Dispatches

Somewhere in Japan

Seasonal

An image of a Japanese living room with tatami floors and a kotatsu in the center of the room. Photo provided by and used with permission of @TBeanpod on Twitter

Dispatch № 98: Ode to the Kotatsu

2021-12-08 No Comments

A poem about my favorite piece of furniture

A quiet neighborhood street after rain, the ground wet and shining

Dispatch № 80: The Old Life

2021-10-08 No Comments

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.

Backlit grasss in an overgrown lot in Nerima-ku Tokyo

Dispatch № 72: For a Limited Time

2021-09-10 No Comments

Soft stridulations waft like lithe wisps of wood smoke on the gentle evening breeze, the crickets calling tenderly under the waxing crescent moon.

Dispatch № 43: The Summer Trope

2021-05-28 No Comments

It is a season for the seaside and the mountain stream. A season for eating ice pops while walking over the blistering asphalt of country roads fringed with green foxtail, the green of which has begun to fade to brown.

Mayumi and me enjoying a festival in my old neighborhood in Tokyo

Dispatch № 24: A Festival Built For Two

2021-03-23 No Comments

Last summer, they canceled all the local festivals because of the pestilence at large. Though vaccinations are happening now in Japan, it’s slow going, and I suspect summer festivals will fall victim to the plague for a second year.