Summer Discoveries and Ponderings

How was your summer? Can you believe it’s already September?

My summer was filled with travels. I went to Idyllwild, Philadelphia, Boston, Albuquerque, Bogota, Caracas and Barinas. During these trips, I rested, relaxed, celebrated a dear friend’s marriage, painted eight walls, spent time with dear ones, biked, swam, read books, ate good food, had deep conversations, cried, laughed, saw art, stood in looooong lines at airport immigrations, went sightseeing, climbed mountains and spent time with my Venezuelan family after 15 years.

I am still reflecting on some of the discoveries and ponderings that came up from my various trips. Here are some of them:

Beautiful mountains an hour away from my mother-in-law’s home in Barinas

• How grateful I am to be in community with incredibly thoughtful, caring people that make time to see me and my family even when their life is life-ing. From them, I learn about love and the different ways we can show up for each other.

• How important it is to spend time and cultivate relationship with family, even if it gets difficult sometimes. It is impossible to predict how much time we may have with each other.

• Children are flexible, adaptable and incredibly resilient. As a parent, my role of course is to protect Luca from any harm, but I am also reminded that it is good to practice resiliency within a contained space so that he can build that muscle.

• How material wealth and consumerism never provide you with true joy or deep connection, yet how indoctrinated I am to it and the comfort that it brings. And how horrible it is that many folks don’t have access to the necessary resources they need in order to live a healthy life while some folks have more than enough.

• What solidarity can look like in this moment of on-going genocide and ICE raids. How each of us are showing up in this moment can look different and that is ok, because each of our actions are moving us closer to collective liberation.

• Reminder that grounding and presence  can come from connecting and living in right relationship with our land.

• Caretaking is one of the most sacred expressions of love.

As I get sucked back into the hustle and bustle of life, I hope that I can continue to carve out time to ponder and ruminate on these thoughts. They feel particularly important right now, when we are feeling so fragmented and siloed. I wish you all ease as you enter the fall season.

Spring is Here!

The seeds planted in the winter are starting to sprout. The shiso plant seeds on my balcony have sprouted and are growing abundantly now, and some of the intentions and practices I set up for myself in the winter are also starting to sprout new branches in exciting ways.

My beautiful shiso plants!

Two weeks ago, I was in my favorite yoga class after missing it for two weeks due to a stubborn cold I’ve had for over a month. I was worried that I may start coughing in the middle of it, but thankfully I was able to hold it for most of the class. As we moved through the vinyasa class, I felt my heart rate rise and sweat form on my forehead, especially during moments of rigorous movement. After 40 minutes of intense work, we finally laid down to enjoy savasana. As soon as my body was in a horizontal position, I was attacked by an aggressive coughing episode and I had to leave the room. By the time I came back to the room, savasana was done. It felt like a precious reward was taken away from me. I was SO upset.

Until that moment, I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed savasana. I enjoy laying on the yoga mat feeling the heaviness of my body after a rigorous practice. I love noticing the speed of my heart rate and following it as it slows. I take pleasure in the sensation of my chest rising and falling as I lengthen my breath. I delight in feeling every sensation of the body instead of being consumed by thoughts. For those four minutes, I am completely present with my body. It is one of my favorite moments of the week.

One of the intentions I had set for myself this year (a seed I had planted for myself) was more presence. I want to live a slower life, where I am fully present in everything I do. Rather than multitasking and rushing through things, I want to do one thing at a time, slowly. To be honest, it has been a struggle to feel presence amidst all that is happening in our lives and in our world, but the savasana moment was a sprout for me. A small but strong sprout that reminds me of the joyousness of presence and encourages me to continue to practice. So I have been practicing.

Let me share with you some of the things I have noticed from being more present:

• when I swing my arms wide during Zumba, I can feel the wind against my arms and it feels so good

• Luca’s facial expression changes pretty much every second while he tells a story

• on the way to Luca’s school, we pass by at least 25 different types of flowers that are currently in full bloom

What kind of (literal and/or figurative) seeds did you plant? Do you see anything sprouting around you and within you? What discoveries have you made?

What I'm Practicing

My son turned nine years old on January 6th. It astonishes me how quickly time is flying and how rapidly he is growing up into his own. Now there are also glimpses of attitude and defiance showing up occasionally. I guess the snide comments and rolling of eyes are part of growing up, but he is also super sweet, sensitive and kind. He teaches me about forgiveness as he practices it on me.

