Daily musings episode 1: WW3, the old days, ordinary life

The alarm went off at 4am-rise and shine. You gotta do what you gotta do to survive. Hubby left for work at 4:30 am. We are thankful he has a job. Finally after 3 years of putting in job applications he was hired at a nursing home for the mentally disabled. He works in the kitchen. Despite all his experience in law-enforcement working for a foreign government -no one would hire him in Japan because of his age. 

He likes his new job-said he feels useful and he marvels at how happy the residents always are despite their circumstances. God is good. 

I dozed for a while - hitting the snooze button a few times before I finally got up to get myself ready for work. The kitchen was cold- no central heating system in most houses in Japan. Hot coffee felt good in my hands. There was a message from my uncle in Germany.....and news headlines....about the rumbles of WW3....

wow

I read over the article, no fear but, great concern. 

My mind drifted to the past. I closed my eyes and let  my thoughts travel back in time. I was a child sitting in the kitchen of my great Uncle Henrich. The kitchen table was tucked into a u-shaped nook with windows that looked out over the sprawling vegetable gardens and orchards of their country home. The house seemed as if it had always been old. Modest in size with a gabled roof, dusty old attic, field-stone basement and a nook hidden under the eves on the second floor. From about the 1920's the house was part of my childhood and I loved visiting there. The handful had immigrated to America from Germany. My parents the last ones in 1958. 

the kitchen where all the stories were told

The grown-ups would sit around the table with coffee, streussel kuchen, apples from the orchard and other delights that were made at home and brought to share. Tante Toni (Antonia), Uncle Heinrich, Tante Frieda, Mr. and Mrs. Schoenauer, My parents and sometimes Uncle Eberhard would all gather on a Sunday. I'd sit on someones lap, mostly Uncle Heinrich's...and my ears would be wide open. 

So often they would talk about the war....WW2 . They would tell the stories over and over again They would talk of who lived in which town and what happened to them. They talked of the hardships and how they survived. They talked about my grandparents sitting around the kitchen table before the war started. They lived in a small town in West Germany. There was no television or other entertainment so in the evenings the neighbors would come over and talk about their crops, hunting or the latest gossip. Then the rumors started. Rumors of war and of course in the beginning no one believed it! But the rumors persisted. Sometimes they would all sit in silence listening to the news on the radio. The drumbeats of war growing louder. The men mulling things over while the women made themselves busy at the sink. No one really wanted to think about it, about what a war would mean. 

But they found out all too soon. 

I remember those days sitting with my chin on the kitchen table in Uncle Henrich's kitchen listening and trying to understand. The stories permeated my life as I was growing up and I never took anything for granted because the stories taught me that anything could happen at any time and life could forever change in an instant. 

my father, my great aunt and uncle

I opened my eyes and glanced at the headlines once more : -EUROPE PREPARES FOR WW3 AS GERMANY REVEALS NATIONAL DEFENSE PLAN- and I wondered....is this our time? Our time to sit around the kitchen table and listen in disbelief as the drumbeats of world war grow louder? 

7:00 AM! No more time to daydream I had a train to catch. I have a very small English conversation class in the neighboring town. I've actually been wanting to close it for a while now because there are only 2 students but ....they are 2 elderly ladies who have been with me for over 10 years...wow, 10 years! They do not want it to end. I think it has become so much a part of their lives that ending it would leave a hole in their routines and social lives. So, we continue. The setting is beautiful. We rent a little space in a 150 year old historical home that once belonged to one of the ten "coal mine kings" of this area. 

The garden area. 

The house has several sections. 

Entrance to the garden area. 

There are several small courtyards. 

One of the tatami rooms. 

We walked along the veranda to look at the garden. 

The front entrance 

We gather here twice a month on Friday. Sometimes we do a craft. Sometimes we just chat. Today we chatted about ....war...and our parents and their memories. But- we also decided that it was important to live each day to the fullest. We thought it was a good idea to keep a daily journal about normal things. Just daily life but at the same time track events on the world stage because after all we are witnessing history being made. 

All this written here will go into my journal. Do you journal? I have filled several journals over the years. They are going to my grandkids someday when I leave this pale blue dot that is suspended in space. 

