Obaachan’s garden is a mess, but it’s a beautiful mess. It’s my favorite part of Japan. It’s the only place where I can make myself useful in the place where I’m constantly feeling every shade of, “embarrassed white dude who forgets to take off his shoes before entering the shrine.”

Obaachan’s garden is a place where our busy hands keep our minds off the fact that we can only communicate at the level of a Japanese kindergartener. I might be only half fluent in Japanese, but I am fluent in weedwhacking.

Every weed I strike down is a half-assed apology that I’m letting my mother tongue slip away faster than I could possibly pull out all these weeds.

Every thorn I cut myself on is a half-assed blood sacrifice to compensate for the fact that I am a painfully conspicuous weed growing in spite of everything Obaachan thought her family would be.

Every seed I plant is a half-assed attempt to regrow what was lost somewhere along the way.

Obaachan and I are unfamiliar with each other, which is a shame because the word “unfamiliar” means the opposite of family even though she is one quarter of my DNA. But despite the fact that I look half alien to her I am, despite everything that comes between us, her granddaughter.

This means that she can use me as an extension of her body. She can use me as an extra set of limbs. We can work together to create something beautiful from the abundant chaos of her garden, from endless jars of raspberry jam to flower arrangements to vegetables for tonight’s dinner.

I said earlier that Obaachan’s garden is a mess, but it’s a beautiful mess; it’s a fascinating harmony between the abstract hand of nature and the nurturing hands of a gardener.

But best of all, it’s constantly filled with new and strange plants, and nobody, not even Obaachan, can keep track of what they are and where they came from.

Whenever Obaachan comes home with a new plant, a childlike excitement bubbles over in her kind brown eyes as she makes room in her garden for yet another member of the family.

With tender hands she digs a nest for the new plant, and watches it eagerly until it blooms or bears fruit. Every time is a pleasant surprise. She welcomes the mystery plant with open arms, and she shows it off in colorful bouquets around the house.

Obaachan’s adorns her world with these pleasant surprises, these unexpected miracles that life has thrown her way.

Obaachan’s garden is full of pleasant surprises.

I hope that I am one of them.