Scenes from the week

-The first week back from Golden Week is always a bit vicious but I survived somehow. 

-It was a week without any mishaps (lost paperwork, forgotten homework, teachers calling- well, S's teacher called twice but that is better than everyday).

-This was also the week when we mad cleaned the house since we were due our annual home visits from the teachers. I like the tradition and having a nice clean house at the end of the week is a bonus. Essentially, the teachers drop by for about ten minutes to get an insight into their students' home life and to talk about their progress so far. I am pleased to report that this year's visits went off without a hitch. The kids, it turns out, are indeed alright. (N needs to master long division and C is really slow with her classwork still but she's always the first the raise her hand in class now so that's an improvement).

-That tall gangly kid up there got his head shaved today for kendo (by moi, of course) so this is probably the last picture we will have of him with hair for a long time, since he is really into kendo now. (Did I mention the everyday thing? Everyday he has kendo. E.v.e.r.y.d.a.y..)

-The week saw the start of the 50 day countdown to my Japanese language proficiency exam. It is hard work, my dears. Grammar at one in the morning is not ideal but I need to pass this test. It gets easier the more I study and I actually have gotten to the point where I look forward to my nightly study sessions and have become utterly boring. But July 2 will be here too soon so I must straighten my nerd cap and go forth.

-We had a wild storm hit us today, lightning, flooding, the works. And it is still going. 

-Speaking of storms, oh my, America. Can't you give a gal some rest? Seriously. You know it is bad when American political news gets into the elementary school newspaper. My, oh my.

-I'm going to get some more coffee and return to my studies. Hope you all are well. 

xo

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Golden Week

Everything has been a mad whirlwind of activity since school started back up. It turns out that junior high school is intense. And then there is still elementary school matters and kindergarten matters and work matters and studying for the big Japanese test matters and scheming to move matters. I get dizzy just thinking about my to-do lists.

So it was a great relief to have a proper sunny Golden Week last week, a bank holiday of three days wedged up against the weekend to make five solid days of no work or school. We didn't travel off the island (Sebastian has kendo club everyday which makes it hard to go anywhere) but managed to enjoy ourselves all the same.

Golden Week from Tiffany Key on Vimeo.

xo

お散歩

Today, as I was leaving the school for my post-lunch break, a parent of one of my students stopped and offered me a lift. I politely refused, explaining that I was taking a little 散歩 (osampo- leisurely walk) which made the mother raise her eyebrows before she drove on. Twice a week I indulge in this small pleasure, to walk from the school to the shopping center where I study kanji with a cup of coffee then slowly walk back to work, stopping occasionally to study a vegetable garden or watch the crows.

Taking the same walk twice a week for over two years means I am an expert on a very small section of the planet. I watch the color of the mountains and fields shift through greens and browns. I know the succession of wildflowers and anticipate each of their arrivals.

Sounds rotate as well, the bird songs, the croaking frogs and chanting cicadas, the wind across an emerald green rice field versus a barren field in winter. Then there are the smells. The slightly sour smell around harvest time as vegetables ripen before they can be picked by the elderly farmers. The rich perfume of the sultry vines and bushes that take over the mountainsides in the summer.

In order to increase my focus during these walks, I have begun engaging in a simple drawing habit. I find a spot and for at least five minutes, I surrender to whatever I am drawing. The drawings are not beautiful and they are not meant to be: they are a form of meditation that includes my eyes and my hand while suspending my Self. To see what is there, not what I perceive to be there.

It is a privilege, I realize, to be able to meander through the Japanese countryside with a pen and notebook at hand. And yet it is also my way of reacting to the madness of this world.

I am painfully aware of all the turmoil and strife and have spent many, many, too many hours worrying about the cruel absurdities that we are all facing. And yet, I am on a small island in the middle of the sea. I can only balance the scales in my own limited fashion and this, my dears, is how I like to do it. Paper rather than screen, the music of the physical world rather than the curated inner world that I sometimes still create through my headphones.

I want to be as much here as I can be while I am here.
It will not stop nuclear war or rampant bigotry. But if I surrender my attention completely to the ceaselessly dispiriting news, then they win, those sad souls who wish to serve their own greed by doing harm to everyone else. In order to keep that from happening, I watch the dragonflies dance over the parking lot, I stop and talk to the old woman pruning her plum tree, I sit down in a cemetery and draw Jizo, the protector of children and travelers.

I go on お散歩。

久しぶりな

And that is what we call a blog break.

So, yes, we made it back to Japan. We are now beginning our third year on Gotou Island.

Right now, Colette is busy copying kanji into her daily practice notebook. She's a new 2nd grader.

Luca is washing chocolate ice cream off his face and reading a book about fruit. He's in his second year of youchien and can read in both hiragana and katakana.

Sebastian just came in at 7:30 from kendo and is eating a giant bowl of spaghetti. Because he's almost fourteen. And he's taller than me. And a new first grader in junior high school.

And Nicolai? He's got all his stuff ready for tomorrow and put the futons down and is currently playing his 3DS under the covers. He's in fourth grade now. And also does kendo though not everyday like Sebastian.

So, yeah, it's been a while. After a little bit elsewhere, I have decided to return to this space. Because across the entire internet, this little corner feels the most like home.

