gotohealth's Blog

I clearly remember how cute you were when you were born. Because you were five weeks premature, your head was small, it wasn’t molded to come through the birth canal. Lynette had a doll bonnet and it fit!

You didn’t walk as early as Lynette, but if you consider being born so early, you did walk early too, at nine or ten months. I remember how you crawled backwards through the snow that winter outside on the parking strip on 23rd Avenue in front of our house on Capitol Hill. I often share the story of when we went to the Redmond barn for a small rodeo event, we had you on a leash, and you cleared a visible circle around around where we were sitting.

 

One issue was that you cried for an hour after you woke up, for a long time. I remember that Dad took you to the fish hatchery one morning near Seward Park so I could sleep. Then there is that morning that you created that page of stamps, making perforations through the sheet with a needle. I forget what the drawings were? Anyway, those first preschool years, you did some project every morning until Dad and I got up.

 

Once when you were 4-years-old, you got up and said, “We are so lucky we have robbers, because that makes us better.” That’s when I put you on my list of mentors along with Dad, Grandpa Tsukamaki, Dr. Suzuki and later Dr. Shaklee. 

 

In preschool at that church on 19th Avenue, you were called: “Super Girl”. When we went to Disneyland, Dad had to cradle you because you fell asleep during IT’S A SMALL WORLD. I think we have a picture where he says, “Super Girl didn’t make it!” Also, when we took the train to Spokane for the World’s Fair in 1970, you walked all the way through the cars and got to know everyone. So when we got off the train, most everyone was waving good-by to us.

 

You learned to read HOP ON POP and loved ARE YOU MY MOTHER. As soon as you could talk, you would ask every, “Where is your Mom?” And you asked everyone for a recipe. 

 

You still collect recipes - not just for food!!! 

Some have described the book as a, “Love Letter to her dad”.  Island Books on Mercer Island was filled with those anxious to get their own special copy of the book signed by the author Kelly Goto, our daughter, this week. For sure, two of the best decisions I’ve made in my life is to marry Kelly’s dad Sam and have our daughters.

 

It was fun to hear Kelly explain how she put the book together and growing up watching her dad and all his creative endeavors - window art, creative book shelves, movie scrolls, comic strips, rock sculptures, rings, art on teeth and most any kind of visual things. 

 

Sam did a weekly cartoon strip from 2012-2017 for the North American Post out of Seattle, SEATTLE TOMODACHI, featuring Shigeru Osawa, the first born Nisei in Seattle in 1891 as the protagonist. Sam and I chose to feature Shigeru because I had done an interview in 1970 of his story for the University of Washington Suzallo Library Archives when I was hired to start the Japanese Collection, collecting documentation on the Pacific Northwest Japanese Experience.  Interesting that Sam’s birth name is also Shigeru.

 

Part of the popularity of the book is that it’s full of pictures and Sam’s collection of personal growth sayings as Kelly explains, “I grew up with the sayings all over the house on stickies. I still find them in drawers and boxes all over..” You don't have to read the whole book to enjoy it.

 

Kelly was also interviewed by KING 5 TV and public radio KUOW this week.

The other night I found and watched the movie starring Julie Andrews and James Garner “ONE SPECIAL NIGHT”. Similar to others growing up and marrying in the 1940s -‘60s, they did not use the word “love” in their expressive dialogue and Sam and I didn’t either. Both because of the era, but also because of our Japanese heritage. We never heard those words in our Japanese American community out loud and I’m quite sure it was rarely used in private.

 

Sam and I also didn’t use the words raising our two daughters. We felt like the words were tossed around too carelessly and was losing it’s meaning. Times gradually changed and the grandchildren came along. I’m still not that fluid in using “I love you” frequently, but it seems more natural now. 

 

Today, I pulled out another card from the box shown in the above picture. Sam was big on sayings and aphorisms all over our house and specially in our bathroom. 

 

One time when our second daughter Kelly, was a senior in high school she was interviewed by KING 5 TV in a program called STARS OF TOMORROW. They came to our house and took pictures, but were especially intrigued to film our bathroom with all the signs. 

 

Most of the expressions and pictures still surround us as we contemplate daily!

This morning Cousin Gary sent me an email suggesting I listen to an interview with Dr. Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology at UC Berkley. There are a host of studies that measure actual changes in our brains as we practice “awe” producing activities that can overcome pain,  inflammation and problem emotions. 

Keltner says we can overcome many negative emotions by feeling “awe”. Last week I wrote that I want to learn more about love as part of my new path in life. This might be one of my lessons. Keltner also suggests “awe” is a form of love and we can deliberately fill our lower brain with awe/love.

