Dear Readers, I hope you’ll enjoy my lyric essay. Have a safe and happy 4th of July! We close on our home in New Jersey tomorrow!
A Memory Sequence: Tokyo, 1961-1963
In navy blue jumpers and jackets, several of us waited for the school bus in the parking lot of the non-denominational chapel. The bus shuttled us to the International School of the Sacred Heart. I was turning ten in the fall of 1961, and rode with other Catholic daughters of Air Force servicemen through the end of the 1963 school term. The U.S.— occupied land was then returned to the Japanese people, and Washington Heights military dependent housing was demolished; the site of the 1964 Summer Olympics, and was restored to Yoyogi Park.
Forgetting to change from my soft-soled, indoor, dark blue school loafers to the brown loafers I was to wear on the school bus, I left the brown ones in my cloakroom cubby, and wore the dark blue loafers home. I should have carried them home, wearing the brown ones, but it slipped my mind with the excitement of the final day of classes. My mother was angry that I'd left the brown shoes behind. She might have been annoyed that she hadn't noticed, and only a few days later realized I'd come home wearing the dark blue ones. Or, maybe because she was anxious that day, with my dad overseas, and she ordered, “Go get them!” On that June morning, she must have thought I’d be safe walking alone in downtown Tokyo, a ten year-old girl who spoke only English. “Go get them!” she insisted. And I went.
Kathy and I hit it off when we met at the school bus stop, and she invited me to her house in a quadruplex court, like ours, across the street. She was a year ahead of me in sixth and seventh grades in Sacred Heart. She was lady-like, big-sisterly, with a sense of humor, and she introduced me to dollhouse play. We collected furnishings and a variety of dolls, staging settings in her American-style suburban colonial cross-sectioned dollhouse upstairs in her post-war, wood-frame temporary quarters. I toted my modern, plastic appliances, red, miniature, wooden chairs, and tiny dolls of various dispositions to integrate with her collection.
An obedient daughter, I set out on my solo trek which was the result of my carelessness and Mom’s impulsivity. I had on light cotton shorts and shirt, and blue Keds. I didn't wear my wristwatch. Was my military dependent I.D. card in my pocket? Did I know the way? Without a hug, but with equal parts confidence and misgivings, I walked away from my adoptive mother. I wouldn't know until many years later, that I had been abandoned by my natural mother at birth. Fears which I came with and cultivated, like being alone, I've kept with me for safekeeping.
“Are you wearing your watch?” my mother often asked, as I was leaving for Kathy's house. “Be home by five.” That gave me an hour to play. Friends rarely came to our house. Mom didn’t encourage visitors wherever we lived, and sleepovers were out of the question. They needed to be protective of me and my sister, but she was much easier, they said, since she was little.
At the main gate, I waved to the Japanese guard. I passed the Meiji Shrine entrance and gateway tori that rose into the trees. I passed the bustling Harajuku train station; past business men in suits, young and old, kimono-clad, and western-attired shoppers, even Japanese students in uniforms, since their classes were not over. I passed storefronts, the department store in the gleaming business district, and I crossed the wide Shibuya intersection with the crowd. I turned right under the tori gate to the Sacred Heart campus. Entering from the narrow, busy Hiroo street, the empty driveway and play yards were strangely still. I hurried past the stone lantern and wood framed tea house and on to the white, multi-level school building. I bounded up the wide, marble steps, my pigtails flopping at my back. A few familiar nuns floated in the corridor, greeting me with nods. In the quiet cloakroom, I was relieved to see my brown shoes had waited, and I pulled them from my cubby. A quick stop for the restroom, and I hurried back down the steps to the drive, a bend right toward the tori, and I faced left. The day was getting hot, and now, a little tired, I tried to keep up my pace, but something changed. I must have wandered, disappearing into myself.
I suspect Kathy's parents weren't as rigid as mine. They knew my toddler sister and I were adopted. Kathy knew I dreaded going home, and that I began to reverse the minutes at a quarter to five. I wanted to cheat the time, to help myself to just a few more moments, absorbed in the peaceful pleasures of imagination and friendship, to delay the inevitable. It might have been a problematic report card that meant punishment was forthcoming. When Dad came home from the office that evening he wouldn't let me eat with the family but made my mother bring bread and water to my room. An array of restrictions and denials included no communication with him until he released me to speak. His tiresome insistence on proper table etiquette, his concern for appearances, the placement of utensils, where the knife lay, how the bread was to be cut before eating a slice, his strained, disciplined approach to duty as a military man who was an adoptive parent — life was often stressful when he was home.
Kathy, I was relieved to see you both that sun-seared late June afternoon in front of the Oriental Bazaar. When your mother saw I was hugging brown shoes, she asked with a frown, “Who is with you? Why are you alone?” I realized it seemed an odd situation, and I blurted, “ My mother made me go get my shoes!” I gave into tiredness, self pity, and the confusion of how I got there. My loafers were heavy and hot in my arms. I don't remember speaking to anyone but you. Your mother dispensed a small bottle of Pepsi from the machine at the entrance to the shop, opened it, and handed it to me. “Here, take a drink.” It was the coldest I'd ever tasted. “Come home with us — here’s the car.” I was happy to clamber into the back seat of your Olds.
On Saturdays, Dad sometimes enjoyed shopping in the Base Exchange, or would take us to Harajuku in Shibuya, the shopping district outside the gates, into the crowded streets and alleys. Traditional and popular Japanese music wafted from the shops and transistors, voices in the language my family couldn’t comprehend, except for a handful of words and phrases; the advertising art with kanji characters I never learned to read. In the Oriental Bazaar, a souvenir palace with an unfortunate name, and accessible Far Eastern culture as well as kitsch, my family Iingered at the displays, and shelves heavy with dolls, toys, ceramics, clothing, and furniture. Mom chose a graceful geisha doll in a kimono, poised in a wood-framed glass case, a floral fan in her hand, picked out an earthenware incense burner, and a Satsuma multi-floral trinket box, and lazy-Susan set of the same pattern. With my spending money, I bought a few tiny glass animals, and Dad could be persuaded to contribute a few extra yen for wooden-painted peg kokeshi dolls, a lucky red Daruma doll, a Hakata doll in folk dress, or twin Ichimatsu Gofu, jointed baby dolls made of eggshell-like plaster. At the counter, I chose a few hard fruit candies wrapped in dissolving rice paper. Outside, were the mingling fragrances of street food: soba noodles, fried dumplings, skewered chicken Yakitori, and savory grilled rice crackers, which we sampled on the way to our Buick Special.
Fueled by Pepsi and my adventure, and relieved to be safe at home, I called to my mom, “I have them! Kathy's mom drove me home from the shop!” My mother didn't ask for the details of my journey. I wonder if she told my dad about it when he returned from his.
In Ueno Park -- two adopted sisters in home sewn dresses
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Thank you for being here - until next time!