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| A local Jinga |
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| A View of The Yada River |
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| Kaime practicing |
Monday, January 31, 2011
OK to Love a Second Time?
Cold with a windy wetness that cuts right through to the you of you, especially if you've been walking all day. It turns me on. It makes me so happy to be using my legs as a method for covering the distance and seeing over the horizon, or in this case more correctly past the next group of buildings and intersections. I feel the earth move under my feet. The tatami maker I talked to smiled and looked at me as if I must be joking . . . thinking that having 5 tatamis recovered would somehow bring the price down per tatami.
Down by the banks of the river Yada I finally had a chance to talk to one of the "pirate" gardeners. I meant to just ask him if I could take his picture but we got to talking about gardening and he urged me to join--the next plot was available he said. He smiled and laughed a lot as did I. I want to do it. Farming on public land in the heart of a major city is so spicy. How could the pirate and the gardener in me resist? Fun, fun! And to shoot the video of the river, the gardeners--city in the background and my garden. Very sweet revolution. After smiles and handshakes I forgot all about taking the picture.
Kaime's 1st day at his "保育園"--his Japanese kindergarten. He's really being thrown into a different sea but he seems game for it and I'm so excited to hear his report when he comes home this afternoon. The boy prattles on in English non-stop and I wonder if being surrounded by kids who don't get it will slow him down or if he'll gracefully segue into Japanese.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
push and pull
Tradition vs. innovation, the practical vs. aesthetics and the collective vs. the individual.
These "which ways" as Kaime calls them are the bones of culture and language and our own personalities.
As we hunt for a school for Kaime having these things line up in a way we like seems such an important matter.
To a large degree we crossed the Hudson Bay and the Arctic Circle and came here to offer Kaime an expanded view--a view different from the one he might get if he grew up exclusively in Acworth.
Of course I look at the Japanese aesthetic with freshness of non-native eyes too. I am continually surprised.
The other day we went to meet a violin teacher--quite an accomplished violinist--who by pure luck and chance is living right here in the same group of buildings. When we went in her door it was like a contest of apologies, Ms. Morimoto was apologizing about the size and quality of her home and Yumiko was apologizing about our intruding into her lovely space. I had a hard time believing it, but they were very serious about going through all the twists and turns.
American are from the wild wild west. The private space and individual characteristic are thought to be as scared as one right to own collect and in some cases carry firearms. The politics is a canvas of colorful if not always so thoughtful preachers; carnival barkers pushing ideas that they try to wind into the DNA of the constitution and the "Founding Fathers." Barak Obama and Sarah Palin are in the ring and sweaty, their fans and cynics in the stands hurling expletives and foul smelling refuse while the whole thing is being broadcast live. Across the seas, here in Japan the many colorless bureaucrats deal out of the public eye. Few of the greater public have much interest in these drama less machinations and individual politicians remain in the background unless scandal catches them with their hand in the jar. They do, however, get the job done. The streets are immaculate, the trash is recycled in ever more sophisticated ways and yesterday I saw bank upon bank of solar panels, the largest solar setup I ever seen, being installed between the different directions on a large highway. The people I was with didn't seem to notice.
The first time I came to Japan I was struck by the quality of the shared infrastructure.The trains, buses, roads the public baths, the schools, the health system. The idea of team work--which is little more than a cooperative competitive alliance in the US--is a kind of group consciousness here. Politeness and protocol rule over individual expression and creative rebellion. On a bus a little chime and a soft sounding recorded voice, along with an updating information screen, lets you know what the next stop will be. The driver warns you two times, "走します"as he carefully starts the bus moving.
Though it is so impressive and I love the way things actually work and the people are polite I am by nature drawn to the rebels and pirates. I'm fascinated by the "pirate" gardeners down by the Yada River. City, highway, buildings and trains all around and these native souls are doing something so natural and old it trumps the building and the city's goings on by it's humanness.
We'll grow a garden of some size here--tsubaki are already blooming here--whether just on our terrace or we'll find a plot somewhere close--or maybe I'll go join the pirate gardeners....
These "which ways" as Kaime calls them are the bones of culture and language and our own personalities.
As we hunt for a school for Kaime having these things line up in a way we like seems such an important matter.
To a large degree we crossed the Hudson Bay and the Arctic Circle and came here to offer Kaime an expanded view--a view different from the one he might get if he grew up exclusively in Acworth.
Of course I look at the Japanese aesthetic with freshness of non-native eyes too. I am continually surprised.
The other day we went to meet a violin teacher--quite an accomplished violinist--who by pure luck and chance is living right here in the same group of buildings. When we went in her door it was like a contest of apologies, Ms. Morimoto was apologizing about the size and quality of her home and Yumiko was apologizing about our intruding into her lovely space. I had a hard time believing it, but they were very serious about going through all the twists and turns.
