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We have electricity
Zan decided in the morning that she wanted to return to her house; living here as a refugee with her two cats was really stressful for all of them. After yoga, we helped her pack her belongings into the kei-truck and drove her down the road to her almost perfectly fine (slightly crushed and still…
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Typhoon #15
Wow, that was incredible. The biggest typhoon I’ve ever experienced. We went to bed last night knowing there’d be high winds and rain, so had battened down the hatches and let the cats inside for the night. They were nervous. First asleep in a pile near the door, as the wind picked up they began…
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Happy 2019
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Windy Day
A dust devil spinning itself three stories into the sky above the grocery store. A hundred seagulls facing into the wind as they bobbed on the choppy water. Dozens more gulls swishing in the wild winds over the harbour. A mountain of full-grown trees being brushed by the wind like a Kansas wheat field. A…
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On the Roads
Yesterday at driving school, we went out on the real roads with our new learner’s permits. I expected this to be a brief circle around the school, but it was a gorgeous drive along the coast. We did it three times in three hours and each time was better than the last. Learning to drive…
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Going to Driving School
Whooo! Watch out on the roads; we have our learner’s permits now. Three weeks ago, after a year in the countryside with only bicycles and busses for transportation, Tod & I enrolled at Kamogawa Driving School. Our neighbor, who runs the Korean restaurant, heard we were considering it and insisted that we set a date…
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OMG, Mould
This September was the rainiest one on record, which was really bad for our house and all the stuff in it. When we returned after visiting family in the US for a month, our home was completely coated in mould. The kitchen counter was green. The bedframe was sprouting three dimensional orange mould. The futons…
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8 Streetlights, 12 Spiderwebs
I love walking in the night. Tokyo made me forget the beauty of darkness, but the countryside has awakened my enjoyment of evening calmness. It isn’t pitch black, even on a cloudy, new moon night, but photos don’t capture the dull glow of sky, the faint reflections in the rice fields, or the shy blinking…
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Changes of Season
Before we left Tokyo seven months ago, I had a concern about the seasons, of all things. After almost 18 years in the city, I was tuned to the nature there and the procession of plants and weather created a visceral annual timeline for me. If I moved somewhere else, I’d lose my sense of…
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New Year’s Walking
At midnight, we visited Fudoson temple with Chris and Elli. We rang the big bell – nobody was counting the tolls, I wonder if we got to 108 – had some amazake, listened to the monks chanting Sanskrit and Japanese blessings, then stepped into the temple to greet the gods there. That was pretty special,…
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