Setsubun, again.

Setsubun was a total bust last year, but this year it's gotten off to a good start. Both boys are healthy and in school today. They are busy chasing teachers dressed like "oni" (ogres) and throwing beans at them.

I ran to the Max Valu supermarket at lunch and picked up 3 maki sushi rolls. Dinner is taken care of, and all I need to do now is pick up around the house so that the bean throwing won't turn into an obstacle course. DS1 has been excited about this for days. He keeps changing who gets to be the oni and who gets to pelt the oni. Last I heard, younger brother was going to be the oni. Gee, surprise, surprise.

As far as mid-winter festivals go, it's as good as any. And while I might be nostalgic for the fat rodent with shadow phobias, at least this festival allows kids to do what they really want to do: throw things.

Ogres out. Happiness in.

On writing and other random thoughts.

I'm still embracing my word of the year, white space. And with the exception of procrastinating on an editing/translation job, I'm doing a pretty good job.

I've created white space in my blog for 2 days now. I've created white space in my body by exercising every day and logging it. I've created white space around my desk by sorting papers and giving myself a stamp on the calendar every time I do it.

Spiritually, I feel a little white space opening up in my soul. I want to trash the guilt and the insecurities and just create for creation purposes. I want every day to be my January 1st.

I'm also embracing my fear of failure, or rather, my need for success. I'm not writing for the Oscar or the Pulitzer, I'm writing for the white space. And as long as I don't trick myself into thinking that this will magically make any of those things metamorphosize, then I'll be okay.

I have a gift. Wow, that sentence was really painful to write. I am creatively gifted. And even if my gift is only seen by one person, that is enough.

I am my own white space. I am my own blank canvas. I am nothing and everything at once. And if I sit still long enough, I will realize this.

So I will write haikus, and children's stories, and limericks and screenplays and novels and blog entries and I will honor my words by typing them up and putting them out there.

And maybe all this white space will lead to my dream job at Pixar, working with the folks who put story into words and pictures. Who push the white space until there is something for everyone to see and relate to.

Amen.

Daycare Pick-up Haiku

In an effort to honor my word of the year, I'm trying to create more. And I'm also going to throw away some of those creations, just because I can. So here is my imperfect haiku, composed on the way to pick up my boys from daycare yesterday.

rain drops on car glass
dirty streaks streaming downward
no pink elephant

For those of you not familiar with Seattle, the Pink Elephant is a car wash and its neon sign is a landmark.

As a side note, DS1 won one of the top prizes in the all prefectural art competition for his age group. His drawing of an elephant (!) will be on display at the Yamaguchi Prefectural Art Museum from January 26 to the 31st.

White Space

I follow several blogs and instead of resolutions, they suggest a "word of the year." I had a hard time with this. At first, my word was "less." Less stuff, less drama, fewer regrets. But "less" seemed so negative to me. So I brainstormed through lots of words: simplify, act, do, create, focus. I finally came up with "challenge."

But, a week later, and it still wasn't singing to me. I did the worksheet that was sent to me from christinekane.com (Yet another link I had followed.) So today, I sat down, indulged myself and finally came up with White Space. Yes, I realize that that is two words, but I'm okay with that.

White space is what I need in my inner and outer lives. In my inner life, I need a clean canvas to figure out where I'm going to create and to start creating. In my outer life, there is so much visual and audio clutter going on that I can't focus. I remember taking an art class once and the teacher explaining how artists leave white space so that the viewer's eyes have some place to rest. It's the same feeling when reading a novel. The paragraph ends and the white space reassures me that I can keep going to the next paragraph or chapter.

So I'm announcing to world (and the few people who read my blog) that I will white space myself through this year and make the changes I want to make. And that means I will be blogging more to show my progress.

Sudden Death

We took the boys to another over-sized playground on Sunday to burn off some of their energy. As usual, the husband took photos and I kept tabs on one boy and then the other.

And I was watching DS2 climb up the jungle gym, my husband's cellphone rang. It was a friend telling him that a mutual childhood friend had just died from a heart attack. He was 44, had high cholesterol, and was playing softball when it happened.

