Devenish

Early Friday morning (4:50 am): View down through the clouds to Kobe Click to play Rows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air and feather canyons everywhere, I've looked at clouds that way. But now they only block the sun, they rain and they snow on everyone. So many things I would have done but clouds got in my way. It's been, as they say, a funny old day. Extremely quiet, as Sean is away on a five-day field trip with his elementary school to explore the delights of a typhoon-swept island just to the Southwest of Awaji-shima (which you would just be able to see if this picture was the type that allowed you to squint around to the right). Also, extremely wet, yet again, even in town (and almost certainly for Seán): after the last five weeks, if any Japanese person criticizes British weather in my presence, they can expect less than no sympathy at all, possibly a sharp kick—and it isn't even the so-called 'rainy season' yet. It is ...

Consider these pictures, taken last weekend at Kobe Kachoen (Bird and Flower Park) , our refuge from the miserable Sunday weather. The idea is that you get to interact with birds, and both of the older boys were able to feed and/or hold first owls, then toucans, then other smaller water-fowl. A larger selection of pictures can be found here , but what is most interesting is the following sequence of Julian feeding a toucan (the bird of choice of Guinness drinkers everywhere): Now it may be pure coincidence or a fevered imagination, but the psychologist in me sees a boy subconsciously imitating a bird: down-up-down (all that is missing is the fruit in Julian's mouth!). Parrot-fashion, if you don't mind awful puns. Mirror Neurons , anyone...?

Click to play (Ferré) It is no small irony that we can’t learn lessons from literature at that point in our lives when they might be most useful to us, and through such learning change things to avert future pain. I’m not talking Hamlet here, or Oedipus Rex —most of us do not, could not, live on such planes of extreme experience; rather, the bourgeois tragedies of everyday adolescence: missed chances, hesitant failure, lost love,  the symptoms of obstinate immaturity. It’s not that we can’t relate to it—what twelve year-old cannot understand Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye, or the pre-teen protagonists of Kate DiCamillo’s equally wonderful stories The Tiger Rising and Because of Winn-Dixie (both triumphs of modern children’s literature, especially the latter). But it is one thing to empathise with a character, quite another to realize that the character is you—or at least a significant enough part of you that the shock of recognition almost seems physical.

Click to play On a lighter note, some video from last weekend's trip back to Hanshin Country House (site of the ' No Fear ' post several months ago. Sean was equally Gung-Ho about this experience, which must rank—per second—as the most expensive fairground attraction in Japan: 600 Yen for a circuit of just under a minute. And, though it wasn't particularly dangerous, I might have been happier if there had been some seat belts in the cars...like Justin's, maybe. Health and Safety would have a field day in this country!

Walking home last Monday evening. Click to play If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there. Lewis Carroll   Feeling damaged today by how accurately this quotation sums up my adult life to this point, and by the related observation that 'winning' is crucially different from merely 'coming first'. The consolation is the following, more whimsical—or should that be mimsical?—pun by the same author: No good fish goes anywhere without a porpoise.   Lewis Carroll Postscript: the soundtrack for this piece was to have been Underlying Depression, but life is much more nuanced than that, and we all need some more hope...

I'm coming to regret that I mentioned summer in the last post—the phrase "don't count your chickens..." comes forcefully to mind—for today (and yesterday, and tomorrow, they say) has been absolutely vile in many parts of Japan, certainly here in Kobe. Until this morning, walking up the hill to Kobe College, I hadn't realized that it was possible to get wet in two directions at once, the drenching rain meeting the soaking sweat halfway. This punishment continued pretty much unabated all day, the only consolation being the view from our bedroom window during a brief lull about an hour ago: looking down from above the cloud is miles (well, several hundred yards) better than sitting inside it. I hope that climatic conditions are more radiant and cheerful in Carnalea, Co, Down for my sister's birthday. Happy Birthday, Aislinn! I hope too that this post will serve in lieu of a card, and—in place of a present—find below a poor translation of a beautiful Dutch song b...

At Shiawase no mura (Happy Village) Wenn der Sommer nicht mehr weit ist,  Und der Himmel violett, Weiß ich, das das meine Zeit ist, Weil die Welt dann wieder breit ist, Satt, und ungeheuer fett... Click to play Being the sometimes exhausted parent of three children hardly leaves the energy to appreciate, much less realize, the potential of this great song by Konstantin Wecker, yet nearly thirty summers after I first heard it, it continues to move and inspire me as much as any other in his repertoire. And, as the weather on Rokko mountain oscillates from dense cloud to clear blue—this evening at 5pm, it was 23 degrees on the hill (28 on Rokko island earlier in the day), while yesterday evening after a beautiful day, you couldn't see more than 10 metres—it's clear that summer is on its way, and we mustn't hesitate. After a somewhat grim start to the week, reflected in the last post , I'm pleased to report that things have improved considerably in our small ...

I have an uneasy feeling that this post will have the flavour of a homily, which Google dictionary variously defines as: '1. A religious discourse that is intended primarily for spiritual edification rather than doctrinal instruction; a sermon; 2. A tedious moralizing discourse'. Perhaps it's that time of the week, more likely, the particular circumstances of my day: whatever the reason, I need to explore some more difficult subjects, if only— very selfishly —as a means of putting my own troubles in perspective; so, if this comes across as a sermon, too bad. Also, to the three, or five, or seventeen even, who may read this, you are scarcely a captive audience, you can (do) leave at any time...