Life in General - Somewhere in Japan

Dispatch № 104: Possibility

With less than a week left in the year, and with less than a week left for me in my thirties, I am feeling an uncharacteristic sense of hope and optimism.

Mounds of burnable garbage, bundles of cardboard, stacks of old clothes bound with twine, old furniture broken down into pieces, sandwich bags full of old batteries—just about anything you can imagine, really, and the volume increases strikingly as December’s days run out and the new year approaches.

Dispatch № 96: In Small Pieces

That cat looks like it has a mustache

Dispatch № 90: Sharp Enough

Attention to detail counts for a lot, as does consistency, and both become supercharged by regular and deliberate practice.

Dispatch № 87: A New Bath to Call Home

When we departed and walked home, I already knew I wanted to go back, soon and often.

Dispatch № 85: Absent

A thick black line drawn through her name, as she would not be attending.

Dispatch № 82: Hidden Away

Plants are good at that, at keeping secrets subterranean and contained.

Dispatch № 80: The Old Life

In the winter months, kerosene trucks drive slowly through neighborhoods in the evening, making their presence known with a repeating announcement played over a loudspeaker, accompanied by the tune of an old children’s song.