We whine whine whine about winter for months (well, we totally had the right to do that this year) and then it’s finally spring. The flowers are blooming, allergies are emerging, and it’s like the city just got a fresh coat and a new attitude. We waited a long time for this, so of course we need to enjoy it. Sunday walks are back and this time, they are filled with cherry blossoms in the trees and bright blue skies. Let’s hope this weather is here to stay because if it’s one thing I learned this season, it’s that the weather can just be a big fat tease.

From a Sunday two years ago because Sundays are not Sundays if they are not also beach days.

Let’s do it again.

Before New York, there was San Diego. My first “home” away from home that I struggled to come to terms with as a place I lived.  Graduating from high school I knew I wanted to go away for college. After watching my sister fight to stay, but then leave anyway, my fate was already decided and I was going. I was lucky to move to a new city where my family, my sister, already lived for five years. My sister even went to the same college and I followed in her footsteps and even studied the same major. Since I watched her struggle, I knew I might struggle too.

My first year of college was difficult. In the first semester, nothing major went wrong, but I was learning about what it was like to live alone away from my family. All my friends were learning. That plus focusing on school (remember, that’s what I was there for) but also making new friends and enjoying a new city. That Fall semester was a rush and a whirlwind. Returning back for my second semester in the Spring things were different. I started to miss home. Finally people were finding their place in school and social groups and I was starting to really see how different life on “the mainland” was from Hawaii. School was more difficult and I put in many more hours of studio time, often not making enough friend time.

Towards the end of that Spring semester I felt very distant from my school and community. Always being from a place where everyone knew each other, I was surrounded by strangers daily. USD was not even that big of a school, yet I felt so small.  I took advice of my advisors and friends and started looking for more things to get involved in. After all, I came from such a busy and scheduled life in high school (school, tennis, clubs, art), it was time for me to make one in my new home.

This struggle and overcoming my first face-to-face match up with “the real world” influenced my art practice for my remaining years at USD.  During my second year, I was more involved in school activities, was able to create the art I wanted to create and of course, got to know San Diego a little better too. A pattern emerged and when it became time of my senior thesis I explored how my present life  brought meaning towards my past and as a senior, my thesis, Please Remove Your Shoes, was born.

For the first time everything started to make sense. I understand that I would not have made it to where I stood as a graduating senior if I didn’t struggle and fight as a freshman four years before. As I continued through my art major, I also kept looking back to my Japanese heritage and Hawaii upbringing as inspiration for my work. That seemed like the most natural thing to do because I knew it best.

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I can’t even begin to tell you what it was about this set up that made it picture worthy. First, I think it was the placement of letters. The deliberate choice to break up the iPad and IPhone. Second, it was the nice array of phone case choices. Plain colors? Got it. Bumpers? got that too. Marilyn Monroe fan? Don’t fret there’s one with your name on it. Or maybe you just want a big rubber bear-shaped case to carry in your pocket. Yup, that’s also an option. Third, this pop up shop was strategically placed outside of the Apple Store on West 14th Street but I bet the cost of the cases were half the price of what you would find in the store. Well played vendor man, well played.

This Easter weekend I walked 13.1 miles in one day (according to my Apple Health App). WOW. While many of my days are spent looking down or forward, just trying to get to where I am going, the weekends are times when I can stop and look around. I take the long way home, even if it means walking 40 blocks south, or meander through streets and ignore my map discovering new parts of the city I never knew.

I can also look up. Looking up to the buildings and sky to see a different perspective than the daily commute. A lot of New York looks down and I’m guilty of that too. We try not to make eye contact, especially to avoid those people who want you to sign petitions and just want “a little of your time to save ______.”  We just want to get where we’re going in the fastest way possible. This weekend, I found  new perspectives on things as I looked up on the city and not down to my feet. My phone helps me to remember these moments and also prove that I finished my first “half-marathon” this weekend. Here’s what I looked up to: 

Looking up to the Highline

Looking up to Rockefeller Center

Looking up to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral

Looking up 5th Avenue toward the Empire State Building from Washington Square Park

..the best excuse to stop working because everyone needs to eat. Copy catting a salad that I bought to take me through many long days in grad school by throwing together frozen grilled chicken strips, avocado, dried cranberries, goat cheese and tomatoes over spring mix with balsamic vinaigrette! Honey wheat pretzel sticks because why not and reading the New York Times because it’s good for your health to know what’s going on in the world.

I was five years old. I don’t remember writing any of this, but thanks to my mom the memory saver, I know I did.  We didn’t hit China, we just got beat by science. It was my brother’s genius idea to dig a hole and in an attempt to fill it with water, pushing it further and further into the ground, where it got stuck. Live and learn.

In 1995 we had no iPads. We didn’t have smart phones and we did not have the internet. We got that in the next house we lived in. As children we occupied ourselves with things that took us away from the TV and into the “real world.” I loved playing in the backyard. It wasn’t big, or fancy. We didn’t have a play set and it wasn’t until our next house that I got a tree house! My childhood was filled of making my own adventures. Playing with the sand, water, and leaves from the trees I also talked to myself and made up scenarios in my head. Sorta sounds like I was crazy, but really I think these are the moments that tested how clever I could really be with the bare minimum.

Sorry for being the biggest water waster in Kahului that day. I’m not sorry for making the river, making my own adventure, and imagining I was somewhere else in the world while never leaving my backyard. I did all that before I had the internet.