Japanoramic: Grocery Carts, Cherry Blossoms, and Trainicide

On the day the Bastille fell, Louis XVI wrote "Rien" (nothing) in his journal. It's used as the ultimate example of his cloistered life and general clueless nature, but as I am faced with a mountain of halfway done posts about Japan, none of which I have posted, I wonder if sometimes we say "Nothing" when all the somethings are just too big to explain. I can picture the King thinking "Well, so there's this thing that happened, caused by this other thing that's not really my fault, but combined with THIS thing that IS kind of my fault...oh to hell with this, I'm going to bed."

When we arrived, everything, and I mean every single thing, was different and strange and (mostly) wonderful. Now that feeling of "other" is starting to fade and I find myself desperate to record the commonplace things that are different before I forget that they ARE different.

Like this. How genius is this?!?!

Flora and our neighbor's baby (who is three days older than Flora!) at a local grocery store. Turtle/Crane, if you're local and interested!

 The babies are more comfy in an actual seat and they're much safer. If the worst should happen, which would be baby taking a tumble out of the seat, they're so much closer to the ground that it's immediately just an "ouch" moment instead of an ER trip.


And this. Cherry blossom time.It happens every year, but oh, I hope it never ceases to amaze me.  The Japanese have parties called hanami every year where they picnic and view the blossoms. I love it that an entire nation celebrates...trees. How ridiculously great is that?!?! The equivalent would be if Americans had tailgates every fall for the foliage instead of football. Not that I'm knocking football...perish the thought...but it would be cool to do both, am I right?




Of course not everything that is "ordinary" is good. Like this.

This I actually took off a Google search, but this is our train line coincidentally. Or not, since the locals call the Chuo line the "Chuicide" line.

I have seen this notice every single time that I ride the train, and it's a euphemism for suicide. Suicide by train is very common here, unthinkably so to a Western mind. It occurs between three to five times a day on average, with rates being much higher near the holidays, during the rainy season, and near student exam times. Yes, you are reading that correctly: every.single.day.

It is not discussed at all, for two reasons. First, because it IS so common. Second, because it's believed that drawing attention to it encourages others to emulate the suicides. I have never actually seen someone do it, thank God, but if you take the train often enough, it is inevitable to see a body in a bag being carried out of a station, or worse still, to see the platform jump.

Sometimes I feel like I "get" Japan and then something will happen that flips my understanding upside down in an instant: an ingenious modification to a simple thing, something so beautiful that it makes me cry, and something so horrible that I don't even know how to deal with it. 

Sometimes all you can say is...nothing.

I Knew This Would Happen

Every single time I blog, I look at my long queue of retro posts and dither over whether I want to update with current life, or backblog, if you will, all of the things I wish I could have recorded in the moment. There have been so many wonderful things happening in our Japanese life, but tonight I know I need to write THIS post.

I'm starting to see who my people are going to be here in Japan. You know what I mean by that...the people that I borrow eggs from when I run out, the people that watch my kiddos on the spur of the moment, the people that sit on my floor and help me fold laundry while we gossip, the people that I let into my messy, chaotic, imperfect but full life. 

After my initial "collapse into a stupor"...that lasted six months or so... I was ready to move on and get involved in some things. I went to a "Dining In" event here this Saturday, which is complicated to explain, but short version: the spouses of your group (Medical Group, in our case) are assigned a theme that you decorate your table and self for, you have dinner, drinks, games, and dancing, and I laughed my arse off all night with these women. It felt wonderful.

Paradoxically, this actually makes me miss my Rochester women more than ever. Not because the women here are somehow less...they are truly awe inspiring in their strength and knowledge...but because I never did the heavy lifting with saying goodbye to my friends back in the Roc.

So, I'm literally craning my neck and flexing my fingers like this is going to hurt, because ...well, because it will hurt, in the best way possible. It's the kind of hurt that only comes from loving someone or something deeply. 

I have done this before, of course.  I said goodbye to my girls from Chapel Hill back in 2003, which gave me a good idea of things would probably unfold with THIS goodbye. Some friendships fade away entirely, the time and the distance eroding whatever it was that you once shared. You will see the occasional social media posts documenting major life events and feel a stab of loss even as you acknowledge your own failure to maintain the friendship. There will be some people that you miss all the time, yet somehow still rarely speak to...so much less often than you think of them. But when you do speak, and when you do meet up, it is like you just saw them yesterday. And if you are quite lucky, there will be one or two friendships that survive virtually unchanged, and those people you continue to turn to in all your best and worst moments. You still call those people your best friends, and you always will.

Knowing all of that, I also knew this: that there is no substitute for daily interaction. You lose something precious when you lose your daily "what should we do today" text, your every few days playdates (for the kids, of course!), your weekly dinners with your families, (maybe even with your husbands if they're lucky enough to be off work), your every few weeks gatherings of many families for a birthday, or a holiday, or just for fun.

You lose the details. The show you both watched last night, the cronuts you always get on Saturday, the new word their child learned last week, the new shoes, the day you fit back into your pre-pregnancy jeans, the silly, the mundane, the precious, fleeting dailyness of lives shared.

