{"id":3098,"date":"2014-05-20T17:43:15","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T00:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/?p=3098"},"modified":"2014-05-24T22:49:29","modified_gmt":"2014-05-25T05:49:29","slug":"3098","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/beautiful-people\/3098\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother’s Day – Study in Immersion – of love…"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I first came to this country, it was only supposed to be temporary, 3 years at most is what I was told. \u00a0Aside from few greetings and menu words, I did not speak a word of English. \u00a0I only spoke Japanese. My mother thought language immersion to be the best method to acquire mastery over English …and so that first summer upon arrival, I found myself at a summer camp – a camp by a beautiful lake in the mountains… sink or swim? I had no friends, I knew not a soul at this particularly outdoorsy camp. Yet, somehow I managed to have a nice time, away from home, apart from my family, sleeping on cots in the woods, \u00a0under the stars with girls I had never met before – and yes, all speaking a foreign language called … English. \u00a0I still remember the beautiful camp counselors whom I looked up to with great awe as they played the guitar with grace and sang lovely folk songs I had never heard before.<\/p>\n

Today, my mother’s method may have raised few eyebrows the way she just threw me into an unfamiliar surrounding but… I owe her my thanks. \u00a0Out in the wilderness, in mother nature, unlike today – without electronic gadgets, I was left to my own devices. \u00a0My first summer camp ever in my life with no comprehension of the language spoken there \u00a0– It was definitely a language immersion at its finest (do I sound a bit cynical?).<\/p>\n

Apparently my mother’s method of language acquisition was effective. \u00a0Yes, it worked as today I am often flattered for being so bilingual & native-like for being accent-free… but I actually would not have minded retaining some Yoko Ono-esque accent to be “cool”.<\/p>\n

This month we celebrated Mother’s Day. In their honor, I share this poem – Thank you, Mom – or “Mama”, how I still call her:) \u00a0Whenever I look back, I am filled with gratitude for you made me find grace under pressure; you allowed me to suffer in order to make me resilient … and this poem with humor says it all.<\/p>\n

*** \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0*** \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0***<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a><\/p>\n

The Lanyard<\/p>\n

The other day I was ricocheting slowly<\/p>\n

off the blue walls of this room,<\/p>\n

moving as if underwater from typewriter (dates this poem doesn’t it? but timeless message) to piano, from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor, when I found myself<\/p>\n

in the L section of the dictionary where my eyes fell upon the word Lanyard.<\/p>\n

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist<\/p>\n

could send one into the past more suddenly –<\/p>\n

a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp<\/p>\n

by a deep Adirondack lake<\/p>\n

learning how to braid long thin plastic strips into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.<\/p>\n

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard or wear one, \u00a0if that’s what you did with them,<\/p>\n

but that did not keep me from crossing the strand again and again until I made a boxy<\/p>\n

red and white lanyard for my mother.<\/p>\n

She gave me my life and mild from her breasts,<\/p>\n

and I gave her a lanyard.<\/p>\n

She nursed me in many a sick room,<\/p>\n

lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,<\/p>\n

laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,<\/p>\n

and then led me out into the airy light and taught me to walk and swim,<\/p>\n

and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard. \u00a0Here are thousand of meals, she said,<\/p>\n

and here is clothing and good education. \u00a0And here is your Lanyard, I replied,<\/p>\n

which I made with a little help from a counselor.<\/p>\n

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, strong legs, bones and teeth,<\/p>\n

and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered, and here, I said,<\/p>\n

is the lanyard I made at camp. \u00a0And here, I wish to say to her now, is a smaller gift – not the worn truth that you can never repay your mother, but the rueful admission that when she took the two-tone lanyard from my hand, I was sure as a boy could be that this useless, worthless thing I wove out of boredom would be enough to make us even.<\/p>\n

– Billy Collins<\/p>\n

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When I first came to this country, it was only supposed to be temporary, 3 years at most is what I was told. \u00a0Aside from few greetings and menu words, I did not speak a word of English. \u00a0I only spoke Japanese. My mother thought language immersion to be the best method to acquire mastery […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[5,4,7,6],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3098"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3166,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098\/revisions\/3166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}