Okinawan adventure

Last week we had a pretty unusual week. Okay, some things were familiar, but many things were not.

The girls posing on the beach

David and I flew to Okinawa (a group of Japanese islands closer to Taiwan than Tokyo). We travelled with two teenage girls from CAJ. It was our first visit and when we arrived I realised I'd never been on such a remote island. 

This part of Japan is also distinctly different to what they call "mainland". I was surprised when talking to my dad when he referenced a sad wartime Australian folk song by Ted Egan called "Sayonara Nakamura" about a pearl diver from Okinawa. The region has a sad wartime history. There are still a lot of US military on the islands (about 30,000 troops and a population of around 80,000 from the US). We didn't get much time to ourselves to explore, but maybe one day we'll be able to go back.

We were the support crew for CAJ's high school girl's wrestling team at a two-day tournament called "Far East". This is the same type of tournament that we've been to several times before, notably, two of our sons were crowned "Far East champions" in their last year of high school when they won the final in their weight classes at this event. Across the world the US military run regional tournaments for various events such as wrestling, track and field, basketball, etc. Our region is "far east" and includes Korea and Japan.

It's way out in the ocean!

This was the first ever girls-only Far East tournament ever held in our region and the first one we'd ever been to. Most tournaments we've been part of have been male-dominated and this one looked quite different in some ways. Some notable things:

• most wrestlers had long hair and most of it was braided
• lots of them had mascara
• emotion was close to the surface: tears were common and winners often were crying, boys react quite differently to winning
• many more hugs going round, most of the girls genuinely loved hanging out with their competitors
• it took a while to figure this out, but the cheering/screaming was higher pitched and it really jangled in our heads after a while
• girls don't sweat as much as guys and the gym didn't quite smell as bad as quickly as with a gym full of male wrestlers

But in other ways, it was just a wrestling meet. The rules were the same, the outfits (almost) the same. These were athletes doing their best at a sport they'd worked hard at and there were some great matches.

Because we were such a small team it almost felt family-like. It was also quite different travelling with two teenage girls, as opposed to boys. David was impressed that when we told them we were meeting in the foyer of the hotel at 7 am to catch the US school bus they'd sent for us, the girls were there, on time, with all their gear! I was honoured to be asked by the girls to pray for them at the start of each day of competition.

Yummy Okinawan Zebra bread
(peanut butter flavoured)

On the last afternoon we were freed from the base in time to see the sun set and explore the local shops a little. We noted that the girls were looking for scenic spots to pose and take photos...something that we've found boys not interested in at all!

I was so glad I had the opportunity to do this. It really was a historical occasion. For years I've watched girls struggle on the edge of this sport. Having to wrestle guys is not at all ideal and we've longed to see the sport grow so that girls will have other girls to compete against. It was very special being part of this inaugural event! I do wonder why I'm so passionate about this...I think it's in part that, as a short girl I'm excited about a sport where short, strong girls can succeed. So many sports that were open to girls when I was younger were biased towards taller girls. We watched tiny, strong girls competing last week, and it was fun.

The girls were sad that the rest of their team and their usual coaches weren't with them. We were a poor substitute to the guys they'd been training with all season. We've heard rumours that it will be a combined meet next year and we're hopeful. We talked with the girls over meals about recruiting more girls and even dreamed about having a female coach sometime in the future. I wish I had the skills to coach them, but I'm content to support from the sidelines and hope I'll continue to have that opportunity in the future.

Another Okinawan treat: peanut butter filled biscuit/cookie.

Not all beautiful.

Braiding was a real theme...I'm not sure
I'll ever say yes to braiding someone's hair
at a meet again: my lack of skills was very 
obvious when one of the girls did this after my poor
attempt the day before. Japanese hair is
fine and slippery!

We got cute t-shirts!

Good memories, no regrets

Is another wrestling post warranted? I do want to document that my youngest son was crowned Far East Champion of the 215 lb weight class on Wednesday. He wrestled very well and none of his opponents could find much of a chink in his armour. 

It wasn't our first rodeo, as you may know. We went to Korea to watch our eldest son compete in the same competition six years ago. Each of their journeys was quite different. Our eldest did a lot of off-season wrestling in non-school clubs, and also had a two-year rival who he had wrestled many times and not always won (though his rival didn't beat him during our son's senior year, he did make him work hard for the victories), so when they faced off in the semifinal and again in the final, the result was definitely unknown. 