This goodbye was harder for knowing all of that.

With my college friends, the major life events that were to come were almost all good. Traveling to different countries, establishing careers, meeting new lovers, marrying some of those lovers, having children; it seems that for us, our twenties were all about growth, new beginnings, and anticipation. There were a lot of diplomas and push pins in maps and white dresses and pink and blue clothes in our futures.

Now, in my mid thirties, life is getting harder.  I know more. Some of those early, hopeful marriages have faltered and failed. Some of the ultrasound screens have been still. Some of the diagnoses for loved ones have been grim and frightening. And some of them we have lost. If your twenties are all about planting, the harvest in our thirties has not always been kind.

This goodbye was harder for knowing that too.

But while the Lord taketh away, he does also giveth, and that more frequently. Thank God for that. And mostly in Rochester, mostly...He gave.

 Rochester is a medical city. Everything revolves around the Mayo Clinic. The economy, the traffic patterns, and certainly the lives of its residents.I kid you not, even the flocks of crows that trouble the city circle around the Clinic at night.

I acknowledge the above freely, but for me, Rochester was and always will be a city of women. The men ...and orthopedics is still male dominated...were in the hospital pretty much all the time. They left before dawn, got home long after dark and worked almost every day in one way or another. It was the women that were out and about, doing the errands, organizing the social events, and making life happen.  And it was the women that helped me survive the winters, the miscarriages, the pregnancies, the babies, the toddlers, the physical distance from my family, the occasional emotional distance from my husband, and the total distance from my past identity as a career driven and "independent" woman. I learned so much from these women. Just...so much.

I learned how to be a mother from the women around me. That alone would be a priceless gift, but there was more. I learned how to celebrate life and grieve loss. I learned how to ask for help and help others without being asked. I learned how to love another woman's children as if they were my own, and I was moved to tears when they returned the favor. I watched my children grow and develop friendships with their children. I learned that we choose some members of our families.

And at the end, with tears rolling my down my face, with each "last hug for now" from my dear friends and each sweet child's cheek kissed, I was reminded that goodbyes are hard. Distance is hard. Letting go of the daily ties that bind us together is hard. Life, this part of it anyway, is really damn hard.

But it's better with people. Even if it's not for always, even if it's just a season of closeness, you take the lessons with you. As it turns out, love is portable. But then...I already knew that.

I didn't mind learning it again though.

Further Chronicles

1) Valentines Day as a Low Key Event

As I think everyone in the Western world knows, it was Valentine's Day this weekend. It's a thing in Japan, but not a huge thing, and thus I was blissfully unaware until two days before. Yes, there was Valentine's stuff in the commissary, BX, etc, but it appeared the day after New Year's, so I was basically immune by the time the real thing rolled around.

Thrown for a bit of a loop, I decided not to buy anything, but just to make the day special some other way. I got up early and made a special Valentine's breakfast with pink heart cakes and fruit kebabs. Fun fact: my kids will eat anything if I put it on a stick. Fruit salad, anyone? "Ew, yuck, we hate that!" Fruit kebab, anyone? "Yes, I LOVE these!" This feeds into my theory that parenting is half blind luck, half Vulcan mind meld trickery.

The cakes were strawberry with white chocolate chips and white chocolate icing and red and pink sugar crystals. The kebabs were bananas, strawberries, and red grapes.

Directly after breakfast, we had to report to Belle's school for her Drama Day performance. We had to be there at the cruel and unusual hour of 8:45 AM, but the performance was worth it. Addie was SO nervous on the way to the school, telling us many times that "I feel too nervous. I don't want to do a performance." Happily, all those butterflies vanished by the time she took the stage, as the video below will demonstrate.

The class picture. Formal school uniforms, no shoes, because...Japan.

My Mouse

What was the play about you ask? I have no idea. As far as I could gather, there were some animals introducing other animals and then they all got party hats and songs were sung. It was cute though!

Afterwards we went out for ramen and gyoza at the ramen joint of Belle's choice. Her favorite ramen place has a kid's meal that includes a special sticky jello hand for dessert and a coin you can put into a machine to get a toy. 

Hubs and I are fine with this place as it is close to home and has good, if not superb, ramen. He went for his usual spicy dish, where the noodles are swimming in a broth that is actually red hot. I tasted it and immediately felt the kick right in my palate. That was followed by the sensation of  two separate trails of jet fuel, one blazing down my esophagus, the other clearing my sinuses. It was tasty but a bit too punishing for me. My dish was really interesting, a soft and subtle miso broth swimming with earthy sesame seeds, braised pork, and green onions. It was basically an everything bagel made into a ramen dish. Very cool.

Belle and Biggie get, for roughly three dollars, a dish of fried rice, a bowl of basic ramen, a cup of juice, the jello hand, and the toy. Have I mentioned that I love Japan? They eat every last bit of it. Belle at one point asked Bigs, "Hey, do you want your nori?" (Nori is the sheet of dried seaweed that comes in most basic ramen dishes.) When Bigs shook his head, she leaned over, neatly plucked it out of his bowl with her chopsticks and efficiently bundled the whole thing into her mouth and sent it down in one bite. She then declared "I really love nori." Hubs and I shared a moment of pride right then that led to a spontaneous fist bump. Parenthood. CRUSHING it.

