It’s a sunny, beautiful and quiet Saturday morning. The sounds of birds chirping next door in our neighbors trees and the random plane flying overhead here and there intermixes with the ticking of the living room clock.
I decided to take a moment and eat breakfast at the kitchen table while finally getting to open and read one of the Japanese fashion magazines I bought in Japan last month. I get them here too, but was excited about them being half the price in Japan since I was getting it there instead of here.
They are always wrapped in a bag and come with a free gift, making it feel like a present every time I open one in more ways than one.
In discovering google translate while in Japan, I whip it out to scan and read some of the text in the magazine from time to time.
As I go through the pages, I’m reminded of how I felt in Japan, seeing the fashion there. As reflected in the magazine in front of me, the drape and silhouette of the clothing and the small design elements and asymmetrical qualities resonate with me.
Before I ever even picked up a Japanese fashion magazine years ago, while I was in fashion design school I remember having to design, draw out, and sew a lot of collections for my classes.
The designs I came up with then remind me of the things I saw in Japan and in these pages of the magazine.
How is that possible? It’s a semi baffling question that has gotten me thinking a lot over the past month since our trip about culture(s) and if they are something that is /are inherited or something that we learn? Or both? How being fourth generation Japanese-American and never having been to Japan until last month, I was able to witness as a collective whole the parallels of the way public life operates over there to the things and similar values and practices within my own family growing up.
And how something like art, creativity, and design can be a part of you in a way without even being immersed in it on a daily basis.
As I’m thinking of these things again, while using my phone for translation I come across a bookmark on my phone. It is the notice of Margaret’s passing from a few years ago, the article saved from a local Japanese paper. She was my grandma's best friend, having known each other since they were kids.
My grandma later on in life lived in North Carolina with my uncle and aunt, but she would always come out to Los Angeles where she grew up before WW II. She would visit her brother, my great uncle Kyushi for a few months every year in the spring. He lived four streets over from Margaret and her and my grandma would spend everyday together while she was here visiting.
Margaret’s farm growing up was caddy corner to my grandpa Tsugio's farm growing up over in West LA/Sawtelle/Culver City area. They were cousins.
She saw the beginning of my grandma and grandpa's budding relationship even at age 13 while pulling up carrots from their farms to eat for breakfast while walking to school together.
Margaret and my grandma always had a value for people and time together and doing crafts together. I was witness to many a times of crocheting that happened in Margaret’s living room together while drinking ocha.
As I sit here reflecting on these things, I look at the other half of the kitchen table that is full of crafting and sewing things right now. There is a controlled explosion happening in the house as I’m on a create and sew fest before I have my first pop up show next weekend.
I think about how the creative mess was similar to Margaret’s at times and how she always would support my creating, whether through asking me about it, passing on fabric or yarn or notions that she wasn’t going to use anymore, or offering advice or encouragement in the light hearted and funny way that she always did.
I think of how she would be encouraging with the show if she were still here on earth now, and wish that she could have been here to see it.
I learned so much of my own family history through living room and kitchen conversations with Margaret, and though I may have been removed culturally in a way by not growing up in Japan, the greatest connector culturally was through Margaret and her friends here in Los Angeles and the stories shared and life in action that they lived. Especially after my grandma passed away.
It’s the repeating and passing down of traditions and sharing of the history of those that contribute to part of the creating of the family and culture within and around us. And they do matter, especially in a time where fast and busyness, being seen, and productivity seems to be emphasized over tradition, seeing others, and stillness.
If no one passes it down, as the generations pass away, a part of history dies by not being remembered to the fullest.
Being fourth generation I guess I’m a mix of all these things and the nuances that they can carry. And that’s ok. My great grandparents had great grandparents too, and what existed before the ancestors that I personally met or knew was probably much different than the life my great grandparents knew too.
So as culture continues to change through experiences and the places we live and are, my hope is that I would carry it on well and honor those and the practices having gone before me. Crafting and all.