Starting again...

So this is yet another blog I started as I go through 6^th month of second (and last) pregnancy. This pregnancy has brought up the surge of creativity in me and I have been making a lot of things for holidays and winter. And Ely, my 3-year-old daughter is of course part of “making”. She love to “make” and she loves to “recipe” (she uses this word as a verb…). As I embroidered her winter solstice gift, she sat next to me “poking” through the clothe I set in a embroidery loom. She would get a two point knitting needles and pretend to knit as I knitted her first mittens. And she would bounce as I sewed her pajama with my new sewing machine. Of course, when we made mint chocolate bark and chocolate covered pretzel as holiday gifts for friends and family, she was right there with me to make them. I am enjoying every second of her participation in my “makery” as she calls it. There is a “bakery” near her childcare where we occasionally stops by to buy some cookies and other goodies. Ely, for some reason, calls is “makery” instead of “bakery” no matter how many times I remind her that it is a “bakery”.

As I made all these things for family and friends, I remember my mother in kitchen and living room, making homemade bread, miso, pickles, cakes, and how she sewed my dresses and other clothes when I was growing up in Japan. I did not really pay attention to it, and I did not realize how lucky I was to have a mother like her. But through that experience, I came to acquire love for handmade and I want to pass that to my own children. I am realizing, living in the United States away from my mother, it is up to me to do that. I have heard other people saying “isn’t it easier to buy it?” or “isn’t it cheaper to buy it?”. They may be right. It is definitely easier to buy things than making them, and many times it is cheaper to buy them, thanks to the globalization and abusive labor conditions in developing countries. But with the ease and cheap comes lack of appreciation, lack of originality, lack of creativity and lack of compassion toward the material and other world. I look at my daughter proudly when she tells everyone that her dress and pajama were made by her “baba chan” (grandma). When she asks me why “baba chan” sent her those, I tell her “because she loves her”. And it is so true. I am hoping that by making things for them and with them, my children will learn all that I have learned from my mother; love, caring, compassion, creativity, and imagination.