dream, 5/18/2021

i remember walking around with this huge backpack. and these two kids asked for something back, something i carried in the backpack for a long time. and i remember them going in and taking them, two dolls. the kids were siblings, and they missed their dolls, the ones i had been carrying for an inordinately long time. i recall that the bag seemed cavernous as i looked into it. i saw other dolls, other things. and scraps of paper, some with writing like "free william faulkner" from a student that i doubted had ever read faulkner. also, a room, a library, with walls of glass, and very colorful art projects, one in all yellow and green... there seemed a purpose to my journey, but then again, it seemed like i was just looking... can't recall other parts of the dream at the moment...

i've been inordinately tired. like super tired. i think this whole graduation thing (my daughter just graduated from high school) is really bearing down on me... well, there are so many other things. thinking about how to pay for college. my mother's amnesia.

dream 5/13/2021

so some time has passed, and i can't remember all the details of the dream... i remember driving out of the garage at my home when i was in high school, the two story one in the middle of the culdesac. i wasn't quite in control of the car, maybe was reaching for something behind me as i reversed, so at the last moment, i flipped the gear to park just so that it wouldn't run into anything else... there was another car at one point, and we (there were others in the car too) had to wait... and then it was again a rolicking ride out of the culdesac and into the looping block...

at some point, i got out. i was driving some sort of mini-scooter, motorized. i was taking these obscure back pathways around the block, behind people's lots. there was actually one point where the ground dropped sharply away, next to this fence, and i had to get off the scooter and sort of walk things down to get to the other side... anyway, i managed to complete the block on the scooter. it actually took my out of the way of where i needed to be... and i realized that i would have to run my way (?) back to where the car was, so i could continue to drive to work...

oh yes. in the background was this sneaking suspicion (?) that i was late for work. so all the while that i was scootering around this block, i was thinking about what was going on in the classroom... people were trying to operate things without me... it was now one hour late, and i hadn't contacted anyone to let them know what was going on... just general anxiety about stuff... so i suppose that's why i HAD to run once i completed the block (again, not sure where that scooter thing went)...

and that's it. boring.

preliminary thoughts, mother's day; 5/9/2021

 my grandma mitakara always spoke of innen, roughly translated as "causality." it was an idea, common to buddhism, of the ways in which past actions (sometimes even in past lives) shaped the present. there was this notion that patterns repeated, sometimes across generations, due to some unacknowledged or unaddressed causal factors...

it's funny, but in 2009, after my grandmother's funeral, and before the epic falling out i had with my brother, i had concerns about what my grandmother's death would do to our family. it was she that tied us all together. before her death, we would have get-togethers every now and again at the ewa beach house...

it was common knowledge that my mother didn't get along all that well with her siblings, my aunty kiyomi and uncle masao- all the more reason why those occasional get-togethers were so vital. so i guess in 2009, a bit after the funeral, i had written a message to my then fb friend brother and my cousin about this, suggesting that we, as the grandchildren, make an effort to have our parents (and uncle masao) get together periodically to continue the tradition and wishes of my grandmother; perhaps hosting some informal lunch or something... i had even thrown out suggestions for rules of engagement, just in case things got out of hand... the message was dated 7/9/2009.

it's now 2021, and i suppose our efforts failed. to be honest, i can't even recall that effort, or even that i had that idea. the irony was that i had this inkling to contact my brother via facebook, just to send him a message (but of course, i can't, as apparently, i have been blocked from messaging his personal account; i can only send messages to his "professional persona," which would likely be monitored by people other than himself). the reason, i suppose, was that i felt a lot of things were coming to a head. my daughter's graduating next week (not that he or his family were expected to celebrate that)... but more than that, is the fact that tomorrow (today) is mother's day.

my mother, i fear, is developing dementia. it's not unexpected, i know, for people her age. but i suppose it's ominous and sad because she is such an involved person, involved in the sense of always extending both invisible and tangible lines of support to all corners of the world (and, of course, our family)... my mother has always been someone who only offered the bright and generous side of herself to the world. it is only in off moments that she discloses (beside herself) the things that sadden or concern her... the dementia, i suppose, betrays the secret rifts in her heart.

today being mother's day, i know that one of those rifts were those severing my brother, sister, and i. i know that one of her wishes was to have all of us kids together under the same roof, sharing a meal.