 At least 10% of the time.

After that, we went to our local ice cream place for dessert. Nothing says dessert like some jellied beans, right?

These aren't really that bad. They are sweet but kind of a funny texture, as you might expect.

Or fish. Everyone loves fish ice cream.

We opted for the more traditional flavors, and that was basically our day. We came home, took naps, played outside, watched a movie, and then Hubs and I binge watched House of Cards with popcorn and gummy candy until about 2 AM. It was so much fun, even though we were tired as heck the next day. Totally worth it though.

2) Flora the Mobile

These things are happening now. Leave her unattended for a moment and you will find her doing something questionable, eating something ill advised, or just generally wreaking havoc. Hubs brought her upstairs for bath tonight covered in pink marker that she had thoughtfully used to decorate the nearest wall and herself.  Then she threw it in the (open) dryer. Without a lid on it. Luckily Hubs saw that, or the next load of laundry would have been interesting.

What? Me? I was just, you know, checking out this leak.

We basically try to keep her contained at all times. With varying degrees of success. Belle is hugely helpful here, and has become expert at sweeping Flora's mouth with a finger to snag whatever inedible chunk of plastic she is attempting to swallow. Biggie also "helps" by pinning Flora to the floor whenever possible, preferably with his entire body crushing her whilst yelling at her in Japanese not to touch his stuff. Flora tolerates this about as well as you would guess and has taken to trying to kick Biggie in the head every time I'm holding her and he ventures into range.

Love. It truly is all around.

This is how she takes her baths now. Contained in a laundry basket. Because otherwise she will spend the entire time trying to scale the walls and falling down.

3) Speaking of Biggie...

The astute observer may have noticed that my last post had loving pictures of all my children, but there was only one of Bigs and he was unconscious. That is no accident.

Three year olds are jackasses. Those of you feeling judgment in your heart fall into three camps. 1) You have no children. 2) Your only child is under the age of two. 3) You are a grandparent and selective amnesia is setting in.

It's ok. It passes, and we all appreciate the hell out of four for having survived three. I know this, Hubs knows this, and we remind each other that Belle also used to make us crazy and now she's this amazing little person that only makes us crazy right before bedtime.

Survivor and thriver. This is her version of the peace sign. I can't even deal with how cute this is.

I love my son to bits. His face...his adorable, much dimpled face...fills my belly with fizzy upwelling joy.  Right now, he makes me nuts on a daily hourly minute by minute basis, but I have to remind myself that it is his job in life to figure out how to be himself, whoever that is going to be. That involves a lot of "no" and "I don't like you" and "I'm going to hulk smash your face" (perhaps introducing him to super heroes was a tactical error?) and that is ultimately a good thing, even if the expression of it is questionable. I have to keep doing the counter intuitive thing and loving him when he is being awful.

Braving the Japanese snow. Who am I kidding? This did not even impress my Minnesota born and bred son.

And he starts school full time in April. I do not have a calendar in which I cross of the days until that moment. Because that would be wrong.

I also do not have any good pictures of Bigs from the past few weeks because he is very into nudity or very anti-clothing...I'm not sure which...but they both amount to no "safe for the net" pictures of him. I was FaceTiming my good friend Jen when she started cracking up because Bigs had entered the screen by jumping up on the chair behind me as I sat on the floor. He was nude, of course, because if I want him to wear clothes, obviously he doesn't want to do that. It was special. If you come to my door on any given day, there are better than even odds it will be answered by a naked three year old. Look, I have to pick my battles and right now clothing ranks behind "no physical violence" and "don't pee on the floor". I hope to get him back into clothes before he is four.

I feel like I had more to share in this post, but when I try to recall the days before this weekend, I'm getting a mental flat line. I'd like to pretend that doesn't happen often, but...wait...what were we talking about? Yep, it's time for bed.

A Small Collection of Moments

I know, everyone (including myself) likes it better when I write a long post. This makes sense because those posts would tend to have some things that people like, such as, you know, coherence.

Sadly, we've seen that I have exactly one long post in my arsenal every six weeks or so, because that's what my schedule allows right now. When my children are all in school full time, I will have ample time to share my fascinating adventures in crossword-ing and knitting. Stay tuned.

I've decided I'm going to write every night anyway (though it is highly likely I won't publish every night), for a number of reasons.

1) My life IS totally incoherent and crazy and while I'd like to think I will at least retain a general impression...
2) There is no way I will remember anything specific without writing it down.
3) The mundane and the random are the absolute best things in life.

Regarding number three. I recently wrote a letter for my best friend's son's funeral. I could have cheerfully lived 1001 years without having to do such a thing. Do not mistake me here: I was honored to write that letter. Beyond honored. I am not going to share any of the details here, for the obvious reason that it is not my story to share, but suffice it to say that grief has been a close companion of mine since this happened.

