“A connection through yoga.”

One of my close yoga friends left our town because her husband was transferred overseas. We learned Iyengar yoga which respects the alignment, precision and sequence together.　We had her last lesson, although I drowned in sadness. We made sure we would make the most out of her last day of her yoga class in Japan.

I　can still remember clearly the day when she came to our yoga class. I wrote in my diary back then, "A beautiful foreign lady came to our yoga class today!! I hope she could join us." Gladly, she joined our class, however, she couldn’t understand our teacher’s instruction well at the beginning, so I sometimes explained to her in English what to do next.

As we became friends soon, I found out that she is not only beautiful but also very kind and diligent, furthermore she has passion for Iyengar yoga as much as I have. During our classes she always puts her yoga mat right next to me so I can be her partner. I clearly remember whenever we encouraged each other towards self improvement.

 When she's about to leave Japan, I made an effort to personally handcrafted a card that I gave her.　On a card I painted pansys and included a short poem which says ” The flowers never forget warm sunshine even if cold wind blows”. As pansy keeps blooming lovely from the late autumn to the late spring while enduring cold wind and snow, I thought this flower fits her. I believe that she would continue practicing Iyengar yoga even in the foreign country like how this flower stands different situations in life.

I've experienced the parting from close yoga friends sometimes. Since parting is always sad, I used to suffer from the pain caused by separation. However, I came to understand the connection through yoga gradually. I believe that we could practice yoga together someday as long as we continue it.

Now I feel bonded with her through yoga. We are separated for a while, but we are always  connected as long as we practice yoga. I look forward to practicing yoga with her again and I hope her new life is happy.

Yoga gave me nice encounters and connections. Now I can feel my yoga friends close even though we are far apart because I believe yoga can be a bridge for our connection.

“Crocheting Sometimes Symbolizes a Human Life.”

I've just finished crocheting the doily with pineapple pattern.

I had to use thin yarn and a hook to crochet it, moreover the pineapple pattern was a little complicated.

Usually, I make mistakes when I crochet with simple patterns because since I feel I already memorized the patterns, so it makes me careless as I crochet it quickly. As a result, I have to untie the crocheted cloth and then endure a long time to do the same over again.

When I crocheted the doily with a pineapple pattern, I tried to be careful, so I checked the pattern many times because I know it is very complicated. Therefore, I rarely made a mistake in spite of the complicated pineapple pattern.

I didn't crochet a pineapple pattern as quickly as I did a simple pattern but I finished crocheting the doily with a pineapple one sooner than latter. There is an old saying, "More haste, less speed."

Our crochet teacher often told us that we shouldn't hasten in crocheting and reexamine our work as well as our life. I remember her words whenever I make careless mistakes, especially when I have to untie a lot. I think crocheting sometimes symbolizes a human life.

“Sirsasana For the First Time in My Life.”

This is the picture which was taken when I did Sirsasana（ head stand ）last Thursday.

Yes, it is for the first time in my life that I did　Sirsasana by myself.

It was very hard for me to continue practicing it because I failed to do that pose so many times and I spent one year and two months to triumph it.

As I was glad when I started to practice the Sirsasana, I tried my best to be able to accomplish it. However, I continued to fail to do it even though I practiced hard not only in the lesson but also in my house.

I lost my passion to do it gradually and then I hesitated to practice. Therefore, I felt the stress that I had to achieve it and be nerves whenever I worked on the pose.

To be honest, I lost my enthusiasm, so I slacked off and lost confidence. I changed my way of thinking while preparing props for Sirsasana, it made me relaxed by thinking that if I could not do it, my teacher would help me.

And then I tried, and I did it !!

I couldn’t understand the situation at first and when I had recognized what had happen, I felt very happy.

Now, I think I was too serious to do Sirsasana. Since strong stress made my muscles hard or strain, I think I would not be able to achieve it. Maybe negative thinking influenced my body. I realized body and mind connected deeply through this experience.

I am very happy that I could do the head stand, moreover I noticed when my mind was relaxed, I could achieve the pose I couldn’t do with feeling pressure. I’d like to practice yoga so that I won’t forget my experience.

“Birthday Present God Gave Me”

My mother used to cook traditional red rice (SEKIHAN) for my family members’ birthdays. It was made by steaming sticky rice and boiled red beans which turn the rice red. This is a special celebratory dish for happy occasions. In addition, on birthdays, she cooks special dishes which the birthday celebrant likes. For example, fried chicken, Japanese style omelette, potato salad and so on. They weren't so expensive to prepare but they were still very delicious. My mother didn’t give me presents except for her special birthday dishes but I was very happy.

My mother passed away 7 years ago. I didn’t celebrate my birthday because I thought I was too old to celebrate it like what we did before with my mother. Also my father nor younger brother is interested in any kind of celebration.

Also, my father isn’t interested in any kind of celebration. My younger brother isn’t, either.

This year, however, I was given a special birthday present. It’s a long story. Last summer, I found an interesting English article about yoga on the internet. I translated it into Japanese and then I posted it online. An editor of one yoga association newsletter found my translation and then selected it as an article for their newsletter.

Before the article was published, my yoga teacher helped me to improve my translation. He became strict about the way I converted the article to Japanese as he found it very literal and difficult to understand. However, the English expression is very different from the Japanese one. I couldn’t translate it effectively. I lacked confidence to translate it to Japanese words according to how I understand it.

It was very difficult to precisely translate the article without understanding the writer’s opinion clearly. I realized I should recognize the purpose of the article clearly at first. And then, I must translate it not literally, so that readers can realize the writer’s thought and emotions. I translated it again after I realized the important points of the translation. It was improved greatly. I was very happy because my translation became more understandable than before and I learned a lot.