This was the second birthday we celebrated without my Dad around. Soon after my Dad’s transition, I became more acutely aware of the finite nature of life. I remember being extra mindful and thoughtful in the ways I acted, in my interactions with people and in the decisions I made. I felt like his death transformed me and I thought that from now on I would become an appreciative person that never took anything for granted.

But then here I am, forgetting gratitude and patience as I get sucked into the busy nature of my life and get consumed in things that are not that important. I am easily irritated and I snap at my family or focus on the negative aspects of things rather than looking at all the things that are going well. At the end of the day, I am filled with regret and shame. How am I so forgetful? Why do I need to be reminded so often? What do I need to do for this idea to stick?

2024 is the year of the dragon, which symbolizes power, nobleness, honor, luck and success.

The other day, my son was misbehaving and I ended up yelling at him. Once I calmed down, I felt bad for yelling at him so I went to him and apologized. I told him that I am sorry for yelling and I will do my best to not do it again. He looked at me and said, “It’s ok, mama. You will get better at it every time you practice.” That is probably true. No, that is definitely true. I will get better as I practice. So that is what I will do. I will continue to practice gratitude and patience. I may mess up sometimes or forget to do it, but I will forgive myself and keep practicing.

What are you practicing this year?

Birthday Self-Reflection

For several years now, it has been a practice of mine to do some self-reflection journaling on my birthday. I really enjoy this practice, because it helps to bring things into perspective. I want to share some of the questions I respond to in case you all might find it useful or supportive.

Luca’s birthday cake from this year. It was so delicious.

First, I find a quiet and comfortable place. I may light a candle or an incense. I settle my body and meditate. Then I take some time to reflect on the following prompts. I sometimes answer all of them, sometimes just one or two.

• What did the past 12 months teach me?

• In what ways have I personally evolved?

• What toxic habits/patterns have I broken?

• How much closer am I to achieving my goals?

• Who supported me this year? Who am I grateful for?

• What is an intention I want to set for myself for the next 12 months?

I hope you find these reflections nourishing!

Magpie Musings!

Apparently I also gave these newsletters to my Dad, who kept all of them safely tucked away in his filing cabinet. Behold, the first issue of the Umikaze Shinbun (translates to the ocean breeze newspaper).

When I was in elementary school, there was a period in my life where I created handwritten newsletters for my friends in the neighborhood. The newsletter had many sections, like a feature on trending songs or TV shows, a blurb on random facts (interesting but also useless), and even a comic strip. I remember spending hours scribbling the newsletter, making multiple copies of them and decorating each one of them with markers, color pencils and stickers. Once I finished creating them, I took them with me, rang my friend’s doorbells and shoved the newsletter into their hands, even if they had no interest in them (so pushy). Clearly, I thought I had things to say and I really wanted to share them with my friends. I don't know at what point I felt like I had nothing to say anymore, but I stopped doing that.

Last July, I started sending out quarterly newsletters called Magpie Musings. Through these newsletters, my hope is to share with you about what is happening in my life, to invite you to events that I am offering and also to offer you a meditation and/or journal prompt for your personal reflection. I hope the meditation and journaling gives you a moment of respite within your busy day.

Want to join my mailing list? Click here to sign up!

Why do we tell stories?

We tell stories to share traditions, customs, history, and culture

The telling means that it will pass on to the future generations and beyond

Seven generations back and seven generations forward

We tell stories to learn about our heroes, our ancestors

To remember them

To honor the people who came before us

It roots us, grounds us

Teaches us how to be in right relationship with each other and our land

We tell stories to honor the land we are on, the water that flows around us, the animals, the plants

To remember and to remind

That we don’t exist alone

We know who we are on this Earth

Where we belong

Where we fit in

Our roles and responsibilities

We tell stories to reclaim our voice and our narrative

Centering in our experiences and wisdom

We tell our people’s stories to reclaim our people’s voices

Centering in our collective knowledge and love

It empowers us, strengthens us, sustains us

So that we can thrive in joy

Productivity and Self-Worth

I have been thinking a lot about productivity. In our society, productivity is synonymous with success because in capitalism, we are only successful if we are producing more and faster. Even during the pandemic when everyone is dealing with grief and loss, it is expected that we stay productive. Now that we are always home, of course you can put in more hours for work, of course you can be available 24/7 for your organization, right? Now that you are not traveling and have all that extra time, of course you should be learning a new skill and taking up baking or exercising, right? If you have not acquired a new skill, you are doing pandemic wrong, right?

