WP1: 空所・Empty Spaces
In July of 2020, I pledged that I would record myself on Photo Booth once a month. If you watched the past 19 months of recordings, you would be able to observe my cheap earring purchase of the month, the various stages of a wavy perm, and an improvement in my winged eyeliner. Alongside all of these changes were mountains of homework assignments, petty conflicts with friends, and contemplations that spiraled me into midnight. These videos continue to teach me how we ruminate on problems that are likely to become insignificant as weeks turn into months or years. None of my rants persisted for more than a couple of videos; however, there is one topic I always discuss in these recordings: my journey with grief, as well as the self-discovery that has accompanied my losses.
My parents divorced when I was four years old, so if you asked me how they interacted with each other or if they fought a lot, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I grew up with my mother who raised me with genuine parental love. Although our time together during the day was limited, I felt her warmth through messages placed on the dining table in the morning, hours after she left for work. Every school day, she would craft nori into fun shapes and placed them on rice inside my bento box. As I grew older, my mother’s arrival from work was no longer simply a matter of joyousness, but also the underlying shadows of exhaustion. When I was 12 years old, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, which spread to other parts of her body. For three years, I helplessly observed my mother masking her frail, slender physique with baggy clothing, bare eyes with heavy makeup, and fatigue with a forced smile. When she passed away in January of 2018, I felt like I had lost my best friend, constantly confined in my own thoughts.
I had no choice but to move in with my father after 7 years of communicating through letters without actually meeting him. By living with my father — who grew up in a very traditional Japanese household — I was able to put into perspective just how “Americanized” I was. Growing up with my bilingual mother, our mixed “Japanglish” sentences would flow in a colorful fluency. I attended an international school, so I was surrounded by “wasians,” specifically half-Japanese half-white students. In contrast, it is estimated that less than 30% of Japanese in Japan “speak English at any level at all,” and “less than 8 percent and possibly as little as 2 percent speak English fluently,” (Margolis). This shows that I was clearly living in a small bubble, and moving in with my father made me feel like I broke out of it. It was only natural for me to use honorifics with him for the first month or so, and the gaps in knowledge about each other generated an awkward atmosphere. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I was half of him, but I didn’t know anything other than what was on his resume.
Last year, as I got into college and graduated high school, my father would express how proud he was. These were the moments where I felt like we were finally getting a bit closer. However, this sense of hope receded from my view in an instant. One night in June, I had come home from a long day to my father sprawled on his bed, stone cold. Even on the day prior, he went about his day like he usually did. Not even 24 hours later, he passed away from heart failure. As the police investigated my house later that night, Joan Didon’s words from The Year of Magical Thinking (2005) echoed through my mind: “Life changes fast. Life changes in an instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends,” (Didon 3). This was my first experience with a sudden death, and the shock was simply too much to absorb.
I can calmly recall my parents’ deaths to people I barely know as if I’m going over a well-rehearsed presentation, but tears well up in my eyes when I see a young girl picking up the prettiest leaf in Shinjuku Gyoen to show off to her mother, or indulging in a bowl of okosama udon at Jonathan’s with her father as the paper apron gets stained with broth. Through the loss of some special people in my life over the past couple of years, I have grappled with all sides to grief: the self-hatred, the illogical resentment, the frustration of relapsing on emotions, the loneliness, the gratitude, and the duty you feel to live long for your loved ones who could not. Losing someone close to you feels like you’re grieving for a piece of yourself. When the person you’ve made the most memories with also becomes a memory, life can seem meaningless.
French author Alphonse de Lamartine once said, “Sometimes, only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated,” (Lamartine). As we lug the intensity of loss, we feel the presence of empty spaces. Suddenly, the room’s silence in your house never spoke so loud. There is no one in the driver’s seat when you want to treat yourselves to a Friday night dinner, no one to pat your shoulder when it feels like life isn’t treating you so well. An empty space next to you in the future as you walk down the aisle, or in the hospital when you give birth to the new life who would’ve been their grandchild. An awkward pause during a conversation when someone asks, “what happened?” “how are you holding up?” and vacant squares on the calendar that are supposed to be reserved for them. Empty spaces are confronting. Whenever something is bothering us, it is only natural to spurn the discomfort by distracting ourselves from reality, ramming unpleasant thoughts to the margins of our minds.
My grief journey is convoluted and everlasting. Even while writing this essay, my mind fumbles to gather my emotions. Nevertheless, reflecting on my losses allows me to value my unique worldview and the bicultural identity my mother worked so hard to craft. Inspired by the three years of elementary school she spent in New York, she longed for me to be in touch with international cultures during my childhood. As the first person in my family to attend university in the United States, I have accumulated gratitude for the privilege that was given by my parents. By living with my father, I was also able to feel more connected with Japanese culture and tradition.
Reflection has also fueled my art and media pieces which have led me to the storyteller I am today. Creating films and digital art that have to do with my complex emotions not only allows me to process how I feel but also makes my loss “matter” and much more meaningful. As I am studying in Los Angeles with a degree in media arts, I am constantly wondering about how to integrate the duality of the cultures I interact with in my pieces.
Without realizing it, grief has shaped my character in powerful ways. As the Photobooth videos go on, I realize that my spur-in-the-moment fustration starts to reside, turning into reflective thoughts on loss that I verbalize with a calm demeanor. Alongside my journey with grief is my journey with anxiety, and learning how to lessen the turbulence of my internal conflicts. As I grow older, I hope to be more comfortable with silence and be more attentive to my own needs, embracing inner strength. As Pema Chödrön states in her book When Things Fall Apart (1996), “Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time — that is the basic message,” (Chödrön 43). Even today, I remind myself to ride along the unpredictable waves of emotions that come with bereavement. We must let time fill the empty spaces, let the fresh air in, and allow ourselves to simply breathe.
Works Cited
Chödrön, Pema. When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. Boston: Shambhala, 2000. Print.
Didion, Joan. The Year of Magical Thinking. New York: A.A. Knopf, 2006. Print.
Lamartine, Alphonse, and Gustave, Lanson. Meditations Poetiques. Paris: Hachette, 1922. Print.
Margolis, Eric. “Japan Doesn’t Want to Become Another Casualty of English.” Foreign Policy. N.p., 26 May 2020. Web. 12 Feb. 2022.
