MIO NIIKAWA — Hokori

埃 ｈｏｋｏｒｉ ／ＨＯＫＯＲＩ＼ 1. 埃 2. 幸 （Lesson 5） 3. 順 1. 埃 Invisible when one takes no notice but they are there always. It shines through the light, falls on surface and accumulates layers. They are fluffy, blown off easily even along with the slightest movement of air, and form themselves bigger, more fluffy, or lurk underneath or behind objects. I can even say that is romantic, but my existence is not that epic. I am here somehow, I don’t know how and when, I don’t know if it’s just me having my own voice, anyhow I can hover quietly in the corner and try to form a perfect shape, like a small cotton candy, airy and not too dense, though the colour of myself doesn’t have any variations, just grey. At least my colour shade is not stagnant but I wonder now and again, if we have more variety of colors, say like flamingo pink, bumblebee orange or pepper-mint, people might want to keep us in a glass jar or some sort of nice container, after all we can be like a wool of ball, a ball of wool? whichever you prefer please. Anyway I like to be in a corner of room, so that I won’t be swept easily, and glimpse some fragments of memories left on pieces of substance which consists me. 2. 幸 She was a tiny grandmother, whose name meant happiness or luck. The etymology of her name character is said to be a reversal of calamity. She was very close to be 100 years old, but around the time she became 97 or so, her facial expression had slowly faded and she started getting a little paranoid and confused. I saw her staring blankly at TV, no actually she was watching intently while two toddlers run around her happily. I couldn’t tell if the distance between her and the world was getting wider or she was shrinking. Tears came out from her eyes suddenly when people were leaving, she was calm but tears kept appearing. No one will ever know what was going on inside of her then. I see another grandmother who enjoyed weekly Bingo held at the city centre, with a help of her little grandson who told her the number each time the ball was drew, she had bad hearing. The grandmother and the grandson were having fun together. Now the morning routine is starting, the sound of broomstick sweeping the floor, I don’t mind the manual labor, they are better than the electric hoovers. Usually sweeping would start in the middle of living room, where invisible wall divides the space with a clutter on the floor over that side, a tiny space in front of the bathroom, then kitchen area. Hairs, piece of biscuit crumbles, little bits and bobs, some white stuff, and tiny dead insects, it would be interesting to see them with a microscope. All gathered then tossed away. I am still here, haven’t been swept up yet, not for now, but how long? That house, a tea ceremony teacher’s, had the most impeccably polished wooden floor, no dust at all, it would be an inhabitable space for our kind. A girl came to practice every Saturday afternoon. On summer day, the teacher said, the girl smells of sunlight. Soft shade of light came through on tatami floor. She would sit and watch the others making tea, each took a turn to practice different procedure of preparing tea, continued from what they were practicing the previous week, the girl was always the last to take her turn, she didn’t need to memorize all the specific moves and manners, she observed, though not necessarily understood the philosophy behind it. The entrance where the girl welcomed and saw an old man off. The shiny floor, his stiff arms, awkward manners of making green tea, an honest, square, thin face. He had a shy smile. A few weeks later the girl heard that the man had passed away while playing golf. How many time did she greet him? He was there for certain periods of time but things can be turned upside down just like a snap of finger, he had gone. His stiffness went into like sediment deep inside her. Spills out and turns into sand, burned and crushed then turns into white powder, where had it gone? Someone said, past has to be completed and continuous, there cannot be any absent in the past. A lot of fragments of thoughts hangs on me, a song “Your Future Our Clutter”. 「your future your clutter」 ↔ 「(y)our future (y)our clutter」 Exploring/expanding the world can be invasion, cluttered attempt of colonialisms and all the wars are caught up in loops that never quite end. A young mother with black silky long hair, bakes cakes for her kids, an elder boy and a girl, she preferred to feed her little chicks homemade sweets, usually a simple pound cake with one main ingredient of apples, sweet potatoes, or bananas which must be utterly black, a carrot cake without icing occasionally. Her little girl didn’t really like cakes with fresh cream, it made her a bit nauseous after a few bites. Once the mother was scolded by her midwife for wearing red nail polish when she was pregnant with the boy. It was a bit of shock to her. The other day, another of my kind was fluffing on the floor, it had a wonderful round shape, of course it was grey but I was so thrilled to see that ideal shape. “Hope” comes from “Hope” to bring “Hope”, it can be very charming if there are cravings for sweet hope. ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ - - - Lesson 5: How story get narrated Petunias Alice Walker, You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down [Events in the story] 1) A woman had a diary and someone found it 2) A woman died in explosion 3) There was an explosion 4) A woman had a son 6) The son went to Vietnam 5) The son came back to home from Vietnam 6) The son has learned how to make a bomb 7) The son put explosive stuff in his footlocker and a duffel bag 8) The family lived in Tranquil, Mississippi, for 5 generations, at least 9) A woman's daddy's grandmother was a slave on the Tearslee Plantation 10) A woman joined a movement 11) Daddy's grandmother's bones were dug up. 12) Flowers in garden (verbena and petunias) 13) A woman found dust of daddy's grandmother dumped over her verbena 14) Daddy's grandmother leg bone had fell among her petunias [Sequence of events in chronological order] The family lived in Tranquil for 5 generations. A woman's daddy's grandmother was a slave on the Tearslee Plantation. A woman's daddy's grandmother was buried in the garden. Flowers planted in a garden (this could be