My sister Theresa is five years younger than me and currently lives in Gifu City, Japan. Gifu City is located in Gifu Prefecture, central Japan. She is married to a Japanese national and together, they have two children who have Japanese/Canadian citizenship.
When I left our home in British Columbia for Toronto, I was 18 and Theresa was 13. I felt that I barely knew her, and I continued to feel this way until we started working together on A Symphony of Words and Images: Two Sisters, Worlds Apart, Creative Together.
Our lives took radically different paths. Theresa travelled the world. I travelled from one end of Canada to the other, and to several different locations in the United States. Only twice in my life have I been overseas - once for a tropical vacation, the other to visit Theresa in Japan for 2 weeks. Theresa had children. I chose not to have any.
Our lives were different, but one day I realized that our careers were remarkably similar. We both chose careers that involve communication with people.
Theresa started her career life in the study of English, French, and German. Her language studies included immersion stays in Trois Rivieres, Quebec and a student work programme in Munchen, Germany. Then one day we learned that Theresa had accepted a contract assignment to teach English at a Japanese university. We thought she would be back in a year, but before we knew it, 15 years had passed, and Theresa had opened her own English Center in Gifu City. Currently, 40 students are enrolled to learn "English as a Foreign Language" (EFL).
My own career life had a slow start, but eventually I found my way into technical writing when my employer decided to computerize the department I was supervising. They plunked a computer terminal on my desk without any documentation, and told me to test it to make sure it worked. When documentation was finally provided, I determined that it was very much out-of-date. It became my responsibility to update it - an experience that I enjoyed very much. One project led to another, and several years and technical writing courses later, I took the plunge and became a self-employed technical writer.
I had no idea that Theresa had a creative streak in her until one day in 2002, she sent me an email that contained a poem that she had written. That poem was Phantom Heart, and it appears on page 8 in our book. The words in that poem described the pain of betrayal and struck me to the core. Several more poems followed, and I realized Theresa's talent for creating imagery with words.
English teaching and technical writing. How similar these career fields are - forms of technical communication or working with words. Creativity through poetry and photography. How can two sisters who practically grew up apart from each other and live worlds apart choose two career paths and creative outlets that are so similar? A mystery to me!
In 2003, Theresa invited me to participate in the creation of something that paired my photography with her poetry. We decided to create a book. We started with only 12 poems, but we finished in 2007 with 40 poems and 45 photographs, to commemorate our 40th and 45th birthdays respectively.
During the project, we met in person only twice (or so) at family reunions to match photos from my huge collection to each of Theresa's poems. The rest of the collaboration was performed via e-mail, Yahoo chat, and web transfer. We worked many nights which became very early mornings for me because of our time zone difference of 12 hours.
My photograph choices for a particular poem were based on words or a phrase in the poem, and our discussions went like this: here's a poem, okay here's some photos (or maybe just one); no the photos aren't suitable, try again; okay I think the poem means this; no - the poem was inspired by this or it means that, try photos of ..... In most cases, we decided really quickly. On one poem, we worked several weeks before we reached a mutual decision.
After the photos were chosen, the sequence of poems in the book had to be decided. We thought about organizing the poems by season since many of the photographs were in nature. However, since 8 photos contain architecture or inanimate objects, and three contain people or pets, that strategy would not work. I finally decided that only Theresa could sequence her poems because she knew the story behind each one. When Theresa was done, she described her process to me.
Theresa printed the pages (each with one poem and its matching photo) and laid them out on the floor so that she could see them all. (She had only previously seen them in a Word or PDF file, one page at a time.) As Theresa moved the pages around, she began to feel the rythm of emotion - high, low, then rising again, like waves of music. She used her hand to feel the waves like a conductor conducts an orchestra. When she was done Theresa was amazed by what we had created. Our poems and photographs were each created at totally different times for totally different purposes, but together, they formed a creation of perfect harmony.
Theresa's music analogy inspired the final title and design of our book: A Symphony of Words and Images: Two Sisters, Worlds Apart, Creative Together. The poems are organized into chapters called movements. The collection of movements describes Theresa's personal symphony of life.
On the book jacket, the cherry blossoms represent Japan, and the red and yellow maple leaves represent Canada. The space between the cherry blossoms and maple leaves represents the vast ocean between us. The background image of music notes reinforces the symphony theme, and the background color soothes the soul and inspires contemplation and relaxation.
This poetry/photography collaboration was an amazing experience for me for two reasons. The book project brought Theresa and I closer together. I learned about her current life and her past experiences, and came to understand who she is. Through this coming closer together, I was able to forgive past quarrels. We now have common ground on which to build our relationship.
I also learned that poetry appreciation is individual, and one's interpretation will always be based on personal experiences. My interpretation of any of Theresa's poems was always vastly different from her story of what inspired them. There is no right or wrong interpretation.
I am currently still working full-time as a contract technical writer. However, my dream is to retire from that and focus on my photography art full-time. Please visit my portfolio and events pages to see what I am doing.
Theresa is still an independent contract instructor and teaches English as a foreign language (TEFL) at several Japanese universities. She is also the owner of the TLC English Center in Gifu where she provides English lessons to all age groups, proofreading services, foreign country home stays, and resource materials for studying and teaching English.
