Celebrating Kazuo Ishiguro on his birthday

As a writer, I’m more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.
– Kazuo Ishiguro, Japanese-born British novelist, born November 8, 1954

When Kazuo Ishiguro came to San Francisco’s A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Books in April 2005 – the Opera Plaza bookstore, one of my favorites, closed the following year – I made the pilgrimage across the Bay. I packed his five novels, including my first edition copy of The Remains of the Day purchased from Berkeley’s Black Oak Books – another favorite indie bookstore, which closed its Shattuck storefront in 2009, though reopened later on San Pablo Ave. That spring he had just come out with his latest book, Never Let Me Go.

Black is a literary color, with some red pop.

Black is a literary color, with some red pop.

I tried reading Never Let Me Go soon after his visit. I couldn’t get into it, much to my dismay. When the movie of the same name came out in 2010, I vowed I wouldn’t see it until I read the novel. I’ve tried picking it up a few times more, but I’ve still not seen the movie. I know it will be a matter of time when I’m in the right frame of mind to receive it. When I first started reading The Remains of the Day, recommended by my co-workers at the time, I had the same trouble losing myself in the world of the characters. To quote Ishiguro from a Paris Review interview published in the Spring 2008, No. 184 issue: “I’ve never felt that I have a particular facility at writing interesting prose. I write quite mundane prose.” True, I wasn’t pulled into his characters because of his prose. But I kept going on the journey – each novel is a journey. It wasn’t until I had read the last page and put the book down that I took in everything about the novel, what had transpired, what Mr. Stevens discovered about his life. And I told myself, his story was unassuming as you go along, but in its totality, the novel took my breath away. The feeling is not unlike stopping finally and looking back at one’s life and coming to an epiphany about all those years. The revelation can blow you away.

Lava 9 earrings (Berkeley, CA), BCBG MazAzria statement ring, and Sundance stack of rings.

Lava 9 earrings (Berkeley, CA), BCBG MaxAzria statement ring, and Sundance stack of rings.

My favorite novel of his is When We Were Orphans. It came out in January 2000. I can’t remember if I read it before or after my son, Jacob, was born. At any rate, at the time I was overwhelmed with the thought of parenthood. So the nut of the novel (“Christopher Banks’s parents disappear when he is a child, and he grows up believing that he can find them and turn back the clock – that they’ll carry on where they left off, and he’ll pick up a kind of happy childhood again,” from Ishiguro’s own words in his interview in the Paris Review) resonated with me. What I appreciate about Ishiguro is reflected in the quote that opens this blog post. How we remember things can be quite different than what actually happened, and that is not only more interesting, it makes for more interesting people, characters. In fact, what we think happened is more important than what actually happened. “Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory,” Ishiguro once said.

Dolce Vita bootie with silver accents against a bold Eva Franco puffy skirt.

Dolce Vita bootie with silver accents against a bold Eva Franco puffy skirt.

Given the fact that his first three novels were set in specific locations and historical time periods, I was surprised to hear him talk at the San Francisco book reading about the constraints of specificity, of not wanting to do that with Never Let Me Go. He was going for universality, stripping away the distractions of time and location. I was somewhat taken aback because at the time I was near completing one version of my novel, which was a historical novel – specific time and place.

In an interview in the Atlantic Online in October 2000, he said: “It’s all very well to say that wars or revolutions are bigger, that a love story somehow becomes more profound if it’s set against the backdrop of the Cuban revolution or the Russian revolution, but that’s not always true. There is a difference between being big and being deep. To achieve depth in art and in fiction you have to look at small things, things that aren’t always obviously important in a history-book sense. I think that’s often what we go to novels for – that depth.”

To balance out a puffy bold skirt, wear one color on both ends with a form-fitting blouse and opaque tights.

To balance out a puffy bold skirt, wear one color on both ends with a form-fitting blouse and opaque tights.

While I appreciate what Ishiguro is saying here, the two need not be mutually exclusive. You can, and always should, look at small things. They need not get lost in wars or revolutions. At the same time, you don’t set a love story in a revolution in order to make it more profound. It’s that the love story cannot be told any other way. The revolution is integral to the love story and vice versa.

Talking about Ishiguro, remembering his novels, and reading his interviews make me want to reread his novels. I’m not sure I’d want to have tea with him – a bit intimidating – but I will raise a glass today in honor of his birthday!

