being the grown up

The other night I could not sleep. That in and of itself is worthy of a post--I can always sleep. I was never a night-owl; was one of those (rare?) kids that begged to go to bed and never pestered for a drink of water. But I wander from my purpose.

I could not sleep so, of course, I turned to the Internet to relieve my boredom. Twitter led me to a sight called Cracked.com and an article entitled "5 ways to Tell You're Getting Too Old for Video Games".  I freely admit to visiting Twitter, but the other, never before my 3:00 a.m. foray--blame it on a Roger Ebert tweet. I don't even play video games except for an occasional bout of Wii and of course Plants VS Zombies... But, getting back to the article--it was what it was, nevertheless, part of it stuck with me and I decided to post what I thought.

The author wrote about how he was feeling old because of how video gaming had changed since he was a young gamer. He talked about missing "storylines that were actually compelling" and gave an instance of his children playing a particular game and said "I watch my kids play games now that barely have a story at all, yet they're transfixed.  It's almost like they're seeing something I'm not." He goes on to tell about how his kids got into playing Grand Theft Auto in a very imaginative way and then he wrote "Wait a second. Is it possible that those old games did not do anything magical with their programming to create "immersion", and that, like my kids with GTA, I "immersed" myself in those games because I was playing them at a time before I was dead inside?" He goes on to say "I can play a zombie game now and I just see a bunch of boring, repetitive enemies. My kids can't even be in the same room with me--they find those games terrifying because they're imagining themselves in the game, fighting the zombies."

I think he got the part where his kids find the zombies terrifying right, but the "dead inside" bit was where he went wrong. Grown ups get bored with the zombies because we are desensitized. We have to be. We have to be the ones to kill the cockroaches, shoo the spiders and lizards outside and keep the creatures that dwell under the beds----not to mention the real world bogeymen at bay. If we were still afraid of the zombies--if we still saw them as real, then we couldn't give our kids (or our friends kids or our nieces and nephews) the reassurance of a place to go when they have bad dreams. We are not dead inside. We are just grown ups. We want to protect our darling little ones from the imaginary evils and the real evils for as long as possible. Childhood *is* full of magic because there is so much that kids have not yet learned. They are still trying to make sense of the larger, mysterious adult world that they are growing into. For a while, they still believe in Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, so, yeah, the zombies are real.

So that's what I ran across one night a while back when I couldn't sleep. Not particularly profound (pretty random actually) but I want to get back in the habit of posting...

A Sense of Home

Last night I saw a recap on Japan's equivalent of PBS of a film festival that took place last week. I love film and have been to a couple of local film festivals over the years and I was really sad that I had missed this one.

the screen was handmade by the local elem. students

I felt sad not only because I had missed seeing some really cool shorts (all of the films were 3.11 minutes long to commemorate the earthquake/tsunami disaster on 3/11 and the showing took place on 9.11 to offer recognition to the tragedy on that date ten years ago.) but also because it would have been absolutely amazing to have gone to the venue. It was shown at one of the holiest places (to me) in the region where I used to live. These photos give a sense of what it would have been like, even if you don't understand Japanese.

Actually, it broke my heart not to be able to go. It has been 2 years and 6 months since we moved and I do like it here. It is so better in so many ways than where we were in terms of location and also in terms of where we are in our life and our marriage. But I lived in Kansai for 21 years and all of my old haunts are there. We are making good, new memories and traditions down here in Kyushu, but it hurts to see the fond and familiar so far out of reach. And it broke my heart to know that there is no one who would understand how much I miss this particular place--except for Shuji and even he doesn't get it because it is just another very Japanese place that I used to drag him to to walk and hike and bike all the time.

So, I stole the title for this post from the name of the film fest. But it fits. I am still trying to find a sense of home. There will always be longing for my birth country, or my adopted Kansai and then when we eventually leave here we will mourn for Miyazaki too I suppose. I hope we don't stay here long enough to get that attached...

'nuff said.

where did i go...

where i always go--to work. it eats me up and spits me out and all i have energy left for is to spend time talking with Shuji and doing the usual routine.

Lots of stuff has been going on at work. Too many meetings, too much extra-curricular crap that makes me feel pulled in too many different directions. Summer is coming. I will get some rest, regroup and refocus.

I want to end on a happy note. These are the things that have made me smile lately:
a student's mum telling me that her daughter *loves* my class.
a student telling me she was really glad that she had been able to talk with me about a serious problem in her life and that it had made a difference.
a new song my cousin shared with me.
an old song I ran across that kick-started my heart.
a boy coming to show me a chrysalis.