Kyoko chatters as she steers the car along a narrow road through the cedars. Their unmistakable scent born of long, dry heat fills the air. Shafts of light pierce the spaces between the trees. While drinking in this sensuous splendor I fight the urge to panic as the car’s right wheel gets closer and closer to the tiled ditch. Continue reading
This hit me with great force as I read it.
The voice inside our heads that tells us that we’re not doing everything well—you know, you should put a pillow over that voice and suffocate it.
· Renzetti, Elizabeth; in interview in Globe Focus: “Have Women Solved ‘The Problem with no Name’? The Feminine Mystique at 50” in The Globe and Mail, Saturday February 2, 2013: p F4.
A letter I wrote to the editor of The Abbotsford News and choose to reprint here, appeared in today’s online edition. Continue reading
As it is a Monday, the Genji Museum is closed. I try not to mind as I couldn’t choose a different day and it’s a worthy reason to return some other time. But after a false start—I got off at the wrong station and tramped around in the rain for half an hour or more before figuring it out—and oppressed by the sodden air, I am overheated and cranky. Continue reading
Though I initially started (and continue) to write with more literary and journalistic objectives in mind, getting to know passionate and top-quality people through contract work has been an unanticipated bonus in my writing life. Continue reading
I admit that I do not understand and cannot share the Japanese love-affair with the kotatsu. A good number of non-Japanese also come to love the square table with an electric or charcoal heater built in that is covered with a thick quilt. Under it family members tuck their legs. Here they share meals, do homework or watch TV. For many it is revered and romanticized: they couldn’t think of living without it.
I don’t get it. Continue reading
The man in blue-gray uniform with white gloves and sash directing vehicle traffic from the centre of the crosswalk is not busy at the moment. I’m the only pedestrian braving the rain in this direction and don’t want to walk too far before checking whether I’m on the right track. Continue reading
For those of you who don’t know, in Japan things get a wonderful kind of crazy in November. Streets, gardens, parks, and civic areas light up. Some tastefully appointed classical-style gardens focus more on up-lighting. Continue reading
Masa Shiroki, Granville Island’s Artisan Sake Maker, calls to say the last of the sake rice crop is coming off his Abbotsford fields. Do I want to drop by? Continue reading
