag
into the storage space on
the straight-back chair,
the only chair in the house.
She says it will sit there
waiting to go to school here in September.
I slide my pencil case and supplies box
into the drawer that’s mine when I visit.
Obaachan retrieves them, saying,
“Today’s schedule, books, pencil case,
downstairs eight thirty,
breakfast at seven.”
She stuffs the rest of my textbooks and notebooks
into a cubbyhole,
smashing one side
of the papery lotus pod
that sits next to a cup of pens.
Before she can toss it out the window,
I tell her
it’s old
it’s Papa’s
it’s my favorite thing of his.
Papa has drawers filled with
worn erasers,
rusted pencil cases,
small toys,
old postcards,
and faded notebooks of English exercises
where he practiced phrases like “I have a pen”
over and over.
My favorite thing, really, is the room itself.
Papa had his own room.
A ROOM OF HER OWN
But Mom’s room
at Grandpa Bob’s and Nana’s
is even better.
Her teacups
collected from all fifty states
line the shelves Nana built for them
over her desk.
Summer by summer,
tucked in flower-scented sheets
fresh from the dryer,
on a footed bed
in a room just right
(not too cold and not too hot),
I would watch the nightlight twinkle
along the rims of the cups and saucers.
Mom did the very same thing,
watching her collection grow
state by state
summer by summer.
A CORNER
At home
a bookshelf and a chest of drawers
in our shared room is the only room
I have.
I do my homework at the table before dinner.
Our one room is too small
for the desk Obaachan and Jiichan
wanted to buy me when I started first grade.
Obaachan insisted with suggestions.
I have heard Mom say
the first Japanese she learned was
“Mind your business.”
She probably said it about the desk,
but I have never heard her say it to Obaachan.
When we visit,
Mom complains under her breath.
Obaachan complains behind closed doors.
Paper doors.
I am glad Mom got her way.
If I had a desk,
there would be no room for this baby
at home.
CORNERED
I will have to share my corner
with this baby.
I always wanted a little sister.
A little brother would be okay.
Any way
sister or brother
I have five months
to wait
for someone like me—
this baby
who will look like me
understand me
and belong with me.
Five months
will be a long time
to stay here.
Five months
will be a long time
to calm Mom.
Five months
will be a long time
to please Obaachan.
I am worried.
WITH GOOD REASON
First day down for breakfast,
textbooks in hand,
I am alone.
Mom still has morning sickness
any time of day.
Late at five past seven,
I ask for a tray for her.
Obaachan says about me
(or Mom?)
“Best to keep a schedule.”
Obaachan serves Mom upstairs;
she doesn’t trust me with the tray.
I begin to clear dirty dishes from the table;
Obaachan tells me to prepare for school.
I see it will be difficult to do
my helping-at-home assignment
this summer.
I set out my books, my pencil case, my NASA pen.
Obaachan tells me ink is not allowed.
I’m in fifth grade. I know that!
But I don’t say anything.
Jiichan smiles at
me
and tells me we’re testing
the water.
Somehow he thinks
we will all live together someday.
I don’t have the heart to tell him
I already want to go home.
O
And I won’t tell Jiichan
I don’t want to live
with Obaachan
he knows
I feel closer to him.
I think Jiichan knows
it is hard
to feel close
to Obaachan.
BELONGING WITH
I am never alone in any of these rooms!
I keep school hours
on a cushion
at the table
in front of the TV
where we have meals
where we have tea
where Jiichan sits most of the day.
I miss being on my own
going to school
going to the park
going to the shops
in my neighborhood.
Whenever we go out,
Jiichan carries my boshi techo,
the medical-record booklet from the city office
with Satoh,
the name we share,
on the cover.
He says, “Just in case.”
But I know it’s because
we don’t look like
we belong together.
My upside-down crescent-moon eyes,
dark brown but not so dark that you can’t see the black spokes
that circle my pupils
are just like Papa’s
but
my high-bridge nose
chestnut hair
milk-white skin
are just like Mom’s.
WHERE AM I FROM?
People ask,
A-me-ri-ka?
That’s what it is called here.
Not “United States.”
Maybe because the Japanese language
doesn’t have some of those sounds.
Like in Mom’s name, Maribeth.
Me-ri-be-su.
“It was good pronunciation practice for Papa,” she says.
Japanese pronunciation wasn’t easy for Mom, either.
She thought she was saying “Great-Grandfather,”
but because of a mistake with one vowel
she was really calling Obaachan’s father
“Honorable Old Fart.”
BECAUSE OF AN EXTRA CONSONANT
There can be a problem with my name.
Choosing a Japanese name is complicated.
The number of ink strokes
in the kanji characters,
Somewhere Among Page 1