Our youngest son hasn't been able to do anywhere near the same amount of wrestling during his high school years, for various reasons, including injury and a pandemic. He has spent a lot of time in the gym, though, building up strength and body mass. At the start of the tournament he was also unbeaten so far in the season, but it's also not his greatest passion, so in some ways the stakes didn't feel as high. 

Although no one told my body that. I had the same physiological reactions: lost sleep, messed up digestion, raised heart rate, general shakiness and difficulty concentrating. When I'm at a wrestling tournament, I can't read (and I'm a reading addict), nor can I even feasibly play a game; we tried to play Scrabble on the second day, but struggled. Two nights of waking at 2am and not really falling deeply back to sleep, plus two days of sitting in a noisy gym, really did a number on me. I was glad to not have an international flight and then travel on trains back from the airport like I did six years ago, but it's been hard to get back to work these last couple of days.

One way to tell that you're at a gym

hosting a wrestling tournament...

you find this on the back of the toilet

cubicle door.

It was fun to go away with David, even if it was for two days of wrestling! We enjoyed doing this together, and shared passions are important as you move towards a time when your kids all leave home. We made great memories and I have no regrets. Oh, and it was fabulous being able to support our son like this.

One fun memory centres around hair. Our son's hair is now wavy and long (below his shoulders), definitely tricky for wrestling, where you can't use anything but hairbands and product to secure it. His brothers have always kept their hair short, so we've never dealt with this before. I've never had much to do with my boys’ hair, actually! But on Monday one of the first things our son said to me when we saw him was, "Can you braid my hair?" Wow! I've had short hair for nearly 12 years and I can't actually remember if I've ever braided someone else's hair . . . I wasn't that kinda girl. 

Neither of us had a comb and my first go at it was straight after he'd warmed up, so he was sweaty! We didn't have hairspray and only two hair-ties, so it got messy pretty quickly after he helped a teammate warm up for a match (they use their heads quite a lot). He wanted me to redo it then, but we weren't sure when his first match would be, and I was already shaky. Braiding hair with shaky hands isn't recommended. 

I was particularly nervous that I'd get partway done and he'd be called up for his match. There's no waiting if you're called. It's something that new wrestlers (and their parents) have to learn about a tournament: there's no timetable, you simply wait for your name to be called, and it can be excruciating (and hard to figure out when to eat). Once you're called, you've got to hoof it to register that you're present and ready to go, with all the gear you need (in your wrestling singlet and shoes and warm-up clothes, plus a water bottle and headgear). This tournament was well organised and had wrestlers waiting "on deck" about three bouts ahead. A bout can last 20 seconds or over six minutes, but they don't tolerate delays.

In any case, I couldn't see myself doing a decent job of braiding his hair in that situation, so I went for a "first aid" solution. My networking came in handy: I knew the mum of one of the female wrestlers, so I went to find her and ask if her team (which had several girls with long hair) had any hairspray. She went right to work and found a girl quickly who dug around in her bag, pulling out not just hairspray but something that looked like mascara. It had a wand that you pull across the top of hair that is "done" to glue those flyaways down—I had to ask her how to use it. Her coach, who I also know, was sitting nearby quietly laughing as I explained how I only had boys and needed help here. She was great!

Well, it worked, and he made it through his first match without distracting hair in his face. Then we had time, and I had another go at braiding it and did slightly better.

The next morning when we met in the gym (our room wasn't near the team), I had a third go, before his final. This time I brought a comb I'd snaffled from our hotel bathroom and handed him some "action" hairspray that I'd bought the night before at the mall near the hotel, and instructed him on how to use it. Our boys haven't grown up with sisters, and he was only six when I cut my hair short . . . there are some things they just don't know!

It's a good thing the braiding was for practical purposes, not aesthetics, but I was pleased that because I was present I could do this one thing for him. In fact the whole couple of days was very much about being wholly present for our son (and his teammates). It was a joy to have the flexibility to do that.

Oh, and giving my sweaty son a shaky hug after he'd won gold was a highlight too. And he didn't pick me up, like he did his coaches!

