単調

短調は、長調と同じくいいけれど、

単調は蝶々が恋しくなる状態。

05.24.20

Waiting

People waiting for a bus anxiously try to know when the next bus is arriving. They look up repeatedly at the lighted marker or google the bus checker on their iPhone.  Some step out on the road to look for a distant sight of an oncoming bus.  If the notice reports that the next bus arrives in seven minutes and it does not, they get irritated. The fact is that one comes when it comes.   If the wait is seven minutes, one only comes in seven minutes, supposedly, no sooner, no later.  This is the essential nature of anxiety.  All anxieties are superfluous.  A watched kettle never boils, we say; but it always does eventually.  It boils over dry, if we don't watch it; the bus we were waiting for came and and it went without me.

12/18/19

Friends

Time spent with a friend is always a bliss, and one could perhaps say, conversely, that when time spent with someone was onerous, that person was not a friend, but only an acquaintance.  This is certainly a trite statement, a truism insofar as the definition of the word friendship is affection, implying mutual trust and support.  Still, in old age, when loneliness tends to prevail, friendship assuredly delivers a sense of fulfillment — happiness.  

04.17.19

Funny

Funny is a funny word because there is nothing funny the way the word is used here. 

11/28/18

Returning home

The joy of going out to have fun is, of course, the good time having fun but beyond that I find a special pleasure in returning home, naturally on a cold night but whatever the weather and season — opening the door, stepping in, and finding the familiar scene intact, albeit empty, and silently welcoming me with all the warmth like that of the maternal embrace.

02.01.18

Vacant Store - 空き店

When I walk by a vacant store and, peeking inside, see the place completely emptied, I feel a pang of sadness through my marrows and hear a death knell.

空け払われた店の前を通って、すっからかんの店中を覗くと、悲しみが骨身に浸み、死を告げる鐘の音が聞こえてきます。

08.29.17

Green salad

Blackbird is not black; it’s brown.  Blackberry is red when it is green.  So, my green salad is not green.  My standard salad has greenleaf lettuce, cucumber slices, carrots julienned, mushrooms sliced, and black olives (if I have them), and some bright cherry tomatoes. The palette of colors pleases the eye, and it also whets the palate. A boiled egg? Methinks too many colors spoil the palette. 

A stitch in time

A stitch in time saves nine

so I wait a while longer 

and let the rip go a bit farther

then with many more stitches to mend 
don't I save a lot more than nine?

Tomorrow

On 31 December, as I thought about the New Year’s Day, I became keenly aware of the artificiality of conceiving time numerically.  There is no boundary marking the shift from the last day of this year to the first day of the next unless you watch the fall of the ball at Times Square in New York or open a new calendar.  After all, a day follows another, as one minute another for that matter, seamlessly like the water of the river one never crosses twice, to paraphrase Heraclitus.  Like birds and beasts and plants I am keenly aware of seasonal changes but not of calendar counts.  Tomorrow is another day, as we say. Then, it occurred to me that this statement is double-edged.  It could mean, optimistically, that there is still another day after all, which could be or might be better than today.  On the other hand, it can be taken pessimistically that days come and go and tomorrow is yet just another day, no better and no worse than today.  For me, every new day is something to look forward to.

Milk

Whole milk is wholesome.

That's what makes it whole.

This, I insist, is the whole truth. 

謝罪、寛容、反省 - Forgive, Tolerate, Reflect

相手が過失を認めて頭を下げて謝った場合、許すのは思いやり、これ即ち人情。それを許さないのは傲慢。相手が過失を無視あるいは否定しているのを許すのは、寛容。過失を知っていて否定するのは卑怯。自分の過失に気がつかないのは無知。否定している過失が許せないのは「わがまま」。反省は行く先の道しるべを築くもの。反省できない人は常に不安で、不幸。

If a person admits an error and apologizes head lowered, forgiving is  compassion; it reveals humanity.  Refusing to forgive is arrogance.  To forgive another who disregards or denies her/his error requires tolerance. To deny one’s own error knowingly is cowardice; to be oblivious of it is ignorance.  Refusing to forgive an error the culprit denies is being self-indulgent.  Reflecting on one’s own actions sets road signs along our way ahead. One who cannot reflect therefore suffers anxiety and is unhappy. 

