Yesterday I was picking cherry tomatoes, the ultimate act of summer, from a seemingly endless plant, and contemplating their destiny – sauce, salsa, salad, all three? However, the light in the afternoon was flickering fall so I should have known that a cool rain was coming. I try to not pay attention to weather forecasts because it’s important to have some unknowns and surprises in these days of information overload. It forces me to pay attention to light, the quality of the air, and the shades of white to grey in the clouds.

Today the rains have arrived, and there is the fall chill in the air. Soup is simmering on the stove to save the day and warm the house. I call this soup Holy Trinity Soup, not for any religious reasons, but because of the love affair between butternut squash, kale and white beans. [view more]

Wrestling season will never come.

The October leaves have lost their color.

The tickle well is full.

The smell of camp fire becomes a retching stench.

Joy dies in the Autumn damp.

I know, this is not the time for people to stare at foggy shrubbery.

BUT: [view more]

Some time ago I was browsing through my bookshelf to find something to read on my way to the office. I picked a book that I borrowed from my parents years ago. It`s a title by Christa Wolf, a famous german writer; “Accident: A Day`s News”. The title didn`t ring a bell so I just grabbed it and put it in my bag.

When I started reading on the train I was immediately sucked into the flow of the narrator’s stream of thoughts. It`s a very deep and intense diary-like style of writing that confronts the reader with the author’s state of mind which is dominated by insecurity, fear and hope while she is waiting for a call from the hospital where her brother is undergoing brain surgery. [view more]

I was raised with a Japanese grandmother, Akiko. Though not my actual grandmother, she still felt closer to me than my maternal one. I felt a spiritual linkage with her that I never had with my New Zealand grandmother. I loved both dearly but felt calmer and more supported by Akiko. She had a natural urge to help people, regardless of their situation, witnessing her interaction with others, especially the least fortunate in society, primed me considerably as an adolescent and helped mould the world view which I still hold dear today. ‘It isn’t that some people are better than others, it is that some people are luckier than most’ that’s how she would explain the obvious iniquity in the world. I realised from a young age that this world wasn’t fair, but also knew that we could collectively do something to mitigate these glaring lifestyle disparities. One was taxes. [read more]

Dyptichon I

Dyptichon II