My husband was stunned but didn't have time to analyze that piece of information before DS2, who is in the throes of potty training, had a giant poo accident. As is always the case in life, you have to clean up the mess closest to you before you can deal with the mess made by a sudden death.

So last night, my husband got home from work, changed into a suit, went to the wake. His mom made sure that he had the correct gift envelope in which to put the 500o yen for the funeral offering. His dad told him to make sure to leave it on the altar at the temple and to NOT hand it directly to his friend's widow. I told him to kiss his kids good-night because I figured he would not be home any time soon.

I was thankful that his friend had married his high school sweetheart, had had their kids early and had had a grandchild at his age. His life was in some ways the complete opposite of my husband's. And I felt sorry for his adult kids who are in their early twenties. It sucks to lose a parent, even when you are an adult yourself. But I felt sorriest for his wife, whom I met once 17 years ago when I was newly married. I remembered her husband as a big bull of a man, but she was invisible to me and I don't remember her at all. This is no way to come out of someone's shadow.

Inspiration vs. self-criticism

My youngest son received a mid-Summer postcard in the mail today from the playgroup that I take him to. The grandmas who run the group did a watercolor rendering of Anpanman and wrote a note in beautiful calligraphy. I'm always so impressed by the effort that people put into making things in Japan. I tend to slap things together and the effect is not always what I want to achieve.

Which leads me to my title, inspiration vs. self-criticism. I've had a lot of time to think this week. Both boys are back in preschool and I don't start teaching again until next week. I've launched myself into full self-loathing mode. Why can't I motivate myself to blah, blah, blah... The blank in that sentence alternates every 10 or 20 minutes. Keep a clean house, plan better meals, be a better parent, find a decent paying job, go to bed earlier, learn more Japanese, stop being so negative...

I'm inspired by people who have the self-discipline to create. I try to blog, but even that tends to get sucked into other non-creative activities. I read three beach novels this week. Every Japanese woman I told this to gave me permission to goof off. Funny how I can't seem to give myself permission to do that. I read them, but I felt like crap for ignoring the piles of clutter on my desk and the dishes in my sink.

I have to volunteer at my sons' summer festival tomorrow. I have a stack of papers telling me what I need to do. They remain mostly unread. I will decipher them later. Oh, did I mention it's DS1s birthday today? The only reason I can procrastinate on that is because Daddy has a working dinner tonight, so we postponed cake until Sunday.

So I've set the timer and done a few things, but honestly, I'm so uninspired. But since self-criticism isn't working, I need to find a better way of doing things. And yes, I know about Flylady.

A bit of bliss...

I wish I had a picture of the riverside park we stumbled upon yesterday. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and we decided to drive around so DS2 would take a nap. 45 minutes into the drive and DS1 is sound asleep, but DS2 is still fighting it.

We looped around a rural area north of Kudamatsu. Lots of dams and reservoirs and finally DS2's eyes shut and the older one opens his. He and daddy get out to look at one dam while I stay in the car. We drive down the mountain and wind our way past the Nakasu Grand Hotel which looks like the haunted resort in the anime Spirited Away.

It's at a bend in the road that we notice kids playing in the river. A small driveway leads down to a six car parking lot. We park and, once again, I stay in the car with the sleeping toddler while Daddy and DS1 go exploring the park. I savor the quiet, the gentle breeze, the tall evergreens climbing up the far bank of the river. The river chatters down the little valley and children splash in the shallows. I'm totally in a zen moment. I don't think about dinner or dirty diapers or yesterday's disasters. I savor the beauty of this area.

Of course, a whiny child and his father come tromping through the parking lot moments later and the child's shrill voice wakes up my sleeping toddler. But I'm even okay with that. We climb out of the car and go exploring. We see snails and irises and big brother's soggy shoes. We find little waterfalls and stepping stones across a man-made pond.

Our trip is a success and capped off with soft-serve ice cream on the way home.