Category Archives: meditating wind

Wading Into My Fourties

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Meditating Wind no. 50

Now that I’m ankle deep in my 40s I’d like to share some things I’ve “learned” in the last year.

On Being a Daddy

Having a child leads you to experience emotions you never knew you had, and exaggerates all the ones you’ve been familiar with for years. Chief among them are protectiveness to the point of paranoia, mysterious wonderment of a human unfolding in front of you, and a humbling bewilderment on how to do parenting.

Having a daughter has squeezed out and exposed the conservative old dad in me that I never knew I had. I joke that Moka won’t be allowed to date until she’s 25. But maybe I’m not joking. Continue reading →

What’s in My Bag? A Ten Year Retrospective

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Meditating Wind no.

As I hit the big 4-0, I got to thinking about how my life had changed since the slightly less big 3-0.

I could approach this geographically. Ten years ago, the extent of my adult international experience was limited to a couple skirmishes over the border into Canada. Since then, I’ve lived on an island at one end of the Eurasian landmass and moved to another island on the other end.

I’ve also visited a dozen other countries in between. Miraculously, even with all that flying, I still haven’t used up the carbon karma that I’ve accumulated. (I’ve planted a LOT of trees in my time.) At least according to my calculations.

I could also catalog the physical changes of my body (from Olympian to a bad back), recount my reverse midlife crisis (bohemian performing artist to academic), regale you with my wardrobe evolution (tank tops and hiking boots to neckties and dress shoes), muse over my transportation choices (mountain bike to car to subway back to bicycle), or even list my gastronomic inclinations (organic bulk whole grains to convenience store rice balls).

But really the best way to encapsulate the labyrinthine trek from 30 to 40 is to list all the baggage I carried around with me through the years. And I mean this literally.

What was in my bag over the last decade? And what’s in my bag now? Continue reading →

Meditating Wind no. 76: A Tokyo Blind Spot

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Meditating Wind no. 76

Earlier this month I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo or MoT. Even though it’s in central Tokyo, it’s quite a bit out of the way, in one of those blind spots far from train or subway stations. The neighborhood, Kiyosumi Shirakawa, is very traditional in a shabby way.

Nevertheless, the walk to the museum is quite interesting. There were little iron posts with makeshift seating near them, all along the streets. Brilliantly colored flowers were meticulously cared for by the shopkeepers. I also liked the sidewalk tiles with etchings of insects on them.

IMG_2617on firelady bug

The museum itself is beautifully ultra contemporary, with a dramatic entrance lined with aluminum poles, fountains and intriguing art installations. I tucked myself into one of them, and found the effect visually disorienting. Even though I was inside the structure, I appeared to be an external reflection. And the buildings that were reflected on the surface seemed to be something from within.

IMG_2673Meditating Wind no. 75

Unplugged

Posted on
5

On the Hammock

I haven’t written any blog posts in over a month. I don’t know where I misplaced May. I think I put it out in the back yard and forgot about it. But now that it’s sprouted into a nice sunny June, I’m reminded to tend to my word garden, my little blog.

My main excuse for not posting is that T’s laptop died. My own laptop had suffered a slow death in February when my back crapped out. After so many hours on the computer, I guess my body had created a cybernetic link to my iBook.

And then I worked T’s Macbook until it too couldn’t take it anymore. Fortunately, replacing the hard disc drive of a Macbook is infinitely simpler than the brain surgery I had performed on her previous laptop.

Being without a computer at home was quite disconcerting. My dependence on the internet was never more apparent. Here were some of the “basic” life things I couldn’t do:

• Communicate with people through email, Skype and Facebook.
• Keep track of my finances.
• Get the most recent podcasts.
• Read the latest news. I had to wait a whole day for the newspaper to come out.
• Recharge my iPod.
• Update my blog.
• Do simple searches for anything I was curious about.
• Get maps for some places I had to be.
• Work on the PhD.

Instead, I reverted to a pre-millenial Wind. And the following activities increased.

• Read novels.
• Played guitar and sang.
• Wrote poetry.
• Scribbled a lot in my journal.
• Conversed more with my wife.
• Did a little sketching.
• Slept.

All in all, it took me just a few days to adjust to the internet withdrawal. And soon I was the Bohemian hippie artist that I used to be.

I’m back to being a cyborg now. Because that’s life in the Internet Age. But now I know that when civilization collapses, I can just unplug and I’d be just as happy with my guitar and a good book.