One of my main practices is drawing. I just scroll through Pinterest and find interesting ideas. Often whatever I choose is completely unconscious as to the whys I pick those specific images. Usually they are a prelude to understanding something deeper about myself.

Recently, I have been drawing Shigeru Miyamoto, the former CEO of Nintendo who created the Super Mario Bros genre. I don't know why he was popping up after I'd been drawing Ray Manzarek from the Doors for a while, but there he was. Whilst this was happening I had been calling my mother, stepfather, and father doing some really in depth work with them, asking them questions about my upbringing and ask how they felt and I felt in certain situations. The talks with my father had been explicitly emotional as for the first time we acknowledged we had missed each other (first time ever). FYI, he had left our family when I was 3 and saw him sporadically throughout my life.

The next day after this call, I woke up, and I had memory flashes from when I was 8. A school friend of mine, Rene, lived in the same neighborhood as where my father would live. Rene and I met in 2nd grade as he had to redo that year. We became friends quickly. He was also from a single mom home.

One day he invited me over to his place. He had a Nintendo with Super Mario Bros 3 (SM3). I had to cycle through a dangerous neighborhood along a canal on my little BMX to get to his place. But it was well worth the risk, because SM3 was phenomenal. We passed the joysticks between us whenever one of us died and we had so much fun. We'd spend the whole day playing that thing, 6 hours on a stretch. Taking a break in the kitchen to drink some lemonade, eat some cookies, and smell the weed from the living where his mother was smoking on the sofa.

At this time my dad had a girlfriend in the same block where Rene lived. But I never saw him. I just knew he lived there. Sometimes checking whether he was at home. I had been in his girlfriend's place once or twice, but I didn't really liked it there. Once my father told me I should say hello to his girlfriend in the mornings (which I didn't want to) and I sobbed in front of him. Getting on my bike, tears running down my eyes, almost late for school on a blue Monday, and the moon full in the cold morning sky.

But I continued to go every Saturday to Rene, passing my father's house, not visiting him. Not wanting to visit him, but curious whether he was there. And our Mario continued to progress through the new Worlds we'd discover and beat in order to eventually finish the game. Every Saturday.

When 4th grade started, Rene had disappeared. I looked outside of the class window waiting for him to show up. Where was he? I eventually found out that he'd not be coming this year and it wasn't clear if he'd ever return again. Deeply saddened I started school that year. Luckily, I made a new friend. His brother owned a Super Nintendo but we were rarely allowed to play on it. Nevertheless, we shared other things, audio tapes, books, and judo.

The next year, by miracle, Rene had returned. Nobody ever figured out what had happened to him, but I assume it had something to do with his father, and he might have stayed a year with him. Despite feeling happy he was back. Things started to turn sour pretty quickly.

Johnny became a target of Rene's bullying. But Rene wasn't a bully at all. He somehow was picking on my new friend. This was very confusing for me at the time. I was split in choosing someone, and at the end of it I lost both friends. Now in retrospect, I can clearly see that jealousy and Rene's loss of me as his friend determined his actions. We were 10 at this stage. Around this time, the Korean Twins (tung su do bullies in my class) had also assaulted him and smashed his face on a school table, where Rene chipped off his front tooth.

My relationship with Rene and Johnny never healed, unfortunately. Meanwhile I had found other friends with Super Nintendos. This sounds a bit superficial, but you have to understand that my mother didn't want me to own one, so I was forced to look for them elsewhere. Funnily enough, since I had such hardcore Mario experience at Rene's place, other boys would actually invite me into their house to play the games they couldn't beat.

(first drawing of shigeru; 2023)

In the shower this morning I realized what I had been doing in my early childhood. Those trips to Rene was to fill up my lack of fatherhood with these games of our substitute father, Japanese sensei Shigeru Miyamoto.

Mario teaches you how to navigate through an obstacle course with enemies. You can get basic life lessons from this when you don't have a father around. And boys crave this so deeply. They just want an older man to show you how to do things. Whether it's sawing wood, climbing a tree, or doing a leg swipe in judo. By far, Super Mario, doesn't substitute all the father can give to his son, but it gives the child a sense of achievement, joy, and confidence.

Super Mario in that sense is a tough school. It is meant for navigating difficulties and reaching goals. I feel it's very Japanese. Tough environments requiring resilience, endurance, and overcoming. Especially when you don't have a father, life is against you.

And that's why I had been drawing Shigeru. I was paying my respects, because he is my Japanese father, or in his digital form of Mario, trying to make himself known.

(last drawing of shigeru)

Thank you, Shigeru. You're the greatest teacher! Love you!

どうもありがとう