before her death). A woman joined a movement. Daddy's grandmother's bones were dug up. A woman found the dust of daddy's grandmother dumped over her verbena, and a splintery leg bone on petunias. There was a son. He went to Vietnam and learned about bomb making. He came back and had all of the stuff in his duffel bag. There was an explosion. A woman died in explosion. The diary was found. This story is full of little mysteries, - why it was "the next to the last page of diary" ? - she died of explosion but diary was not burnt so explosion was enough to kill her but not the entire house? - It is implied that the explosion was caused by her son but it could be an accident? the list goes on. The woman’s death is the beginning of this text and opens up the crack of history, as words like “Tranquil” and “explosion” previously hinted at. There is a feeling of distance, reader is reading a daily of a dead woman through someone who found the diary, like a frame in a frame. Or actually, frame in a flame. The image of flowers, dust and bones falling on flowers, it overlaps with the images of a woman or her son actually died in an explosion, a woman in Mississippi, or her son in Vietnam dreaming or thinking of his mother, his home where he belongs at the moment of his death in Vietnam?. Or it could be just someone's dream diary, imagining a diary written by a woman or a woman as a symbol of African American who has been scattered away in the history so maybe it doesn’t matter explaining how the text is full of many little mysteries. End of the lesson 5 - - - So I wonder what was actually written on the diary, including the last page either it was real, someone’s dream or entirely something else. I can imagine being a human, nothing more or less. If I were her, what would I cook for her son’s return from Vietnam? Would it be more appropriate to offer him a cold bottle of beer? Would she write about that in her diary? Describe the weather of that day perhaps? About them, or the whole circumstances but it doesn’t matter, we know they were there then, now they are in our head, that’s how that story was told, I’ve many stories, that had been told, directly/indirectly. Some of them will be passed on, some just stays with me, or will be evaporated into the air. Can air contain memories as such? It can carry the particles, sounds, and smells, they can be a whisper from the past. It doesn’t need be explicit, I just like to acknowledge the existence, existence of existence itself. I know nothing but there they were, and here they are. with a rumbling sound that thundered through the air gold, a train with a luminous glow whizzed by a rough mossy wall along the rail tracks in a heat haze I stood in the middle of the railroad crossing Most of my thoughts seem still like a potion being cooked in a pot, simmered by a witch. When I think of something, usually images come along, first I thought of myself as a pot like an ancient Chinese cauldron as a container of my thoughts. Then realized I should be in charge of what potion I am making, don’t let evil witches make me what they want. Black and white magic, black is white and white is black like said by someone or anyone over time and another. Physicality, texture, sensuality, structure of feeling, narrative and so on, all that they have been talking on a laptop computer screen, gave me a hook to dig in to a deeper layer of my thoughts to vocalise the feelings, and deconstruct them. The word “latency” has a feeling of dystopic romance as we are living in a time with such a speed, faster supposed to be better, always hurrying up. Emily leaves broken or old objects in front of her toy cat (“Bagpuss”), he wakes up and sings a story. Then the toy cat goes back to sleep, the story ends, the end of the story ends the dream. Emily would never know the world of her toy cat. But she would keep placing stuff to heal and put life back to those collected broken items. A man in his 80s is in a hospital bed, half conscious? Maybe one third? Who can live on the PVC hospital floor. He seemed to be sleeping, and well looked after, his (old) younger sister is relieved that his face had been shaved since she visited him last time. He has a slight rosy cheek and not being tubed now. I wished him a sweet dream that he would met up with his late wife, the feeling of the end shall be soothing for us of all. If is that so, how about him, didn’t he seem to be squeezing out for the last moment? 3. 順 He is a father, diminishing from the world at his own house slowly but surely, while his daughter held his hand all night. He had a bone cancer or some sorts but no doctors could identify exact cause even though they examined his body throughout. The end creased in, his daughter saw how a man is retrieved from this world. His bed was facing the window over looking the garden, a massively grown royal azalea was right outside, over framed by window, flowers were gone already, it used to be just a low hedge. The day he became just bones, the daughter lied down on the empty floor, green sunlights casted through leaves. He had written a story, or maybe stories, one of his handwritten manuscript, with a square-round shaped letters, in an old fashioned manuscript papers was found, what had happened to that manuscript? People have secrets. I don’t know what they are, so called secret is a secret. I am part of them all, the world contains me, I shall be either swept, sacked or wiped away soon or later, but will be back again, with a different fragments of substance, stories and dream. So here goes as it continues. Dust in a small glass of water gathered and gently swaying like a jellyfish, what if we as dust are splendidly perfect and require no sweeping away. ——— rustles living amid the bustling crowd clinging to the ground buried in the gritty feel of soil and brown-colored rubbish no one no cars yet the boy waits the green traffic light and crossed that narrow street only watched by a sleepy-eyed cat A doodle, on my notebook, probably it was done when I was on a night shift long ago, inspired by the artist Norman Cornish. Mio Niikawa Living in suburb of Tokyo, with IT related full time job. Briefly lived in England, Liverpool as a student. Those time are long gone but still with same spirit. Sometimes consider myself as "irrational gerbil".