Welcome November: ‘in everything, give thanks’

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
– Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-American artist, poet, and writer, from The Prophet

When we moved back into our remodeled house in the spring of 2007, I saw a board in a catalog that simply said: “In everything, give thanks.” It ended up gracing our family room wall. Every now and then, I look up to it and I am reminded that we need not remember to give thanks just at Thanksgiving. It’s a daily ritual if we can find that quiet moment for reflection. I was supposed to take this past week off to work on my novel, but too many scheduled meetings and revised deadlines prevented me from asking for the week off. While I was discouraged, I told myself to keep plugging away when I could and everything would be fine. Last week ended with the beginning of a new month, the beginning of November. The end of the week also brought little and big joys, which afforded me moments of gratitude.

Combining leather and vegan leather in a boxy top and sweat pant style.

Combining leather and vegan leather in a boxy top and track pants.

Revision accepted
The revision that I had to do, the one that I fretted over because I didn’t think I could fit in everything the client wanted? I made an executive decision to include three concepts and no more. Though I had approached this re-do with mental roadblocks and a writer’s block, once I made that decision, it was easy to write. A burden was lifted. I sent it in, and the client liked it. Gone girl. The project and the stress, that is!

Ready for the Jenny K fundraiser with these accessories: Sundance rings, Lava 9 drop earrings (Berkeley, CA), and Carmela Rose reclaimed vintage sterling silver necklace (Jenny K, El Cerrito, CA).

Ready for the Jenny K fundraiser with these accessories: Sundance rings, Lava 9 drop earrings (Berkeley, CA), and Carmela Rose reclaimed vintage sterling silver necklace (Jenny K, El Cerrito, CA).

Jenny K fundraiser
This past Saturday was the last day of a week-long fundraiser for my son’s middle school. This is a fundraiser that I started last year with Jen Komaromi, local woman entrepreneur of Jenny K, (6921 Stockton Avenue, El  Cerrito, CA 94530, 510.528.5350). It culminated with a two-hour wine and cheese event. Our new PTSA vice president provided all the beverages and food, and our energetic and cheerful fundraising chair brought her group of friends to shop. I thank Jen for her generosity in donating proceeds of the sales to our middle school. She has always supported the local schools and the community. And I thank my PTSA colleagues and all the shoppers who came out to support Portola and Jenny K (support your local businesses!). It warmed my heart to be a part of this annual fundraiser.

A Ryan Du Val mural above the storefronts graces Jenny K gift store and Well Grounded Tea & Coffee Bar.

Jenny K gift shop on the far left hosted the second November Portola Middle School fundraiser. Thanks, Jen!

 

Lunafest planning going well
As part of the Lunafest East Bay Organizing Committee, I am in charge of a new part of the format – coffee and dessert after the screening of the nine short films, by, for and about women. By the end of last week, I had secured two wonderful women entrepreneurs who will be serving their fabulous baked creations. More on this later. But suffice to say, Lunafest on March 8th, at 7:30pm at the El Cerrito High School Performing Arts Theater (540 Ashbury Avenue, El Cerrito, CA 94530, 510.231.1437) is going to be a wonderful evening of engaging, creative short films by women directors (in fact, one of the directors will be at this event) and fundraising for the Breast Cancer Fund and other local groups. Mark your calendars and bring your friends. This is a terrific community event.

Grab a vintage floral handbag (Secondi, Washington, DC), and I'm all set.

Grab a vintage floral handbag (Secondi, Washington, DC), and I’m all set.

Finis: novel completed
This past Sunday I completed the last major revision of my novel, A Village in the Fields. I started the novel in May 1997. I wrote numerous revisions, removed a major character, cut down from a high of a thousand pages to its current 461 pages. Much has happened in my life since its beginnings – marriage, work, two children, work, home remodel, work, public education volunteerism and advocacy, work, losing my mother, work – with some false starts on thinking it was done when in fact it was not. I’m that much closer now. The last leg of this journey is reading it straight through, from page 1 to page 461, to check the flow, the language, and to fix a few more things. I have never met any of my big self-imposed deadlines (I was supposed to have finished the novel each of the last three years), but I’m hoping to finish the entire manuscript by Thanksgiving. Finishing the last chapter on Sunday afternoon – after waking up to an epiphany about it Saturday morning – was deeply gratifying. And I am ever so grateful to have stuck with it, to have had close friends lend their critical eye and cheer me on, to have been humbled by the rejections back in 2006 and to have found the confidence and perseverance to get up and keep going, and to know what was wrong with it and to fix it. Once I’m completely done with this journey, it begins anew with another journey. And I am more than ready for that next journey, bursting with joy and gratitude.

