I must have been about six years old when I had this nightmare: My mother was leaving us, going “back East,” and we were going to see her off. Perhaps we were at the airport. She was dressed for traveling, wearing a hat, and we had her suitcases. To this day, I don’t know where […]
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Tag: Richmond District
The Summer of Sandals
A young relative recently graduated from middle school, and I was stumped as to what kind of gift might be suitable. I am not great at gift-giving, being borderline phobic about shopping and not being a craft-advantaged person who can whip up quirky home-made items that people would not immediately regift or donate to a […]
Working at Christmas
When I was a child, I was eager to work. It seemed like a “grown-up” thing to do. I helped at my dad’s wholesale business, first on Columbus Avenue, and later, on Bryant Street. I put stamps on envelopes and got rides on the handtruck when my sisters were around. (In reality, my dad was […]
Chinatown
It was a gorgeous April day in San Francisco, so I took BART into the city and walked all the way up Grant Avenue, through Chinatown, to Live Worms Gallery in North Beach, where my brother-in-law Paul was having a show. Although I’ve spent most of my life in San Francisco and the East Bay, […]
How much of it is true?
In 2011, I responded to some questions from a young man in Minnesota who was taking a short story class and had read The Loom. Would you be willing to give me a short biography of yourself? In short: I was born and raised in San Francisco, the granddaughter of Japanese immigrants. My family moved […]
Religion
I discovered religion at the age of six, when my best friend Joanne’s parents asked me if I would like to go to Sunday school with her. I would have done anything to be with Joanne. After spending the first five years of my life being the youngest and smallest in the family, always tagging […]
Bedtime Story
When I was a little girl, and my mother put me to bed, she did not tell me stories about enchanted forests or beautiful princesses. I had seen “Sleeping Beauty.” I knew “The Three Bears.” These were not the stories I wanted to hear from my mother. “Tell me the story of when I was […]