The weird thing is that life just...went on. Nothing stopped. It was so surreal because I wanted to stand outside and scream at everyone until they realized that something precious had left the world, that there were whole families gutted by grief, and that it wasn't ok to just be out and about walking their dogs and buying groceries and updating Facebook.

I didn't, of course. I don't think a stint in an institution would do much for anyone, and of course, I am usually that person just living life. We all are, and so we should be, truly.

But when tragedy does come out of nowhere and slaps us around, when we are left dazed and bewildered in the aftermath, we realize then that that those ordinary and mundane days were the gift all along.

So. Not in disrespect to those who are hurting...I am one of you tonight...but in fervent gratitude for the gift of ordinary days, some randomness. 


1) Belle, the Artist

She loves to draw and paint, and uses approximately four hundred sheets of paper per week to do so.  All of her aunties on both sides are artistic, so she gets this honestly. My main problem now is figuring out what to save and what to toss.  She's also extremely interested in reading and writing, and insists on me writing things for her to copy. Her favorite text lately? Paris in Love. I kid you not. The child lives in Japan, but is in love with Paris.

Pleased with herself at the art table

This is a close up of her drawing. This one was a keeper.  In her own words, "It's Aunt Desi. She is angry because the blue line is a loud noise." If you know my sister, you are probably laughing out loud right now. I laughed until I cried.

Another keeper: apparently this is a poisonous haystack. She was very interested in the Wicked Witch in Snow White's Adventure at Tokyo Disney, and the DubDub (as I like to call her) has been appearing in a lot of stories and pictures lately. In this picture, the WW has poisoned a haystack "because more animals eat hay than apples, so she is even more bad to poison this". Makes sense.

 2) Biggie the Bookworm

He loves to read. When he is running around naked and attempting to drop kick his sisters and/or me (sadly, this occurs multiple times a day, and I'm not sure why nakedness is a prerequisite) if I suggest a book, he will immediately settle down and snuggle. For roughly the 11,134th time in my life, I am thankful for books. 

There were 15 books in this stack. I counted. And the baby sleep position? I died a small death of delight.

 3) My sister's visit

Des and Guy came to Tokyo on their way to New Zealand for a few weeks. This was from London, via Hong Kong, and before Guy had to go back to Antigua. While we all take a few moments to digest that and choke down our envy...

Typical moment here, pre Disney trip!

So, the struggle is real. But despite their jet setting ways, they are both incredibly down to earth and genuine people and it was lovely to have them for their all too brief visit. Somehow every experience that we had was a weird blend of excellent and horrible, but they were lovely about the whole thing. Memories were made. Some regrettably so.

In illustration: we were having the best ramen of our lives in a tiny little ramen joint in Minami-Azabu, one of Tokyo's most upscale neighborhoods, when in lurches a very old and very deaf and very blind woman. Old and somewhat decrepit people are everywhere in Japan, so no big deal...until this poor woman had a rather noisy and pungent accident. What should have been a transcendent ramen experience is now soiled. Pun intended.

Further illustration: Des and I were psyched about taking the kids to Disney. We loved Disney World as kids and Addie was thrilled. She shrieked with happiness when she saw Cinderella's castle from the train. All were full of hope and life and optimism. Surely this day would be the best ever! About five hours later we all staggered out exhausted and beaten, having been on exactly four rides in about 1/10 of the park. One of those rides was "It's a Small World." Our boat stalled in one odd "Snow World" type scene where children of all colors and hues were cavorting in the snow on circus apparatus. Why? For what? Were we part of a sophisticated social experiment where the Imagineers re-created one of the upper level's of Dante's Inferno with snow and children? What does it all mean? In my case, it means I may never go back to Tokyo Disney.

And in still further illustration: Des and Guy and Tim went to a karoake bar. They were the only people there, except one aging Japanese cougar type lady who cheerfully joined into the Taylor Swift songs.

See? Wonderful and horrible at the same time.

4) Flora

She's growing up so fast. She sits up in the front of the cart now. How did THAT happen?

For reasons I fail to understand, this photo simply will not save in the proper position, even though it shows up in the thumbnail in the right orientation. Just sort of crane your head to the side and pretend I belong to this century. 

She is basically built on the concept of "let's stack some circles on top of each other" and it makes for delicious cheeks. I can't even stand it. Her chubby cheeks and fat thighs and dimpled hands are my favorite thing in life. She also has two teeth on the bottom, front and center and that is it. She is kind of like a jack o lantern come to life right now, and it's awesome. She crawls at high speed and is beginning to cruise. And she is loud. She says "Mama", "Dada" (which is Belle and Daddy, for obvious reasons), "NiNi" (which is night night), "Nana" (which is nursing), and "NaaaaaaaaaDaaaaaa" (which is all done, with the baby sign language motion). It's all happening too fast. Her next phrase will be probably be "Slow Down!" because I say that all the time.

Waiting at DW while the others went on a ride

The Good, the Bad, the Extremely Hard

Every morning when I wake up, I ask myself "What would YOU like to do today?" and then ...I do it. It's usually something simple: read a chapter of a book with a cup of hot coffee...one with real cream in it. Take a bubble bath in the middle of the morning without someone peeing in it. Bake something that makes my house smell good without recreating the sack of Rome in my kitchen.

