The Struggles of Life - Somewhere in Japan

Dispatch № 110: Blossoms

While looking for plum blossoms to photograph, I began to receive news alerts on my phone.

Dispatch № 108: Precarity

You admonish yourself for having neglected them until you needed them and wonder why you have also for so long put up with a job in which you are forever making up for the incompetence of others…

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.

Dispatch № 95: The Distance

It wasn’t about the cat vomiting behind the couch or the flat tire on the way to work, either. It wasn’t about the spilled water, the broken flowerpot, or the burned toast.

Dispatch № 89: Not Giving Up

If it weren’t for the fact that I like the people I work with and I like the kids I teach, I’d have run for the hills a while ago.

Dispatch № 85: Absent

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

Dispatch № 83: Bulging

The bag of plastic recycling comically large and overstuffed to bursting, like a farcical suitcase.

Dispatch № 69: Unlearning Aversion

Old habits and old conditioning die hard.

Dispatch № 67: Continuity

It has been there for more than a dozen generations, and it may remain there for at least that much longer still.

Dispatch № 63: No Return

The already-slippery concept eventually all but entirely lost its meaning after years as an emigrant and only regained some of its significance years after settling in Japan.