Chapter 2: Madame Butterfly — Vanessa Asell Tsuruga

It was the end of October 2020, and I was trying to declutter my many me’s. A year when the inner symbiosis got shaken up, I figured that listing and defining my roles — and responsibilities! — could help decipher who I was as a person. Who I wanted to be.

Read the full Letter from the author here .

Links to previous chapters:

Chapter 1: Me

Each chapter has six segments:

Meaning: Definition of role?

Map: So wait, how did I get here?

Milestone: The enablers that made it possible?

Magic: Highlight moments

Missing: Challenges, regrets, and missed opportunities

More: What is still to come

Meaning

a baby girl born a butterfly finally spreads her wings after forty-something years of metamorphosis

Map?

Before I was born, my parents knew a girl by the name of Vanessa. I became the 20th Vanessa in Sweden. That was in the late 70s. I grew up having to repeat it several times, especially to my grandmother’s generation. They had never heard my name, other than Vanessa Redgrave.

The origin of my name has been debated. It is a genus of butterflies. Genus is used to group animals and plants into families and groups. We can think of it as a last name, although it comes first. There are more than 22 butterflies starting with Vanessa. I have selected my top three favorites: Vanessa atalanta, red admiral. Vanessa braziliensis, Brazilian painted lady. Vanessa cardui, painted lady or cosmopolitan.

When you are born a butterfly, you… become a butterfly. It forms your identity. Early on, I liked heights. Trees. Climbing mountains. Elevating my eyesight beyond my own height.?

My wallpaper had butterflies in blue, yellow, green and pink. The motif on journals, stationary and clothes often had butterflies on them. Our neighbor Bengt who lived upstairs in a house we shared brought me back a white lace pin in the shape of yes, a butterfly, from a business trip to California. It was soon in great company of other pins, stored in a small box. Pinned butterflies in frames, behind a glass, adorned my walls. I had quite a few of them.?

Beyond physical butterflies, the sense of metamorphosis started to take hold. Life is different stages, and I began a flight path where each stage was its own era. My childhood in Sweden. My teens in Barcelona. Journalism studies in London. Freelance journalist in Tokyo. Sports marketer in Kobe, which continued back in Sweden. A master’s student in Olympia. A tech giant employee in Tokyo.?

People often asked me which place I liked the most. My answer is a constant: Each place was perfect at that given time. Sweden gave me a grounded childhood and sense of who I was. Come on, teens in Barcelona, can you imagine all the night time fun? London, the media capital of the world following Washington, D.C. — what better place to become a journalist? Olympic studies at the International Olympic Academy a stone’s throw from where the Olympics began in 776 B.C., an ideal location, with the added bonus of goosebumps as you cycle by the sports grounds. A historic cradle.

I have been truly lucky to have been born a butterfly. For a while I had happymadamebutterfly as an email alias. My Facebook profile picture painted by my high school art teacher Mr. Maga?a will never change. As long as I live I will remain a butterfly.

??

Milestone

In the spring of 2020, I was asked to hold a career coffee chat at work. It was part of the Fun Work and Career Growth workstream that I had been tasked to lead. I was joined by six members of the Global Brand Supervisory Division at Rakuten. Our mission was simple. In covid-19 times, we wanted to make our workplace the happiest possible.

We set out to do career coffee chats so that the bigger group would get to know our senior leaders better. Create a natural place for us to tell our stories in a casual setting. On Zoom of course, since we were all working from home by then.?

I was second out. I spoke to about fifty people, from my Japanese tatami room. The main point I aimed to convey was that I was finally spreading my wings as a butterfly. I had been through all the first three stages of the metamorphosis — egg, caterpillar, chrysalis (or pupa) — and finally felt like an adult butterfly. I was spreading my wings.

On March 8, 2020, better known as International Women’s Day, my debut book F?rg?tmigej f?r alltid saw the light of day. My wings were working. They were taking me places I had only dreamed of until then. At the time of the presentation, I was in the process of translating it into English. It was launched seven months later, on October 1, 2020. My wings fluttered frantically during the translation process as Dave Odegard and Maja Svensson of Svengard & Co went through my Swedish text section by section. Through weekly Zoom calls we went over the parts they had translated, weeded out questions, and tried to agree on how far to go with descriptions.?