It's bliss. The last time I was this happy, we lived in Jacksonville, FL for a few brief months of ocean and sand and sunsets that left me as boneless and content as a pup on a warm porch. I have missed that place, and mostly, that person, ever since we left.

 So many things have happened in our lives over the last 18 months that it is a little bit overwhelming. I wish I would have blogged faithfully every single week, but I just wasn't there, and frankly, am still not there, but I wanted to try to capture a little bit of the emotional journey we've been on for roughly a year and a half.

If you want the short version: Good, but incredibly hard. OK, see you next month!

For those that want the longer version, keep going. Fair warning, a lot of this may not make sense to anyone but a Generation Y-er, but alas, I am a product of my time.

Seemingly random aside: you never know what you're going to get with the AFN (Armed Forces Network). It's a true audio grab bag. Sometimes its sports news, sometimes it's Rush Limbaugh (quickly followed by a retching noise and a scramble for anything else), sometimes it's the latest Taylor Swift, and sometimes it's a blast from the past. 

Tonight as I drove down the sakura (cherry tree) tunnel headed toward the south overrun, I heard Puddle of Mudd's "Blurry", which was very popular in late 2001, early 2002. Chances are that if you're my age, you're totally thinking "Everything's so blurrrryyyy, and everyone's so faaaaaaake" in that signature early 2000's alt raspy wail. OK, yes, now that THAT is stuck in all our heads...

All of a sudden, I wasn't here, I was there, Christmas 2001, nervously waiting to pick (future) Hubs up from the airport.  I didn't know him all that well because we'd only meet in October of that year, but we'd sort of cautiously begun dating with the understanding that neither of us wanted anything serious for the myriad reasons that young people don't want serious relationships: distance, previous relationship drama trauma, not wanting to be tied down, yada yada yada. But he wanted me to pick him up after break, and I was willing, which was a first small hurdle cleared. At least being home hadn't totally erased our interest in each other, at a time when two weeks was a seriously long time. 

I remember exactly what I was wearing : a tight red sweater and low rise jeans that laced up with leather ties. In my defense, this was decidedly not a time of understated elegance. For instance, "pimp coats" were all the rage, preferably paired with a short skirt. Subtle, it was not. Fortunately, I was 21, so I was at least the right age to pull that look off. Small blessings, folks. I also remember exactly the nervousness I was feeling from being alone (it was right after Christmas and my seven (!) roommates were still home), and from picking up this guy whom I thought I might actually really like, and yes, the song that was playing, along with the sound of doors opening and closing from Instant Messenger as people signed on and off.

Anyway, it's not my favorite song, but I do love that memory for a dozen and one reasons. Not least because if you had told me then that I'd be driving the world's dorkiest minivan, on the left, on an Air Force Base, in Japan, with three of that man's small children in the backseat, nervously waiting for yet another plane to bring him home, I would have laughed in disbelief.

It was just so far away from where we were, and yet somehow here we are. One step at a time, one application at a time, one exam at a time, one move at a time, we have somehow racked up a lot of degrees and cities and friends and memories. Some of it has been lovely and simple and easy, and some of it has been hard. For the last five years, most of it has been hard. And the last year and a half, in particular, was grueling.

I don't want to write a book about being the spouse of a surgical resident. Wait, check that, I would actually like to do that. But I don't want to write one here and now. Suffice it to say that if you've been there, you know. IT EFFING SUCKS.  Let's just say it's challenging.

Of course it is, right? Your spouse is being asked to do a high pressure job NONSTOP for 80 hours a week.  They're constantly being pushed at work. Do more, come in earlier, stay later, work on this, perfect that. If they're not directly involved in patient care, they're studying for upcoming cases. Or attending a mandatory lab. Or getting extra practice on the cadavers. Or doing the extra research they're gently "encouraged" to do. Or preparing a presentation. Or going to journal club (that one killed me).

When they do make it home, they're completely and totally spent. And there you are, hoping for some adult conversation, some help with the ever increasing "honey do" list, maybe even a chance to escape for some precious alone time without another human being physically attached to your body.Who can blame them if sometimes they fall short? Who can blame you if you're frustrated by doing more than your "fair share" of the work?

It's hard.

There are good things too, of course. We created our family, we made amazing lifelong friendships, I watched Hubs grow as a physician and a surgeon and a father, and I grew up a lot myself. I don't regret much at all.

But the last year of residency? That was another level, and probably a bridge too far, at least as far as I'm concerned.

I went home in August of 2013 to visit with my family. I took Belle and Biggie and had just found out I was pregnant with the person that would become Flora. I met my sisters and brother in NC and then everything went to hell in a handbasket. My parents were separated and living in two separate cities. I'd known this for a while of course, and had been home before during the situation, but never with all of siblings at once. It was awful. It was like someone had died. We were all in different places in the cycle of grief, my dad wasn't doing well at the time (he's much better now), and it was just...hell. During all this family fun, I started bleeding and thought I was having another miscarriage.

