My Year of Dirt and Water by Tracy Franz

Author:Tracy Franz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press

Friday, August 13

I walk toward the center of downtown Anchorage with Yoko-san and Satsuki-chan, my accidental guests in this place where I am now more tourist than local. A prescribed burn in the Interior lends a smoky haze to the sky, obliterating the mountains. And it’s much warmer than usual—in the upper seventies.

“It’s cold, ne,” says Yoko-san.

“Yes. Cold,” says Satsuki-chan. I think of my mother, who has left windows open and turned on multiple fans to cool the air in her condo.

“Do you want to borrow my sweater?” I offer.

“No thank you,” says Satsuki-chan.

“Ohhhh, good English conversation, ne,” says Yoko-san, as Satsuki-chan smiles and blushes. “You can practice in the store, too.”

For Day Two of their journey, the aim is to locate suitable obligatory omiyage—for each of Satsuki-chan’s classmates and teachers as well as for Yoko-san’s various family, friends, and associates. Given Yoko-san’s careful attention to proper etiquette, I suspect we’ll be at it for a good part of the morning, if not the whole day. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what here will appeal.

“There,” says Yoko-san, gesturing wildly. “And there.” I see nothing of particular note at first glance—shops, yes, but why the excitement? And then I see it: all of the windows display multiple little signs written with Japanese characters.

“When I walked here yesterday, I didn’t notice those signs at all.”

“Now you are seeing with your Japanese eyes,” says Yoko-san.

Later, when we enter my mother’s aging condo building to take in the gorgeous afternoon view of the ocean, I cringe when I see how Yoko-san’s gaze moves over the small living room, the cramped kitchen, the dining nook, the many paintings and sketches in mid-process. She pities my mother. I know she sees divorce, a woman who has been “forced” to have a career. But somehow she stops short of commenting directly, and I am relieved. These things will be talked about later, among the pottery ladies perhaps, and they will feel sorry for my mother, and for me, for all the wrong reasons.

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