On my brother’s last visit, he bought a new iPad for my father. It sat unused until I showed up six months later in Taichung. Some ten years earlier, I had done the opposite. I first diagnosed that my father needed a new computer. My brother then paid for a replacement PC.
There are moments in your life that you will never forget.
Ask anyone what they were doing on September 11, 2001. Wherever they were, they remember. It is as if time froze the minute they learned about what has now become known as Nine Eleven.
The day the earth stood still.
I came across an old e-mail from my dad in October 2003, referring to a series of blogs I posted about our family reunion the previous month.
“Your updated Sept journals,” he wrote, “describe our reunion after 17 yrs quite vividly. Though they are not sentimental, they are so warm and full of feelings. I hope your sister and brother will read them.”
As we approach the third supermoon this year, I am reminded of how I witnessed the two previous ones in July and August.
One of my many goals is to become a better writer. To do so requires reading good writing, reading about how to write, being in contact with good writers, practising the craft of writing to get better at it, and taking writing workshops.
Like any task, it’s not always easy or natural to get started. You have to get started to get going. There’s a certain momentum you need to keep going. After you’ve written your first draft, you need to rewrite and get feedback.
I remember the day my father came home from his office in Yomitan-Son, Okinawa complaining that he and his colleagues had to learn how to use a word processor. It sounded like a major obstacle. Until then he seemed happy with a typewriter.
Little did we know that the word processor marked the beginning of a revolution in communication. The personal computer, Internet, and e-mail not only enabled him to correspond with his kids, who at one time lived on three different continents, but also left an audit trail, or rather, a rich anthology of correspondence.
Last photo of Dad and me, Taichung, Taiwan, March 2014
A full moon makes me think of and long for reunions. Why? Because the moon when full, symbolizes a complete circle — a reunion.