5/8/2021

yes, it has been over a week since i last posted. again, a lot has been going on. i started teaching a new course at the acupuncture school, on therapeutic ethics. i had to prepare for the class, and actually am still working on it to make it the best that i can. i had to change a lot of the prepared statements from a previous instructor, because he spoke a lot about "spirituality" and "religion," which i feel are precisely the worst things to talk about in a class about ethics. i think, first of all, that one of the biggest dangers or downfalls of a professional of any sort is to think you are an expert in any and all things, and i think once you start straying into "spiritual" guru-hood, you are asking for trouble. i believe that professionals should be humble. they have a specific expertise, and they can be masters in that field, and can provide advice, etc. related to that; but once you start going outside of that, and speaking to people about problems or issues which you could not possibly understand intimately... well. that's how ethical boundaries are broken.

just my opinion, of course.

it's not that, personally, you can align what you do with your spirituality. it's that i feel that should be a private matter. if it makes your actions resonant with your personal beliefs, then fine. do that, believe that. i think the trouble lies in claiming some sort of superiority to your clientelle in those fields. and as "spirituality" nowadays tends to have this all-encompassing reach... again, i feel like i'm just recycling my argument. it's dangerous.

i'm preferring to make the class as open-ended and ambiguous as possible. i'm trying not to make my own personal viewpoint authoritative. i DO intend to share the codified ethics of various organizations and levels within our profession, just so that students know what the legal stance is, regardless of their personal morality or communal ethics...

*****

school is slowly winding down. i think the kids feel it. they're certainly acting like it...

i may have mentioned but my daughter is going to attend berkeley, which has a $60,000 a year estimated price tag for out of state students... there are no grants for out of state students, which means that we would have to depend upon loans. needless to say, i'd rather not do that. of course, she's attending at the worst time for us, financially. i may have mentioned my wife lost her job of 20 years due to the pandemic. she's been trying to find new employment, but it hasn't been easy. meanwhile, with my state job, and its crappy union benefits, i've had to foot the bill for our family's health insurance, which is exorbitantly expensive... for teachers in our state, paid pretty much last place when cost of living is taken into account... for these teachers to be forced to take such a huge cut out of that shit that they pay us, just for basic medical insurance... it's an insult. and now, our family is reduced to one fourth of what our income used to be... and being held to pay for my daughter's college at the same time.

so again, that's why i'm working a bit more classes at the acupuncture school... i have these stupid ideas of finishing my book and trying to sell it. but i think most people buying it would be doing so out of pity. i've realized long ago that no one really wants to read my stupid stories, and as i age, i have less compulsion to tell them, and less memory to find them... so... it would be nice if our financial situation pushed me to write a masterpiece, but i guess you can't force a cannonball out of a pistol... just doesn't work that way.

*****

i get inspired at times... i think i'm inspired, for a time, whenever i listen to salman rushdie. i really like the guy... a very knowledgeable and patient instructor, frank... but when i run up against myself... against the dead weight that is me... it gets very frustrating.

*****

i listened to some electronic music from french??? they had this song called "hometown." the video just sort of tells the story of 4 separate strangers who each encounter some sort of phenomenon that they cannot explain, a "signal," i guess, and they each get inspired in different ways... i was thinking of utilizing that "feeling," the feeling of seeing something you can't explain, in the next story, on "kipapa." seeing the night marchers... usually we connote it with horror, because that is what you are supposed to feel when seeing those macabre lines of torches... but perhaps it could also connote a sense of wonder. and maybe a feeling of commonality with those isolated few who happen to see it too. you belong to a sort of club... and the idea of having it inspire people to attempt to capture that signal again... the idea that life is empty and meaningless after having seen something wonderful and terrifying like that... i would like to convey that somehow...