I was born as a first child in my family, I have two younger sisters & a brother the youngest. my both parents are also the first children of seven children of their families ... so that I was the first child in the entire relatives. my both parents of course grew up in the practice of old traditions although I am sure they were modern in their own generation. ... older generations in Japan have the particular expectations to children's behavior, and the expectation is even greater on the first child. like I said, my both parents were also the first children so they did know what the expectations were, and that was simply passed on me. ... the practice was simple, the oldest child in the family has to be in certain behavior, such as to be observing, caring, watching over younger & elderly people, obedience, etc, ... simply to be "a good girl". ... I was very reserved & quiet ... I don't have many pictures of myself smiling at all when I was home ... I remember I was shocked when I realized about it looking at my sisters & brother's photo albums, theirs were so different ...
it was around 5th grade, I went to see movies with my friends, it was the first time I went to see a movie without my family, and only with my friends to a big movie theater. at that time, two movies came with one admission, and the first movie I went for on my own was Disney Classic - Alice in Wonderland. it was also the first time for me to watch a movie that was made by "foreign people" in a big theater.
... I was in aw, the colors were so vivid that showered & inked my entire being, the movement in the movie was so tender & smooth (not like the stop-motion films I had ever watched before) ... and I totally fell in love with Alice who was just allowing her curiosity to lead her way, ... she was simply expressing her feelings & her thoughts, simply reacting in a moment to a moment, from an event to an event she was in. ... it was very shocking for the always-reserved-&-behaved little girl to encounter such Alice who was totally ok to express herself as my entire life was totally different from hers (of course that was a movie but that is how I felt as a girl) ... I remember thinking "how can she be so 'girl & selfish'..." ... I admired her, I wanted to become like her. ... something in me was waking up.
this is a very personal writing in a way, I have held this whether or not to write for quite a while as I would have to share some story from my past which I felt disrespectful toward my father, but now I decided to write this as to share my observation in my life. (and I also am planning to write later more from the experience with my father & all that I now am grateful of)
my father was very violent, I grew up in such an unhealthy abusive environment. I was quiet but I also had developed the strength inside me that I had become so protective of my mother, my sisters & brother when the violent communication went toward them. I took in the violent communication when it came toward me directly, but I had become to repel when the violence came toward my family ...
probably due to the environment, I did not want to go straight back home after school, I chose to take a longer way to go home, mostly by walking around town looking at grasses at the edge of a street or trees in people's properties, etc ... maybe from there, I had developed some kind of communication with nature, but unaware. it was when I was walking toward a train station from high school I had gone to. I was with a group of my friends but still looking down the street and the weeds on the side of the street. just looking at them had comforted me, there was a communication but most likely exchange of our energies. but that day, I heard the clear loud message in me "being a good girl is not the only way to enjoy life" ... I remember, from the moment, I stopped looking down at grasses & weeds, but put my face up to look around what's going on in the world (as a big world as a high school girl could perceive) and to learn what I was and who I was ...
while I began to search, express & practice myself, I always felt awkward ... of course the reserved-me was never me either ... there must have been hormones being produced more for the growth, too, that just nothing felt right. my father had become much calmer but still hadn't learned how to control his temper that our home was still so intense. ... one day, my father got furious about a little mistake my sisters had made on his business greeting cards, they were simply helping my father. as I had become so protective of my family, I just barged in to the chaos to defend my sisters. my father of course became more furious and became physically violent toward me. ... we were in a fight and before I knew, I punched him on his face with my fist, and I don't remember how the fight ended that day, it was just a big chaos inside the house. ... soon, and after I finished my high school, I left my home ...
as I left my family, I started living with my boyfriend. I was still naive, only the world I knew was the world at home where I always dealt with the battle and the intense & unhealthy energy. my boyfriend was totally opposite from my father, very gentle and never picked a fight, and allowed me to be what ever I was, ... yes, I was reaching the Alice ! ... but still I was not happy.
