Patience, apparently
There is a moment at summer festivals in Japan when everything becomes very simple. A shallow pool, a paper scoop that feels too fragile to be useful, and a handful of goldfish moving in slow, unpredictable patterns.
Kingyo sukui looks like something you can figure out. That was my first mistake.
I am not a patient person. I like understanding how things work, adjusting quickly, getting to a result. So the first time I tried it, I approached it like a small problem to solve. Watch carefully, pick the right moment, move decisively.
The paper broke immediately.
Click below to read more.
Local tourism with a Japan twist
There is something surprisingly refreshing about playing tourist in your own city. You think you know it. You think you have seen the highlights. And then someone who has lived its stories for decades takes you by the hand and shows you a completely different layer.
That is exactly what happened to me last week.
I had the joy of exploring San Francisco with a long time local with deep Japanese American roots, and while it did not completely change how I see the city, it added a richness and depth that I had not experienced before. What felt familiar became more meaningful, filled with connections I had not fully noticed.
One of the highlights was visiting the Legion of Honor for the first time.
Click below to read more.
Hydrangeas and the way perspective changes everything
I grew up with hydrangeas as something fragile.
Back in Belgium, my mother worried about them constantly. Were they surviving the winter. Was the soil too acidic. Would they bloom pink or blue this year. Hydrangeas were not just flowers, they were a responsibility. Their color felt like feedback, a visible response to how well they were being cared for. Too much acidity and they shifted. Too little attention and they suffered. They required watching, adjusting, and a certain quiet vigilance.
To me, hydrangeas were delicate creatures that needed protection.
Then I lived in Japan and married into an entirely different relationship with the same plant.
There, my husband cursed them.
Click below to read more.
Attention, technique, and letting go in a Japanese kitchen
One of the quiet realities of living with a Japanese spouse is accepting that there are correct ways to do very ordinary things. Folding towels. Pouring beer. And, perhaps most humbling of all, cutting vegetables.
In Japan, cutting is not just preparation. It is technique, intention, and language all rolled into one. There are words for how you cut something, why you cut it that way, and what it will become once you do. Growing up, I thought chopping was chopping. After living in Japan, I learned that chopping is merely the beginning of a very long conversation.
Click below to read more.
The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop: sitting with what we lose
There are some books that do not ask much of you. They do not rush you or demand answers. They simply sit beside you while you hold what feels heavy.
The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop by Takuya Asakura felt like that kind of companion.
Reading it, I kept thinking about how loss is treated in Japan. Death is not always something to be explained or fixed. It is something that is acknowledged, given space, and woven gently into everyday life. Shrines appear at street corners. Names are spoken quietly. Seasons carry memory. Grief is allowed to exist without urgency.
The book carries that same softness. It does not turn away from death or absence. It stays with it. And in doing so, it creates room for healing that feels honest rather than forced.
Click below to read more.
A Japanese way of not carrying everything
Some weeks, I’m not tired because of work. I’m tired because of the world. The constant information, the expectation to react, the feeling that being a good person means being endlessly engaged. It’s a kind of exhaustion that doesn’t lift with rest because it isn’t only physical. It’s the weight of feeling responsible for too much, all the time.
When I lived and worked in Japan, I didn’t escape that feeling entirely. In a work context, space often didn’t exist. Long hours were normal. Endurance was expected. Silence didn’t always mean rest; sometimes it meant holding things in. So this isn’t a romantic story about work-life balance.
And now, as a business owner, I feel a different version of that pressure. Responsibility doesn’t stop at the edges of the day. Even when I try to step back, there’s a low-level awareness that things ultimately come back to me. Setting responsibility down, even temporarily, is harder when you know you’re the final stop.
But outside of work in Japan, I noticed something that stayed with me.
Click below to read more.
Tending the past, grounding the present. A day at Colma Japanese Cemetery
Last week, I wrote about human connection and how it often reveals itself in quiet, unplanned moments. This weekend, that idea stayed with me in a different way, as my husband and I spent time volunteering at the Colma Japanese Cemetery with JCCNC to prepare the grounds for the Memorial Day service.
This was our second year helping with the cleanup, and we already know we will be back next year.
Click below to read more.
Human connections over everything at the Japan-Texas Economic Summit
Last week, I was able to join the Japan-Texas Economic Summit #JTES in Arlington, Texas thanks to the sponsorship and support of the US Japan Council. I want to start there, because access matters, and I do not take lightly the fact that I was invited into this space not as a speaker or sponsor, but simply as a participant who was trusted to show up, listen, and engage.
There was a lot of substantive content at JTES, and I will post about the technical and policy related insights next week. For this Mindful Monday, I want to focus on what stayed with me on a much more personal level.
Click below to read more.