American are from the wild wild west. The private space and individual characteristic are thought to be as scared as one right to own collect and in some cases carry firearms. The politics is a canvas of colorful if not always so thoughtful preachers; carnival barkers pushing ideas that they try to wind into the DNA of the constitution and the "Founding Fathers." Barak Obama and Sarah Palin are in the ring and sweaty, their fans and cynics in the stands hurling expletives and foul smelling refuse while the whole thing is being broadcast live. Across the seas, here in Japan the many colorless bureaucrats deal out of the public eye. Few of the greater public have much interest in these drama less machinations and individual politicians remain in the background unless scandal catches them with their hand in the jar. They do, however, get the job done. The streets are immaculate, the trash is recycled in ever more sophisticated ways and yesterday I saw bank upon bank of solar panels, the largest solar setup I ever seen, being installed between the different directions on a large highway. The people I was with didn't seem to notice.
The first time I came to Japan I was struck by the quality of the shared infrastructure.The trains, buses, roads the public baths, the schools, the health system. The idea of team work--which is little more than a cooperative competitive alliance in the US--is a kind of group consciousness here. Politeness and protocol rule over individual expression and creative rebellion. On a bus a little chime and a soft sounding recorded voice, along with an updating information screen, lets you know what the next stop will be. The driver warns you two times, "走します"as he carefully starts the bus moving.
Though it is so impressive and I love the way things actually work and the people are polite I am by nature drawn to the rebels and pirates. I'm fascinated by the "pirate" gardeners down by the Yada River. City, highway, buildings and trains all around and these native souls are doing something so natural and old it trumps the building and the city's goings on by it's humanness.
We'll grow a garden of some size here--tsubaki are already blooming here--whether just on our terrace or we'll find a plot somewhere close--or maybe I'll go join the pirate gardeners....
Thursday, January 20, 2011
10 flights up
Watch what you dream for it might come true.
I spent the last 11 years trying to see if I could live "more lightly" on the earth. I believed that by pulling back from the greater economic system of consumption and waste I would not only live closer to my ideals but also have a richer deeper experience. In some regards living the way we have been allowed for more control as far as consumption is concerned--we didn't need to buy as many things wrapped in plastic--and could produce a certain amount for our own needs and when we had goats and made cheese (sounds cliche) we produced some for others too. But the distancing ourselves from the greater structure or even living lightly seemed to become a phantom. Most country people drive a lot and often in big trucks. They heat large spaces for their nuclear families. They love high tech gadgets and fly places to visit the friends and family. The most concerned people, "the alternativos," as Jim Merkle called them use more stuff and resources than city dwellers. In fact NY state's relatively low per capita carbon footprint comes not from the vast unused lands but because many people live in NYC. Surprise surprise. Collective living not exurbia in less toxic. This is/was a painful revelation to me. The other part of the equation was that, as Adam Lobel kindly pointed out to me one time when he had just finished a world travel with the Sakyung, the world is marching in another direction. Try as you like to take less plastic bags more smart phones and disposable electric toothbrushes are being manufactured every day. If the consumption slows there's a great printing of money so that the parade can continue.
So here I am, away from beautiful Acworth and my body feels lighter than in years. Why did I feel so suck? Why was I so stuck? What happened to the country gentleman that I believed I could become? I couldn't seem to balance the country life and the cultural life--a juggler who forgets which ball to watch.
Now back in a city with lots of people I don't know, streets I don't know, a large river (the Yada which means Arrow Field) to run and walk along, I am excited!. Why do I like the unfamiliar so? Kaime seems the same too. Though his mom is stressed about his schooling and whether he will be ostracized in 1st grade, he is full speed ahead and excited by it all. Whew, life is amazing! I can't believe any of it. It is too vast and wonderful and strange.
I spent the last 11 years trying to see if I could live "more lightly" on the earth. I believed that by pulling back from the greater economic system of consumption and waste I would not only live closer to my ideals but also have a richer deeper experience. In some regards living the way we have been allowed for more control as far as consumption is concerned--we didn't need to buy as many things wrapped in plastic--and could produce a certain amount for our own needs and when we had goats and made cheese (sounds cliche) we produced some for others too. But the distancing ourselves from the greater structure or even living lightly seemed to become a phantom. Most country people drive a lot and often in big trucks. They heat large spaces for their nuclear families. They love high tech gadgets and fly places to visit the friends and family. The most concerned people, "the alternativos," as Jim Merkle called them use more stuff and resources than city dwellers. In fact NY state's relatively low per capita carbon footprint comes not from the vast unused lands but because many people live in NYC. Surprise surprise. Collective living not exurbia in less toxic. This is/was a painful revelation to me. The other part of the equation was that, as Adam Lobel kindly pointed out to me one time when he had just finished a world travel with the Sakyung, the world is marching in another direction. Try as you like to take less plastic bags more smart phones and disposable electric toothbrushes are being manufactured every day. If the consumption slows there's a great printing of money so that the parade can continue.
So here I am, away from beautiful Acworth and my body feels lighter than in years. Why did I feel so suck? Why was I so stuck? What happened to the country gentleman that I believed I could become? I couldn't seem to balance the country life and the cultural life--a juggler who forgets which ball to watch.
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