Bloom

Okay, so I'm proud of myself. I discovered two dreams.

The first, is to live in a place surrounded by lots of nature -- forests, beaches, whatever nature will do, but lots of it.

The second dream is to wake up with the sun shining on my face in the morning, every possible morning.






Both of these dreams are of things I used to have, but no longer have. How does one go about finding dreams of things one never knew existed?

...how do I know my own life dream?

The Power of Short Skirts?

Short skirts. Blonde hair. Stilettos. False eyelashes. These are the images that come to mind when I recall the past few days. Yes, that's right. I went shopping.

In Fukuoka especially, there are made-up young women with tiny shorts and skirts and big hair everywhere. I suppose they are trying to look sexy or cute or pretty. I mean, they certainly go all out with some goal in mind. It seems like one can only be cute and pretty to a certain extent, until there is no cuter or prettier one can get--these girls are at the edge of that--like characatures of 'cute' and 'pretty.'

Is that the ultimate of being feminine, being irresistably cute and pretty? It's hard for me to see it as anything other than trying to attract guys. Can it stand on its own as a sort of 'path to one's self?' Do clothes and make-up and hair make us feminine, and help us find ourselves? Can they??

Just a couple thoughts as I nod off...

Night awl

The Departure

Sunday night, I ran off to school to pick up some materials before giving some lessons I do on the side. I ran into Si Sensei on my way into the building. He apologized to me profusely, got in his car, and drove off into the darkness. I scuttled inside somewhat perplexed. A couple of teachers were sitting around in the staff room, not uncommon for a Sunday night. I grabbed my worksheets and headed out.

The other day a friend sent me an article about some scientists who are trying to send a photon back in time(Thanks, J). The scientists are working with an idea that photons can become entangled and effect each other through time. Well, you can read it for yourself, but it got me to thinking about that 'chance' meeting with Si Sensei.

Si Sensei quit his job. He wasn't in school last week, and he's left in the middle of the second term, so the other teachers, including me, are scrambling to cover his classes and take on his other responsibilities. But I want to get back to that encounter, how different his perspective must have been from mine.

In fact, I didn't really need to go there to the school, but when I did get there, Si Sensei almost seemed to be _waiting_ for me. He looked so fragile, almost ghost-like. He apologized with no explanation five or six times, and departed.

The next morning, people were asking _me_ questions about Si Sensei's departure. Apparently, it was quite sudden, and somehow, being there last night, I seemed to know more than anyone.

What was it that made Sensei think I knew what was going on? What drew me to school at that particular time? Do we get entangled in each other, and what does time have to do with it?

I'll miss Si Sensei. He put a lot of burden on me in these past months, but it was not hard to see he wanted to be free of burden himself. There was a particular goodness about him that made me want him to get his dream.

Enjoy yourself out there, Sensei, today, tomorrow, and yesterday.

Down with Physics

Learning a little about physics has given me some insight into my Aikido practice from time to time. By learning from principles that are in nature, I also learn ways nature works in me. That can then be applied to the practice, i.e. practicing harmony with nature. But all that is about to change.

The principles and laws of physics, from observing the biggest down to the smallest things we can conceive of, serve to help us clarify what exactly we are dealing with in this universe. 'What makes it all go?' is another question, but starting with gravity, to planetary motion, to curved space, to Einstein, to quantum physics, to physics that was so beyond me in 11th grade, it finally comes to this. In a few years, plugs will probably be a thing of the past.

Remember when phone receivers needed wires to connect them to the phone? Wasn't it nice to twirl the phone cord around your finger while you talked? Remember when we didn't have internet? Those shiny encyclopedias were like gold!! Remember when stamps cost 22 cents? Well, I do. It was the best.

I mean really, is physics all that great? Do submarines really matter? Is gravity oh-so-necessary?? I mean, things floating all around would be so cool, wouldn't it? I say it's time to take a stand against physics! Things were better before the apple fell on Newton's head! People could rest at night knowing the planets were being pushed around by little angels, and that the earth was the center of the universe.

Therefore, I say, let's fight for plugs!!! Sure we trip over them sometimes, they get all mixed up and we plug the rice cooker in when we mean to plug the kotatsu in and wonder why our feet are still cold, but plugs deserve a chance!! Who's with me???


