Shifting Winds
It’s been a whirlwind few weeks since I came back from Japan. After a week or so to rest and recharge from my grueling few weeks going through my mom’s apartment and saying good bye to her, I dove right in to launch a couple of projects. One was the “super green home” that I put on the market and sold, which I’ve been talking about a lot. It’s such a validation for what I’ve been working on despite little precedents that green homes are more valuable and desirable. Phew, I’m so grateful for all the resources available for me to market this property. The result was better than I expected.
The other project I needed to be back for was the solo retrospective photography show, which I kept forgetting to mention much because I was so focused on my real estate project. This is a part of Diversity Exhibit by Caruso, the well established commercial developer, at The Americana in Glendale. I am so honored to represent the Asian American artists to display my fine art photography works, which I titled, “Refuge in the Natural World.” It is a collection of photos I created over the last two decades, more than half of which were with my iPhone and the rest were shot either with my DSLR or a 35 mm film camera (what?). It only feels right to have the opening pieces to be two images of the mountains in Japan in early spring, which I shot 20 years ago on film after I went to sprinkle my father’s ashes where he loved to hike. This is to honor my father who was a passionate photographer and taught me how to use his Nikon F and shared the love for the mountains and nature.
Then yesterday I received an email from the local newspaper reporter I met in Yokohama before I came back to California letting me know all the manuscripts and printed articles by my grandfather and some by my father that I found in mom’s apartment were found to have historical and cultural values and would be archived at their library. What a blessing! I knew I couldn’t toss them in the trash, but I didn’t know if they were just too personal and not valuable for the general public. It makes me happy that my family stories and my family members’ contributions to the world within the historical and cultural context would now be preserved to a degree especially when I feel like my family is totally disintegrating with my mom’s emminent transition. I have no expectation that I will have a reliable relationship with my brother without mom in between us because the truth is we will have little reason to talk to each other then.
While I seem to be experiencing a flow of joy, excitement and visibility in the last few weeks, there are obviously some shadows hanging over me as mom remains in the hospital. Just like Buddha taught about shifting winds — Eight Worldly Winds, which are pleasure and pain; gain and loss; fame and disrepute; praise and blame, I’m only noticing the randomly shifting winds all the time and choosing to go with the flow without trying to read into the unknown future one day at a time.