I'm not afraid of the future because I feel that the only really safe place is in my relationship with the Lord. We can be sitting 10 feet underground in a bunker and if we do not have a relationship with the Lord, if when we die He says...I never knew you....then we are not safe. When we have a relationship with the Father in Heaven we can be standing on the front lines and rest-assured that we are safe and sound - no matter what happens. 

After class hubby picked me up-he got off at noon. We had a lovely lunch together at the Chinese restaurant in the mall, did some shopping and then went home to relax until dinner which is now so I should get going and get the meal ready. 

I am thankful for the peace we are living in today. 

God bless - 

Alone but not lonely.

The other day I was reading an article about loneliness with a student of mine. The article said that loneliness can increase your chances of getting dementia. 

We talked about loneliness and the impact living in a foreign country has on your mental health. She asked me if I ever felt lonely living in rural Japan? 

 I think everyone feels lonely from time to time but then you bounce back. You go out with a friend and sit in your favorite coffee shop or maybe just go window shopping. 

But what if you don’t have a social life? What if you dont have friends? Does that sound weird? Do I really not have friends? 

Tea with myself…..

Japan is a beautiful country and we are fortunate to live in a breathtaking rural area straight out of a Totoro anime movie. 

I always walk the fields alone taking notice of the changing seasons. The subtle differences in sunlight or scent of grasses. 

 I watch as the buds of spring blossom and delicate pink and white blooms transform my village into a dreamscape. Cherry blossom branches drape over the riverside and I walk on a carpet of petals watching the ducks paddle down stream. 

Spring gently gives way to the heat of summer hand fans, plates of watermelon and the deafening sound of cicadas. 

And now we are in late autumn. I walked through the rice fields this afternoon and the heady scent of freshly cut Chinese Lantern plants greets me and crows scour the fields. 

I never get tired of observing the natural world around me. I rarely ever get lonely. If I had my druthers I’d stay outside all day taking pictures of my observations. 

 

There are so many things to do in life and I try to do occupy myself with creativity. I’m teaching myself how to draw. I’ve got pencils and sketchbooks but I’m also enjoying digital art. 

The winter is approaching and my yarn will be hauled out of the closet. Cold weather, crochet and a hot cuppa… pure bliss. 

Autumn persimmons 

“love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude." 

Henry David Thoreau 

To be alone, yet not lonely, is to find oneself in the quiet company of the woods and streams, where solitude is not an absence but a presence. It is to wander the fields with no urgency, to sit by the water’s edge, and listen to the unspoken language of the earth. Here, in the stillness, one discovers that true contentment is found not in the company of others but in the depth of one’s own thoughts, where the soul is free to roam like the wild things around it.

Preparing for Seasonal Change-autumn approaches

 Obon has come and gone. It’s generally believed by the people in our area that as the Obon candles melt down to nothing and the spirits return to their other worldly abodes summer follows. For me it’s a time to get ready for the autumn Biblical feast days of Rosh Hashanah (Trumpets), Yom Kippur ( the Day of Atonement) and Sukkot (Tabernacles). 

Despite the heat we can definitely see that summer is fading and autumn is already waiting to emerge. 

My morning walks are quieter- the cicadas have mostly gone. A few frogs still croak among the rice fields-crickets have joined them now. 

Thick morning cloud cover hangs over the mountains in a couple of weeks we will wake up to fog shrouded neighborhoods. With this terrible hotter than usual summer we’ve had we are all looking forward to autumn. 

RIP summer cicada….

We were up on the mountain and saw that the momiji trees were starting to turn colors. I felt even more inspired. 

So inspired that I felt like baking bread. In the evening I hauled out an unfinished crochet project. I actually got it done over the weekend. 

We even turned on our little “fake-fireplace” fan heater. Of course we didn’t turn the heat function on! The “fire” gave a cozy ambiance to the evening. 

I’ve been thinking for a while now that I’ve let life get far too busy. I started to feel a bit overwhelmed by all the things I was trying to accomplish. I work online and can make my own schedule and the pressure of hubby not having work because no one wants to hire “older people” in Japan spurred me to take on more and more. With the little time I had left over I’d try and squeeze in some time for my hobbies like reading, drawing, crochet. But to be honest, the time felt rushed and stressful and many times I’d end up not doing anything but scrolling on my phone- which made me feel worse! My brains felt so overwhelmed it’s all I could do. 

