I HAVE DREAMS

More and more often these nights, I realize in a dream that I have just walked casually across a room before it occurs to me that I have forgotten to use my cane... Yet the freely walking experience feels fully normal to me, unaccompanied by the usual regret at it being only a dream... even though I awaken again to the same status of ambulatory ability.

Nonetheless, the grip in my right hand is growing stronger daily, and my old crippling shoulder pain has diminished to the point that I can almost turn and lie on the shoulder directly, even fall asleep on my right side, for the first time in over a year since the big short circuit! 

Going full circuit, as the final days draw near for completion and publication of The Big Elsewhere -- John E. arrives back from the US today, the final proofing has been done, and following final selection and arrangement of sumie illustrations, the first full-edition pdf, for starters, will be ready to send out.

Deb's welcome idea for promoting The Big Elsewhere by posting Simple Vegetarian Recipes as a stanza series took a quantum leap when I got the special arts crew of Kasumi and the Trio on board, Kaya, Mitsuki and Miasa to do three stanzas each and Kasumi to supervise. The Trio are thrilled by the idea, especially since they're in the book! The first test drawings are every bit as charming and to-the-mark as I expected.

And as though to top it all off, yesterday evening as I was returning here after my usual Saturday visit to the house on the mountain (where  I set new up-and-down speed records on the stairway), I had ambled out the door a leisurely few yards, almost to the car, when I realized I had forgotten my cane, only this time I wasn't dreaming...

Felt pretty normal, too.

TRIO PLUS THREE

Last weekend the crew  came over for a visit, so after a snack I put them to work helping me replenish the dwindling stack in the firewood holder up on the deck. Weather getting Siberiocold, but still no snow. Keeping pace with three sets of reaching young hands while handing chunks of firewood up to the deck, however, kept us all busy and warm, and in my case gave rise to new thoughts about aging. 

We had to pause now and then when I came to a chunk of wood that had a cadre of kamemushi (stink bug) huddling together on it, plotting some noxious action while sandbagging out of the wind; I had to clear them off before handing it on up. After 15 or so minutes of this I picked up a chunk, turned it over to check all sides and under the bark (kamemushi are sly, for all their malodor) and found a young gecko there, not shivering, but immobile. He was clinging to the wood for dear life, with not much of a future, given the new situation.

I held the piece high - gecko-side up - to piercing squeals of delight, the trio being avid gecko fans, all the more so for never being able to catch one during the warm days, when the wall-to-ceiling mini-dinosaurs are fully active, but the girls could pick this one up like a rubber toy, which they did. He wasn’t really stiff; he was minimally alive, in a hibernal way. After the necessary inspections, introductions etc., the three of us who still had geckoless hands eventually got back into the firewood rhythm, while the engeckoed member stood with cupped hands, as a little gecko head tried to poke its way out.

And so the work went on more slowly, yet of all things I soon found another gecko, which meant there were then only two of us working - one of us unhappily - until, karmic tool that I am, I found precisely a third gecko. Three was the magic number; the cosmos had known that, of course.  After that, the three girls had maybe one iffy hand each to work with and no power of focus to speak of; my firewood relocation program, like the local gecko hibernation regimen, went sideways from that point. I quickly gave up the idea of continuing alone, since just above my head were six hot little hands full of warming geckos that had to be named and nurtured back to life, rendering firewood work a matter for creatures on some distant planet. 

So inside we went, where each gecko holder put her no longer anonymous gecko (Mitsuki's gecko: Chocolat; Kaya's gecko: Chako; Miasa's gecko: Ebura) in a plastic box with air holes in it and I went to research online into whatever might be winter geckofood. Sometime toward evening Chako lost his tail, which he paid no attention to even as it lay wriggling  beside him in his new residence.

Later, when the trio plus three returned home, Chako escaped into the apartment and could not be found; the next day the Trio released Chocolat and Ebura into the lush environs around their place. A few days later they found Chako in the apartment, with a new tail!

As Grandparents and certain geckos know, there are some things you simply can’t plan for.