 

I was thinking about some of the suggestions like walking in nature, thinking about big ideas, symbols, patterns, metaphors and using the right side of my brain. Obviously, I’m going to have to do some thinking and choosing of ideas that can help me develop some new daily habits.

 

Then I decided to email Cousin Gary to thank him for thinking of me. Suddenly, my computer screen cleared the email program and up popped a story I blogged in May about the burial of Sam’s ashes at Hillcrest Cemetery in Kent, WA, and the visit of the Dragon Fly on Nephew Brent’s chest during the ceremony and flew away when it was completed. The possibility is that the Dragon Fly was a visit of the Spirit of Sam, we all decided. The question now is: “Was that also the spirit of Sam visiting me today?” For sure it is a feeling of 
“AWE”!

 

Last Thursday, I had lunch with Heidi and we spent the whole time talking about Sam’s energy being around us with the book my daughter Kelly wrote about her Dad and his cartoon strips. Heidi also shared some of the love David Branch is experiencing with his new girlfriend. 

 

Friday, I text David Branch to congratulate him and he text back that mysteriously Sam’s photo showed up on his iPhone when he got my message. Sam had never used an iPhone nor opened a computer. Kelly says iCloud can produce some such connections on the internet, but today’s appearance of the burial of Sam’s ashes is “AWESOME”!!!

HEART WISDOM

 

The beating of the heart is the first signs of life in a fetus. There are more messages going from the heart to receptors (40,000) in the brain according to research at HEART MIND INSTITUTE. There are 1500 chemical actions within 2 minutes with an emotion such as anger. Five minutes of recalling anger, tanks our IgA (immuneglobulin hormone) secretion for 6 hours.

 

Yesterday, I wrote out a new LIFE PURPOSE phrase in my for my current life journey:  LEARNING LOVE & SPREADING LOVE!

 

This morning, after dropping Kaori off at the high school, getting 3000 steps on my rebounder and checking messages, I was drawn to choose a Danica Patrick podcast interviewing Kimberly Snyder. Snyder’s research with Yogananda and Heart Mind Institute is truly a synchronicity find!!

 

Snyder demonstrates a “Heart Appreciation” exercise of a two-minute-breathing - placing my hand over my heart, imagining a person or place generating gratitude and gently breathing. One could even do this at a traffic red light.

 

We can learn to recognize more quickly when we are bumping up to over-thinking, a negative thought or action. We can learn to change the energy from Dark Heart to Clear Heart within 3 to 10 seconds with practice - old age and experience helps :-)

Mr. K. Miyamoto was my grandpa from Goin, Hiroshima Ken, in Japan and clearly was a leader of the Eatonville Lumber Company Japanese workers. My Dad, Sago Miyamoto, was born in 1908 and was a nisei. Records indicate the “Jap Camp” where the workers of Japanese heritage lived separately, was created around 1910. Dad and his younger brother George graduated from Eatonville High School. After George graduated, the parents chose to return to Japan and left my Dad penniless in hopes he would follow. Dad wanted to be American.

 

Japanese immigrants who stayed in America were very entrepreneurial and found clever ways to earn extra money. My research indicates the immigrants were from established and not poor families in Japan, as it took over a year’s average salary to pay for passage to America in the early 1900s. They were clever in facing discrimination and clearly used their social skills to get to know the town leaders and sheriff in the small Washington towns wherever the first jobs and businesses were created. 

 

Typical of immigrants, they didn’t talk about their hard times. I knew little about my Dad's history. Accidentally finding the following article on page 422 of Jess McAbee’s book  RAILS TO PARADISE - The History of the Tacoma Eastern Railroad 1890 -1919, was most enlightening!

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The manufacture of illegal spirits was popular in the West even before the Volstead Act (National Prohibition Act) of 1919. Loggers and lumberman particularly liked their whiskey regardless of race, apparently, and the newspaper editor found great humor in the whole affair:

 

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Last Sunday Eatonville was accorded the supreme honor and privilege of entertaining the County Sheriff and a bevy of his ‘acquaintances.” ‘The party was the guests of Mr. K. Miyamoto a Japanese mill-worker in the employ of the Eatonville Lumber Co.  Mr. Miyamoto entertained his friends with some novel sights, notably an amber colored liquid used, as Mr. Miyamoto explained, ‘for experimental purposes.’ As the guests had taken a large amount of this liquid for the purpose of showing it to their Tacoma friends, they were entertained in a little game known as ‘Break the bottle.’ This proved very amusing and entertaining. On account of lack of County transportation the Eatonville City truck was pressed into service to carry the ‘experimental’ liquid to Tacoma. This however proved disastrous because of the peculiar actions of the truck after the cargo was safely stowed aboard. After crisscrossing the road a number of times, it finally sloughed into a ditch and turned over on its side. The escort vouchsafed the information that the truck was loaded."