I'm still on hiatus, but the brain seems to be in overdrive. Need more exercise.

Japanese and Howl

Enjoyed 'Howl's Moving Castle' tonight. What a lovely movie, I was thinking as I watched. Surprised how much of the Japanese I could understand, and of course, how much sounds utterly mysterious still. Language class has really pushed me to try to understand more and more.

What I'm enjoying now about learning Japanese is the structure and conformity of the language. It's beautifully simple because there are few exceptions to grammatical rules, as of yet. Of course, the rules are numerous, but I like studying them because they are tangible and I can use them right away.

Watching a nice movie in Japanese with pretty music and a lively and complex plot added to my energy to want to understand what's going on in Japan in its own Japanese terms.

I've never been Japan-obsessed or into manga or whatever clever Japanese gadgit, but I do like learning Japanese, and trying to speak it. That being said, I've a long, long way to go to really be skilled at it. Keeping on plugging...

I was given good advice here to take it easy and spend a little less time doing everything possibly doable. I decided to take that advice to heart. I'm on hiatus. I blew a fuse today and will spend some time not doing my regular activities for now, Japanese class aside. In the meantime, my mind is going to work on what it needs, and my body is going to work on what it needs. I think, when they have decided, they will let me know.

Otherwise, all is well tonight. The rain of a couple days ago has let up for the moment, and the air feels crisp and clear. I head off to bed with the last melody of the Moving Castle hanging in that air. Like Howl, may we all find our own heart after having caught a demon/air spirit thingy and making it your fire-slave and having a significant other who is under a spell that makes her have gray hair.

Or, as the Japanese might say, 'おしあわせに(O-shiawase ni)': May you have happiness.

Night all.

Rittou: Winter Has Arrived

Today, the first day of winter, 'rittou' in Japanese, lived up to its name. As I type this, I have my heater on for the first time this season, and my shoji rice paper doors shut to keep out the cold air.

My home is somewhat like a house of cards, in that the walls are thin, like cards. :-l The floors in all the main rooms are made of tatami, tightly woven straw mats. Under the straw mats are boards of wood. There's no insulation in the floor, walls or ceiling. Every room in the house has a window or a set of glass sliding doors(there are 3 sets of sliding doors). Air seems to leak in through all of the sliding doors and windows, and even the floors and walls are cold in the winter. Perhaps, for me, one of the most difficult parts of life here is no escape from extreme temperatures, outside of the little heater/air-con in the bed room.

The cold can and has been a real issue for me in the winter. (And of course, the heat is tremendous in summer. One example of this that I give of the ferocity of the heat is that the rosin in my violin case actually melted or morphed, or whatever that could be called, in my case last summer it was so hot inside my house.) This year, however, I'm interested to go through another winter, see if I can get through it, you might say, even inviting in the cold.

Living with an awareness of the seasons, the challenges each season can bring to daily life is really interesting. It offers a natural way of operating: if dishes are not cleaned up after eating, bugs will appear quickly. If clothes are not hung to dry, or taken to be dried quickly, they will grow mildew. If the curtains touch the mats in summer, the mats will get tiny bugs. These things can all happen in such a short amount of time, often less than one day, that I find I have to keep things in order just to prevent any possible opportunity for nature to create chaos in my house. As with taking precautions not to get burglarized by not create the opportunity for someone to become a thief, I find that I can't be careless about how I leave things, for scarcely a moment. I image having kids is probably the same...

Living in this way gives me a natural role to play. I am useful to myself; I feel satisfied when I can understand one more little bit of how things seem to work in the natural world. So, although I feel uncomfortable sometimes, I can learn a necessary, practical and useful way to live. At least until I'm no longer here...

That's all for tonight. Happy Rittou, to those who embrace this marvelously frigid and frostbitten season(it's all relative, right?)!!

Drawn to the Stand by the Halloween Trees

Today, as I was coming home from the city, I stopped by a large fruit and market stand I'd seen many times before. I'd always wondered what kind of place it was, but I didn't have the time to stop on the way up, and it was always closed on the way back. But today, I had a bit of extra time, so I stopped.

Out front, there were hundreds of mandarin oranges bagged up, and the bags were grouped according to the farm they were raised on. They were priced differently by how sweet and juicy they tasted. I tried the sample slices, and bought a bag of about 15 plum-sized mandarins('mikan' in Japanese) for 200yen, the juicy and sweet, yet mid-priced ones.

