Repaintings, of both personal and artistic natures
My friend Michelle and I finally found the perfect place in San Francisco to run: Glen Park. My absolute favorite aspect of big, urban cities is discovering those hidden, quiet nooks where green things live, and where it is possible to stop and hear the movement of leaves in the trees overhead. Glen Park starts in the low belly of a canyon below Twin Peaks, and winds uphill into a sweet little housing development with impressive views of the Bay. I had one of those desperately-needed, definitely valid moments of perspective when I skipped up the side of the hill to Michael Jackson, head bent in the wind. And then I turned around, met by the verdant valley below and the incoming loll of clouds. Peace might feel momentary sometimes, and yet like so many things, we only realize its value when it seems we've lost it entirely.
My days are no longer spent behind an espresso bar, nor inside a women's museum covered in images and sound bites of women I'd like to one day meet. Instead, I feel responsible when I open the doors to our fifth-floor international school. I'm learning "Kongrish," the patronizingly slow, noun-noun-verb rhythm of English / Chinese. I've taught a few grammar skills and conversation classes to students from Brazil, Turkey, Spain, Korea, Thailand. I've learned a few words in other languages ("Merhaba" - "hello" in Turkish), and lead tours of North Beach, the Legion of Honor and the Wharf. I organized a soccer game at Golden Gate with about 25 students, and was the only woman to play. I had to halt the game a few times to repeat: "Remember: English is our common language. No cheating!" when the guys started yelling field instructions in French and Korean. We had to discuss indirect objects when one student, who has a more complicated name but goes by "Phil," kept yelling: "Kick me! Kick me!" (Meaning, of course, "kick it to me.")
The best part of the day is 3 pm, when I bike up Market home and put on my running shorts. My calves are getting so strong and powerful. I've joined a writing group here and there. My dear Moroccan friend Hasna and I meet up once a week at a little truffle shop in North Beach called "XOX" where a Frenchman named Jean-Marc sells handmade chocolates free with coffee. I've gotten to see my family rather frequently.
Last weekend I attended a particularly fascinating family reunion. In a way, it was two reunions squeezed into one. It all started with a single painting of a eucalyptus tree bent in the wind, about 4 feet long, painted on silk in 1942 by Chiura Obata. This Japanese-born art professor at Cal was my grandfather Leahn's mentor in college when he received the notice that he and his family had to leave their home. At the same time that my grandparents' families were being scattered across Eastern Europe in labor camps, Obata and his family had to clean out their rental and squish their valuables into one piece of luggage apiece.
Obata's daughter, Haruka, was there on Saturday when the painting, which my parents recently had renovated by an expert Japanese conservator named Tomakatsu, was unveiled at his studio.
"Mom was mad because he wouldn't help us pack," she said, eyes drawn to the painting, whose emotion is powerfully conveyed. "He was painting this when we left."
Sixty years later, my mother gathered us all in Tomakatsu's sunny backyard, where my grandmother (the current owner of the painting), aunts, uncles, cousins and friends all came to honor art in its most human form. I felt like I was getting to know the grandfather I've never met, while deepening a family bond that began with the stroke of a brush during an intolerable time of American history.
It's springtime in California, and while things are blooming everywhere outside and inside me. I am ready to grab inspiration by its reigns, to apply for graduate school in earnest, to learn what business casual really means, to truly clean my room, to act my age, whatever age that might be.
Bay to Breakers this weekend--which means that my Glen Park runs just might prepare me for that 11% Steiner grade. Who knows--possibility is in the air. The presidential primaries are never ending. 2008 is unpredictable, but that can be a good thing.
{ Post a Comment }
{ Last Page } { Page 1 of 22 } { Next Page }
|
About Me
« March 2010 »
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 | 31 | |
Links
Julia in the Raw (Creative Writing Samples)
Spanish Travelogue
College of Creative Studies
Post Secret
My Aunty
Categories
Recent Entries
Repaintings, of both personal and artistic natures
A Song for San Francisco
Write about small regrets.
Fiery Furnaces
On Saints
Friends
|