So autumn is coming….my intention is to make some changes in my life. To embrace slowness a bit more. I have to work- can’t get around it but I want to live in such a way that work doesn’t become life. And that I don’t stress out about not working enough. I want to learn to relax and be okay with what we have and don’t have. 

I have a book here called “In Praise Of Slowness” by Carl Honoré. I’ll give it a read and see if there’s any inspiration there. 

I mean- I know how to slow down- but it seems that the real battle is in the mind. So I’d like to prepare for autumn- this season of slowing down and preparing for winter.. by learning how to slow not just my physical life but my internal life. 

5 AM Rice Field Therapy

I was never really a morning person but I wanted to be. A recent trip to visit my daughter in the states gave me the push I needed to develop some new habits. 

Now I wake up around 5 am and weather permitting I head outside. 

It has been terribly hot outside-the hottest temps we've had in years. Despite waking up at 5 AM I haven't actually been able to go out for about two and a half weeks. The high temps coupled with high humidity made it impossible to walk outside. We had heat warnings and quite a few people in the hospital with heat stroke. Even a few deaths. 

But, every morning at 5 AM I stuck my head outside the door to see if it was cool enough to walk. On the days I couldn't walk I'd bounce on my trampoline or swing my kettlebells around. Keeping fit and strong is important as we age. Personally I don't think we need to spend money on a gym membership to do that. There are many ways to keep fit at home. 

Last weekend I went out despite the heat- for just a short walk. Staying in the house was not working for me. I noticed that the rice was changing color. No longer emerald green- it had a yellowish tinge. 

"Ah", I thought.....autumn is peeking around the corner. Yesterday was Risshu- the first day of autumn on the old agricultural calendar and I remembered that -as I walked the fields this morning. The morning temps finally cool enough to be able to take morning walks. 

 

I was alone this morning for about a half an hour until an obachan came whirring past me on her motorized scooter. She was on her way to tend her garden. 

I see her here and there. She's got a little plot tucked into the corner of a rice field. She attached a basket to her scooter from which stick out all sorts of garden tools and a big jug that she uses to water her plants. This morning I watched her bending over the water canal slowly filling her jug over and over again. She hobbled back and forth about a dozen times until she had it all sufficiently watered. 
 

The earthy scent of ripening rice carried me away to thoughts of autumn and the coming harvest. It is such a balm for my soul to walk among the fields as the sun is coming up. The air ...filled with the sounds of water, occasional caws and growls from huge black ravens competing for their breakfast, late summer frogs and crickets. The summer cicadas are fading away. Their crispy dry carcasses are strewn here and there on the service roads. 

I smiled ......a higurashi....autumn cicada chirruped from somewhere in the hedge. 

The sun rose slowly over the mountains turning the rice fields  into a glittering spectacle. Dew drops still clinging to the leaves lit up the field -sparkling like jewels. 

Spider webs became delicately woven works of art. 

I stood gazing out over the fields, listening to the sound of water as it gurgled through the irrigation canals inhaling deeply - gratitude. 

It was almost 6:50 AM when I made my way back home. I had to get some breakfast, a shower and then hop online to start my day at 7:30 AM. Like many who are "retired" -living on a small pension doesn't quite make ends meet these days. I used to feel sad about having to continue working but, I've managed to find a niche in the online world so I can work from home. 

My 5 AM morning "rice field therapy" has been a wonderful blessing. It is well worth starting my day off slowly...peacefully. Appreciating all the good and beautiful things in my life. 

 I have found that looking for the beauty in each day is an important part of living more intentionally. Life is what it is....inflation, wars, pandemics....despite it all we can still live intentionally. We can still choose joy. I deleted Facebook from my phone. I don't use twitter - "x" I guess it's called now. I've made Instagram into a "joy log" where I post only things that bring me joy!

A key in changing my life was my early morning routine. I can't really tell you exactly why- but it has. 

OK- my bread is done baking and it's time to start dinner. Have a lovely day or evening....thanks for being here.