Translating a piece of literary work takes skill. It is half brain, half heart. Maja was the brain, Dave added the heart. Together we worked in unison toward an October 1 launch and we made it, giri giri safe as they say in Japanese. Part of me leaned toward the readers who had bought it on pre-sale and expected an e-book delivered on the day I had promised them. The other half wondered why I pressured myself so hard when the Olympics had been canceled. In the end, I kept the pre-calculated flight trajectory and launched my debut novel in English. Forget-me-not Forever.?

It is April 2008, and the wedding invitations are ready to go. Felicia’s bridal bouquet is growing in a flower box on the balcony. There is just one thing left to do. Determined to find closure, she packs her bags and buys a one-way ticket leaving Stockholm.

When she was nine years old, Felicia and her childhood friend Alma created a binder to travel the world and left it at a roadside burger stand. Along with instructions for those who found it, they include a pair of secret letters.

When they were eighteen, they made a pact to travel in the footsteps of the binder. Then their lives change forever. The countdown is on for a journey to Sweden, Spain, America, Cuba, and Japan.

Spreading my wings, and telling it to the world, was a milestone.

Magic

A magical moment in the life of Vanessa, AKA Madame Butterfly, was a Saturday in November, 2010. I got married. To be clear, we celebrated our marriage on this day. The papers had been passed on to the Nada ward office in Kobe on Valentine’s day that same year. An extremely dry and non-ceremonial ceremony on a Sunday morning: We entered the government building through a back door and the only interaction with the servant behind the glass window was when he asked me to remove my hat. Voila, we were married.?

We threw a Celebration of Love party at Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art along the industrial harbor in Kobe, Japan. A Tadao Ando architectural landmark with naked cement often used in his work. Friends and family had flown in from South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Thailand, and Spain, while many had come by Shinkansen from across Japan. It was a world celebration. Our first son was with us, four months old.?

The party started out in the auditorium, a large cinema-like space with seats climbing up toward the wall in the back. Seated and facing the screen, we welcomed everyone by reversing languages. I spoke Japanese, Kazu spoke English. The technician, my sister Charlotta, pushed play and the story of our lives rolled out as an animated short film.?

A story about The Butterfly and the Happy One, about love, and about being happy in the company of dear friends. First shown at Vanessa’s and Kazu’s Celebration of Love in Kobe, Japan, in November 2010.

With love from Kobe

A little girl is born in the land of the midnight sun and far far away in the land of the rising sun, a little boy is born into this world. Let us call the little girl The Butterfly, and the little boy, let’s call him the Happy One. The Butterfly and the Happy One were so alike, even though they were so different, and even though they lived so very very far away from each other.?

One winter day, The Butterfly’s father got a new job. All four flew to Barcelona, a city by the sea. The people there spoke a different language, they ate different food, and even the weather was different. The sun was bright and it was hot outside, sometimes she missed the land of the midnight sun and wanted to go back. But her many friends made her happy again. And she also got a baby sister.

The Happy One lived with his father, mother, sister in the countryside in Fukui, in the land of the rising sun. He woke up long before the sun had risen, and got on his bike to deliver the newspaper to everyone in the village. Sometimes it snowed, and it often rained, because it often rains in Fukui. It was tough but his many friends made him happy again.?

The Butterfly, she liked to write. Letters, postcards, stories, and her journals. The Happy One, he liked to cook food. Cakes, udon, pasta, fish. The Butterfly flew on to London to go to a school where she could write every day. Sometimes she missed the sun of Barcelona, because it rained quite a lot, but her many friends made her happy again.?

The Happy One took the train to Kyoto, to go to a school where he could cook food every day. He made many friends, who made him very happy. When they didn’t write or cook food, they both traveled. The Butterfly, she traveled around in Europe, to South Africa, India, Australia. She went to Cuba, Mexico and America. And she started running. She ran Tokyo, New York, Sydney, and just couldn't get enough, looking for more cities to run to. And the Happy One, he traveled to the Easter Islands, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, to Turkey, Thailand and Europe. And he loved riding his motorcycle. He went away on trips with his friends. Far far away he went, and fast. He slept out in the open but sometimes it was a little scary.?

