Thoughts

I am a person of color and an immigrant, and I’ve lived on the Westside of Los Angeles with fair amount of privileges for well over 30 years. Unlike the Japanese-Americans who lived through the World War II in the U.S., I have never experienced any institutional discrimination. If anything, I’ve been subjected to some ignorant stereotyping comments about Asian women, which can be offensive. No matter how much inclusivity training and books I’ve been through as a part of the teacher community at InsightLA and Spirit Rock, I can’t say I fully understand the depth and complexity of this problem in our country and the world. I just know the anger that erupted this week is not just the pent up energy from being stuck indoor for the last 2 months but pain, anger and resentment that built up over so many decades.

We keep hearing the word, “unprecedented” – and we just have to live each of these unprecedented days with a sense of awe. Honestly, I feel powerless over how our life will be in the coming months. Everybody is trying to figure out how it’s going to look like; how we are going to do whatever we think we will be doing. But really, nobody knows. I can only take one day at a time to take care of myself, my family, my friends to the best of my ability, trying to be of service wherever I can. And if I have one person attending my sitting group to sit with me, I feel like I did something.

While I was enjoying the lilacs in bloom up in the mountains, the jacaranda was coming out without my witness. I’ve always persisted to say there are seasons in Southern California when I hear people say, “there’s no season here.” When you’re in tune with the different vegetations, fruits you can buy at the market, and other natural phenomena, you can always appreciate the shifting seasons. I’m actually grateful that my parents instilled in me the appreciations for things like that.

Now that I’ve been writing about my mountain life every week (because that’s basically all I have to talk about!), people have been asking me about this “mountains.” Most people know Big Bear or Arrowhead, and of course, Mammoth. This is a community called, “Pine Mountain Club,” which is located about 80 miles north of Los Angeles, in Los Padres National Forest also called Frazier Mountains. 

London is about to turn 2-years old in a couple of weeks, and we know there won’t be a birthday party this year. Besides we haven’t really spent too much time with her since she came along other than our occasional visits that usually lasts may be an hour or two. So this was a delightful opportunity to be with her. And oh, what a bundle of joy she was! She’s definitely at an age between being a baby and a little human (I guess you call that a toddler!) when she’s independently mobile and learning to communicate with words but she’s still not able to formulate them clearly, which makes it unbearably adorable. It was my dream come true to take her to my beloved woods to walk the trails and show her all the big big trees. For three days, we got to play with this little being as our heart cracked so wide open.

So my intention was to have a little retreat for myself at home. I had created a schedule for Friday afternoon through Tuesday morning with some time for Dharma talks, mindful movement, and walking meditation in addition to the sitting periods. I didn’t think it was going to be easy while living with a husband, but the point was to be able to have a quiet time to meditate several times throughout the day for minimum of 45 minutes at a time. In that sense, I did get the pause I wanted.

It’s been 3 weeks since we were back in the Westside. On one hand, it still feels like my neighborhood, and on the other, it feels definitely so much more noisy and congested even with this “stay home” quarantine. As much as I miss the convenience of being able to walk to the grocery stores, restaurants, bus stops, etc., again I am so incredibly grateful that I now get to walk to the post office through the woods.

We’re almost a month into this extraordinary time in history of coronavirus pandemic. What a wild ride it has been to navigate this constantly changing world around us! Needless to say, it’s been quite a journey for me and my husband to have to move in the middle of this intense period when we could not get much help from others except for a few angels that came our way unexpectedly. Now that I’ve “settled in” my mountain house that we call our “home,” I’m blown away everyday with gratitude for this unexpected “fate” to be quarantined here.

The truth is even with this #stayathome life we live today, I find that the world is still spinning quite a bit.  I don’t know about you, but I am bombarded with invitation emails to attend some sort of Zoom meetings.  They all seem to offer some ideas and solutions for how we can make the most out of this stay-at-home period.  I think it’s important to recognize that many of us are feeling the impact of this pandemic at many different levels and it is O.K. to be not so productive.

During this whole time, I have been moved by all the generosity and acts of kindness offered by people around me for us as well as in the world in general. I’m so grateful for those who are providing essential services such as grocery store workers, delivery people, let alone all the people who are there to care for the vulnerable and sick. There are so many people, that we don’t even know about, who are working tirelessly during this time to keep our life safe. It is indeed a test for humanity. And I have no doubt we will survive, and I am truly hoping that our world is changed in an incredibly positive way when we come out of this.

