Blowing & Drifting

Just before dinner today, our next-door-neighbors knocked on our door. They’re a Japanese family: the father teaches at Carleton while the mother stays home; the daughter, a frequent backyard playmate for Julia and Genevieve, is one year older than Julia. The little girl was dressed in a spectacular red kimono (and orange Crocs!) that was positively incandescent against the white snowbanks out front of our house.

Her mom told us that today was “Girls’ Day” in Japan, and so they had been to a party from which they were now bringing us some sushi. The mom was very careful to assure me that there wasn’t actually any fish in it, just cooked chicken, but she seemed relieved when I told her that I liked sushi. My girls, looking down into the styrofoam bowl (sushi à la mode Minnesota?), asked, “What are those yellow and green things on top?” My neighbor told them that it was seaweed, which raised their eyebrows. (At least they didn’t say, “Ohh. Interesting.”) I thanked them for bringing the sushi over, and set it out to have with dinner – huevos rancheros, as it happened.

Frankly, I didn’t have much hope that the girls would like the sushi. They chattered about how they’d never eaten seaweed before, and what would it taste like, and why did she tell us that the sushi didn’t have fish in it, because they like fish. But when I put a spoonful on their plates, both excitedly tried it, and both immediately exclaimed that they liked it. Well, Vivi didn’t like the strongly-flavored rice, but she ate the seaweed and carrots and beans and mushrooms and chicken. Julia ate everything, in big satisfied bites. And both asked for seconds and thirds. Horizons: broadened.

I love that life in Northfield can bring these little unexpected moments of contact with the wider world. I sure wasn’t trying (and liking!) sushi when I was a kindergartner!