The reason I stopped, really, was because I kept seeing all these persimmon trees full of fruit by the roadside(I think of them as 'Halloween trees' because they look like little pumpkins growing on dead trees), and remembered that I haven't eaten any persimmons yet this season.

I quickly found them at the stand. They were priced from 200yen for four all the way up to 650yen for two. I paid 350yen for two, also mid-priced. I don't need fancy-schmancy persimmons just to satisfy a little craving. We'll leave those for the Iron Chefs, right?

Next, I went inside and it was amazing in there. There was this whole variety of Japanese fruits and veggies, so fresh, super cheap, plus lots of homemade pickled foods, which never seem to taste quite right when they come from the supermarket, so many kinds of locally grown green tea and other products like honey and barley, and at least half a dozen veggies that I still don't know how to use(working on it), and small and large local citrus fruits. I was shy about taking pictures, but I want to try next time I go. Maybe one of you detectives out there can tell me what veggies you see.

That nice trip aside, last night's big Halloween party at Ben's house, which actually _is_ across from a grove of mandarin orange trees and perhaps a Halloween tree or two, was fun. I went as a Chinese Pumpkin, wearing a Chinese-style dress with pumpkins all over it, and Hiro went as Darth Vader: helmet, cape, light saber, breathing apparatus and all. I taught him 'Luke, I am your father,' and he told me it went over very well with the foreign people he met through the night.

There were tons of people, 50 or 60, I think, in this house out in the countryside, out in the middle of nowhere. There were about half foreign people, half Japanese. Very mixed and friendly bunch.

It was all fun and games... until a friend of mine overdrank his tank and passed out badly. He was taken to the hospital and released at three this morning when we took him back to my house to sleep, way after the fun and games were over. He's seemingly fine now, but it wasn't so fun when all that was going on.

I wasn't feeling so hot for that and other reasons today, so after my Japanese lesson, I drove home instead of staying for Aikido and Jodo. It was not so bad, after all, because I came back early and the market stand was still open...

From Thursday to Death

Okay, so maybe it's time to pay more attention to blogging. I don't have any poetic ideas tonight, so I'll just write what comes up this time.

It's Thursday night, I'm sitting on my bed, and I'm wearing red pajamas. There are four blankets on my bed, although it's not that cold tonight. I cleaned the air filters on the heater just in case it starts to get cool.

I heard that it's been snowing and really cold in Colorado recently. Our weather has been the complete opposite. I was sweating during class today, and I got a sunburn the other day while hiking. My nose is peeling.

About my skin: last winter, when I was in Tokyo, I got a makeover in one of the biggest department stores in the world. I don't like getting made over -- I always think I look like a clown afterwards, and this was no exception. But there was one difference this time. Looking in the mirror, I noticed wrinkles around my eyes for the first time ever. It was strange to see that.

I only started using skin care products two years ago, when Hiro introduced them to me. If I use those products, my skin seems to look and feel nice and soft, and if I don't, well, it's now got these itty-bitty wrinkles.

Someone noticed the wrinkles this summer -- only one person has ever commented -- but I didn't feel bad about that. I ams what I ams, and these wrinkles are just curious things.

I also noticed some gray hairs on my head which seemed to have multiplied during last year. I got my hair lightened once this summer, but before that, there were maybe 15 or 20 gray hairs. Whether it came from the stress I experienced in my first year as an English teacher here, or whether it was just a natural occurance, who knows. They don't bother me much either.

Although I'm young on the scale of things, I suppose I am getting older, not just getting older, but aging in the slightest of ways already. The Oprah magazine was on aging this month. I suppose that got me thinking about aging a bit. I see my parents growing, aging, and changing, and I learn about life by talking with them about these things sometimes. It wasn't as obvious to me before I went away. I wonder if they can see me grow, change, and begin my aging too...

As autumn makes its way into winter, I reflect upon the inevitable(succinctly stated by The Flaming Lips: Do you realize/that everyone you know/someday/will die?). The more curious I become about death, the more curious I become about living. Even the low parts of living are somehow still worth being alive.

Is that true?

I'll be back soon, see you...