Meanwhile, I’m almost done moving although there are some things I can’t get done because of the restrictions we have in our life. Since the Governor announced of the “Safer at Home” ordinance last Thursday night, we decided to get the move done so we can hunker down in the mountains. After all, this is a much better environment to isolate from the world. I can walk to the woods nearby without bumping into anybody except for some birds, squirrels, or bunnies. (I think bears are still hibernating!) It is indeed a refuge, unexpectedly, for which I’m so grateful for.

It was 4 weeks ago today that I received a notice of eviction from my landlord. By the well-debated rent control ordinance, the landlord can evict a tenant in good standing for a few reasons, one of which is that either the landlord themselves or their direct family members moving into the property occupied by the tenant. That was our case. When I wrote about it, I had so many kind and sympathetic responses that touched me.

As I’ve been sharing about having to move out of the condo unit we’ve been living for 8 years, the current status is that my husband and I decided to take our belongings to the mountain house for the time being. I guess this would constitute as “moving to the mountain house.” The reality is that I will have to “live” in the mountains and commute to the city to work — because I have an elderly cat that cannot be dragged around. As long as she stays at the mountain house and I’m there to care for her, she’ll be content. Much of the logistics are still uncertain, but I’m really embracing this opportunity for a change as I know often these unexpected turn of event turns out to be a blessing.

Since I was a little girl, I loved books. I remember this one book called, The Little House. It’s about a little house that once sat in an open field, and over time the surrounding area was developed and the little house was squished among big buildings and elevated train tracks. It just told a story of impermanence, how everything changes. I witnessed the same thing happening in neighborhoods I’ve lived. The house I was born in was torn down after we moved and became a parking structure for the Catholic Church next door. The next house I grew up in was also torn down and became a high rise apartment building. And every time I go back to Japan to my hometown, there’s a new road and highways surrounding the neighborhood, which used to be a “sleepy little town.” I don’t even recognize it.

We received a “notice of eviction” from our landlord last week.   We have been renting this condo unit in West L.A. for 8 years, and now we have to move out by the end of April.  Sometimes things come up unexpectedly that can change everything.  At first my reaction to my landlord handing me the documents very apologetically was “Wow, this is so interesting! Don’t feel bad!  We’ll be fine!”  I thought this is a good chance for us to move our base to our mountain house as I have been fantasizing for quite some time.  I immediately started my attempt to “figure out” what that might look like.

I was in the mountains this last weekend after several weeks of typically busy time in the city. Since we had the big snow storm during the holidays, most of the snow is melted although there are patches of snow here and there. When I got to my beloved woods by our house, I got to visit The Tree I’ve been writing about except now it’s lying on the ground. When I first went to see it after it was fallen by the forest services, it was still pretty snow covered. This time, there wasn’t much snow so I could see the whole tree laying down.

Between the Community Dharma Leadership Program (CDL) at Spirit Rock and Teacher Development Group (TDG) at InsightLA, I am mentored by my dear teacher and friend, Diana Gould. For the CDL homework, we’re supposed to prepare talks. And for TDG mentoring program, my mentor is supposed to observe me teach. I have given talks before to cover Diana when she goes on her long retreats and enjoy doing it for the “Young Adult Practice Group” on Sundays every once in a while whenever their regular teachers are not available.

This coming weekend, we have the Oscars.  It’s early this year.  The week after Super Bowl?  Still, it’s that time of the year to reminds me of Riley, my kitty.  It was 3 years ago that we lost Riley completely out of the blue.  We went to an Oscar party at a friend’s, and when we got home he was dead on our bed.  I don’t have to talk about how devastating that was as I did plenty of that back then.  Other than that we knew he had a respiratory issue, we, including the vet, thought he was pretty healthy, but apparently, he had some undetected condition that took his life away.

It is Wednesday, which is the day I usually do my little writing to send out.  As I sit in front of my computer and ponder what I’m going to say today, I can’t help but think about the loss of Kobe Bryant, his daughter and the other families on board of that helicopter.  I don’t want to write about it because everybody else is, but it feels like that’s what’s on my mind and many others today – 3 days after the tragedy. 

I get to live in Santa Monica although strictly speaking my home address is in Los Angeles. The other side of my street is city of Santa Monica, and I did live in Santa Monica more than 10 years before my husband and I moved to where we are now. When I was a teenager, there was a Japanese pop singer who had a hit song called, “Come, Come to Santa Monica.” I didn’t know anything about the city, but I knew it was somewhere in America. I don’t know if I knew it was in California.