The past week's wealth of experience has left me a little short of words. Ha! Who am I kidding-- me! Short of words!

Hmmm. Where to begin? Well, the Sushi Pimp* issue has still not been resolved, though I am trying to get it sorted. I looked at the Caramel Fritter's ideas for coping, and had actually already planned on going with a version of Option A) My Father Does Not Approve and Here is Your Money Back. But I don't actually want to see these people ever again, so it definitely has to be in a letter. Some wires got crossed with Kenji-- I had asked him last week to write a letter in Japanese for me, and I thought he had agreed; but when we met last night for our language exchange, he asked me if I had written a letter yet. So I think I might just plow ahead and try to write the letter in Japanese myself. It's going to be terrible to behold since I am still abhorrent at forming coherent sentences, and I have no training whatsoever in writing kanji, but maybe all of my inaccuracies will only serve to highlight how little I understood of the situation in the first place.

*The Sushi Pimp... sounds like a good idea for a comic book, doesn't it?

Enough of that mess. We have yet another new arrival in Tokushima-- a girl named Melissa from Chicago who has moved in with Kat and Joanna in the Boobie Palace. She'll be working with me and Maz and Kat and Andy out in Kitajima. I've only met her once, but liked her well enough; she's quite high-energy and excited to be here. She's quite tom-boyish in comparison to Kat and Joanna, so it'll be interesting to see how the dynamics at the Palace are affected. I myself am once again thanking my lucky stars that I made the decision to move out on my own-- no offense to the others, but I love having the relative peace and quiet of my own place. (Relative because I can still hear every sniffle and giggle that my next door neighbor makes).

I spent a great day with Satoshi last Thursday; we went out to Bunka No Mori, a park that I visited in the spring with my friend Brian. It was a lovely clear day and the fountains were running. Unfortunately the prefectural library was closed-- too bad, as Satoshi wanted to get some books, and I have heard that there is a decent English section. We walked through part of the park and chatted about this and that, and found ourselves at the fantastic deserted children's playground. We ran around like maniacs for a while, swinging and sliding and scampering. We stopped at the cat temple before leaving. To my delight and heartache, there was a basketfull of kittens alongside the temple gatehouse; a teeny calico came teetering out of the basket to contemplate the enormity of my lap. Of course, I lifted her in and cooed ridiculously to her. Not to be outdone, Satoshi cuddled her stripey brothers, saying "come to daddy," in a high voice that cracked me up. Even though the basket was lined with a blanket and there was a wealth of kitty food nearby, it was a painful parting. Poor little homeless kitties!
We made our way back into town, stopping at an ancient little 'Donkey Bread' shop... something nostalgic that Satoshi hadn't eaten in a good long time. The little old lady inside the shop insisted that we eat inside (and not outside in the sunshine as I was wont to do) and she brought us tea and made conversation with Satoshi. I listened as intently as possible, but only caught little bits of it. The donkey bread was slightly sweet and a little gummy; I liked it, but I imagine it's a bit of an acquired taste. I imagine a Japanese person might have a similar feeling for tortierre pie. Wasn't terribly filling anyhow. By the time we were all the way back in town, I was ravenous, and so we had... katsu... hmmm. I can't remember the name. Fried pork cutlet thingies. The coolest part was that they brought a motar and pestle with sesame seeds for each of us; you grind up the seeds, add some sauce (tatses like HP a little), mix it up, and that's your dip for the pork. It was melt-in-my-mouth fabulous.

I participated in Zazen (Zen Buddhist meditation) that same Thursday evening with Bubu. We went to a temple out in the dark far reaches of Kitajima, at about 7pm. The temple is famous for a ginko tree of enormous girth that grows on the grounds-- it's about 7 meters around, and over 500 years old. The Bishop who runs the temple (an old school friend of Bubu's wife) told me over and over that the tree was famous for it's "big waist". This Bishop is the same one that I met many many months ago at one of Bubu's home parties-- a roly-poly jolly fellow who speaks English in the same way that I speak Japanese-- in fits and starts, and completely without structure... didn't matter. He still managed to get his point across, and I admired him for it. He showed me about the temple as the other practitioners slowly arrived-- all middle-aged women, who seemed to me like your typical hodge-podge of church ladies. There were about ten of us all together. The temple itself was floored in tatami and there was an alcove area with a series of altars leading to the back of the space. The alcove was jam-packed with scrolls and mandalas and lush gold dangles (I touched one surreptuously and was surprised to find it was just gold-coloured plastic). The altars were overflowing with bells and gongs and incense, gifts of food and drink for the Buddha (including potato chips and beer), wilting flowers, books and pamphlets. There were paintings depicting the lineage of the eight great buddhist teachers from the first Buddha in India, to his disciples in China, leading up to number eight, the fellow who brought a reformed version of Buddhism to Japan. (Keep in mind that I haven't done much research on this subject, and most of what I am saying here is pretty patchy.) The mandalas on either side of the altar that was set deepest into the alcove showed the two halves of heart and mind that make up the whole of the Buddha-- the feminine side based on great love, and the masculine side based on great intellect. Around eight o'clock we were all summoned to come sit on our cushions before little scrolls, all identical, set about a foot in front of each cushion. For 20 minutes we were to sit stock-still, looking and meditating only on the image on the scroll. The scroll itself was midnight-blue with a pale moon-circle in the center, about a foot in diameter. In the moon-circle there was a dark-gold coloured kanji character hovering over a lotus blossom. The character (as I understood it) said 'the son of the sun'. I settled in comfortably enough into the seiza posture (sitting with my legs folded underneath me) and stared intently at my scroll as the others droned through a sanskrit chant. The chant ended and the silent meditation began. The uneality of time began to seep in; there was no looking right or left. The only things that were in my field of vision (since I couldn't move) were my scroll, an unoccupied scroll to my right, and a lady and her scroll to my left. My legs began to ache and buzz. I began to think that I was cutting off my circulation permanantly- gangrene would set in! I would never walk again! Should I move? No. I started to accept the situation. Okay. So maybe I would never walk again. But right now, here I am. This is it. This moment is all there is. Okay. The slighty lighter outline of the dark-gold character began to flicker and glimmer a little. The moon-circle was luminous. Then very suddenly, it was all over; the time was up. People stood up, stacked cushions and put away the scrolls, while I sat dazed on the floor, trying to wake up my sleeping legs. I still can't really say what it was I experienced, but it was something new... something to do with a new feeling for the unreality of time as we know it in a day-to-day way. Anyway, after Zazen, the ten of us retreated to room on the side where we ate honeydew melon and mochi sweets and drank green tea, and Bubu regailed the small crowd with the now-familiar story of how he came to know me. The ladies listened politely, asked a few questions, and said the other now familiar things that embarrass me-- isn't she pretty! isn't she clever- she can use chopsticks! what lovely blond hair! look, she can eat Japanese food! The Bishop's ancient mother brought out a box of beer and gave us all a can; as everyone was driving, the beer was tucked into purses and bags. I thought that was pretty funny; it reminded me of how my Granny Endreny used to wrap sweets up in napkins at church teas and smuggle them home for Grandpa.

OK. That's it for today...

Namaste

Endrene