Buddha said. Here, I have time on my hands to remember, so it should be no surprise that I am moving into the past to linger there. My past is still the place where my mother is always there when I need her. When I think of my mother—a woman who never did something for herself instead of for me, who spent her life driving me to the store, sewing my prom dress, hugging me when I did something wrong—I can still feel how I demanded that; how I
resented it; how I loved my mother entirely. Though I never brought myself to admit it, in all those years when I didn’t want to be a mother, it was partly because I didn’t want to be my mother. And yet, I’ve also always known I wouldn’t have wanted her to be any other way.
AUGUST 1, 2001
I REMEMBER A TIME—we were sitting together on my sofa in New York, me and Mom. We used to spend hours hanging out, “solving the world’s problems” she used to call it, so it makes sense that it was just the two of us.
She was talking about children. Again. How her children were the joy of her life. She did more of that as I got older. She didn’t say, You’re thirty now, you’re getting old , but she did say things like, I would hate to see you lose your opportunity .
It was a time in my life when things were going well. Brian and I had had some problems, but we were working them out—we were both working really hard—and I was finally exactly who I wanted to be. I’d quit my job and, for the first time since I was a teenager, I was writing. I was whitewater rafting. I was in love with my husband. I was happy.
This memory is real, if anything can be called real anymore. I didn’t know how to explain myself to her. The life
she lived, the family connections, the caretaking that she found important—I didn’t want that. It was messy, too easy for me to get derailed. So I just told her. I told her what I had: there I was, thirty years old, finally an adult, finally empowered. I was building an identity for myself as a writer, adding a little strength, a little daring; my new life was set up exactly right. This is what I’d been looking for, what I worked toward. This is what I possessed, and I was going to keep it.
She looked confused at first, and then amused. “But sweetheart,” she said, “your life isn’t over. It’s going to change. That’s what life is. You can’t hold onto things the way they are, even if you want it. It’s always going to be different.”
PEACE NIGHT
ON THE EDGE of the Otagawa, some three feet below me, smooth stones embedded in a concrete bank slide into the river. I am sitting just north of the Aioibashi, the T-shaped bridge that rests on the crown of the Peace Park, which is said to have been the target for the atomic bomb. Over my head, tens of thousands of cellophane ties have been strung on long ropes across the river. There are hundreds of ropes, beginning from one point on the opposite bank and extending
into the tops of the building on this side. In outline, they suggest a sail, though in practice, the cellophane merely traces the wind rather than catching it. I’ve been riding by them daily on my borrowed bicycle, watching them multiply over the last two weeks as the anniversary of the bombing approached, but now that the day is here, I still don’t know what they mean.
It is perhaps ten o’clock at night on August 6, the anniversary of the atomic bombing. And these ties are flying up and away from me in the darkness, sometimes grey ghosts and sometimes glinting silver when the wind pulls them into the lights from the buildings and the full moon. On the flat black river in front of me is a flotilla of sampans and luxury boats, and of course, the kaleidoscopic paper lanterns.
They are small, square bags of brightly colored papers, maybe eight inches in diameter. They float on thin wooden crosses, lit with small wicks. Some ten thousand lanterns: yellow, purple, blue, red, pink, orange, green.
I arrived in the early evening,
resented it; how I loved my mother entirely. Though I never brought myself to admit it, in all those years when I didn’t want to be a mother, it was partly because I didn’t want to be my mother. And yet, I’ve also always known I wouldn’t have wanted her to be any other way.
AUGUST 1, 2001
I REMEMBER A TIME—we were sitting together on my sofa in New York, me and Mom. We used to spend hours hanging out, “solving the world’s problems” she used to call it, so it makes sense that it was just the two of us.
She was talking about children. Again. How her children were the joy of her life. She did more of that as I got older. She didn’t say, You’re thirty now, you’re getting old , but she did say things like, I would hate to see you lose your opportunity .
It was a time in my life when things were going well. Brian and I had had some problems, but we were working them out—we were both working really hard—and I was finally exactly who I wanted to be. I’d quit my job and, for the first time since I was a teenager, I was writing. I was whitewater rafting. I was in love with my husband. I was happy.
This memory is real, if anything can be called real anymore. I didn’t know how to explain myself to her. The life
she lived, the family connections, the caretaking that she found important—I didn’t want that. It was messy, too easy for me to get derailed. So I just told her. I told her what I had: there I was, thirty years old, finally an adult, finally empowered. I was building an identity for myself as a writer, adding a little strength, a little daring; my new life was set up exactly right. This is what I’d been looking for, what I worked toward. This is what I possessed, and I was going to keep it.
She looked confused at first, and then amused. “But sweetheart,” she said, “your life isn’t over. It’s going to change. That’s what life is. You can’t hold onto things the way they are, even if you want it. It’s always going to be different.”
PEACE NIGHT
ON THE EDGE of the Otagawa, some three feet below me, smooth stones embedded in a concrete bank slide into the river. I am sitting just north of the Aioibashi, the T-shaped bridge that rests on the crown of the Peace Park, which is said to have been the target for the atomic bomb. Over my head, tens of thousands of cellophane ties have been strung on long ropes across the river. There are hundreds of ropes, beginning from one point on the opposite bank and extending
into the tops of the building on this side. In outline, they suggest a sail, though in practice, the cellophane merely traces the wind rather than catching it. I’ve been riding by them daily on my borrowed bicycle, watching them multiply over the last two weeks as the anniversary of the bombing approached, but now that the day is here, I still don’t know what they mean.
It is perhaps ten o’clock at night on August 6, the anniversary of the atomic bombing. And these ties are flying up and away from me in the darkness, sometimes grey ghosts and sometimes glinting silver when the wind pulls them into the lights from the buildings and the full moon. On the flat black river in front of me is a flotilla of sampans and luxury boats, and of course, the kaleidoscopic paper lanterns.
They are small, square bags of brightly colored papers, maybe eight inches in diameter. They float on thin wooden crosses, lit with small wicks. Some ten thousand lanterns: yellow, purple, blue, red, pink, orange, green.
I arrived in the early evening,
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