I also struggle with the notion of my self-worth being tied to productivity; that if I am not working hard and producing constantly, I am not worth anything. I acquired this belief in my youth, growing up in Japan. I was born and raised in Chiba Prefecture to a Japanese mother and Indian father. The Japanese culture I grew up in and my father’s immigrant experiences both taught me that only hard work would lead me to success. I was often told that I was lazy and after hearing it so many times, I started to internalize it. After immigrating to the U.S., I overcompensated by working harder, longer hours, and faster than the people around me, which often led to burn out or illness. I thought I had to prove my worth constantly to my employers and colleagues, particularly as a woman of color.

Sunset with my son. Here’s to a better 2021 for all of us.

At the beginning of the pandemic, much of my time as an arts funder was taken up by conversations with artists who were struggling from the collapse of their whole industry. The work felt more urgent than ever and I took on too much work and started putting pressure on myself unnecessarily. I also put harsh expectations on myself with my son’s education. Some of the pressures were coming from the organization I work at and my son’s school, but it was also coming from myself. It took me a long time to realize that I don’t have to meet any kind of expectation right now. That if I don’t take care of myself first, I won’t be able to take care of others. That I should be tending to myself with kindness and grace. That I am worthy regardless of whether I am producing anything. That if I chose this moment to be in grief and spent time resting instead, I am not lazy. That it’s ok to listen to the needs of my body, my mind, and my heart.

Now as a mother to my own mixed-race son, I am working on dismantling the internalized narratives around productivity that I grew up with. I look at how far I have come and I see beauty and resilience in myself - in how I navigated living in different countries and how I found ways to thrive in them. My resilience keeps me going through this pandemic, to continue to show up for my family even if I am not the best version of myself. I look at my son and see the resilience in him daily, in how he is making sense of this strange time and still finding joy in every moment. He keeps me present in the moment and grounds me in what is most important. Within all this uncertainty, I know one thing for sure – that he loves me no matter what. To him, the most important things are that I am present with him and that I am there for him when he needs me.

Journey

The more I encounter different ways of life

And different ways of being, traditions, and cultures

I realize that I don’t know anything

Perhaps this is shocking to some, or even daunting

If your goal in life is to know everything

But isn’t it joyful to be able to discover something new every day?

Isn’t it amazing to be able to enjoy

The vast amount of knowledge and wisdom that exist in our world, in our people, in our nature?

Aren’t we lucky that there are so many ways that we can grow each day?

To be able to be delighted in the process of learning?

So that we can be in right relationship with our land, water, plants, animals, soil, air, and each other

So that we can co-create a way that is full of nourishment, healing, and love

So that we can rest

So that we can thrive

In a liberated world together

On Role Models and Leadership

Have you seen that car ad, where the female executive is leaving the office at the end of the day and she is inundated by questions from her subordinates, who are asking things like “can I just get your eyes on this before you leave,” or “this will only take a minute,” etc.? She is moving swiftly through all that and gets into her car as people hover around her car. Then you see her speaking to her partner/husband on the speaker phone where she says “you know, Mondays,” as she speeds through the streets in her sports car.

When I see this scene, what first comes to my mind is that this organization does not know what shared leadership is and there is clear power hoarding happening. These poor people have no decision making power, which clearly is being hoarded by this one executive, who needs to be caught at the right timing because they are so busy and in demand. I see this happening at arts organizations too, where decision making happens so slowly, often bottlenecked by one person who seems to have all the decision making power at the organization. They also often tend to be away on business and never in the office (pre-COVID, of course). Also the other thing that is implied here is that her partner/husband will understand what she is talking about, because most likely his workplace is similarly set up. Clearly she thinks this is a good model, so my question is, who is her role model in leadership?

What kind of role models do you think she has had? What genders did they represent? Race? Sexual orientation? Culture? Class? Most likely, they were white cis males - white males that perpetuate power hoarding, paternalism, and perfectionism (all characteristics of white supremacy culture). And she probably works at a place where she won’t be taken seriously unless she acts in the same way these men do. Otherwise you will be seen as less than. Sound familiar?

These were the cute alpacas I met at the Alpaca Hacienda in Temecula, CA. They seemed to have a shared leadership model in how they advocated for food…

I’ve had my share of power hoarders as supervisors, but I also have been lucky enough to have so many incredible women of color role models in my life. They have taught me about empathy and compassion, about constructive criticism and affirmation, and about generosity and love. They educated me through direct teaching, but also through letting me make my own mistakes. They taught me about trust and responsibility.

