So many things to tell you but I’ll scribble in Postcards, 1 by 1 because each of you deserves custom-made inky artifacts, right?
And coffee in fancy cups, and crocheted pen/cil + quilted stamp bags, and fancy postboxes.
Don’t you?
Anyway, briefly (ha!), for starters – not capable of brevity):
* Hot springs visits with over-the-top performance in quirky confines {note: have a post from a previous visit to share one of these days…}
* Pork belly, woodstove yams Kabocha squash etc. dinner
* Gorgeous new blue herringbone cashmere scarf and my own fancy Hanko stamp (previous was a ¥500 vending machine version)
* Quirky non-dogmatic church at the wonderful YMCA Forest preschool
* Making friends with a kissaten master, YMCA Director, and eloquent electrician, and an internal medicine doctor
* Santa Claus appearance #MethodActor at Forest Pre-school
* Empty shrines (home of the naked man festival), burning incense with Ichiro
* Going to the fourth generation ancient optician master who understands my astigmatism better than anyone ever
* Ryoko’s tea ceremony, intrepid work schedule, chronic cough, and incredible patience {more to say about tea ceremony so in the meantime, a snap of her gorgeous in kimono *and* the arbor she made just in time, cement, wreath, bamboo all of it)
* visit to Korakuen garden with tiny flakes of snow and green tea green *right there*
* special tea ceremony for sensei’s 90th birthday {brief photos with no explanation}
* splitting wood (hydraulics), racking and stacking, keeping the woodstove stoked
* oh and me and Ichiro firing up the charcoal (handmade by Ryoko) for the tea ceremony
* Six checkpoint hospital day (including pharmacy), three appointments lined up for January… I’m trying so hard #mecfs {bonus was coffee and lunch with darling wife who went out shopping whilst i was doing my rounds}
* Post office and courier deliveries at all hours on all days that would otherwise be holidays
* Preparations for New Year’s (and my attempts to avoid, more on this to come)
* Hundreds of cards going out, hundreds still to go // it takes a while, maybe you’ll get it by February… Totally worth it
* Dozen cards received, each one savored and enjoyed
* Four Mae Maes festive song vids out, start here:
* family, including in-laws, photo shoot at a studio founded in 1945, {heck of a year to start a business in Japan} I “set directed” with usual typewriter, stack of vintage books, Lomo camera, suitcases – ergo: the usual
* the best ramen ever, again in a Bizenyaki bowl
* new records, several new records… Never such a thing as too many new records but still, new records
* ordered myself some socks & boxers for Christmas
All in all, so many messages to answer, posts and snaps to share, tabs to close, sentiments to express, videos to finish, diaries to publish
But the truth is, I am *barely holding on* physically, mentally, emotionally… It’s all a lot for me // viral loads, dopamine and serotonin and adrenaline depletion have effects, don’t you know.
4+ years in to my whole new life, there’s always something something something – some big moves and changes happening which I’ll tell you about some other time – but for now, just a couple of things:
1) You are tremendously important to me, simply by sticking with me, not giving up, not tossing me out as damaged goods
2) My darling wife and adorable son teach me so much about how much I need to improve with patience and not *overthinking everything* – they both always say “no problem” and for me, well I’m great identifying road blocks and running straight into full on, yodelling/stammering ”it’s a problem”
3) I am here forever, this is my forever home, this is my place, the surroundings around change, I have dreams and schemes of slowly and also quickly “improving the campsite” meaning making our homestead better // we need to deal with a wild boar problem, I want to make a little free library, there’s an idea about another room but that’s another story for another time. Did I mention I will live here forever and you can come visit? And yes, I might live forever… I mean who’s counting anyway?
4) finally, besides our family new year card, there’s Ryoko’s business 10 year anniversary new year card that we’re trying to get dropped in the box – and also today, the first tranche of Ichiro’s inaugural personal new year card sending, for starters, to friends met on the #BCInvasion trip – into the mailbox today. Keen observers will notice the “December 25” postmark which just don’t exist in *cough* western countries… I’m blowing the surprise with a sneak preview but no one’s really paying attention to anything here are they?
Peace to all of us, everywhere, all of you, all of the other ones, peace peace peace – kindness is everything + patience and time are our allies.
Stamp stamp. #io here we go!