These moments when we get to intensely invest in our kids are soon going to get more difficult to find. I'm treasuring them.

How did you even get into wrestling to begin with, and other questions

Last week I wrote that hoped this week would be better, especially that I could get some traction on my work. I'm pleased to say that that has indeed been the case. I'm on my fourth straight day without any meetings or other external distractions and I'm also in good health, which is a great help.

There's no avoiding it: this is going to be a "wrestling" post. But if you keep reading, you'll find out why we're so interested in wrestling and how we got into the sport initially. If you were following my blog back in 2015–2017 you would have seen a lot of these during this time of year. Feb 2017 was really a pinnacle as we watched our eldest son go undefeated in his senior year. There has been less wrestling for our family since then, for various reasons, including a pandemic, but we're now coming to the pinnacle of our youngest son's high school wrestling career.

Current events

Saturday was a huge day, as predicted, but a good one. We got up at 4 a.m., and I joined my husband as he drove the team two hours to Yokosuka, the US Naval Base south of Yokohama. We got on base very smoothly (not to be taken for granted; it's kinda like entering another country via immigration, except there are more guns and rules about what you can do on the "inside"). It was too cold to linger outside, so we entered the gym and sat in there for 11 hours, with teams from 11 other schools. The actual tournament went for about nine of those . . . continuously! It's an acquired taste. It says something about us that we weren't bored! Although I did try to lie down for a while on the hard bleachers, it didn't last long when one of our team was called up to wrestle and how could you not watch and shout encouragement?

Our son didn't meet his first opponent until around noon, so there was a lot of nervous tension up till then (at least he and I had nervous tension). And, to be honest, that tension continued much of the day as he had not previously wrestled any of his three opponents, so it was a bit hard to know how hard they'd be. Great result in the end, though—he came through undefeated and won gold. We were elated, but pretty bleary by then. The adrenaline (and dinner) helped us get through the last couple of hours on the road to get home.

Thankfully last Sunday was a quiet day and by the time Monday came around I was almost good to go! And now it's Friday again. This weekend looks different: tomorrow, for the first time in three weeks we don't have to put an alarm on, as there's nowhere to go. 

This Sunday, however, we'll leave from school around noon with the wrestling team and our bags. We're going to the "big" three-day tournament called "Far East Wrestling Tournament", the final tournament of the season. It includes US military schools from the whole region (just Japan and Korea from what I can tell), as well as the three international schools from Tokyo with wrestling programs (us!). That's around 15 schools and probably over 150 wrestlers. When our eldest was a Senior we also went to this tournament, except it was a bit more complicated, as it was a couple of hours south of Seoul in Korea!

David and I are only going to the first two days. But we'll stay the two nights locally in a hotel, which will save a lot of driving and time, and hopefully help us cope with the nine-hour days in the gym. But it will be so good to be there cheering our team on, especially spending time focusing on our youngest son, who has more often than not just had to tag along as we did things with his eldest brother. He'd been dragged along to wrestling meets for several years before he ever got to officially do it himself. It's great to have the flexibility to invest some time in his life alone this season.

Why have you gotten so involved in wrestling?

I did have to admit to a small group of missionaries that I met on Monday that "we're a bit nutty". It truly is still a bit hard to explain our passion for wrestling, although it's probably better framed as "we're passionate about supporting our boys in their sporting choices". That generally makes more sense to people. It's not easy as parents to forge relationships with teenage boys, and we've been very thankful that wrestling has been one way to connect with two of them. We've spent so many hours attending meets, but even more talking about it!

Wrestling is also something of a family sport. It's reasonably common to see multiple wrestlers in the same family (parent and child, and siblings). One family from another school who we've met many times over the years has four children; all of them have wrestled at school! It makes it easier if everyone is doing the same sport, that's for sure! But it's also true that kids are different and not all enjoy it. That's been true in our family. Our middle son had a couple of goes at the sport, but for a few reasons really couldn't commit to it.

How did you get into wrestling to start with? (something Australians particularly ponder)

An Australian friend asked us this last month. The story is pretty simple, really. At our school there are only two inter-school sports for middle and high school boys in the winter season: basketball and wrestling. Our eldest son tried basketball in his first year of middle school and he didn't particularly enjoy it. During PE that year one of the teachers did a single period introducing the 6th graders to wrestling and in that short time caught our son's attention. 

