Empty shelf - no more

I have floating shelves on both sides of my fireplace. The top left shelf has been empty...for a long time. It’s the most prominent self. I just have not found anything I like for that spot.

I’ve tried potted plants, fresh cut flowers, and tree branches - all of which required regular attention. I already have a tall ceramic sculpture on the shelf across the fireplace, so it has to balance without being too similar. I thought about a drift log. (We had one I really liked growing up at my parents’ “tokonoma”. We brought it from a mountain and varnished it.) But, I wanted something vertical. How about a stone sculpture? But, that felt too heavy for a floating shelf. Umm... Nothing clicked. So, I just left it open.

One day, I came across this while looking for something else online. 

I liked it, kind of. Simple enough form with upward movement. The size seemed to work, so as the color. It just felt a little too light and somewhat weak. Possibly too curvy to my liking?

When I built this house with a production builder (not custom), the original design had interior arches all over. It was a trend at the time. I told the builder not to make any arch openings and use straight lines instead. I’m glad I did. There are many beautiful curvy things in this world I like and admire. But, I tend to get attracted to cleaner lines, even a tad masculine designs.

Then I thought, well, the self space was nothing but straight lines, so why don’t I put this curvy piece in the middle and see how I like it. 

The piece came. It was good, but not great. I felt it needed a little more height and some color as it blended in the mirror behind it. I thought about making a small box base and wrapping it with a piece of beautiful fabric. I checked a few stores and did not find any fabric I liked. 

A few weeks past, then I suddenly remembered I had a wooden box that was probably the right size. When I went into the office closet to get it, I saw a Japanese handcrafted paper with silver and gold flakes there. I had this for over thirty years and almost forgot about it.

I carefully wrapped the box with the paper and placed the piece on it. That gave what was missing - a base for this piece’s upward movement. 

The peice got a base. The box and paper found their place. The shelf is no longer empty.

Yakushima in sandals

7 years ago my oldest and I were in Yakushima, Japan. The island with the tallest mountain in Kyushu, famous for its dense forest with 2000+ years old Jomon-Sugi, where they say it rains 35 days in a month.

We barely slept, left the inn shortly before 2 am, took a local bus, then switched to a private bus that dropped us off at the trailhead in pitch black darkness. As more hikers arrived, most with their private guides and headlamps, we headed in. The first leg was pretty easy; we just walked on the old logging railroad. 

The scenery got interesting once we left that easy trail and started ascending. Hundreds of mystical looking ancient trees, with roots like tentacles covered with moss, were just everywhere. 

As we walked past groups, we overheard their guides explaining the vegetation and the history of the island. Some guides looked at my son’s feet and told us he should not be on this trail. He was hiking in his sandal with T-shirt and shorts - more like being on a beach. Most others were dressed in proper hiking attire.

With those sandals, my son skipped up the trail quickly and had to wait frequently for me to catch up. We had good weather. Trails were all clear on the way up to Jomon-Sugi and down to almost Wilson Stump. 

Then rain started. We took shelter in the Stump for a while, quickly realized the rain wouldn't stop anytime soon, and started to trek down. My rain jacket was no use. I was drenched; my hiking boots were full of water and heavy. And, there my son, skipped lightly in his sandal. He even joined a search to help a worrying guide who had two of his parties go off the trail in dense fog. They were located, and the guide thanked him.

Back in the private bus, people talked about how wet they were; their rain suit did not protect them, and so on. It was a bit funny. Sometimes being well equipped won’t help. Oh, I would not recommend hiking there in sandals though. If you are young, fit, and pay attention, maybe you can pull it off.

A matted stray pup...a year later

This girl came to live with me a year ago. She just had her annual and shots, and was declared in excellent health. Vet and aides praised how well behaved she was. 

She can go off-leash, in a big field when no one around; I don’t need to worry about her running away anymore. She watches the house for me when I leave, and makes no mess; I no longer need to put her in her crate. It took a while to get to this. But, she has good temperaments, so that wasn't hard.

