7/24/2021

i am in this writerʻs class... the way it usually runs (at least for now) is the instructor gives a prompt (usually a word, although it could be a scenario), and we write lines for a script for a few seconds to a few minutes. anyway, at one point, the instructor said "worry", and i wrote "worry has a time, and that time is 3 am." what was funny was that another student in the class wrote something along similar lines. she wrote: "3 am... i wake up each morning and i worry until sunrise." it was a funny/odd connection...

...but itʻs 3 am again (or maybe more precisely, itʻs 4:20).

i recall, when the kids were 10 years younger or so, that i would wake up and haunt the halls of the house. i would go into the kidsʻ rooms and whisper, "i love you," like some kind of ghost (i would do the same to my wife, sleeping in her dreams). i canʻt remember what would disturb me. there is always always always something in life to be anxious about... money matters. the trajectory of your children. health issues... always there is, and always there will be...

there is always also a perpetual sense of regret, and it is something that doesnʻt necessarily grow, but it just seems more prevalent, more ever present. iʻve come to the conclusion that itʻs largely ridiculous to feel too much regret, or rather, that it is an inevitable part of life to feel regret. life is all about choices- choices that are made or not, or rather, choices that weʻre aware of or not. i think to breathe is a choice. even to dream in the depths of sleep is a choice. and weʻre constantly making them. weʻre largely blind to them, we canʻt help but be, but we still make them. and each choice wends a path through this woods, through this rapids, and even if we lay ariadneʻs web behind us, we will never be able to remake the choice, to redo it, to go back. and thereʻs inevitable regret in that, this idea that things could have been different. and perhaps they could have, but thereʻs no use in bemoaning that, because itʻs gone... and anyway, we have so much right here, so many other choices to make, so busy-busy-busy making choices...

what i want to say is this: life is incredibly incredibly short. i know we always hear that, we always perhaps say it ourselves. but it is. you think youʻre one thing, and youʻre so busy taking care of becoming that one thing, and then before you know it, youʻre something else. the world has changed. people are gone. people have grown. and the towers you thought you were building for one moment- for example, that swing set and that backyard play area you were working so hard to cultivate- why, the children are too old, and they donʻt want to play there any more... all these investments you make turn out to be irrelevant to the ever changing present...

i think my writing is a stubborn dream. and i hold to it. it may be irrelevant... but i think itʻs not so much about producing anything that would be read or celebrated by anyone else. itʻs more about me attempting to bind back my life, and find a meaning in it that perhaps only i would appreciate...

*****

among my insights (lately)... i keep associating my brother with the first chinese brother, the one who swallowed the sea. and i have a story for that association, about how he swallowed so much water teaching himself how to swim- and perhaps tears- that he essentially swallowed a sea. and how he might say that it was all for the sake of others- like myself- that he did this. when actually, it was always for himself... i also have ideas about this idea of trajectories. one of deanʻs friends is a literal rocket scientist, and i wanted to have this notion that, because of his friendship, my brother gave this friend the confident to have faith in trajectories, and to become a rocket scientist... but in the process, i wanted to say that he stole away my sisterʻs trajectory (in the story, she is the dragon princess, which is actually a carp that wants to jump a waterfall to become a dragon... only, she canʻt). the message is, yes, my brother has contributed to the world- the larger world- but it has come at a cost in terms of what he has taken away from my family... something no one ever talks about...

i also wanted to make mention of urashima taroʻs treasure box, somehow. this thing that holds time. "time in a bottle" essentially... and why anyone would want to hold back time?

*****

wherever and whoever you are, try your best, live your life, fulfill all your nagging obligations... just do your best to do what is right... because truly truly truly: life is short. life is so incredibly short.

7/21/2021

i apologize for not being more diligent in writing in this blog. to be honest, iʻve been busier than usual, even though it was the summertime. i have been trying my best to earn enough money to send my daughter over to berkeley, which costs about $60,000 a year (at least). so i took on a couple of classes at the acupuncture school, and taught summer hub (summer school). i also have a gig developing an online lesson on hawaiian shark teeth, through nprʻs educator phenomenon forum. so between those three things, itʻs been pretty hectic. not to mention just sort of keeping up with other things, like the car maintenance, or coaching robotics. i get tired at the end of the day, and i just stopped doing my routines...

sometimes keeping busy keeps me from thinking about things overmuch. like the fact that my daughter will be leaving soon. it seems so swift, the passage of time. i remember not so long ago when i would hold her up in the air laughing... or i would do her hair in pony tails so she could go to preschool... her happy laughter. when did that little girl transform into this woman? iʻm not sure... i suppose it happened at the same time that this youngish father began to turn old and decrepit, lol.

iʻm still working on the writing of that stupid story. at times, i have faith that just hanging with it will eventually lead to something. it seems sometimes that persistence opens up a new pathway, a new perspective on the writing, and iʻm able to proceed just a little... but then, i end up writing myself into blind corners. it gets really frustrating. thereʻs no core, or structure, that can prevent you from making these mistakes, because you are the one weaving this house of lies from thin air. you make the walls, you make the rooms, and if itʻs not believable, well, that omnipotence of creation comes with a price, because you can definitely make something incongruous and ridiculous; nothingʻs stopping you from doing that.