He took up wrestling in 7th grade and was hooked by the end of that season. He's not strayed far from wrestling ever since. In fact he's still wrestling at 23. He's part of a private wrestling club near where he lives and has twice competed in the Australian Nationals as an adult. Last year he won silver (which I always have to temper with the understanding that this is an extremely minor sport in Australia, until we introduced him to this club in Brisbane, we knew no one involved in the sport in our home country).

Is it right to feel proud about sporting success?

This is a question our eldest asked on Wednesday when someone he doesn't know mentioned his achievement as a senior. We were watching our school duel with another school on their live feed and there were two commentators hosting the event. We're pretty sure that the guy who mentioned our son was a wrestler when our son won Far East in 2017.

I'd been pondering that question too as I posted videos and photos from Saturday on my social media and received lots of congratulations and "likes". It's pretty clear to me, though, that there are a lot of factors that go into a sporting success like our son had on the weekend. So many things we have no control over: 

• They are actually holding tournaments again. If he'd been a senior in 2021 or 2022, he never would have had this chance! 
• Physical and mental health are things that we have a little bit of control over, but not as much as we'd like to think, mostly it's a gift. You may not realise it, but it takes a lot of mental strength to persevere at wrestling, and even more to succeed. It takes years to learn and when you're out on the mat, there's nowhere to hide.
• We've learned the hard way that the US Department of Defense requires very little to cancel sporting events. More than once in our 12 years of involvement in wrestling, a forecast of snow has shut whole bases down and cancelled tournaments. 
• Our guys are natural athletes. There's no mistaking that they've worked very hard (our youngest's muscle definition is something to behold!), but they also have a certain level of gifting for the sport of wrestling, that's not something they've achieved on their own, though they've certainly capitalised on it. 
• We've also had the opportunity to send our boys to a school where there's good opportunities for sport, that is definitely not a given when you are a missionary.

So yes, I'm proud and very happy that my son has put a lot of effort into this sport and is seeing some nice rewards just now. But there's also a lot there that there's no reason to be proud of, just thankful.

Flashbacks

I've been writing about wrestling as long as we've been involved in the sport. In 2014, when our eldest was a 9th grader, I wrote this in a blog post:

So, I remain an enthusiastic supporter.  Good thing too, because despite this season being nearly over (one more tournament for our son), it looks like we're in this for the duration. Our youngest wants to join the team as soon as he can, which could mean I'll be watching wrestling live for the next 10 years!

Yep, that has happened! Though this is our last year as parents, and therefore the deep, gut-wrenching involvement that means you commit to spending 15-hour days doing this are nearly over. 

 Here's something else I wrote about the sport in that blog post that you might not realise: 

For a combat-type sport, it really is interesting to behold how non-aggressive it is. Even while wrestling, there generally isn't nastiness, the best wrestlers are well controlled in their actions. They really approach it in a "gentlemanly" type way, with handshakes all round and even the occasional hug between wrestlers. Sometimes the coaches shout in protest about a call the ref made, but generally it isn't too major. And there's generally no nastiness (at least that I've heard) from the supporters in the stands.

If you've gotten this far you might be interested in reading one more thing. At the end of our eldest son's high school wrestling career, I wrote a blog post reflecting on wrestling and the season that had just past: https://mmuser.blogspot.com/2017/02/reflections-on-wrestling-this-season.html

Off my game, but seizing the day

It's been a weird week and I haven't been able to settle well to work that needs deeper concentration. The main thing to blame is my schedule. I started the week exhausted from Saturday when I helped run a wrestling tournament (and continued straight on to dinner across town with friends), and end the week nervous about the really long day tomorrow at another tournament a long way from home. In the middle of the week was a day hanging out with missionary women and a funeral of a church member, plus a mid-week wrestling event, all on different days. Add to that two other days with meetings, but not even long meetings! 

All that is enough to throw me off my game. I can sandwich some work in-between other things as well as the next woman, but I find that writing and editing longer or more difficult pieces of writing, takes more concentration and doesn't squeeze well between other things. So I generally chunk my schedule to help me work that way (ideally, two or three whole days in a week without any external events), but it just hasn't happened this week. Oh, and I've been struggling with headaches on and off too, which never helps concentration.

