journal features

"grandma" and "orange" and "ma-chan"

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Tokyo, 2009.10.09

Kenny said three words very clearly for the first time today. The first was "Grandma", a big upgrade from "mam-ma". He said it (repeatedly) when he saw that I was using Skype, the Internet voice tool. He came running over and threw out the new word several times.

Unfortunately, it was my business partner on the line. We turned on the video so Kenny could see, and he looked puzzled at to see a familiar face but not the one he expected.

The second word was "orange", which he said in response to my prompting when I held up an orange ball. He's also working on "blue" (he says it "b'ue") and yellow (which he pronounces "chin"). Still has a way to go, there.

Lastly was "ma-chan", his close friend. Ma-chan is a somewhat older boy whose little sister is in Kenny's daycare class. Kenny and Mari went to visit with those kids and their mum this evening (while on was Skype with "uncle Jon") to deliver some of the clementine oranges (there's that word again!) that Kenny's grandfather had sent.

rand()m quote

Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

—John Gardner