Writing this translation it occurred to me that there is no word in English corresponding to the Japanese hansei; more accurately, it signifies not merely reflecting but reviewing and re-evaluating one’s past conduct reflectively.

愚痴

愚痴という字をじっくり眺めて御覧なさい、「愚」は「おろか」「痴」は「馬鹿げていること」。「愚痴」の定義は「 言ってもしかたがないことを言って嘆くこと」。そのほかに、仏教に、三毒と称して「貪瞋痴（とんじんち）」というのがありますけど、これは訳して「貪欲」、「瞋恚（しんに）」、「愚痴」で、解釈はそれぞれ「欲、むさぼり、ものおしみ」、「怒り、憎しみ」、「おろか、真理に対して無知の心」だそうです。辞書と百科辞典で調べてごらんなさい。これを読むと反省したくなるかもしれませんけど、そんな気持ちにならないのが愚痴でしょうね。

Revisiting Swarthmore 2015

Last weekend, I spent two days, Friday and Saturday, on the campus of Swarthmore College, where I taught from 1966 to 2001, the year when I retired.  As I tell my former students in jest, I am in the Class of 2001, having taken me 35 years to graduate, and to me Swarthmore truly feels like my Alma Mater, certainly more strongly than any of the schools I graduated from — my high school (St. Joseph’s College in Yokohama), UC Berkeley, and Harvard, or Santa Rosa Junior College where I spent the first three semesters in the U.S.  In fact, I have never been to any reunion at these institutions.  

The occasion for this visit was the Inauguration of Valerie Smith, the 15th president; I admired her from afar since the time her appointment was announced and considered most opportune to attend her formal installation.  So, I also volunteered to be one of the hosts to accompany visiting delegates (some in proxy) as this gave me the opportunity to put on the regalia and join the Academic Procession for nostalgia’s sake.  The celebration started with performances the previous evening.  On Saturday, there was a breakfast by invitation, followed by two symposia on the character of the Swarthmore education with panels of alumni, entitled Changing Lives: Access and transformation and Changing the World: Local Actions and Global Impacts.  Following the lunch the Procession Ceremony and Installation Ceremony the full afternoon.  I headed home before the evening entertainment. 

The day was exhausting; I came home exhausted.  But I was glad to have been there.  Hearing the alumni talk about Swarthmore's excellent education was stirring; seeing old colleagues, including David Fraser and Dorie Friend, the two earlier presidents, was gratifying; finding Maralyn Gillespie looking well and remembering the alumni cruises she had me to participate, one trip to Scandinavia, Estonia, and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and another to Japan and China, was heart-warming; meeting and chatting with alumni-friends I have not seen for years was endearing; marching in the Academic Procession for the first time since 2001 was enthralling; and the addresses by visiting college presidents and by Valerie Smith herself were all so uplifting. 

This is certainly the last time I shall wear a regalia and march ceremoniously; this may well be the last time I shall participate in any formal event on campus.  I went with a certain sense of collegiate duty, a sort of pilgrimage, but returned home totally gratified, feeling almost patriotic to my “alma mater.” 

50 Old, 50 Young

When I left Japan to come to the U.S. to study, I was 19 and Mother was 50.  From my vantage point, she was by no means very old but mature and old, perhaps just for being my mother.  When I reached 50, I thought of myself as still young and vigorous; there is no way I could think that I was at Mother’s age.  My niece in Japan, the younger daughter of my elder sister, with an 11-year old daughter of her own, reached 50 this year, and she is oh so young, over 30 years my junior.  A person’s age is a peculiar phenomenon.  It betrays the fluid perspectival perception of time. 