through the moment of searching myself, I encountered two books that really had led me to widen my view. the first one was written by a Jewish writer who was born or grew up in Japan, it was the comparison between Jewish people & Japanese people. Japan is a quite small country packed with so many people, stuff & culture and surrounded by the ocean (& a sea) ... pretty much isolated. Japanese people are pretty much princes & princesses in a small well. ... the book had led me to take my mind out of the well (unaware collective consciousness or mentality) and gave me a hint how to see myself (and my country) objectively from a different point of views. ... I began to see bigger picture of the world I was observing & dealing with ... and I had becoming disliking my country & Japanese people more & more ...
and the second book was The Catcher in The Rye. I pretty much resonated with the Holden boy's cynical view of the society, and the most was his feeling toward children, to protect children from falling off the edge of the cliff. that book still has the impact in my heart among so many books I have read after the book in my life, and that is the book I still would pick if there were the question which book could represent me the most. ... my real given name is ikuko, which means a child who grow, take care of & nurse ... while I was (re)reading the book (many times) the meaning of my name had begun to evoke ... and the frustration had grown greater & greater toward anything around me ... "something is just not right!" ... I could have heard the screams in me ...
I was still so in love with my boyfriend, and it was the comfort that I began to reject, ... I wanted more, ... I needed more in order to reach the Alice I wanted to be, and for that, there were much much more to experience. ... I lived with him for 12 years, and abruptly decided to live in a foreign country, the united states of America ... in order to end the relationship. (otherwise, I couldn't have left the relationship, I was just so in love with him.)
living in a country that is really differ in so many angles from the country I grew up with, the language, the expressions, the sizes of everything, and the diversity in people. I was a very naive frightened girl that I was not even able to go to a post office by myself alone in Japan, I needed my friend to come with me just because "too many people" to deal with. as I grew up in such an intense home, I had developed to sense energy, being in a crowd was just too much. ... such me just jumped into the unknown world. ... there were so much to learn in order to adjust & adapt to get familiar with this foreign country. people treated me like a baby while I didn't speak their language, but growing in a small country in Japan, I was seeing that in me that I would never have understood how it would be like to be a foreigner, ... and the word "foreigner" was such a big deal in Japan where filled with one people ... but as I came to this huge country with so many diversity in citizen and visitors, the word "foreigner" in me began to dissolve and seeing a person as one individual unique human being on this planet.
through the journey in the totally different culture, trying to become "me" and try to express "me" while my language was not quite enough, something in me had suppressed. ... while I was trying to expand in the world I see, I was losing the essence of how I truly am. ... it was still the same difference that I was expressing myself to my father's world to gain "my position - me", I was doing the same toward the country that new to me, to find "me" there. ... I had been digging & digging & digging into the hole to become me in the society ... but I collapsed and had ended up in the residential program for mental disorders ...
being a residence of the residential program, the hole I was to dig was shifting ... I was seeing the people who were out of the hole, so to speak, not accepted by or don't accept any holes but soaked in the medications and to maintain in one condition, tame oneself. digging into a hole seemed so dangerous for those patients and especially for the counselors & the medical doctors ... having the will & the desire to do anything was just such a dangerous idea for those who diagnosed as mental disorders ...
as I was discharged the program, it was much more painful than it had ever been for me to be a part of the society we live in. seeing & being aware of more & more phony ways (the Holden boy would say) our society operates, ... I was no longer being able to pursue any deeper in the hole of the world we live in, there was no way for me to be able to reach the Alice in this society, ... we all need to be tamed by the spell if this society is the comfort zone ...
I struggled and feeling lost & confused and all, but I finally realized that I had been digging the wrong places, ... the hole was right inside me, ... once I found the hole in me, the struggles & the difficulties in my life have transformed into challenges that I can enjoy, the challenge that I am willing to receive, and where I can polish the Alice in me brighter & brighter, yet it doesn't seem there is the end, the joy of the digging into the unknown is the infinity ...
... will I be reaching Alice ? ... where will I be reaching ? ... I don't know, and I don't care to know, ... just because the each moment of following deeper into this hole, digging in oneself, is indeed simply fun ... and, nurturing indeed ... and I might have already been the Alice ... and beyond :)
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