HIGH POINTS IN THE MUCH ADO

Much ado about everything under the sun and moon, been taking the Trio of Brio for chunks of time so they can get some gardening experience etc.

Also as time and events allow I am gradually assembling a Pure Land Mountain Kindle Book, working title Monkeys & Onions, getting closer to what might seem a reasonable size and resonant compilation, during a time of rich firewood cutting bucking and splitting, when home.

The Trio helps with that too; surprisingly hardworking, they love heavy extended physical tasks like splitting firewood, also stacking same. In between which starting the garden, digging, planted spinach, radishes, lettuce, radicchio, some first tomatoes, some zukes, more chard, shallots, strawberries, herbs dill fennel basil thyme, mints etc. - no flowers done yet - snap peas, soon some tromboncino and foreign variety of zuke for which I had to battle the govt seed folks but prevailed.

Nearly stepped on the first frog he was so invisible.

Deer got into the garden somehow; have to figure that one out.

Our well is now producing ultrafine water, liquid diamond to a thirsty man.

Finally put up (above the Monsanto page) my ongoing Fukushima page, atop the Archive section in the sidebar; latest link there is possibly imminent Tokyo evacuation due to reactor No. 4 (no way for that not to sound sensationalistic).

Haven’t been on the blog for nearly a week except in thought, been meaning to post but time is a laser, just had to post this zipblip about it all in a few spare moments early this morning after planting some tomatoes carrying some wood and now about to go pick up the Trio for an afternoon of garden labor--

So much to write about, so vast the sea of happening and all I got is that keyboard up in the loft up in the house...

Which reminds me those rain gutters need cleaning, rainy season coming on, better do that -- Soon as I can --

And the woodstove clean the woodstove...

SHAKESPEARE NEVER MADE IT TO JAPAN

Bill was an eclectic guy, he mentioned slings and caldrons, hawks and bodkins, arrows and handsaws, everyday tools and devices all over the place, whenever they fit a niche in one of his plot structures, but as far as bootjacks go, despite their undeniable convenience he never mentions them even once, as far as I know. And there’s a reason for this; it came to me in my genkan a few days ago, which I'll get to in a moment.

Fact is - to stay off the main track for a bit the way Bill often did, though in his case for dramatic purposes, I'm just rambling - Bill was a borrower as far as plots went, so he had to go with what was at hand; still, to never even once mention a bootjack... He himself had a bootjack, if he had boots (and who didn't, back then?), and if he wasn't a noble-- they had their own living vassally hands-on Jack-of-boots, who gave the device its name.

And if you have a bootjack, despite its well-worn humility you know how much it means to you, bringing such ease and decorum to an inelegant task; same for Bill, yet he never mentioned a bootjack, never let it strut it its moment upon the stage, never made it a star, never gave it a bit of well-deserved fame; why might that be? I here hypothesize for the first time in history that it was because, despite his broad reading and deep familiarity with travelers' tales, Bill himself never really got around much. (Who had the time, wazoo shows a week, and writing them, too!) No, he never really got international, deeply intercultural, but mainly he never lived in Japan, which is why he never saw the bootjack for what it was.

These kinds of realizations come to one here in the Orient, particularly Japan, as happened to me one evening a couple of weeks ago when, as I returned from work the Trio of Brio was waiting to rush me at the genkan, where in Japan you take off your shoes before entering the house. I was not realizing anything of bootjack level at the time, it was just genkan city, plain and simple.

Where they stood on the floor-edge of the genkan, the girls were poised to pounce as soon as I slipped off my shoes (as 99.9999% of Japanese persons do, upon returning home). I, however was wearing a pair of rodeo boots I got in New Mexico some years ago, and did not simply slip off my footwear and step up onto the floor; rather, I bent way over...? reached under the shoe cabinet (there's one in every genkan)...?? and pulled out my old and trusty...? bootjack?!

The effect upon the vibrant Trio was like pulling the plug on a house-sized generator: a large and deep silence descended as they gazed wide-eyed upon this object from another reality, this long piece of looked like wood, of alien shape, with a wedge cut for some reason into the wide end, whose edges were trimmed with soft leather-- and underneath there was a single cushioned stub jutting out at an odd angle...