Outfit close-up with a strappy pointy pump with metal accents.

Outfit close-up with a strappy pointy pump with metal accents.

Sofia DeMay: Giving back to kids in Haiti and on a global level

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
– Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-American artist, poet, and writer

Selling Girl Scout cookies, at age 11.

Selling Girl Scout cookies, at age 11.

Throughout her young life, Sofia DeMay, 17, has always been involved in community service. Guided by her desire to give back to the community, through her years as a Girl Scout, Sofia has packed and delivered groceries for the elderly, cooked for the Harrison House at Children’s Hospital in Oakland, and gone Christmas caroling, among other activities. I’ve known Sofia since David and I became good friends with her parents, Raissa and Mike, about five years ago. Sofia babysat our kids when they were younger, and I’ve watched her grow up to be an articulate, conscientious, intelligent, and beautiful person inside and out. When Raissa told me about her impending trip to Haiti back in February, I knew I wanted to hear about her experiences when she got back.

Opening hearts, opening doors
As a senior this past year at St. Mary’s College High School in Berkeley, Sofia was drawn to a program affiliated with her school and founded by parent alumna Margaret Trost. In January 2000, Trost went to Haiti on a service trip, volunteering at an orphanage and hospice founded by Mother Teresa. She met Father Gerard Jean-Juste, a Haitian priest who wanted to establish a food program to serve the children of Port-au-Prince. Inspired, Trost returned to the U.S. and began raising money for his cause. As the fundraising took off, she founded the What If Foundation (616 The Alameda, Berkeley, CA 94707, 510.528.1100), which helps support Father Jean-Juste’s food, after-school, and summer education programs. As one of St. Mary’s students who helped put together care packages for Haitian kids under the What If Foundation, Sofia was curious about Haiti. “I had heard about it, but I had never actually learned about it,” she said.

Sofia with a new Haitian friend.

Sofia with a new Haitian friend.

Every year, a group of St. Mary’s students raise funds to go to Haiti for a week and work in Father Jean-Juste’s programs. Sofia knew that Haiti had staged a successful slave rebellion, but her perception of the small island nation was largely informed by negative media coverage – poverty, diseases such as AIDS, political unrest, and violence. On the list of countries that the U.S. State Department has issued a travel warning, Haiti was a place Sofia never considered a destination. “I didn’t know it [visiting the country] was something you could do, but I was interested in traveling to a place like that to figure things out for myself,” she said. More importantly, she added, “I was really into building a relationship with kids in another country; that’s what really drew me to it.”

As part of their orientation on cultural awareness, Sofia and nine of her fellow classmates read numerous articles and two books – former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization and Trost’s On That Day, Everybody Ate: One Woman’s Story of Hope and Possibility in Haiti. After four months of preparation, Sofia and her classmates arrived in Haiti in early March. The philosophy and world religion teachers who chaperone the student groups were accompanied by a translator and a driver. Armed guards watched over them at the places in which they stayed.

A typical street in Haiti (photo by Sofia).

A typical street in Haiti (photo by Sofia DeMay).

Real-world education
On the second day of their trip, Sofia and her classmates met with a local historian who presented the history of her country to them, which included its one-sided relationships within the international community. Sofia was “shocked” upon learning about, for instance, the U.S. embargo and intervention in Haiti. “I realized that what everyone said about Haiti was really wrong and so skewed by the media,” she said. History, she came to see, was written by people in power. “It didn’t hit home until that moment,” she added.

Later in the week, Sofia and her classmates participated in a Q&A with a group of Haitian students and their translator, which exposed the differences between the two countries’ school systems. In the U.S., especially for seniors applying for college – which Sofia and her classmates were in the midst of at the time – students are very competitive and always trying to get head. Haitian students, however, consider education a great privilege because the majority of kids don’t have the financial means to go to school. Students interact within a “brotherhood” or “sisterhood,” helping one another to ensure success for all.

Sofia getting a Haitian drum lesson.

Sofia getting a Haitian drum lesson.