I trekked back to MN in a black cloud of grief and anger which was exacerbated by first trimester nausea and fatigue. Obviously Flora was going to be just fine, but at the time, I refused to be happy about anything, sure that more loss was heading our way, and that all my physical misery was going to be useless. I felt like I was mourning the collapse of my parents and the loss of my children and it took me a long time to let go of the anger and pain associated with those things. In the short term, I was just angry about everything and at everyone. I remember my best friend Jen asking if she had made me mad in some way and I think I told her, and I quote, "I hate everyone and everything right now, it's not you personally". I was sort of joking, but only sort of, and I think I was pretty insufferable during this time. Just a guess.

Oh, and did I mention Hubs was doing six straight months of trauma surgery? Yes, yes he was. On call every fourth night and basically comatose during the brief hours he was at home for six months. I clearly remember one night him wearily arriving home at 9 PM...after leaving the house at 4:45 AM... to find me crying on the couch because I had fed the kids granola bars for dinner because opening the door to the fridge had sent me dry heaving into the sink. I begged him to wash off the vomity dishes because I couldn't get near it...which he did...while dealing with two hungry and overtired children clamoring for more food, more drink, more attention, more of everything. I think he said, and I quote again, "God, I hate the first trimester." A good time was had by all.

Fortunately, we didn't have to do much during this time. Just get our house ready to sell. And then show it. And then pack it up. And then move. Across the globe. But only after a six week break where we were homeless. But it could have been worse.

Because at least Hubs wasn't finishing his residency and defending four years of research and a thesis during all of this. Except that he was, of course. So he wasn't really around much. It was cool, I could totally handle it.

Except that we had a baby in there, which was amazing, save only for the fact that the sweet little muffin had colic and cried almost all the time and did not sleep apart from me until she was four months old. Fortunately I was able to get in a shower most days when Tim would strap a crying, wailing Flora into a baby carrier and walk around the house so I could get a 30 minute break.

See what I mean? A lot of it was good, but it was ALL hard. 

When we got here, Hubs and I were both so tired that we basically collapsed. Yes, we wanted to see and experience Japan. But mostly we wanted to just not feel like we were dying. Our main goal was simply to get to a place where we were actually happy again.

We had five years of sleep deprivation to deal with, for starters. If anything, mine might have been worse, considering that I've had five pregnancies in six years, three children carried to term, and three children that have been/are breastfeeding for a year and a half apiece, and I don't think I've slept an entire night through for about five years. Just writing that made me tired. In fact, I was so physically drained that I had the hemoglobin of an anorexic teenager and then I forgot that I was anemic because when, exactly, did I have time to think about my own health...and yeah. We were tired.

The good news is that our mission has been accomplished. We've slept a lot. We've stuffed ourselves on noodles  and dumplings and worked on perfecting a cup of coffee. I bake. I cook. I'm working on the perfect pizza crust. Because of the aforementioned activities, I run. We're slowly making friends, helped along by the fact that our neighbors are frickin' fantastic. I'm working on speaking, reading, and writing Japanese. I ignore piles of laundry in favor of piles of babies. I drink wine, and shag my husband, and watch TV. Not always in that order. It's glorious.

It doesn't take much to recharge my batteries these days. A little bit of silence, a few indulgences, and then I want my family, with all the clamor and chaos that three little ones trail in their wake. But I'm better able to be the mother I want to be for taking an hour for myself every few days. It's taken me about five years to realize that it is both OK to do what I want at times and in fact, its' necessary. I like serving my family. Service feels like love. But if I never recharge my own batteries, I can't fill anyone's needs and then we're all stark raving lunatics shouting at each other.

Along those lines, I made goals for myself for the next two years. Not for me as a mother or a wife or a sister or a friend, but just for me as a person. They're pretty simple.

I want to be able to touch my toes. 

I want to make curry, ramen, pizza, bread, and pies like a boss. 

I want to run three miles and actually enjoy it. 

I want to write more. 

I want to read more. 

I want to keep up my fluids: coffee, wine, tea in particular. Oh, and water. 

I want to understand basic Japanese conversation.

I want to find an Anglican/Episcopal church. And go to it.

I want to photograph my kids at least once a day because their little faces are my heart.  


So. Last year: lots of good, but all of it was hard. I'm hoping to switch the next year to "Lots of good. All of it was good." I don't know if anyone gets that lucky in life, to go through an entire year with nothing hard, but I am willing to be the first!

 In that spirit, I have just asked myself what I want to do, and the answer is "Go to bed", so that's what I plan to do. First, of course, I have to make the bed since Biggie Smalls crept into bed last night with an unfortunate stomach bug, but hey, you'll notice I wasn't delusional enough to ask for a year with no messes.

Fuji Kids: Part 1

I have decided to change the title of the blog to "I wish I wrote more, but..."

Ha. Just kidding. That title would be so appropriate, but alas, it is a trifle unwieldy. I do love a good ellipsis though "..." but for now, we'll keep the title as it is.

