Driftwood

BK Love Letter // March 2026

I am grateful that I can send this love letter to you from Japan, my home. I’m here for a few weeks to meet some business partners in person, take a class and a workshop to deepen my personal creative/spiritual endeavors, and spend time with my dad, grandma, aunt & uncle, and friends. I landed here a few days ago, and I immediately felt immense relief from all that I hold to sustain life in my adopted home, which I deeply treasure. Neither of them is more “home” to me than the other at this point. They are simply my reality of how my life’s path and building blocks are stacked on one another.

A few months ago, my sister Yuko texted me a little wisdom that her friend, who also relocated between multiple countries throughout her lifetime, shared with her. The message read: “Restoring a sense of continuity involves bridging the gap between past, present, and future self to maintain consistency in identity despite life changes.” I’ve been thinking a lot about this insight, as I often feel like a piece of driftwood in a stormy ocean lately, weathering whichever external circumstances as best as I can. In a separate conversation, Eunice recently told me she was so surprised to see how little I had changed over the years, since she had had a chance to read an analogue story I wrote back in 2014. To her astonishment, I was the kid who was talking a lot about the importance of analogue moments, connections, and being present long before those things became hashtags.

These various sources of inspiration and information stirred in a pot as I sat on the redeye flight from LAX to Haneda. “What are some things in me that never changed over time, no matter where I was living, whom I was with, or what I was doing?” I started recollecting memorable moments from my childhood, as well as the threshold time when I attended Japanese high school just before our family’s relocation to the U.S., and then American high school afterwards. I thought of the creative, formative years studying at a local community college and at design schools in Los Angeles. My thoughts also traced through different life milestones like getting married, buying our first house, starting a business, becoming a mother, deciding to homeschool, and now journeying with our kids as they grow through their teen years. I was amazed by so many elements that folded in, creating the multitude within one person. Then I started listing all things that never changed despite all these external tides - like my Japanese lineage I will forever embody, stubbornness that bothers some folks who are around me, fiery pursuit for what I set my heart on, deep desire to contribute to the world, innate sense of optimism, imaginative/out-of-the-box thinking that can look rebellious sometimes, my deep connections with the natural world, how important writing stories and love for analogue have always been, and many more…

Maybe these are at the core of what makes a tree “the” tree and elements that never change, even though the surface of the driftwood might get chiselled or smoothed by the bigger force of water over time. No matter which shore the driftwood lands, and could look anonymous to observers’ eyes, the tree will always embody its unique tree self.

As I was leaving our home in the canyon, I was saying good-bye to our kids when Coco handed me a beautifully sanded Manzanita piece. She has been patiently working on it as part of a school project. She told me that I could take it with me to Japan if I would like to. I was very touched. She is the kind of kid who might not say all she feels but expresses it in her quiet actions. To us, the manzanita tree is a symbol of resilience and adaptation, as well as a new beginning, since it not only survives wildfires in the canyon but also germinates from the heat of the fire. So in my bag, I carry my journals, a camera, a laptop, and a beautifully polished Manzanita.

It reminds me that one can simultaneously drift and also be polished and shine from within with love and care.

-wakako

always a metamorphosis in progress...

Kyoto // March 4th, 2026

**This story is from the BK Love Letter for March 2026. If you would like to read the entire love letter we sent to our community, including links to featured stories and the new and updated BK artifacts, you can browse it via this link.