“It was such a moving moment because I would never have thought of that or would have imagined kids back home doing that,” Sofia said. “It was as if they were bound together somehow; they owed it to one another to share the little that they had.” Sofia also noted that the students understood that the enemy isn’t each other; it’s the system and the exam itself. In addition to the prohibitive expense of going to school, the university examination is so difficult that only 1 percent of the population goes on to higher education. With the current government favoring the elite and the gap widening between rich and poor, school, not surprisingly, is not encouraged for the masses.

Life-altering moments
After participating in the after-school program, Sofia and her classmates helped serve meals for the food program, which is run in a huge tent. As the children congregated, the tent filled with their laughter. When it was time to serve, however, Sofia noted that the entire atmosphere changed. The kids ate just as quickly as the food was being served, with many returning to the line, still hungry. The older kids were making sure their younger siblings had enough to eat. Despite the program’s best efforts, there is never enough food to feed all of the kids. “Four of us broke down crying,” Sofia related. “We’ve never experienced that kind of desperation before. At home I can walk into my house and get as much food as I want, whereas these little kids here can’t even get one meal. It put my life into perspective.”

Closing prayer with the kids at Sakala - solidarity.

Closing prayer with the kids at Sakala – solidarity.

Toward the end of their week, Sofia and her classmates visited another after-school program, Sakala, located in Cité Soleil, an impoverished and crowded commune located in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. The school, which is walled in, was a different world altogether and a safe haven for the kids, who were happily playing basketball, soccer, and ping-pong in the courtyard. After helping set up a water filter for the school, Sofia and her classmates joined in the sports activities. At the end of the day, despite the language barrier, they banded together and created a mural with handprints. When they ran out of paint, the kids pressed their palms together with the other kids and, smiling, said to one another: “Now you have color! Now you have color!”

Sharing paint for a mural.

Sharing paint for a mural.

“It was such a moving moment because I would never have thought of that or would have imagined kids back home doing that,” Sofia said. “I wrote in my journal that night that I finally felt a purpose in my life. I felt like I was actually making a difference.” Daniel Tileas, who runs Sakala, explained to Sofia and her classmates that the kids don’t care about money; rather, they value knowing that people care about them. “That moment just made me realize that there’s actually something you can do with your life that will fulfill you and that you can truly make a difference,” she said.

A Changing world view
Her experience in Haiti made Sofia question her life and wonder how we as a global society can allow hunger in fourth-world countries to exist. “Coming home, I was so much more aware of things,” she said. Sofia made “little changes” to her lifestyle: She scaled back going out to eat and driving a car, and instead of spending money she had earned, she donated it to the What If Foundation. Whenever the opportunity presented itself, she talked about her trip, with the goal of enlightening her classmates and friends about “cultural consciousness.” At her grandfather’s birthday party in late March, she told one of her grandmother’s friends about Haiti. This friend, who had recently inherited a large sum of money, was so moved by Sofia’s experiences that she donated the entire inheritance to the What If Foundation to help build a school in Haiti.

Sofia and her mother, Raissa, and her grandparents.

Sofia and her mother, Raissa, and her maternal grandparents.

The moment Sofia came home, she knew she would return to Haiti, where she felt she could create more of an impact there than she thought she could at home. She made good on her vow to herself, going back with another group of students – including four returning classmates from her March trip – the last week in July, and further enriching her Haitian experience.

Sofia at her high school graduation, with her parents and brother, Nic.

Sofia at her high school graduation, with her parents and brother, Nic.

Sofia always knew that her career path would involve being able to give back. “I never realized that I could do it on a global scale,” she said, with wonder in her voice, until her trip to Haiti. Sofia, now a freshman at the University of California, Los Angeles, is majoring in Global Studies. “After going to Haiti, I realized there’s so much I don’t know and that we’re either not taught or dictated by the people who write the history books,” she said. As a result, she plans on traveling to other parts of the world and conducting her own research. When I asked what she might do with her career, she brought up a program that builds sanitation systems in the poor areas of Haiti, which combines her love for Haiti, giving back, and biology and ecology, her favorite school subjects. She imagines spearheading a similar type of program after graduation.

Telling Haiti’s story
Sofia talks about Haiti with emotions and descriptions at once vivid and immediate, as if she has just come back. At the end of her first trip, Tileas told Sofia and her classmates that if there is one thing they could do to give back it would be to “tell Haiti’s story.” For Sofia, it has become second nature because, as she said, “Haiti has become such a big part of me.”

Sofia and her family in India, December 2012.

Sofia and her family in India, December 2012.