Interview questions

I was  interviewed by Lara Dunning for her blog recently.  My responses are up now.  She asked me a question about the role of visual media (TV and internet) on triggering lost or pushed aside memories within the hibakusha, a question no one has ever asked before.  Here is my answer.  You can read the rest of the conversation on her blog.

"Interesting question! Visual media, and especially the sound that comes with it, is absolutely in-your-face. You can’t put up a nice, safe emotional wall between you and what you are seeing. With words, you can. You can put down the book, but you can also engage your brain to accept the story in a more distant way. And of course, the writer is also making decisions about how to tell the story, so the raw material is already being shaped. But image, and sound, go directly into your brain and your emotions before your mind can protect you. I remember, I think it was a Michael Moore documentary, a black screen where you couldn’t see but could only hear the sound of the 9/11 attacks. That was really powerful."

On Parenting....dot com!

Parenting.com asked me to write about the reaction to my motherhood. You can read the whole essay here. Here is a sample:

"What is a woman’s place? Why are we so eager to judge mothers, and ourselves, based on a belief that self-sacrifice equals love? Why is the well-being of children paramount, while the well-being of the mother is not important at all?"

What (was!) going on in Japan

This one hour conversation, on the Acupuncture Power Hour with Tim Chambers, aired on March 28th, but I am just getting the link now.  On the page, the show, What's Going on in Japan, appears in the list second to the bottom.

The Moment I Knew

The Moment I Knew Meetup for the Huffington Post, 

"Two decades together. All of my adult life. Every day of it in relationship, in twinship. In compromise. He wanted to go back to that life; he wanted the last six months erased. And faced with that impossibility, before he could go forward he needed me to define precisely who I now was.

"And that was the problem. Even that. I couldn't say who I wanted to be. I didn't know, and the point was that I didn't want to have to guess and negotiate. I wanted to be allowed to grow, to change, with the assurance that I was still loveable.

"I tried to put that into words."

There is a short video of the readings here.

Read the whole essay here.

Talking with Dr. Laura Berman

Here's a clip from yesterday's radio interview, which was a wonderful, in-depth hour conversation.  (This is just a seven minute section.)

"Oprah Radio host Dr. Laura Berman talks with Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, author of Hiroshima in the Morning, about her unconventional mothering style. Plus, they discuss how modern women are redefining their roles as mothers."

Listen here.