bara bara ...

Tomorrow Y starts school, her second 'semester' of fourth grade.
In Japan, the new school year starts in April. In September, students go back to the same grade they were in before summer vacation.
Today we went to get last minute school supplies that she needed, like:
a fude brush for calligraphy, a shita-jiki (the soft pad to put under the thin paper when writing with a brush), sumi (ink), some individual tubes of water color paints that she ran out of , and a na-ma-e pen (an oil-based pen to write her name on all her things).
At the cashier, I told the perfectly attired saleswoman that we didn't need a bag, and pulled out a pink tye-dyed ---and slightly wrinkled--eco bag. She looked at the items and looked at my bag and said, bara bara de...?
by which she implied, something like "are you really going to just plop all those things in there, as is, without carefully wrapping the paints together in a small separate package..."
Yes, I said, and I gathered up the items and plopped them in the bag!
Later I told my daughter I think my heart is most happy when I can just be bara bara...
I can't tell you exactly what the word means, and may not be using it 'correctly', but my sense is it refers to leaving things to be in the jumble of how they naturally occur.

Enjoy today, however it arises...!


Joanne Gover Yoshida, Aikawarazu Life in Japan

nice to meet you

This summer while I was in New York I had the chance to meet John of Typos and Natsumi of Natsumi on two days in a row. Thanks for the NY moments.

These photos are taken by John. I was lucky to see MOMA from a new perspective. I used to go there when I lived in NY to look at the paintings and scultpures; with John I saw through his eyes the way the people and their movements and colors connect with the art, and the whole space becomes a living artwork. Or a piece of artful Life.
He indulged me in taking my photo in front of The Palace at 4 A.M., a Giocametti sculpture that I love and often visited in my New York years!

I also have happy memories of an afternoon with Natsumi, hanging around in the East Village and enjoying Japanese curry (yum) and Starbucks. Can you believe we both lived on the same street, though at different times. My daughter was homesick for Japan when we were in NY and she was able to have some kaki-gouri (shaved ice) with an extra spoon for Natsumi to try too.

Isn't it fun to make these connections as we type in our thoughts, and then every so often to have opportunities to meet in 'real' life.

When I got home to Japan there was a surprise waiting for me from a Picnic in Switzerland.

Is there anything I can pass through the screen to you now?

Nice to meet you, too, all who visit and pass this way.
Happy today.

JGY

Jet Lag Morning, Quogue

A sea gull flies over the beach parking lot. Then a hummingbird.
Another seagull is perched on top of a perfect shingled triangle of the beach house roof, looking vaguely like a heron from where I'm stopped.

I don't feel like I've arrived in Quogue until I ride one of the two rusty bikes down to the beach. A few more meters, and I'm there. Just stopped for a few moments to hear the sounds of the crashing of waves.


Joanne Gover Yoshida, Aikawarazu Life in Japan

sunrise over the Atlantic

I pick up a fragment of sea-washed white shell
the bottom 1/8 painted with a purple mist.
It echoes the strip of pink that same thickness
which streaks across
the horizon.


Joanne Gover Yoshida, Aikawarazu Life in Japan

Little Footprints

Sea gull
Sea gull
I've seen you
before.


Joanne Gover Yoshida, Aikawarazu Life in Japan

Sea-mantics

Maybe because I'm going to America tomorrow
I want to write all the details of this day in Japan.
To record the stones on the wall of the castle park,
Y's knee touching mine in our favorite coffee shop called Friends,
Fiddler on the Roof playing in the background.
And the silly story of Sea Chicken.

Sea Chicken

In Japan, canned tuna is called "Sea Chicken".
"Not in Japan", Y says, "Everywhere."
Of course, to her it is called Sea Chicken everywhere because it is the word she knows since she is growing up in Japan.

My guess is that it comes from "Chicken of the Sea" brand in the U.S.
Or is it because in Japan the sea is the cultivating 'ground' for food, like the land is in the U.S.
Thus, making chickens and tuna on a similar parallel, one if by land and one if in sea...
Or is it "C"-chicken?

And who are "U" that I am telling this too?

Happy Summer days, enjoy, and don't forget
to write it all down...

Joanne Gover Yoshida, Aikawarazu Life in Japan

mind color musings

I know that I'm returning to myself,
but who am I
that I'm returning
to?

♡

Joanne Gover Yoshida, Aikawarazu Life in Japan