by YUMI WILSON

It is somewhat embarrassing for a 41-year-old mother and college professor to confess, but I love, I mean, really love, pop music. Every day, while working on my “writing,” I listen to the Top 100, Hip Hop, or Coffeehouse channels at Yahoo! Music. When I hear something that grabs me, I open up the browser and watch all or part of the video, something I have enjoyed doing since the early days of MTV.

One morning, while sitting in my favorite Pacifica café, I switched from Word to the Top 100 to watch Pink trying to break a brand new guitar as she sang her chorus, “So what, I’m a rock star.” Later, I caught Britney smacking around a handsome-looking guy in her latest video, “Womanizer.” Finally, I left my video world of music to return to my writing, but I continued listening to my music. Amy Winehouse had just begun singing her two-year-old hit, “Rehab.” Though I loved, loved, loved the song when it came out, I couldn’t stomach hearing, “They tried to make me go to rehab. I said, ‘No, no, no,’” for the 44th time.

So, with a simple click of a button, I made Amy’s overplayed song disappear. I returned to my writing, paying careful attention to the bright red notes from my writing coach. Jane Anne has asked me to “unpack” my feelings around meeting Aunt Reiko, my mother’s little sister, for the first time in my life. The meeting took place in the fall of 2001, while I was in Japan on a three-month grant. To be quite honest, the meeting felt awkward. I couldn’t tell what my aunt was thinking, or whether she even liked me. I stared at the dull screen on my laptop, wondering what to write. Yes, I was disappointed that my long-lost aunt did not invite me to her home, or tell me how wonderful it was to find her niece after so many years had passed, but did I want the world to know that?

Just then, I began to hear something about the catching or looking up at the sky. “You long for something more,” a soft-voiced man sang. Darn right, I did, like finishing this book, and writing something fun, or even funny.

“Follow me,” the guy said, “ … never have to wish again.”
Intrigued, I minimized Word and returned to the video channel. There, I discovered the face of a very young guy with an extremely short crew cut and tight white T-shirt. He was singing and playing his guitar while sitting around a campfire, surrounded by other equally beautiful and young people. The guy didn’t look much older than my 12-year-old son. There was something about his eyes, though, that grabbed me. They sparkled against the dark night sky; they were narrow, shaped like almonds – a lot like my eyes. He has to be Hapa, I thought. He has to be mixed, like me. I checked out the name next to the video: Justin Nozuka. That certainly sounded Japanese, but I couldn’t be sure.

I opened another window and typed in Justin’s full name. My hunch was right: Justin Tokimitsu Nozuka, according to the Oct. 26th entry on Wikipedia, was born to a Japanese father, Hiromitsu, and American mother, Holly Sedgwick (sister of one of my favorite actresses, Kyra Sedgwick). I opened up his MySpace account and discovered that his profile had been viewed more than 4.1 million times. His MySpace photo looked a bit dated; his hair was long, wavy and brown.

I quickly returned to the video. “After tonight,” the man said, “you don’t have to look at the stars.”

What did he mean? Why wouldn’t anyone want to look at the stars? The stars were beautiful to look at – they made me happy. Why wouldn’t I want to look at them? Soon, the camera zoomed in on a black man driving a white compact. Inside, his young daughter sat with a puzzled look in the back seat. The scene reminded me of my own father and me – as a little girl. I used to wear pigtails just like the girl did in the video. I also used to worry when my father worried – just like the girl seemed to be doing in the video. Why did the man and his daughter seem worried? Why wouldn’t they be able to look up at the stars after tonight?

I began to worry that the moment scene was going to turn violent. Was the man angry with his little girl? Was he frightened by something? The man pulled his car over. Was someone following him? There seemed to bright lights flashing from behind. Was someone following him? My mind raced back to old TV documentaries I had seen about blacks being lynched by hateful whites. Was this man in danger of being lynched?

Was Justin Nozuka singing a song about how a black man and his daughter wouldn’t see the stars because they were going to be lynched? Was he making a subtle reference to the 1964 lynching of the three civil rights workers in Mississippi?

I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the screen as I waited to see what would happen next. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long for the answer. This was, after all, a music video – and not a novel. The next scene showed the man getting out the car. Bright yellow stars had surrounded him and were falling all around him. That’s why the man didn’t have to look up – the stars were falling to the ground.

I broke into a huge smile and leaned back against the café’s wood-paneled wall. Justin Nozuka, the new kid on the block (at least to me), had now confirmed why I loved pop music so darn much. While the music may seem fluffy, unimportant, gratuitous, or just silly to a lot of people, the lyrics can hold deeper meaning and even inspire you – if you listen closely enough.

At least, that’s what Justin Nozuka’s song did for me that morning in Pacifica, as I struggled to deepen my emotions in my own work. After his song ended, I returned to one of my scenes with Aunt Reiko. I re-read what Jane Anne had written about needing to unpack. I thought for a moment, and then began to write.

The next day, as we got ready to leave the hotel, Aunt Reiko appeared, unannounced. I tilted my head and smiled, wondering why she had returned. Maybe she missed me? Perhaps now she would acknowledge me as family? Maybe now she would give me an address, a number – so I could come back to Hokkaido and see her?

In that snippet, I wanted to show the reader my desire to be accepted by my aunt, to be loved as a Hapa, or Hafu, as I was called in Japan. I wanted to have the stars fall around me, just as they did in Justin’s video, so that I would no longer have to look up and wish for something good to happen.

I probably would have kept on “unpacking” something else in my book, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Justin. I decided to go back to my video channel and listen to another one of his songs. This one was aptly titled, “Be Back Soon.”