19 September 2011

Prayers

There has been some confusion in the house recently around what prayer is exactly. Mei, the other day, was telling Yoko that when people come to the house for church and pray, they are all sleeping. It's sleeping time. I, of course, don't have any problem with this conceptualisation of prayer, but it has led to some more discussions among the women in the house about prayer. 

Naomi, who likes the idea of prayer, was showing Yoko yesterday that she could pray. She first prayed that Ms Hawkins, our landlord whom the girls call 'Ohki Mummy' or 'Big Mummy, would feel better, then she prayed that Yoko would feel better (as Yoko has a cold) and then she prayed that Daddy wouldn't get angry at all today.

I was standing in the kitchen when I heard this and just about started crying. Children: this is why, I suppose, you have them. You can argue with adults, question their motives, pull apart what action they are trying to accomplish with what they say. Not kids, not kids attempting to pray, listing off all the things that they wish could get better. There it is. The truth about you, as clear as day.

I have been going through old blog entries, all the ones that I imported from Xanga a long, long time ago, and trying to put titles on them and give them labels. I finished going through them today, but the process was really interesting. When I met Yoko in 2005, things changed. All of my posts before that were about music and my strange experiences in Japan. Things got notably more serious in September 2006, when we found out that Yoko was pregnant. I stopped talking about music and I started talking about... other things. Somewhere in 2008 or 2009 there is also, I think, a literary shift in the blog, some time when I started to orient more towards my writing. I'm not sure when this happened, but I'll find it.

I'll try to be less angry, Nana. I'm sorry for being angry.
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