I stood there with the exoplanetary device in my hand, tilting it this way and that, like the steering wand of a spaceship, so that those young and hungry eyes could view it from all angles; I turned it over slowly in educational silence so they could study it. Then I handed it to them, so they could examine it closely, in detail, and determine... no, this did not seem to help; proximity did not clear their eyes of the mystery that was there. Sharp senses and hungry minds were not providing an answer. The purpose of a bootjack does not come easily to one who has been raised in a historically bootless culture.

Six wide and puzzled eyes looked at me for the answer: What was this thing? What was I doing instead of just taking off my shoes like everybody else does? What was the point of this theater? (Bill slipped into thought at this point.) Six eyes went from me to this piece of wood, then back to me, back and forth, looking for answers.

As Bill has demonstrated so well with his many characters, like Hamlet (who could never decide whether or not to bother using his bootjack) and Lady MacBeth (who bootjacked daily, offstage), plus Rosencranz and his buddy, coming and going (rabid bootjackers), timing is everything. The tension built... the audience of big brown eyes looked at me; I turned the object slowly, then suddenly dropped it on the floor! Hooked my right bootheel into the wedge, placed my left foot atop the wooden slab, pulled my right leg upward, and-- VOILA! A boot was standing there empty of my foot, which now stood bootlessly elsewhere!

Amazement filled the genkan. There was a loud and multivoiced kiddy version of all those adult shockwords that were frequently given voice during Bill's presentations at the Globe... Whoa!! What the ***? How the ***? and so forth, in this case followed by Lemme see that, I wanna try that, Can I do that! Me too! And so for the next 15 minutes the little stage that is the genkan was crowded with auditioners, trying on all the boots of all the kinds in all the genkan, shoes too, just to see how that went, and now all three understand and are greatly impressed with this radical new concept and cultural item from the Occident (a place Far East of here), called a "bootjack." Some day it will find a place in their plays, I'm sure.

If only the same thing could have happened to Bill when he was a kid...

ONE MONTH +

One month since the quake-tsunami-reactor failure, and looks like they’re gonna Chernobyl the whole tangled, steaming, leaking, glowing mess, bury it under concrete, let it melt down if it wants to, isolate the whole area for whatever half-life has the most public appeal, because they haven’t got it under control, likely never will. Also they’re running out of technicians at minimum wage. Folks up there seem to think it’s safe though, as the govt keeps reassuring everybody. To add weight to their conviction, they've doubled the minimum acceptable radiation dosages and are expanding the forced evacuation zone to 30 km. Personally I’ve always found government reassurances to be a rich source of healthful inner laughter.

Tatsuya came down by train on Saturday evening for a big two-family confab, at which the majority felt that it really was safe up there: there was water, electricity, gas etc. all restored; Tatsuya swore it was all back to normal and anyway he had to work there, he missed his family, the girls were missing school there, which was back in session, so they all left Sunday morning and headed back up into only time will tell; I hope my own misgivings are wrong... Will feedback here any news from the intrepid quintet...

Another aftershock up there last night, powerful winds from the north all day...

Kasumi called from her apartment up north just now (Mon PM) at 5:15 and at 5:16 while on the phone she all at once stopped talking to Echo and yelled in panic to the trio: "Earthquake! Earthquake! Outside! Get outside! Fast! Hurry! Open the door and go outside! Out! Get out!" and the phone went dead. We turned on the tv at once and heard it was a 6+ magnitude, with tsunami warning announcements “...tsunami are expected in the following areas... waves up to two meters high, everyone near the coast must move to higher ground...” recycling over and over even now, for the first time in English, Chinese, Korean and Portuguese. Kasumi called back a few minutes later, is still on the phone. Will update later.

+

Later: There have been tremors happening ever since they arrived back up there. Looks pretty severe on the webcams. Also they can’t buy bottled water anywhere around there and K doesn't want to drink the tap water until she is fully satisfied it's safe. We’ll send some from our stored stock to tide them over.

