Happy New Year! I hope everyone is having a great start to the new year! Hopefully you all were able to enjoy Oshogatsu with family and friends.
My extended family celebrated with relatives and friends in our long tradition of food and drink on New Year’s Day. Like most families, I’m sure, the tradition is much more important for some and not too important for others. For me, I like traditions; for my kids, not so much. To them, it’s just dad requiring them to do something again…and again. They don’t quite understand the relevance yet, but hopefully, at some point, it will give them a better understanding of who they are. However, that understanding might not come until they have kids themselves.
Our tradition, though, got my cousin Sandy to bring my great aunt, Auntie Miyo (Ike) who is 101, out of her senior living facility…which is no small feat. It inspired my cousins from DC and Denver to make it, as my cousin Alan so eloquently put it. ’Would you rather see her while she is alive or after she’s passed?’ It encouraged my daughter to stay until after New Year’s Day rather than flying back to New York early for New Year’s Eve.
We’ve been doing the New Year’s Day tradition longer than I can remember. As our family ages, the roles and responsibilities are changing, bringing up questions of who will step up and bring what. Fortunately for us, my cousin Dean took the helm and organized the event, ushering in a new way of doing things. Through all the planning (and the stress), we shared so many fond memories of what we remembered as kids. The different types of food (many that we didn’t like) that our bachans made, the food our parents brought (that we did like), and the different places we went to with our dads (because our moms were cooking – this was the 60s and 70s). It brought up memories that I haven’t thought about in years, and hopefully, does the same for you.
I do believe traditions are important. They bring families and people together. They connect us to something bigger, create memories, and provide consistency in a world that is constantly fluctuating. They can also push us to do more and do things now. As my cousin believes: don’t put things off as you don’t know what tomorrow will bring.
The City has stepped up its presence around the Memorial Hall after defining the drug-free zones. They also clear the adjacent park three times a week. This appears to have reduced the amount of loitering and drug usage at times. I am hopeful we can have more events at the hall, and even a few in-person general membership meetings that will keep our NVC traditions alive.
