20 January 2010 Happy Birthday to Me
Today I turned 37. This is therefore both the first year of another 12-year cycle, and the year that I emerge from my late mid-thirties into my early late-thirties. Just by chance today was Maki’s day off work, so we went to Cosco and then the Patagonia outlet down near Osaka with everybody. It was a nice, relaxing family day. (Except that no outing with a 5 year old and a 2 year old is ever truly relaxing.)
Today I’m going to give myself the present of blogging. It’s something that I fall into and out of the habit of doing, and something I most definitely enjoy when I do, and yet for some reason when I get out of the habit it’s hard to break the barrier of inertia. A lot like shakuhachi playing, actually.
Which leads me into this picture. I had agreed to play for the old-folks’ group in our condo a few days after new year’s. I had done it last year, and it was fun. This year it somehow, without my knowledge, it turned into a general spring concert for whomever wanted to come. I happened to have a friend’s kimono on hand, so I wore a full formal kimono for the first time while playing. It definitely puts you into the mood to play, and I (of course) want to buy my own now, but (of course) they are incredibly expensive and require approximately ten different knots to put on (some in back of you). I was lucky enough to find someone in the building who knew how to dress me, because putting on one of these things is definitely a skill that takes some practice.