Hope you have all been well. xo

餅つき- Mochi Making

I am not sure why it never occurred to me until today, but it is possible to make daifuku mochi in my own kitchen. No pounding of hot rice in a stone mortar, no smushed fingers under the wooden mallet, no rhythmic chant to keep time to. Nope, it turns out all I needed was some mochiko (sweet rice flour), sugar, water, and azuki beans. And a stove. It is a little time consuming but only because you have to soak the beans overnight. The actual mochi making (and eating) took less than 20 minutes. And considering how much the kids love these soft bean cakes, it is really surprising that I had not tried it before.

I used this recipe for the anko (red bean paste) and this one for the mochi. 

And with 苺大福餅 (strawberry stuffed mochi) season on the rise, I think I will have to practice this recipe a few more times in the coming weeks. And of course, there is also 白玉善哉 (white ball mochi in red bean soup) which will be a good thing to have when the winter chill does settle in. A very good thing indeed.

Giving Thanks

The dinner is finished. It was a small affair consisting of just me and the kids. Our menu was good for us: a tofurky, Syracuse salt potatoes, blanched green beans with a shoyu butter sauce, matcha ice cream, and persimmons. Now the kids are before the television, finishing up the Star Wars trilogy that they borrowed from their grandmother.

Since we are international nomads, our traditions for holidays like today are not like our neighbours'. We only do two things the same every year on Thanksgiving, here and in Japan. We talk about what we are happy for (a little bit easier of a concept for the younger two) and we collect our centrepiece from around the neighbourhood before we eat. It is a very small tradition but it is one we enjoy very much.

Among the many things listed during our gratitude rundown (including being able to live here with support from our family) was a shared excitement for the move ahead of us. For those of you who have not yet heard, we are moving back to Japan at the end of March. To be exact, we are moving back to Goto. We are definitely grateful to have this opportunity as we really feel it will be the best for everyone in our family.
Another thing we are grateful for that follows the move to Goto is that we are ever so appreciative of all those who support this move both morally and financially. Due to the short amount of time we have to raise funds for the event, we have had to start a little crowdsourcing endeavour (seen up on the right there). The response has been really amazing and we are both humbled and encouraged by everyone's support.
And last but not least, I am grateful for you, my darling reader(s). I am so glad you stick by me and my words and random thoughts. It truly means a lot and I will do my best to make this place worthy of your attention. Like by writing a little more often than every four months...

I hope you American readers are having a warm and safe holiday with your loved ones. And for the rest of you, I hope you are also warm and safe with your loved ones at hand, wherever you may be.

Happy Thanksgiving.

At Grandmother's House

When I was eight, my father's mother passed on. Her name was Daisy Glenda and she had been a tobacco farmer's daughter up in Georgia. She met my grandfather when they were both teenagers and travelled south to Florida where they found work digging up oysters in the Nassau River. They settled in the area and built their house, home, and business on A1A. My grandfather was a hulking legend in our family, a mechanic who once saved his son by actually catching a car before it fell on him.

Sadly, I never knew him as he and my other grandfather both died the shortly before I made my way into this world. I did have my grandmother though for eight precious years. My grandmother was a hardy woman, the mother of five sons and chain smoker of Marlboro Reds. Everything in her house was tinted brown from her smoking, giving all my memories a very distinct haze. To cover up the cigarette smell, my grandmother laid bowls of mothballs around the house which, of course, just made the house smell like mothballs and cigarettes. She was a true Southerner and kept a skillet of bacon grease at the ready. Everything had meat in it, usually floating alongside clouds of milky lard. My cousin Amanda and I spent a lot of time at her house, drawing up plans for our horse farm and chasing never-aging kittens around the backyard that were named things like Smokey or Blackie. We spent hours in our grandmother's backyard, climbing the great magnolia tree or making bridges across the little stream at the back. Our grandmother would call us in for lunch and we would find our food, usually a plate of fried chicken and mashed potatoes, laid out on a towel in front of the television. We would lay on our stomachs and drink cola through a straw as the giant hourglass appeared on the screen, the signal that it was time to be quiet. Our grandmother would sit rapt in her blue and green plaid easy chair as the doctors and rich housewives and sinister ex-boyfriends all plotted against each other. When the program was finished, she would turn off the television, declare the rest of the shows to be garbage, then shoo us out the backdoor again. There we would stay until called in again for dinner.

My grandmother was a gruff woman, almost handsome but not anything approaching pretty. She wore pants most of the time and if she did put on a dress, she still looked like she was wearing pants.
She was an avid gardener. Her yard was full of gardenias and hydrangeas and shrimp plants and azaleas and so many more than I can remember. Her yard was lush and endless, full of grasshopper and honeybees and shadowy places to hide. As a small child it was my whole world.

After she died the land was sold. At first the new owners just parked their landscaping vehicles on it and the yard was desolate. Then they expanded the business, first to mulch and landscaping supplies and now to plants. Since returning, I have sped past regularly but never stopped until today.

The blue and white house my grandparents built and raised sons and grandchildren in remains in tact. Behind it still are the two little sheds and the garage that once housed my grandmother's Grand Marque (a car I thought was by rights my grandmother's car from the name alone as she was called Grandma Key). Many of the trees are still there, giant as they ever were. And amidst these landmarks was a beautiful spread of potted plants, model ponds, gravel, and many more plants.

There is something so right and just about seeing my dearly departed grandmother's yard again full of gardenias and hydrangeas and shrimp plants and azaleas and so many more plants than I can remember. And to see my children run around where I used to play, on the very bricks that she put into the earth, well, I can only hope my grandmother can see that as well.