Next week looks better . . . I hope it lives up to that expectation.

But for now I want to tell you a little bit about the funeral. We arrived at church on Sunday to the news of a sudden death the night before of a 65-year-old church member who has quietly served his community and church for decades. He was not obviously Japanese, having American heritage, but his heart was clearly centred on Japan. He was born here and spent most of his life here teaching English. He served the church by simultaneously translating one of the services each week into English in his little booth at the back of the sanctuary, as well as proofreading the bilingual PowerPoint presentation. So many people have been blessed by his service over the years! His Japanese wife and mother-in-law were clearly distraught at the funeral yesterday. He hadn't been ill and died while doing something he loved: watching sumo at home.

It was a small funeral, which surprised us. But we were glad to be present, at this beautiful Christian, Japanese funeral, representing some of the many people who have been served by this humble, behind-the-scenes guy. There are so many funerals that I haven't been able to attend in the last few years, usually because of family responsibilities and distance. I'm sure there were some who wanted to be present at this one, but couldn't.

It's only the second funeral in Japan that my husband or I have attended. Before we came to Japan we were told about Japanese funerals, in particular, about the very strict dress code and the need to own "funeral clothes." It's all black, except the men get to wear white shirts with their black tie and women can/should wear pearls (but no other jewellery except wedding rings). I own very little black (and no pearls), as it just drains my already pale face of all life. And almost none of the black clothes I have are "winter weight". My heart's desire was to honour this man and his family, and not to draw attention by my foreign-ness and what I was wearing or not wearing.

Thankfully I managed to do that, all while not getting frostbite! But let's just say I was wearing a lot of layers under the appropriate black externals!

The service was very different to the Buddhist one I attended many years ago, indeed it was very similar to a worship service. I was taken by surprise by the open coffin where we were guided to lay flowers after the service, but as we aren't close to the family, we didn't stay long after the main service. To learn more about Japanese funerals check out this article I edited a while back.

It's sobering to think that this man was only about 15 years older than us. Truly, a funeral is a good place to get a reality check in our busy lives. I'm always grateful for my husband, but this was a good reminder to seize the day as often as I can.

The fairly spontaneous dinner we went to last Saturday was very much a case of "seizing the day". It wasn't wise, at the end of an exhausting all-day event, but it was a rare opportunity for three families who get along well to get together. And we had fun. I'm really glad we went. Taking time to appreciate those we love is so important. For those of us who have no family in-country it's even more important to invest time in friendships nearby. Just this week we've heard of an expat whose cancer journey has taken an unexpected turn, and another family we know whose overseas journey seems to have come to an end (they aren't returning from home assignment, though continuing to work with a mission). Seizing time with friends that God has given you to walk with this current week, month, year, is important in this life where things can change so quickly.

Getting back to "normal" gradually

Looking back at the last several days, I can see that we’re gradually getting back into a rhythm of life that is familiar. Indeed, Friday and Saturday were hectic, but full of “normal” stuff like errands on my bike, grocery shopping, cooking, helping out at a wrestling tournament, and interacting with various people in the international community. Sunday was slower, but again “normal” for us in Japan: church in the morning, our usual Sunday noodle lunch, and relaxing in the afternoon and evening.

Friday morning I went to another CAJ prayer meeting, it was an encouragement to pray with other parents for the school and surrounding community. Then I headed off on, what turned out to be, a whole morning of bike-riding as I did various errands and grocery shopping. 

I ran out of energy mid-morning on
Friday, so bought this iced coffee.
Not as nice as a hot coffee when it's
under 10C outside, but it helped when
I needed it.

After lunch I took an hour to rest on the bed, knowing the next day and a half would be very full. After that I put together Japanese curry rice in the slow cooker for the refs and coaches’ hospitality room the next day at the wrestling meet CAJ was hosting. Then I took our youngest to the doctor with a suspected case of the flu. We sat at the doctor’s for 2 ½ hours (it’s a show-up-and-you’ll-get-seen-eventually clinic). He was given a flu diagnosis on symptoms as his temperature had been rising quickly through the afternoon.