And then one day, The Butterfly moved to the land of the rising sun. She wanted to test her wings in the world. And she wanted to write about her adventures. She first landed in Tokyo, the biggest city in the land of the rising sun, where the skyscrapers nearly touched the clouds. How lucky she was to find so many friends there, from her time in Barcelona. It wasn’t always easy to live in a country where she didn’t speak the language, or read the strange signs, but her many friends made her happy again.?

The Happy one moved onto Kobe, a port city between the sea and the mountains because he wanted to cook food at a fancy hotel. But after a while he knew he wanted to build houses instead. Every night he sat at home and read and read, and suddenly one day he was an architect.?

The Butterfly flew onto Kobe, which also reminded her so much of Barcelona. The sea and the mountains. And guess what happened in Kobe. They found each other, The Butterfly and the Happy One. He thought she was beautiful. She liked his lust for adventure. They took out maps and photos from their many trips. And they had so much to talk about, but sometimes it was difficult to speak in one language only. So they used Japanese, English, and Spanish. What luck that they had all those languages in common. It wasn’t always easy, but their love for each other and their many friends made them happy again.

They were so in love with each other. In the autumn, they rode their bicycles around Awaji Island. Guided by the moon, they pedaled up the mountain, and down into the valley on the other side. When they got tired they slept on a beach. In the winter, they flew to Egypt, they rode camels, and a motorcycle. They sailed on the Nile at sunset and they saw the pyramids. In the spring, they went to Fukui, they celebrated a festival and wore kimono that were thousands of years old.?

In the summer, when the rain came to the land of the rising sun, a little baby came into this world. A small boy, let’s call him The Good Friend. Many came to visit, wrote letters, and sent gifts. His two grandmothers met for the first time. His aunts also met in a great celebration.?

And the autumn came again, the most beautiful of seasons in the land of the rising sun. The Butterfly and the Happy One had gathered all their most beautiful friends to celebrate that they had found love, and each other. They chose to have a party in Kobe, because that’s where everything began. The great adventure, the adventure of life. Friends arrived from near and far, in clothes of all colors. They hug, they kiss, they shake hands, and bow, and say hej, hello, hola and konnichiwa. They laugh, and they cry, because sometimes we are so happy that we shed a tear. The Butterfly and the Happy One are so happy. Happy in a way one can only be when surrounded by the most precious people. People, who have traveled across the sky, the sea, and the earth to be here, on this day.?

They hold each other’s hands and look out at all the people who have gathered at the great party. Friends are the best thing in the world, they think. We are so lucky. And then they turn to their son, The Good Friend, and say, We hope that you too will find as many precious people in your life as we have. They will make you happy, as happy as we are today.?

Missing

Any butterfly is fragile. One moment it flies high, fluttering its colorful wings, only to crash on hard pavement where picking up is sometimes difficult. If I could ask for something that would complete Madame Butterfly, it would be a more rhythmic fluttering where the ups and downs have less altitude in between. Writing has always helped keep me leveled. My journal, my best friend.

More

Moving on from here, I want to keep flying into the unexplored spaces of my mind, where many stories are waiting to get released. The confidence gained from putting my face out there as a debut author in March 2020 will be my rock to land on. To take off from. While the metamorphosis is complete — I mentioned I am spreading my wings as an adult butterfly — I think this final stage of a butterfly’s life is where most of the action happens.?

I am more than forty and I will keep my wings spread wide, arching my back, raising my head, looking for new horizons. I will transform my mind’s matter into stories. Again, the metamorphosis. A transformation. From one thing to another. From air to Once upon a time. To be continued.

To be continued.?

Once the conversation spreads beyond the words you are now reading, positivity and empathy are key. BE KIND. Bring value and relevance to the discussions. Be helpful. Encourage one another. Highlight trends. Share case studies, resources, and your network.

Together, let’s #TalkAboutGoingPlaces.

I’ll be bringing you new chapters regularly.

Until soon,

Vanessa ?sell Tsuruga