Yoshi's world: Desert cast-off beauty

Yoshi Arasaki came to the United States over 30 years ago with her husband "Saki" to open Japanese restaurants on the west coast. They were hugely successful and when it came time for Saki to think about retirement, the couple choose to move to Santa Fe to enjoy the quiet mountain living. Saki never did retire, although he can be found on any golf course that is open when he is not freelancing as a sushi chef around town. With Saki working, Yoshi found herself alone with little to do than make origami and create a pleasant home for Saki to come back to at night.

Saki and Yoshi moved into a well-respected neighborhood called Casa Solana (Spanish for sunny house), which may seem ironic or strange or both, depending on how you look at it, as it served as a Japanese Internment Camp during WWII, nearly 70 years ago. It may seem questionable how a prisoner of war camp could have morphed into one of the most sought out communities in Santa Fe. Isn't the energy bad? Could it be cursed? While one could ruminate over the possibilities, especially in a place filled with haunted Native American stories, the answer would lie within its residents, who seem, well, genuinely happy. Yoshi and Saki included.

Like most communities in Santa Fe, the neighborhood has many hiking trails and vistas to enjoy, which Yoshi started to take advantage of when Saki slept in after a hard night's work. She would disappear for hours, and when she returned, she always had something in her hands or her arms. Most times she would be carrying obvious desert fare-- tumbleweeds, dead sunflower stalks, a cholla branch, weird branches. But every now and again, she would have other something unidentifiable on those small determined shoulders and I always got excited watching her head to her casita, imagining what she was going to do with all the dead stuff.

I never asked her what she was doing with them, until the day I looked across the street and saw something unusual sticking out of her half dead purple robe locust tree. It looked like the wind blew a tumbleweed that attached itself to some branches. But there was something dangling, something put there on purpose--it looked like pine cones stringed on yarn. A mobile of desert dead stuff. (picture damaged, not available)

That day, I summoned the nerve to go over and ask Yoshi what the odd thing in the tree was. She smiled, not speaking much English, she pointed for me to come inside. When I went in, I saw all the dead plants she had been carrying home from her walks. They were everywhere, corners, ceilings, on tables, bookshelves. Like little dead plant sculptures, each carefully placed, some stuffed with silk flower blossoms she bought at the Dollar Store.

Yoshi said, "I like things on floor." I wasn't sure what she meant, then she pointed to the ground outside her home and then my yard, which was a tragic waste land of weeds and dead cholla branches. I thought about it some, and then I got it--Yoshi found beauty in the weeds, the left over desert plant remnants.

I asked her if I could take some pictures, she said yes, but I stopped after the 5th one. It felt a bit invasive.

I hope one day it doesn't and I get to take more. Thank you, Yoshi, for your beautiful vision.