Saturday I spent about 10 hours at the CAJ gym. It was great to be there, but I felt fragmented in many ways as there were several things I was involved in: 

• Helping with the hospitality room—bringing food, checking the room periodically, helping solve any problems that emerged, then cleaning up at the end.
• Helping with the administration of the high school event—there’s a lot of writing involved as wrestlers are listed in their weight classes, inserted in a draw, results recorded, bout-sheets written up, etc. All by hand! I didn’t do a lot, but just bits and pieces.

I also tried to meet the parents of new wrestlers as well as cheer for the CAJ wrestlers when they were out on the mat. I had a number of great conversations (as far as the fragmented wrestling-day conversation goes), and met two new families (new to the team as well as to the school). It was especially great just “hanging” with some of our longer-term wrestling-parent friends and also talking with a mum who’s been around at the school ever since I’ve been there, but with whom I’ve struggled in the past to connect to. On top of that I had my own kids to stay in touch with. One with the flu and the other feeling his way around just being on campus at CAJ again. 

It was a satisfying, but tiring day. But it did feel so normal. I had couple of people do a double take as they saw me for the first time in six months, but momentarily forgot that I’d been gone. Obviously we’re such fixtures that it seemed normal to folk to see us!

I’m gradually gaining in stamina. Last week I found myself going too hard at times and then petering out before the end of the day. My emotions are gradually settling down, but I’m still a bit all over the shop on that front. I keep reminding myself that we’re in the midst of transition and that’s going to continue for a while yet, though gradually tapering towards a more steady normal. That’s a good thought.

Today our 10th grade son started back at school. That was another big marker towards getting everyone more established in a normal routine. Our youngest is still out with the flu, but this morning I’ve had downstairs to myself as he slept in and, I presume, has been reading in bed. It’s very pleasant to sit at my desk with no teenagers around at all.

Now I have to get motivated to ride out for some more groceries. It’s a lovely blue sky out there, though I know it is under 10 degrees, I also know that I will be adequately dressed to cope with it. 

Actually that has been a big surprise. I thought that I’d struggle with the significant change from mid-Brisbane summer (around 30˚C) to a mid-Tokyo winter (single digits), but I’ve actually been quite warm. I’ve got no idea what that’s all about, perhaps God’s special grace to me at this time. The other surprise is that three of the four members of our household have come down with colds/flu and I have not. It’s generally me who gets all the colds and the others rarely, but not this time. Of course I might still get it, but I’m thankful that thus far I’ve remained well.

Well, it’s off to put my jacket, scarf, gloves, and ear muffs on.

Getting traction

It's another "getting traction by writing about the past couple of days" post.

Last week
Last week was a flurry of meetings and aside from that I mostly only got to the most urgent of things here at my desk. Lots of excitement as we ramp up towards transitioning our eldest to Australia next month and the rest of us to Australia in July. But enough to de-rail me from my usual fast, but somewhat efficient pace. It was like my brain had gone into manic mode and I found sleep difficult: either I struggled to calm down enough to get to sleep at the start of the night or work up part way into the night and struggled to get back to sleep.

Ah, the fun of having other wrestling mums to share the joy. So much
better than doing it alone!

Saturday
Then came Saturday. It was a usual Saturday for this time of the year—we got up early and went to a wrestling meet. But it was a slightly unusual wrestling meet, with the middle schoolers joining the high schoolers for a joint meet for the first time we've ever experienced (in seven years of being on this wrestling circuit). That meant they expanded to three mats running during the day, one mat in an adjacent room. So even though our team was small (only seven wrestlers in total), we often missed seeing them wrestle.

It was a fun, but frenetic day. I loved being back in a bigger group of parents and hanging out all day with them was fun. But the gym is an echoey one and eight hours of that was exhausting.

Watching friends watch their son introduced for his regional final.
I was sitting in their seat the last two years. It was nice not to have that
personal pressure, but rather to support others.

It was great to see our middle-school son have success. He won all three of his bouts and got gold in his weight bracket. Great encouragement for him as he's struggled in the last year or two a little with injury and "a lot of knowledge but not enough practise applying the knowledge and not enough strength to do what he wants to do".

It was also exciting to cheer for the son of our friends. We've camped with them and spent numerous other times with them (sharing meals, sharing cars, attending sporting events). It was great to see their son excel on Saturday, even if he did give us a bit of a scare in the first half of his finals match by being way behind in points.