あたしがアメリカに留学に来るので日本を離れたのが19歳のとき、母は50歳でした。その時のあたしの目には、年寄りではありませんでしたけど、母親故でしょうか、年配に感じました。あたし自身が50歳に達した時には、まだ元気溌溂の若さいっぱいで、50歳の母と同年とは考えられませんでした。日本にいるあたしの姪、姉の次女ですけど、11歳になるひとり娘がいて、今年50歳になりました。私より30あまり年下、若々しいです。人の年齢、奇妙なものですね。時間の透視感覚の流動性ともいうものでしょうか。

None to pooh-pooh

It’s not something I can say except as a soliloquy — just to myself — but it is truth that I get a tremendous pleasure and satisfaction, an open, innocent happiness of a child, from delivering a healthy piece of poop which is thankfully more the rule with me than an exception.

Demise of a Corner Grocery

One day last week, walking home, I noticed the familiar corner grocery store one block from my place looked peculiar; the flowers on the side were gone and the fruit bins in front were all empty.  I went to the swing door and peeked inside, and it was dark and completely vacant.  The store vanished; and I felt a sudden sense of emptiness akin to that of bereavement.  

I had no idea when the store had shut down but guessed it was within two or three days; I returned home from another direction and didn’t pass it.  There was no sign announcing its liquidation as some store do.  Discovering it suddenly, I thought the closure might have been a flight by night event.  Or, it just went bankrupt.  Now, it’s over a week and I still feel sad whenever I pass by it, day or night.  This is grieving.

The sense of loss was not just that of convenience.  It was surely convenient for picking up small items on my way home at late hours when other stores were already closed.  I would pick up milk, eggs, cookies, oranges and bananas, and such, once in a while; but, as the proprietor was Korean, as many of these corner grocers are of late, I relied on their supply of tofu and scallions, ginger, Japanese crackers, buckwheat noodles, and sometimes kimchi.  In five-years time, I became friendly with young men who work there at night and learned a few words of greeting in Bhutanese from one, like kuzoozangpo, kadinchey, and chiru delek, and from another some Nepalese phrases, namaskar, namaste, and dhanyabad.  The familiarity gained in personal contact becomes a part of the everyday living, and that is why the store’s disappearance affects us so.  Operating all night, the well-lit store was always reassuring when, on rare occasion, I was returning home after midnight.  

Even during the day, passing by, when I see the store abandoned and deserted, I’m so very sad, grieving.

Hand blender

Whenever I use my Cuisinart hand blender (a stick type) to purée vegetables — broccoli, carrots, squash, etc. — for making soup, I cannot help the sensation as it rumbles that I am handling a miniature jackhammer.

Dentists Dontists

Having examined a pimple in my gum, my dentist sent me to a periodontist, who, having taken a rotating X-ray image, referred me to an endodontist for diagnosis, who advised a canal root treatment, and this made me think that I had skipped an orthodontist and a prosthodontist, and I further wondered if I’d be then sent to a condodontist, and to a recondontist, and after that to an esoteriodontist, though eventually, long after my death, I would be in the hands of a paleodontist.

Feet Together, Feet Apart

 

There are five basic positions of the feet in ballet.  People arrange their feet in many more positions since they stand in a variety of ways -- feet close together, spread far apart, placed crisscross, or one foot pointing almost opposite the other. When they are seated, the parameter of the positions of the feet is more limited.  Still, they range from close together to wide apart, and the subway ride is where this is best observed, especially in those trains where long seats are placed facing each other.  Some men take up three seats by opening the knees and placing their thighs at 150º; some women occupy two seats by sitting at an angle with their knees together.  Women, more often than men, sit with their knees and feet together keeping themselves within the boundaries of one single seat.  The feet may be parallel, sprayed, or pigeon footed. Both men and women also cross their legs, with one dangling foot getting in the way of passengers passing in front of them.  Habitually, I sit with my knees and feet together on the subway.  One day, I was surveying the feet peeking under the stall doors of a public lavatory while waiting in line, and saw one pair of feet with lovely shoes neatly together, and the legs, too.  The sight caught my attention and its gentility appealed to me, and since then I adopted the posture when I sit on the potty even in the privacy of my bathroom at home where no one will ever see me.