Fall is here!
For years, a growing piece of me has wanted four distinct seasons, more and more so every year. Particularly a real autumn, and Christmas lights on snow between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve. These are hallmarks of my childhood, a bone-deep nostalgia I carry with me no matter where in the world I find myself.
And this year, I am getting it! We took the kids to visit the Hoheikyo Damn south of Sapporo. Rumor has it, the dam is one of the best places in Hokkaido to view fall foliage, and it did not disappoint. (Although, to be honest, I'm not sure I ever get enough red in the leaves.) We enjoyed the views, answered a million questions from the kids, enjoyed a really yummy hot chocolate with an enormous, fluffy marshmallow, and I took a couple hundred pictures.
But what's new the last three months? Well, the kids started school. They're making friends, but they miss the States a whole lot. Connor spent the last several weeks on the school's middle school soccer team, which wasn't competitive the way we would want it to be. But he had fun, and that's the most important aspect at his age. Taylor has been participating in a couple of after-school clubs and enjoys having the extra time with her friends. Neither of them can wait for ski season.
About two weeks ago, we were visited by snow bugs! Tiny white, fuzzy, aphids that allegedly herald the start of snow season, so we should be seeing our first white flakes in another two weeks ish. I stumbled across a photographer in the city who caught a late-night shot of the trolley with lights on, riding the rails in the snow, and I would love to snap a similar shot. Late hour, cold nights, frosted breath, and as close to silence in the snow as one gets in the middle of a city the size of LA. Sounds like a plan to me!
But I digress. Zach has been gone a lot in the last three months, so it has been a lot of the kids and me mucking our way through. Japan is so much more enjoyable when he's with us. We also took the kids to the Philippines for a couple of days. That was quite the experience. We spent a day at a water park, got sunburned because we were stupid about it, and visited the Sunken Shrine, which was a Catholic church that got half-buried in volcanic ash following an eruption in the early 90's. I rented a car for the weekend and learned that I will never, ever drive in Manila again. I dislike playing roulette. We have more plans for travel coming up in the next few weeks, but more to come on that later!
We got our household goods shipment several weeks ago, so I finally have my desk set-up and all the accoutrements I need to finish editing my novel. I've made a lot of progress on that front lately, and even began the first steps in the sequel.
All in all, we're settling into something vaguely representing a routine. It will smooth out even more once Zach is done going TDY for one or two weeks every month. But life keeps on lifing, and here we are.
Missing home gets rough sometimes. I miss the familiarity, the convenience, and my everyday literacy. But it is hard to hold a grudge against life for very long, and I'm adjusting. Ish. I miss Emma every day, and because of the time zone difference and her schedule, we don't get to talk as often as I would like. And of course, Hannah is never far from my thoughts. She would have loved it here. I really hope we can get Em to come visit while she has the opportunity to do so. And anyone else, friends or family, that might want to.
I'm simultaneously looking forward to the holiday season, and dreading it. We have no oven, and there is no turkey to be found in Hokkaido, so Thanksgiving is beyond me this year. I really don't know what to do about it. Beyond that, I love the holiday season, but it will forever be very bittersweet for me going forward.
I try to focus on the positives of life here, and there are many of them. It helps, and I find things to look forward to. I'm in a groove working on my writing career, and I hope to be able to visit the States over the summer. We'll see if I can make it work. In the meantime, life goes on, I smile more than I cry, and I get to see beautiful things. Life isn't bad.
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