I talked, or felt like I talked, for 12 hours! Certainly the only time I wasn't surrounded by people was in the toilet cubicle. Talking over the noise on top of cheering loudly for certain wrestlers meant my voice was strained at the end of the day.

I loved being with other parents, and was able to touch base with a couple of mums from other school that I already have an acquaintance with. Sharing the disappointment with one of them as her son lost his final.

I had an opportunity to sit with another mum-friend in an unusual situation. I'm not ready to write about it here (and I may never, because I want to respect her privacy), but it was an opportunity to have a ministry of presence to someone in need. She described me as being a real help to her and that was a great encouragement, though really I was just available to her need to have someone to sit with in a crowd and listen and I didn't do a lot other than that (and answer/ask questions).

Sunday
It was a much-needed rest day. Church as usual in the morning and then nothing much else for the rest of the day. I did sneak some baking in later in the afternoon.

Monday
This was a staff work day (or student-free day, as we used to call it in Australia), so the students were at home and got up late. David went in for a leadership team meeting and then did other teacherly work at his school desk in the afternoon. I took the opportunity to get up a bit later too (having lost sleep last week, I figured this was looking after myself in a way that I needed to).

The big elephant yesterday was that snow was forecast. Our eldest's job was to go into school to help with snow clearing and he hung around until it looked like it had started to "stick" to the ground and pile up late morning (it began snowing around 10). He worked there until dark last night and came home wet and tired.

We also had an overnight guest last night. One of the couple who we visited at the end of November. He was supposed to have a meeting at school this morning, but it got cancelled last night once they realised the extent of the snowfall. Alas he'd already made it to our house for the night, so he stayed and went home this morning after the craziness of rush-hour.

With boys at home and people coming and going yesterday I didn't get much traction on computer work and that was frustrating. But I did have some good quality time with boys. Two conversations particularly that I wouldn't normally expect during a usual week. One was especially important regards how the younger two are processing their big (and favourite) brother leaving home in just two weeks.

Tuesday
Well it snowed well into the evening and this morning we woke up to a winter wonderland. There was a good 20cm of snow on our front doorstep and I went out after breakfast to shovel our entry and the piece of road that functions as a footpath. It is all on the northern side of the house so doesn't get sun at this time of year. From experience, if it isn't shovelled as soon as is practical, it tends to melt on a warmish day such as we have today (around 6C) and then freezes to the road as the sun goes down, turning into slick ice that is hard to remove in future days.

The advantage of shovelling is that you get to meet your neighbours. Though one of my neighbours gave up shovelling almost as soon as she got out there. She rightly said that there really is nowhere to put the snow (our road only just accommodates two cars passing slowly). I shifted our snow slightly to the edge, piling it against our wall and behind the telephone pole that sits in the gutter (our front wall sits on top of the gutter, there is no verge at all). I also shovelled a short path at my elderly neighbour's entry (the one who is fanatical about gutter-sweeping).

Our overnight guest left mid-morning and I've been trying to get some traction on my computer-based work. Not so successfully, but just chipping away. 

But it's time to get back to chipping away at it.

Our yesterday

There's lots going on here (a photo shoot, job-planning meetings, transition planning our son, schedule planning for Australia for Wendy, home assignment planning...actually lots of planning). 

Pinning one of his opponents.

But to pause for a moment and acknowledge what happened yesterday: we watched our youngest son begin his wrestling season for this year.

It's exciting to see how far he's come in the in the last two years. Yesterday he showed he wasn't a very beginner; he had more moves in his repertoire, and it looked good. He tried different moves, when one didn't work, he moved onto another. He also showed more resilience as he bounced back after a scare with his thumb in his second match (the ligament he partially tore last year is still causing some concern).

He's also now finally at the age that his eldest brother started wrestling. We found a video of that very first meet of his brother's and that made for an interesting comparison. Our youngest has basically grown up around wrestling, so knows what's going on, even if he has still to build up the muscle-memory and strategic thinking that goes with being better than a beginner. Our eldest was pretty clueless when he first stepped on that mat. 

Hey, we were clueless spectators at that point! The end of the video of our eldest's first wrestle was pretty funny. David was taping it with his phone (which made for some interesting video footage as he wobbled around with the action) and said nothing the whole match until the very end. At that point our son pinned his opponent and that was one of the few things David knew about the sport. Suddenly hearing him shout in triumph and utter, "A pin" in surprise, was hilarious.