I feel like the fates are against me ever blogging again, because even as I write this, the screen is literally jumping up and down and right and left with no warning. It's like my blog is having a seizure. Maybe the shock of being updated is just too much for it. If it looks weird to you, be patient with us, we're epileptic tonight.  (Another possible title: the Epileptic Ellipsis).

The storied mountain itself at sunset. Taken from base by my fave photographer, Tim.

		Speaking of Fuji-san, our daily lives have changed a bit, as both Adelaide and Graydon are now enrolled in Fuji Kids Montessori youchien. Fuji means wisteria in Japanese and I don't know if there actually is any wisteria at their school, or if it's called Fuji because there is a wonderful view of Mt. Fuji as you approach the school. Either way, it's easy to say and remember, and I'll take what I can get. My Fuji Kids One of the annoying things that happens when a person starts to learn a foreign language is that they then pepper their native tongue with tidbits of their newly acquired language.  I know it's annoying, but here I am doing it anyway. In part, because I'm trying to think in Japanese instead of mentally translating and in part because we don't really have an American equivalent to youchien. It translates to kindergarten, but that isn't an exactly equivalent term. In America that means a grade that is part of the educational system, meaning everyone attends, and it's one year. Here, youchien is not required, though most children do attend one, and they last for three years. Most Japanese children begin their formal education at age 3, five days (sometimes six!) a week for roughly five hours a day. The school year begins in April and you are placed in classes by your age at that time. So if you're five in April, you're in the 5 year old class. In our case, Addie attends five days a week. She gets the bus at 9:15 and comes home at 3:30. Graydon attends somewhere between once and four times a week, and the oddest thing for me is that I have no say in his schedule. The school sends out a calendar for the entire year that lets you know what days the preschool meets for the two year class. This past week he went once. Next week he goes four days. (Note: I think that is God's gift to me for my birthday week, as Graydon is firmly entrenched in what I oh-so-fondly refer to as "the jackass years".)  Yes, I'm referring to this guy. Super cute. Super difficult. Japanese women have the highest rates of working after becoming mothers out of all the first world nations, and it is easy for me to see why. The schools are incredibly accommodating. You can drop your child off as early as 7:30 AM and pick them up as late as 6 PM. School care is also available on Saturdays. For an additional fee you can have the bus pick your child up and drop them off beginning at age three. Lunch is provided every day, and it is invariably nutritious and  delicious. Tea and snacks are provided for children who stay for later care. You can also sign your child up for lessons after school, including foreign languages, dance, and sports. This all begins at age three, remember. This week's lunch menu. Pardon the shadow of my head. It's getting late and the niceties are going out the window. And it is surprisingly affordable...that is, after the initial mammoth payout to get started. There is definitely some sticker shock involved with the registration fees, uniform costs, school supply costs, and so on. It adds up to a few thousand dollars, which is done in part to discourage parents from bouncing around from school to school. It's an investment in the truest sense of the word. But after that? About $300 per month for full time youchien. I believe we paid $200 for Addie's two afternoons a week preschool last year, for comparison.That could be more or less depending on how often you order school lunch and do extra care, but still...very affordable considering the level of care you're getting. Never in life did I think I would send my child to school looking like an extra in the Sound of Music, but it is pretty cute. I say "formal education" but at least at Fuji, the emphasis is really on play and developing independence. This fits right in with the Montessori philosophy, which Tim and I both love. Their motto is "Help me to do it myself", which is basically parenting in a nutshell, at least in my view.

The school itself has won awards for its design and I was instantly smitten when we toured. The entire building is designed to be on a child's scale and to encourage play and exploration. The roof is a large flat circle with slides down to the ground that encourages the children to climb and run in circles until they drop.

The school! That large surface with all the kids on it is actually the roof.

Montessori also puts a lot of emphasis on exploring the natural world and using natural materials in play and learning. This meshes seamlessly with the Japanese aesthetic, and it's very, very well done at the school. There are no walls between the classrooms, only the type of accordion partitions you sometimes see in church basements, so it feels very open and free flowing. The buildings were all constructed around any existing trees.



 For safety, the openings in the roof are surrounded by nets. The nets are hand woven by Japanese fishermen using their traditional weaving methods.

A good view of the roof and the nets. The inclined glass structures are skylights.

The kids are allowed to climb the trees and jump down into the nets. They warned us on our school visit that sometimes children do get hurt and that we would need to be basically OK with that. Their attitude is that little mistakes with little consequences are the best way for children to learn. We completely agree. Besides, it looks like so much fun!


 


They also grow food on site, including rice, sweet potatoes, and eggplants and the kids are involved in each step of the food production process, from planting all the way to harvesting, washing, and eating the produce. As if that wasn't enough, they also have ponies and ducks at the school and the children get to ride the ponies on their birthdays.

It's basically the coolest school ever, and I wish I was five again, which is an envy I usually reserve for naptime.

So Tim and I love it, and I think the kids are liking it, especially Addie. Graydon...well he takes off running when he sees the bus and I usually have to drag him out of a pine tree kicking and screaming, but he'll come around. I hope. 