So what would I do, if I were in a position of power? First of all, I would create authentic relationships built on trust with people at my organization, regardless of their hierarchical position. I would communicate with them with honesty and vulnerability, in order to create an open and nourishing environment. I would probably find a team of folx who all have decision making power in different areas. Why should I hold all the power and why would I want to make these decisions on my own anyways? I alone cannot make decisions on behalf of people who actually do the work every day. A decision made as a collective is ALWAYS better than a decision made by an individual. As a team, we will work together to move our organization’s values and mission forward.

Tell me, when you think of a role model in leadership, who do you think of?

About Me

I was born and raised in Japan to a Japanese mother and Indian father. As a mixed-race child growing up in a homogenous culture, I faced discrimination often and struggled to find a sense of belonging within my own culture, which I adored. If I don’t belong to this place, then where do I really belong? This was the question I asked myself often. Growing up grappling with those issues, being bullied, and carrying loads of generational trauma on my shoulders without knowing, I became shy and unsure about myself. I lost a sense of love for myself.

Say hi to little Meena!

When I entered high school, I joined choir. I was assigned to the Alto 1 section, where I was lucky enough to stand next to my idol, Kiyoko. Kiyoko had the most beautiful voice and I looked up to her. She told me that I had a nice voice and that I should think about trying out for the vocal ensemble, which was a smaller sized choral ensemble that admitted singers by audition. To my surprise, I got in and after that, I really started to discover my love for singing. Not only was I good at singing, but it was the first time I felt like I could truly express myself. Through the discovery of my physical voice, I was able to find my inner voice, confidence, and strength. It was then that I saw the impact art can make on someone’s life.

After high school, I immigrated to the United States to pursue my Bachelor’s degree and then a Master’s degree in Vocal Performance. After graduating, I sang opera with local organizations for several years while working in arts administration. As I hustled from gig to gig, I grappled with the antiquated, discriminatory practices that were prevalent in the field and also my own reasoning of why I decided to pursue this career, which made me perform in roles that didn’t resonate with me at all. 

I co-founded a band with two of my close friends called Voci Angelica Trio. We perform international folk music arranged for two voices, cello, and percussion. In the 13 years we have been performing together, we have toured nationally and internationally, released two albums, and have performed our educational program at over 60 schools. We are currently working on our newest project, Immigrant Voices, which will feature stories and music from 28 immigrants to the U.S. 

Eventually, I went back to school and received a Master’s in Arts Administration and found myself in orchestra management then in philanthropy. Currently, I am the Program Manager of Theater at the New England Foundation for the Arts, where I am energized daily by the innovative ways that devised ensemble theater artists are creating paths for themselves. I struggle with the limitations working within a field that is steeped in white supremacy culture, but I understand that I have a responsibility to the artists that I serve to strive towards implementing the most equitable grantmaking processes possible and to continue rigorous evaluation of our goals and values, so that it continues to align with the needs of the community that we serve.

As I started to go on a long and slow journey of discovering my own identity as a woman of color in this country, I became particularly interested in gathering folx to come together to explore ideas of identity in different ways and to think about how we can liberate ourselves from the current systems we operate in. I believe in the idea of interdependence and the power of the collective, and gatherings can be starting points for relationship building. I regularly organize, curate, and produce gatherings, whether it is identity-based or field-based, and I am constantly inspired by the ideas and energy that are created through discussions and art sharing at these gatherings. In recent years, I have organized Beyond Orientalism: The Boston Forum, co-founded the API (Asian Pacific Islander) Arts Network of Boston, curated the National Theater Project Regional Convenings, and co-produced a Women of the Color in the Arts Town Hall. 

I am an alumna of the artEquity facilitator training and work as an arts consultant and facilitator independently and also through the Aspire Group in Los Angeles. I am deeply committed to anti-racism and anti-oppression as the core value and guiding principle of all work both personal and professional. My hope for our work together is to create movement towards our shared liberation. I want you to examine where your privileges lie through deep self reflection, then feel empowered to use that knowledge towards making transformative and long lasting changes both in your personal and professional lives. Wherever you are on this journey, I am excited to support you. The work towards liberation is not easy and oftentimes, not linear. Let’s continue on this path together with authenticity, with empathy, and with love.