Summer Special Memoir vol.1

Prologue

My mother’s eye lids gradually lift up like the rising sun. With her favorite classical music tone coming from the FM radio, the chilly early morning air is welcomed through her nostrils.  Quickly but quietly, she folds her futon cover and mattresses lying by her husband’s into thirds.  She swiftly hoists the futon pile up to put it away in the closet with sliding doors.  The space on the tatami mat (the straw woven floor) where her futon used to occupy upholds the warmth that she left.  Everybody else in the family is still sound asleep.  Her footsteps in the hallway don’t seem to bother anybody.  In the quiet kitchen, even before she washes her face, her daily routine begins.  She never wonders why she is the only one to stay busy starting from the early morning until the end of the day.  Her fingertips are always looking for something to do with her family.  Napoleon didn’t have the word “Impossible” in his dictionary; my mother doesn’t have the word “sacrifice” in hers.  None of her duties burden her.  All chores are done one by one with a tempo that she has established over the years.  By the time the kettle lid starts dancing with boiling water, the washing machine is getting even louder in the laundry room.  When the sizzling sounds from the little rectangular skillet pan on the stove joins the morning symphony, it means my mother is diligently preparing my lunch.  Every day, except for Wednesdays, my mother fixes my lunch as a part of the melody in the morning symphony

My lunch box is a colorful, mini full course dinner condensed into one little box.  Plain white rice or fist sized rice balls with seaweed sit on one side of the rectangle box.  Sometimes a sour plum proudly places itself in the middle of the plain white rice.  It looks just like a Japanese flag.  The sour plums are known to protect from spoiling food.  Because of this reason, I find a red sour plum inside of my rice balls.  I don’t like the flag lunch box or rice balls with sour plum inside because I feel old fashioned.  My classmates have cute tiny rice balls with colorfully sprinkled sweetened sesame seeds on them.  I ask my mother, “Can you make smaller rice balls?”  She replies, “Only if my hands were as tiny as yours.”  More than half of my lunch box is filled with three (jumbo!) Mother’s fist sized rice balls.  I never have four rice balls or four of any item, because “four” in Japanese language sounds the same as “death”.  Holding four items will give you bad luck.  In fact, there is no room number four in any Japanese hospital.  No patient wants to stay in room number four.  My mother picks up a couple of little octopus shaped wiener sausages to give the box some color along with the yellow, brick-like omelet and Teriyaki sautéed green beans.  Dessert is a slice of apple with its skin carved like bunny ears.  My mother imagines every color as a music note.  She looks satisfied in front of her creative culinary art that creates a complete symphony.  Steam still rises from the tin lunch box, just like music coming from a music box.  My lunch box is my mother’s proudest musical and visual art creation of the day, except for Wednesdays.