Country Life Utopia
In the natural wave pattern of life, I oscillate between agrarian dreams and urban utopia. I enjoy the city. As I read blogs, books, & converse with agrarians, the reasons I hear for moving out to the country are often anti-urban. Like cities are inherently evil. Not that I think my friends believe this. There are just more original sinners in one place - so maybe its true... But then I recall God's rest in the old testament was a .....CITY. A city on a hill.
The city affords some great opportunities - you have to practice love for your neighbor on a higher level than the country. In the city, your neighbor could be black, hispanic,gay, democrat, communist, old... There's more differences. Also because of the differences, there is exposure - In chinatown, your senses can be assaulted in some degree. Yet, the country affords more freedoms and more opportunity to practice interdependence. HAve to think more on this.
Japan Wandering
A recent interuption to the family life was a work trip to Japan. Amazon sells a lot of stuff in Japan. Interestingly, the Japanese have a very different attitude than the French. While the FR resent and resist the anglophile material, Japanese buy a LOT of material imported from the US & UK.
Culture clashes -
The staff works regularly till 10-11 pm at night. This seems normal to them. I don't get it, I can barely be away from family for 8-10 hours aday, and this trip was killing me. As a manager, the goal of efficiency isn't to reduce their work but
change the work to something with a higher value. Being an american works 2 ways. My natural manner might be offputting to someone japanese but in the office, it affords an unique opporunity. Since my presence is very temporary, I have the opportunity to play bad cop, setting up my japanese counterpart for the good cop role. We all win - the inefficient process gets changed, my JP counterpart keeps face, probably even advances face.
The japanese have an odd sense of proprietary - though, mad cow disease & bird flue crazes are mostly past us, the images of everyone wearing surgical masks sticks with me. If you thought this was an oddity, apparently, it is dishonor to pass your germs on to someone else. So if you're feeling a cold coming on or even a mild cough/sniffle - stop by your local 7-11 and select a mask from the row of options next to the KitKat
Other experiences:
House church-120 people in a house and oh yes, I was in slippers.
simultaneous multilanguage worship. The pastor was thoughtful enough to select common psalm tunes so the JP sang in Japanese, us Gaijin sang in English. God can sort it out. I now understand better why pentecost bystanders thought the apostles were drunk
Warm sushi & beer for breakfast
An early morning (4:40am) brought me on the first subway over to the Tokyo FishMarket. The abundance of random squiggly, squirmy, slimy,scaly creatures in foam boxes is a marvelous illustration of what can be harvested in the Ocean. Looking out over puget sound, the water just looks dark & wavy. Walking through the market, there were aisles of squid, fish, octopus, eels (live), clams, oysters and of course the highlight - tuna. The big ones, don't think tuna fish, think tuna steak. Every morning except Sunday & Holidays, over 2500 of these tuna are auctioned off (Japanese auctions are humorous since I can't understand a word anyway). That is over a 700,000 tuna a year. Almost a MILLION of these big fish, just in the tokyo fish market.
After meandering, we joined the workers for fresh sushi - so fresh the fish is still warm and beer. Good start to the day.
Nitro Life
In high school, to juice up a car - you'd have a switch to cut over over to Nitro fuel. I don't think I ever rode in a car with this but every movie or TV show I saw had a tense moment, escaped by "switch to Nitro" and ZOOM. While I didn't drive nitrous, I did like to ride my bike down Filmore St. hill. This was the longest hill within 5 miles of my house. The descent could have been 3-400 feet over a quarter mile at best. Not much altitude change - but this was the midwest. I'd climb that hill (or sneak up the backside via 56th st.) and accelerate into the downhill. Hunched over the handlebars, I'd pedal the cranks in my highest gear. After coasting as far as Cedar Lake Road on a good day, I'd check the cyclometer - Max Speed = ??? On a good day I'd hit 40. I may have even broken 40mph a couple times
The thing about going fast is that the details of the route become a blur. Whatever is on the side of the road, flashes by. Instead of knowing your place & interacting with the surroundings, the sensory experience is on the buzz, blur, wind in your face. At best you hope not to hit an oncoming car (Filmore had a blind turn, taking the inside lane picked up at least .3 mph)
Coming into Spring, the local plants are bursting into bloom all over the place. Trees covered with blossoms shed petal storms in spring windbursts. Our neighbor's "lightly" pruned apple trees are flower sticks. This year, our unplanned project was a front yard expansion. After our concrete contractor friend's dire assessment of our driveway retaining wall, we've poured concrete and dumptruck loads of dirt into a new front yard. This project wasn't something I'd been planning for a couple years but eh. A good number of sidebenefits have come of it. My wife has jumped whole hog into owning the plant-scape around our house. Not one to do anything half-heinie, she's checked out every plant book in the Seattle public library (really). I now receive a botany education on our neighborhood walks while our neighbors receive a "critique "on their yards.
(where's he going you might wonder now, a paragraph on speed, spring, & his garden? ) Here comes the synthesis - those three themes reflect my state of mind somewhat right now. Life is full of interests, activities, and concerns. Everyone has them. But right now, my garden is spring in bloom. 3 young children are my sprouts all in different stages of their climbing vine lives. My work at
Amazon is budding into broader concerns of how to delight customers with ever cheaper processes. (I love my job). Church is full of change in people and perspective - where will God take this group? All of this adds up to a rate of growth that is blurring the sidelines right now.
As a single man or even young married, there was more time to plan the big picture. Lay out the direction I'd like the plants to go - a nasturtium there, rosemary here. But as plants grow, you can prune, transplant, water but the growth will occur in the manner of the plant. I'd love to sit back at my desk and map out our family's activities against our desired values. Lay out a "plan" for the next 3 months -(I'm a bit AR, planning gives me an illusion of control) Right now, the best I can do is hunch down over the bars, listen for cars, and crank.
