GENIUS ZONE
Jan
25
LEARNING TO SEW WAS MOST IMPORTANT IN THE JAPANESE AMERICAN COMMUNITY AS I WAS GROWING UP!
Today, I’m listening to a Podcast. According to Gay Hendricks, Psychologist/writer, the Genius Zone is that moment one realizes one’s thoughts are dominated by things we can do nothing about. That is the beginning. Moving ahead in the Zone, is when we commit to start concentrating on thoughts followed by actions where we personally have control!
Visiting with my sister not long ago, she remembered how proud of me she was when I made a dress for Ruby in high school. I realize that was one of my GENIUS ZONE MOMENTS. In high school I was often self-effacing and assumed I did not have qualities like some of the popular girls. One day at the end of my senior year in high school, I became aware of Ruby. My friends and I sometimes made fun of her because she wore ragged clothes and never talked to anyone.
I heard my father tell someone how poor Ruby’s family was. I had grown up watching my father help a lot of families. He was the FISHMAN, delivering groceries to Japanese farmers in our TREASURE VALLEY community of Eastern Oregon and Western Idaho, divided by the Snake River.
Hearing my father, I got excited about an idea where I could do something to help someone. I knew how to sew as I hardly owned anything that I hadn’t personally sewn myself because we were also very poor. I went to Mrs. Patrick our high school girl’s counselor. She was a member of the Baptist Church my family attended, so I knew her. I told her I wanted to do this anonymously so that’s why I was asking her to help me deliver my idea. I needed help figuring out the size of a graduation dress I wanted to sew for Ruby.
I no longer remember any of the details of color, style or what else I had to do. I may even had to pump the Singer Sewing machine with a treadle. For my own clothes, we had to drive to the bigger city of Caldwell or Boise, Idaho, to get the quality and choices of material we wanted. So, I must have asked my mom for help to buy the material and pattern. I slightly remember seeing Ruby with the dress on as we marched into the auditorium to receive our 1956 high school diplomas.