There is this one concern. She does not eat foods. She inhales them, literally. And, she seems always on the hunt for food on walks, and puts almost anything into her mouth. Did she grow up deprived of foods? I don’t know. I have not been able to change this and decide to let go. I'd better monitor how much she eats though. She has gained 12% weight since she came. That’s a bit much.

Living in this pandemic isolation, I feel lucky that she’s with me. I still LOVE German Shepherds; they are my kind of dog, and that likely won’t change. But, deciding to adopt this mini poodle mix last year turned out to be good. Like my daughter quipped, “That’s a sensible choice, Mom!.”

Tesla picked Texas!!

Yaaay, Tesla picked Texas!! I knew it! 

I'm one of those who's been believing in their mission and following them for nearly ten years. When they were building the first Gigafactory in Reno, NV, I contemplated moving there. Well, the new factory will be in Austin. Not exactly nearby. But, just a few-hour drive away. No, I am not moving there. I have a business to run and clients to serve here in Dallas. Still, this news made me so happy :)))

テスラがテキサスにやってきます！彼らのミッションに賛同して、10年近くフォローしているので、うれしいです！まだ、テスラを持ってもいないのに、North Texas Tesla Owners Clubに、4年前の創設当時から入れてもらっている私です ー 創始者の好意に感謝。

テスラが何を目指しているのか、ご興味お有りですか？わかり易く面白く書かれたティム・アーバンの記事を、本人の了解を得て、私が日本語にしていますので、どうぞ御覧ください。全部で19ポストのシリーズで、5年前に書いたものですが、今でも十分通じます。今度、テキサスにfactoryをつくるのも、その延長上を突っ走っているってことです！

https://iitokotexas.blogspot.com/2015/07/blog-post.html

https://iitokotexas.blogspot.com/2015/07/blog-post_5.html

Twelve short paragraphs

There are twelve short paragraphs I recite every morning. I do this while doing a plank at the end of my stretching session. They are the things I need to and want to work on. Some are what I aspire to. So, one can call these my affirmation. Every weekend, I go over these with my calendar, review how I did, and write down.

I’ve been doing this for more than two years. I don’t remember what I had on the first version because I have been editing and updating as I had overcome or attained (enough). Some of them ceased to align with me. I revised most entirely on the new year's day this year. A few months ago, I changed the wordings, thus nuance, of the last three. The previous version had not been sitting well with me and I had been somewhat forcing myself to say them. Now, they feel right (to my current self).

This simple daily and weekly practice has been helping me tremendously. Maybe because I had been in such a horrible state two and a half years ago (and the thirty preceding that.) Starting at the bottom has so much upside...haha. Well, I had been unbelievably lucky in the early part of my life, and thinking about what I had received, overall, I have been pretty lucky.

Looking at these twelve and rereading aloud as I write now, I feel I am good with eleven of them. I have not mastered yet and still need to and want to work. But, at least, I don’t feel I am an impostor when I say these. The last sentence of the last paragraph, however, is still tough to say - I am fulfilling my highest possible potential.

“Doing the best I could” and “fulfilling my highest possible potential” might be similar, yet, I don’t feel that they are the same. The part of me who has learned to “treat myself like someone I am responsible for helping” and “not to tyrannize myself”, kind feel they are similar enough. I don’t know yet. I might be working on and thinking about this for a while.

Wabi-sabi confusion

Wabi-sabi has been one of the things difficult to explain. I can tell if something has wabi-sabi feel when I see it. Maybe because I grew up in Japan surrounded by them. Or because I love modern interpretation of its style, like Zen influenced California modern.

But, I probably don’t know what it is because I can’t articulate that to my own children. Hell, I can't even do that to myself. It is far more than its words mean. And we value it even though we really don’t understand it. Wired. 

I was reading up on the history of cha-shitsu (茶室), tea-ceremony building, recently. That had not helped me to solve the puzzle yet. However, I felt like I might be getting at why it was so confusing. That was not much, yet, it could be a good place to start.

I’m now reading Tao Te Ching. It might help me to see whether my hypothesis, if I can call that, is totally out of whack or I might be onto something.

Down the rabbit hole.