San Anselmo 8
Naomi's mother. She could have been my mother-in-law. She wanted
to be, I know. She told me. She -- the oldest of the infamous
Toyotomi sisters from Kamakura. They were rebels to the core -- everyone
said they were much too modern, much too stubborn and uncompromising to
be considered normal, proper Japanese girls. Her husband threw her
out for defending me. I'd only met her once and wasn't really close
to her. Still, she stood by me and suffered for it -- though Naomi
said she'd had no regrets. A bushi, a true samurai, does not live
to have regrets she'd always used to tell her. Regrets are for cowards.
And I guess there was her daughter's honor, her own family's honor, her
love of art, her respect for beauty -- those too were at stake. I
know because she told me. She said she had come to understand me
and trust me through my work -- especially my design for David Kimball's
paper-making studio in Oakland. She said she felt the true spirit
of paper in the walls and my use of light. And that's how I've always
wanted it to be -- people judging me by the work I do. I do not know
what kind of houses she liked -- but I know she honored purity and
simplicity and grace. So I hope this design would have pleased her
-- this place of comfort, this place of leave-taking and of death.
But hopefully, a place of rebirth, of reentry, as well. (Shit --
am I floating here? I feel I am. Who the fuck knows?)