i havenʻt drawn anything in a while.

i also havenʻt practiced japanese in a while.

i also also havenʻt done taijiquan in forever.

and my health is probably going. i just eat and sleep. and cough. i have this insistent nagging itch and irritation in my throat. itʻs definitely not covid, but itʻs just a sensitivity in my throat to the things that i eat: especially greasy things. i wish the irritation would settle down, but it hasnʻt gone away in probably years. i suppose that now that i have insurance, i should visit a doc and get it checked out. but i tend to put things off when it comes to my own self-maintenance... heck, maybe iʻve got cancer, colon cancer, who knows...

there really isnʻt much to update you all on. my life is just routines that i put off and routines that i honor. iʻm just trying to survive, and keep up with the endless obligations. i hope you are alright, reader, and things are going okay for you. i think that the way the world is going right now, we all just need some moments where it seems like things are alright... i think if you narrow your focus, and your context, you can at least pretend a peace. like, i canʻt control tomorrow, and i canʻt answer for yesterday, but in this moment, in this inescapable, fleeting moment, i can just- i donʻt know- be...

and with that little piece of bs, iʻll leave you... till the next check in.

dream 7/11/2021

i canʻt recall all the details of this dream. i do remember standing next to this beautiful woman, in a room with people all lined up, as in some kind of dance. and we would all be cued to do the motions for some kind of dance. i recall one "line" of the song had people clapping their hands, and the woman suggested that i clap behind my back (apparently that was more "in style"). the line wrapped around the room, and so i could see the back of one large dude somewhat across the room. he was wearing this big t-shirt. he was a big framed korean dude. anyway, it seemed as if he was looking for some "company" (i recall the word "sticky" as in warrior), and the person who headed the place (i guess you could call him the pimp) laughed at him. and then when i saw the big dudeʻs face in profile, i could see why. his head was somewhat chinless, and resembled the pale extension of some worm, with his neck rising up straight to his buck-toothed maw. and the skin was covered in pink and purple zits. he certainly didnʻt look desirable. but i thought to myself that i was sure that all sorts of ugly went through whorehouses, and the workers couldnʻt be picky about their clientelle... still, it seemed as though he wasnʻt going to get any that night.

somehow the dream transferred over to the big korean guyʻs line of work. he was apparently some sort of delivery boy in a very cutthroat and competitive field. he would ride/drive this compact one seater (it resembled some sort of bicycle, only it had a thin shell of some sort of flimsy metal wrapped around its entirety like a burrito). i watched as one competitor raced down this grassy hill, only to crash and tumble down the slope, while the big korean guy had discovered a hidden path around the slopeʻs periphery...

near the bottom, as he was waiting to get his delivery accepted (it looked like he was selling a bunch of different kinds of cigarettes), he noticed one of his other competitors lying in the shade. it was a girl, but she looked like a boy. her hair was cut short and sloppy. she was lying in the grass, dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, with twigs all over her. you could just see the shape of her nipples poking sharply, through the t-shirt. apparently, she was the master at this game of competition, and here he was, seeing her in a moment of rest...

[thatʻs all i really remember/]

dream, 6/6/2021

this was a morning dream. meaning, i had already woken up once, but still in that sleepy grip, lapsed back off again while the sun was already up. i dreamt i was back in williams, but again, a williams i would say i had a hard time recognizing, or navigating through. i supposedly had a beautiful room, in one of the "wings" of this building, but as much of the building was still under construction, i was having a very difficult time getting to it. there would be entire sections of the building that were closed off. so i remember kind of making my way around to get to where i was supposed to be. on the way, i think i stumbled into some forgotten places. it looked as though at one point, i was clambering over a storage space, and looking into a lot of flotsam and jetsam from students over the decades: a mirror with the profile of people cut into it. other things. at the same time, i came to the realization that it was friday, and that all the "kids" were itching to party. and i thought how odd it was, and how i couldn't really feel that, or feel the same way.

there was that feeling, of not measuring up. it was strange, but i wasn't at williams as in a memory of the place. i was conscious that i had already graduated. i had already "passed" this place. but somehow i was back, perhaps to earn a different degree or something. there was this notion that the only place i could perform to a higher standard was here, because i was pushed to excel here. everywhere else, i was only degenerating...

*****

i recall now that there was an earlier part of the dream, one in which i was travelling back somewhere. i had some sort of strange (but cheap) vehicle; it was elongated and yellow, with tapered ends. at the "center" where the driver sat, there was some sort of (motorized?) wheel. basically, the thing ran almost like a fulcrum, with the ends gently going down to the ground as i moved... only, at one point the tip of my vehicle kind of broke... i believe me father was there, i recall him talking to me. and other people. and all around where other inventions, similarly strange vehicles. this was on an old cracked sidewalk... 

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.