Before I lived with the Sano family in Hirakata, I first lived for a couple of months with the Sakakibara.
This morning, while I was getting ready, I suddenly recalled some vivid images of my stay at the Sakakibara.
Mother Sakakibara got up very early. She had three daughters (four with me) and she had to wake up before dawn to take care of the breakfast and the lunch bentos.
Once the breakfast table was covered with small bowls of miso soup and small cups of dried fish, and the bento boxes had been prepared with their pastel colors, mother Sakakibara had fifteen minutes to take care of herself.
Her make-up was a sacred ritual.
There was no room for a dresser in this tiny doll’s house and the only bathroom was always occupied. Therefore, mother Sakakibara created her own bubble in the middle of the living room.
She settled on the ground in a very elegant pose and she arranged all her makeup products like the corollas of a flower around herself. In my life, I had never seen so many beauty products in the same place.
I gazed at her with the rapt attention like that you give to ballerinas before they start their graceful moves.
There was a moment of the ritual when her whole face was veiled in powder and I could easily understand why geishas were still so popular. We were only a few kilometers from Kyoto after all.
Mother Sakakibara was so beautiful after her elegant ritual.
In a very zen fashion, in a couple of minutes, she had found some renewed energy that would last her all day.
She was a model Japanese mother.
She was ready for the bows and all other sumimasens.