I consider this learning experience as a special gift in time of my birthday.　It was just an ordinary birthday but now I believe that God had given me a very special birthday present.

“ Revive Old Used Things “

I love remaking. I always feel happy when I finished making something with old things which were not used yet. The reason why I feel happy is that my handmade work revives old used things.

I had an old kimono which was given to me by my grandmother. I liked the kimono but it was too short for me to wear, so I didn’t know how to use it.

One day, I remembered one of my friends who owns a sewing café and also loves old Japanese kimono fabrics. Moreover, she is good not only at sewing but also designing things with the fabrics she loves.

I took my grandmother’s kimono with me and consulted her. She analyzed it and thought how to remake it. As she analyzed the material and created a design for it, she told me it would be best to turn my grandma's lovely kimono into a sleeveless dress. And then she explained how to prepare and make the old fabric from a kimono available for dress making and taught me how to sew.

The old fabric from the kimono that my grandmother sewed takes a lot of time to prepare than buying a new fabric from a store.

The first step involves unfastening the old kimono which my grandmother sewed. When I unfastened her kimono, I found that my grandmother used another old cloth as an inside fabric. For so many years Japanese people loved to use old used things and never waste anything. My grandmother never wasted old things, either.

Second, I had to iron the old kimono fabric. Then I washed it carefully. Finally, I had to iron it again. It took many steps to prepare a kimono fabric. It takes a long time to prepare a kimono fabric before sewing it.

Japanese people loved such handworks before World War 2 but during the time when Japanese economy was booming, people are accustomed to the throwaway principle which is influenced by mass production-mass consumption.

Even though I had to pass many steps before sewing it, I enjoyed going through the steps of preparing the kimono fabric. I remembered my grandmother while unfastening her kimono and appreciated how she took care and made an effort to make use of an old but valuable item. I respect her again.

Thanks to my friend, I could make a nice sleeveless dress with my grandmother’s kimono. It looks very nice. Recently Japanese people began to reconsider the throwaway principle. I hope that people would learn the pleasure we can get from reviving old things.

 

“ The Long Way “ -My History of Written Works-

When I was a little girl, I loved listening to my grandmother’s old stories. Her stories excited my imagination. After I began to learn how to write letters and characters, I also came to love writing. Writing in my small notebook, the stories that I imagined, was my favorite hobby. I have loved writing since then.

However I didn’t like to write compositions in my Japanese class very much, because I was given themes and had to finish writing it on the time specified. I wanted to write compositions freely according to my imagination. My compositions I wrote in my Japanese classes weren’t nice, but ones I wrote at my home and in the composition club, won a price in school competitions. My works was included on the book that shows a collection of essays and articles written by elementally school students, and which was distributed to schools in Kyoto city. One of my compositions was broadcasted by the local radio station, once when I was in the sixth grade.

As I reached puberty, when I was a junior high school student, suddenly I stopped writing compositions and began to keep a diary. I loved writing my feelings on my diary. I dreamed to be a novelist secretly at that time, even though I had never showed my written works. When I majored in American literature in my university, I was ambitious to be a famous and popular novelist.

It was on a social networking site (SNS) that I began to write my opinions and feelings. Since then, I got many SNS friends, they read my writing works and gave me their comments. I loved using SNS and I wrote many essays and some short novels. I just enjoyed writing and collecting comments about it.

Recently I had an opportunity to think why I write essays. I realized that writing essays makes my mind clear, moreover it allows me to reflect on myself. I love writing as much as when I was a little girl. Now I enjoy writing freely according to my imagination. I think writing enriches my life.

“ Knowing the Difference “ - Oden and Sinigang -

Getting to know different culture is very interesting. It is especially fascinating for me to learn differences in food culture.

Now I study English with the help of Filipino teachers in an online school and I often enjoy talking about food in Japan and Philippines. But I don’t know much about Filipino cooking and they don’t know much about Japanese one either.

I often tried to introduce Japanese delicious food to my teachers but it is very hard for me to do that in English. A typical example was “Oden”. It is a dish consisting of radish, potato, konnyaku, chikuwa, hard-boiled eggs, fried tofu and other boiled meat. They are stewed with Japanese soup stock, soy sauce and sweet cooking rice wine (mirin). It is a very popular and well known cuisine in Japan and people are looking for it especially during cold season. However the ingredients was very difficult for me to explain in English, especially, “ konnyaku”. “Konnyaku is one of my favorite ingredients, so I wanted to tell my teachers how delicious it is. I tried to describe but I felt it is almost impossible for me to explain it.

I think everyone loves “Oden” and almost all Japanese know it. But it is the common thing only for Japanese. I found that "Oden" is a new and unique food for people who have a different culture, so I was a little bit surprised at that time.

I’ve experienced a similar situation when we talked about a typical Filipino food “Sinigang. “ It looked delicious and balanced. However I still couldn’t imagine its taste even though my previous teacher already explained how to cook it and what are ingredients used.

It was the first time for me to know the typical Filipino seasonings like tamarind, patis and bagoong.

I could only imagine that “Sinigang “ has sour taste because I heard tamarind, which is the main ingredient, is sour.

I felt knowing these two different foods impressed me and entice me to know more about the vast difference of food culture in both countries. Moreover I even thought of the factors that defines the back ground of dietary culture such as geography, history and climate. It enriched my understanding about Philippines as well as Japan.

“Oden” is a familiar food for me and “ Sinigang” is familiar for my teachers. I know the world is wider than before and knowing the difference of dietary culture taught me the importance of learning it. Now I think that knowing the differences enriches me.