Scribbler's Cafe

The perilous fog of dreams

My head is stuck in dreams. I cannot shake the heavy cloud of diaphanous thoughts from my mind so that I may perceive my day with clarity. I am lined up for a great number of conversations with my students today. It is a struggle even to pretend to be interested in their struggling attempts at conversation.

Many factors led me to this state, for one, it has been a week since I have worked on my stories in progress and my mind keeps turning to my fictional plots for hope of a conclusion. Then there have been many meetings this week in which the speeches were all made in Japanese. When I must sit there and listen to an incomprehensible stream of language for hours on end, I have no where to turn but into my mind. I am almost conditioned to daydream upon hearing the sound of spoken Japanese. Then there is the walk to and from work, for which I allow myself extra time so that I may stroll and breath the air and crunch the leaves. Then there is the book that I am reading, the L’engle about love and God and writing and self. She has put new ideas into my head that are rubbing uncomfortably against some of my old ideas and dancing merrily with others. My mind is a mess. The world conspires to make it so.

Today is marked on the calendar as the day that prospective students visit the school. The hallways are filled with strangers, yet they are not school children. No, they are nicely dressed mother’s, the decision makers in the household. I haven’t seen a single prospective “student”, only prospective mothers.

Yesterday, I took Kiomye to a play group for Japanese and international mothers and their young children. Kiomye loved it, of course. They conduct many of their activities in English, despite the fact that the majority of the mothers and children are Japanese. So, once again, Kiomye was able to shine with her brilliant comprehension. Although, she was most admired for her ability to spend the entire three hours running around at a break-neck pace without stopping to rest. She also organized a small conspiracy and led three other two-year-olds out onto the balcony, then on a mad race down the hallway to the grass patch outside. This was not a sanctioned outing.

I have received no less than four emails today from mothers from the playgroup thanking me for coming and inviting us back to the next meetings. I am constantly amazed by the easy kindness of Japanese women.

posted by Scribbler @ Friday, October 22, 2004