Because We Help Each Other
- At June 02, 2017
- By admin
- In Annes Letters
0
Dear Family and Friends,
There are certain things I love about the friendly neighborhood where I live. First, I suppose is the city-sponsored senior center with its multitude of opportunities for oldsters. There are exercise and dance classes, a small kitchen and socializing lounge, shogi boards and a library. But best of all for me is the large spa-bath that welcomes all city residents over 65. I go there several times a week and enjoy being with older women of all shapes, sizes, and physical conditions.
To balance that, right down the street from my home is a marvelous city-offered play center for kids. It has a long building full of puzzles and wooden toys, and a stupendously large yard of trees and mud and sand. The children love it. Usually Japanese are excessively fastidious about cleanliness, but here it is permissible – and expected – to dig holes and build forts, construct sand castles or huge jumping mounds. There are slides and swings, flip poles and places for skipping rope or playing tag. No one has a cell phone or wears earplugs. It all about being alive and connected – to the earth, to each other, to creativity, and to joy.
Right next to my apartment is a small family-run mental hospital. It is renown for its kindness to patients and support for family members. Sometimes nurses take a line of patients out for a morning walk. We local residents step aside graciously, making way for this delightful blend of human possibility.
I love the young ones who live close by. They play ball in the parking lot, ride bikes in circles or back and forth, or scurry off to after school activities.
And upstairs is 2-year old Kazuki. He is loud and naughty, confident and radiant with life. I got to hold him when he came home for the first time.
Recently I met a man who had volunteered with an NPO in Myanmar. He worked with the poorest of the poor. And yet, when the March 2011 earthquake devastated Northeast Japan, those humble souls gathered all they could spare and offered it to him, saying, “Your people need this. Please send it to them.” The Japanese man was so touched, so humbled, he cried. And does so even now in the telling, over six years later.
Then he added, “How can anyone talk about ‘my country first’? We survive because we love, because we connect, because we appreciate, and because we help each other.”
Love,
Anne
There are certain things I love about the friendly neighborhood where I live. First, I suppose is the city-sponsored senior center with its multitude of opportunities for oldsters. There are exercise and dance classes, a small kitchen and socializing lounge, shogi boards and a library. But best of all for me is the large spa-bath that welcomes all city residents over 65. I go there several times a week and enjoy being with older women of all shapes, sizes, and physical conditions.
And then there is the crumpled old lady lumbering along with her ancient vegetable cart. She appears every now and then, going door to door to sell fresh produce from her nearby farm.
To balance that, right down the street from my home is a marvelous city-offered play center for kids. It has a long building full of puzzles and wooden toys, and a stupendously large yard of trees and mud and sand. The children love it. Usually Japanese are excessively fastidious about cleanliness, but here it is permissible – and expected – to dig holes and build forts, construct sand castles or huge jumping mounds. There are slides and swings, flip poles and places for skipping rope or playing tag. No one has a cell phone or wears earplugs. It all about being alive and connected – to the earth, to each other, to creativity, and to joy.
Right next to my apartment is a small family-run mental hospital. It is renown for its kindness to patients and support for family members. Sometimes nurses take a line of patients out for a morning walk. We local residents step aside graciously, making way for this delightful blend of human possibility.
I love the young ones who live close by. They play ball in the parking lot, ride bikes in circles or back and forth, or scurry off to after school activities.
And upstairs is 2-year old Kazuki. He is loud and naughty, confident and radiant with life. I got to hold him when he came home for the first time.
And since then, he has been the special light of my days.
Recently I met a man who had volunteered with an NPO in Myanmar. He worked with the poorest of the poor. And yet, when the March 2011 earthquake devastated Northeast Japan, those humble souls gathered all they could spare and offered it to him, saying, “Your people need this. Please send it to them.” The Japanese man was so touched, so humbled, he cried. And does so even now in the telling, over six years later.
Then he added, “How can anyone talk about ‘my country first’? We survive because we love, because we connect, because we appreciate, and because we help each other.”
Love,
Anne