--

“A week before becoming ground zero for the world’s biggest nuclear crisis since 1986, the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant offered $11 an hour for full-time maintenance work in an area of Japan that was lagging even before last month’s earthquake and tsunami struck.”

LITTLE WOMEN

From one of the upstairs bedrooms these early mornings I hear the voices of little girls singing songs they have made up. The songs are good, from what I can hear and understand-- fun-themed, cutely melodic, harmoniously performed with a native expertise, and all sui generis.  A delightful augmentation of the country silence.

All those biggity surprises grandchildren bring... Back in late winter when we were building the new deck I noticed that numerous bits and scraps, odds and ends of the fine hard wood were piled up next to the stone wall in the garden where the carpenters kept their warming fire; I later learned that they were planning to burn those scraps! I requested that they save it all for me to use in various ways around the garden and in the house, and instead use some old firewood.

I had no idea what I actually might do with all those oddly shaped pieces, but when you live in the country, it's frugal city: you never throw anything away. You have to at least think about it for a few years. No casually tossing bits of wire, lengths of pipe and such-- and especially not oddly shaped scraps of wood, which given enough time will one day fit perfectly into that one-of-a-kind needspace that has arisen spontaneously (and if you have a woodstove, every bit of new wood has a bottom-line importance anyway).

Yes, to me -- he says as he begins to wax poetic right in the middle of this ongoing thought, wandering away from the apparent point as fancy takes him, as though this were a Japanese essay or something --  who over the years has frequently searched for just the odd shape of wood to fit here or there, something strong and long lasting, something with the integrity for the task, here were bushels of the very stuff! Except for the ruinated pieces, it was just too good for burning. So over the next weeks of days I now and then spent a few moments stacking the wood up in a place out  of the weather in anticipation of finding a big strong box in which to store it all until each perfect need came down time's highway.

But my handyman foresight did not include the Trio of Brio, who on their first day in the garden spotted my rough mounds of wood and began gathering it in their arms and in boxes, in baskets and buckets, bringing it all into the house where they spent all that day, all that evening and well into a few tomorrows building houses into cities with streets and railroads (Bob can I have a pencil - What for - I want to draw railroad tracks), homes with lots of rooms and all kinds of furniture for their little dolls. When I bent way down to look inside the rooms I saw for example on the face of one block a small window with flames inside-- a woodstove, with a stovepipe of wood leading upward to the playsky!

The Trio were natural living-space designers! They were, in fact, what they really are: little women!

THE TRIO OF BRIO

So there I was, up at the house on Saturday afternoon, out in the garden digging a second potato trench (I’m experimenting with a new potato method) with a friend from the big city when suddenly out from the kitchen door into the garden burst a rainbow of shouts and laughter made up of 8-year-old twins and their 10-year old sister, the Trio of Brio, come from way up north - by way of a spell in their other grandparents’ house across the Lake - to stay with us for a while.

My friend and I and our shovels were soon caught up in a whirlwind of whatareyoudoings? and Iwannadoits! We took on the new crew and soon enough finished the trench for tomorrow’s planting, after which our small mob gathered some firewood for evening, then the trio took turns watering all the here-and-there shiitake, which are now doing their Spring task of swelling into deliciousness. After the tools were put away the trio got to work gathering mitsuba (Cryptotaenia japonica) Japan’s wild parsley, just now springing up. No one gathers mitsuba with the intensity of a trio of little girls, once they’ve learned what mitsuba is, and that our southern corner is full of it this time of year.

They have been out of school for a couple of weeks now, and no knowing when they’ll be going back, as the news from up north seems to get more and more truthful, so it’s time to learn more about homeschooling, which we'll do at least for a while, and which is even better than all day classrooms in my opinion, even moreso out here in the unwalled countryside where learning is fun even when it’s work. The Trio is more than eager to join the labor force when it involves raking, digging, planting, harvesting, firewooding, herb gathering, all kinds of real fun to fill a day, real information in a few sprinkled seeds, the secrets of acorns, fragrance of cherry wood, tiny green words coming up from the ground...