The computer is still seizing, so I'm going to break this into two parts. Part Two will contain all of my funny stories thus far. That's what we call a teaser in the biz. ;-) 

Our precious eldest girl. We're so proud of her! Even better, she's proud of herself.

But before I share the funny stuff, it would be remiss of me not to mention something very serious.

I'm so appreciative of this opportunity for a thousand and one reasons, but the one that sticks out to me the most is that we're very fortunate indeed to be based in a country where educating women is both allowed and encouraged. It could so easily be otherwise.

For so many bright young girls, school is a financial impossibility, or worse, downright dangerous. Every day when I watch Adelaide board the bus with her friends, I am grateful that I don't fear her being shot like Malala Yousafzai or kidnapped like the young woman taken by Boko Haram in Africa. The tears in my eyes are not from fear, but pride. Someday, she might be the President, or a surgeon, or a librarian, or stay at home parent. She could be anything and probably will be many things. Opportunities await. I never want to take that for granted.

Martin Luther King Jr., speaking on the steps of the State Capitol in Alabama, said "...the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Tonight, I am thankful to be living on the far side of that arc as well as the globe. And if her school is a series of arcs, well...that's just perfect.

Shinjuku

Today we finally, finally, finally made it into downtown Tokyo. We've only been here for four weeks or so, but I've wanted to visit Tokyo for about 3 weeks and 5 days of that time, so I was pleased.

We decided to take the train from Fussa into Shinjuku. Shinjuku is a huge commercial district, the kind of place that guide books love to call "bustling". It boasts the world's busiest railway station (two million passengers a day!), the Tokyo Metropolitan government (housed in weirdly Gotham City-esque skyscrapers) and a huge red light district (we didn't visit that, natch), along with no less than four or five department stores with ten to twelve stories each. It's ...bustling.

In the midst of all of this, is the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, which has been a part of Tokyo since the Edo era, in one capacity or another. And this is why I love Japan. The world's largest city, where space of any sort is incredibly expensive, and yet there are green spaces everywhere. And not just little pocket parks, but enormous, sprawling, lavish amounts of green space. The Japanese get so many things right.

It reminds me of Central Park a bit, with its juxtaposition of modern buildings and venerable old trees.

 Anyway, before Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden was a public park, it served as a private garden for the Imperial family, where presumably they entertained themselves by creating various types of landscapes to stroll through. We wanted to see the traditional Japanese garden portion of things, so off we went.

At first, I was highly unimpressed, though it was not the garden's fault. Our large shipment of furniture hasn't arrived yet (it's coming in two days!) so we don't have a stroller suitable for Tokyo yet. The Double BOB jogger is definitely built on American lines, let's put it like that. I was packing Emilia and girlfriend puts off a lot of heat. It was basically like carrying around a small portable furnace in the 90 degree weather. So there was sweat. And there were mosquitoes. Lots of them. We were pursued through the forest portion of the park by blood sucking insects whilst carrying screaming children. I think that might have been one of Dante's levels of hell, but I can't be sure. 

Then all of a sudden we popped out onto a lawn and we were in historical Japan. 



 



There were dragonflies everywhere. I have never, ever seen so many dragonflies, nor been so excited to see dragonflies because it was mosquito free territory. We lolled under some trees and then lolled some more because we were totally defeated by the heat and blood loss.

Staring up into the trees

Perfect patches of shade under each tree

We didn't move an inch, but we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a flock of ladies that surrounded my children, cooing and snapping pictures and pinching their cheeks and declaring things like "I love you, little babies, you are super kawaii" (rhymes with Hawaii and means cute). Tim and I were slightly bemused because we suddenly experienced what it was like to parent Suri Cruise, minus only the wealth and the looks and the strange alien religion.

We were happy to let the ladies take pictures with the kids, as they (the women) were radiating goodwill and happiness and also because we were slightly stunned. Our kids were filthy. I mean, dirty in the way that only small children can manage. Graydon had grime in the folds of his neck. Addie's feet were smell-able at ten paces due to her refusal to wear socks with her sneakers. Her face is sporting several scratches thanks to an attack by Graydon and more bug bites. We had been walking around Tokyo in 90 degree heat for several hours and no one was at their best. Some of us (ok, me) were decidedly at their worst, sporting streams of sweat, lank hair, approximately 86 mosquito bites and a broken foot. (Note: Yes, I have broken my foot. I wish I could say it was doing something coolly Japanese, like sumo wrestling or one of those game show obstacle courses, but alas, I simply walked into a chair.) No one wanted my picture, that's for sure, and the kids were not in much better condition.

In addition to THAT, the women taking pictures with them? They were in full kimono. Brilliant cloth bright with embroidery, flowers in their hair, those divided socks with the high wooden flip flops, fans in their hands, the whole stunning, glittering array of traditional Japanese attire, and all they wanted to do was take pictures with my dirty, cranky, corn-fed American kids. "Exotic" is very much a matter of perspective, it seems.

Sweaty. Bug bitten. Dirty. But those eyelashes...

And the dimples...

I guess they still are pretty cute.