I guess, being less clueless at this point, we know what we're probably in for . . . another five years of sitting in gyms on Saturdays watching wrestling. I am excited by that prospect (except for the exhaustion that comes with it).

Yesterday was also interesting because the CAJ team was almost entirely a Marshall affair. The team has three wrestlers, one was ill, so it was our son and one other. I went as a mum/spectator/video operator; David was the coach; and our eldest went as an unofficial assistant. The CAJ van on the way there was 80% Marshalls. It was 100% Marshalls on the way home as the other team member went home on the train with his family. Who could have imagined that in 2011 when this whole wrestling-saga began for us?

The middle-school season is short. Just two more tournaments and it's over. I'm looking forward to them (as usual). Probably nervous too. Yesterday I was more nervous at the start than I'd anticipated. I thought that a "mere" middle school meet would be easy after the drama of our eldest son's season last year, but obviously not!

Oh, did I mention that the US ambassador was there yesterday too? I guess when an ambassador has school-aged kids they have to go to school and why not send them to the American School in Japan! And, if they're sporty, why not go and watch their matches? The other CAJ wrestler's family brought a couple of missionary friends and one was chatting to this guy without knowing who he was. The inevitable question, "So what brings you to Japan?" was asked. Imagine being able to answer that with, "Oh, I'm your country's ambassador"?

Ordinary life over here

I like the calmness of break-time. Not having people going all directions
is really nice (though less common as they get older and have their own
plans with friends). I took this photo as we travelled back to Tokyo last
Tuesday after our day in the park. I always find these signs amusing and
slightly scary (especially if you aren't sure where you're going). But
they are also a nice metaphor for life with older kids!

In "ordinary life" over here, everyone has started back at school and work this week. We're nearly to the end of first semester and between now and the end of the school year (June 12) we have but one week of school holidays. That one week won't be restful either, as we're attending our Japan conference in Hokkaido for four of the days. So it's going to be a long slog till June, but not as bad as when the boys were little. They do have more stamina for these long school terms than they used to. 

The big regret for them this year is that they'll not get a long summer break, not in the middle of the year, nor at the end of the year. They'll have to wait a long 24 months until they get a longer-than-one-month break from school! (Though perhaps over Christmas they might get closer to six-weeks, the details haven't been sorted out yet.)

Yesterday I was at a mission meeting and today done some computer work (email and editing), I've gotten some exercise, and done some shopping (mostly for groceries). Yep, life's back to normal again.

Contrary to what you might expect moods have been pretty good (that might change when the sleep deprivation kicks in in the next day or two). In fact in the last couple of days we've had the sort of interactions over a meal that I'd like to bottle and reproduce for daily enjoyment! The moodiness that teenagers experience is not just a pain to them, but to those who live with them.

What lies ahead of me in the next few weeks is causing me to feel a bit tight around the chest. There's a lot to be done. But I'm trying to stay calm. Tomorrow I'll write about the words from the Bible that I've been repeating often to myself.

As things stand now, it is three weeks and six days until I board the aeroplane with our eldest to take him back to Australia for the start of his university studies. A deadline that is looming. 

It is also now less than six months until I board a plane with the rest of the family to fly to Australia for the rest of the year.

This Saturday we have a wrestler on the mat again. It's a shorter middle-school tournament. It will be good to get mat-side again. I'll try not to bore you with too many wrestling posts :-)

The remainder of my week includes, aside from working at my desk, a language exchange time over coffee and a trip to the orthodontist. So I should be able to get a good amount of momentum going on my desk-work.

So, back to ordinary life. At 5.30pm it has been dark outside for more than half an hour, and though that says "winter", it has felt like a spring day, with a heat wave of something like 16 degrees! Soon I'll be in the kitchen cooking up some chicken, and cutting and grating salad so people can add them into tortillas for dinner tonight. And ordinary life continues: tidying up the kitchen, showers, relaxing, reading, bed.

These last few days...

Yesterday I rode on some very uncrowded trains.

It's been days and days since I wrote here. Let me quickly fill you in on what's been happening. 

Friday
I ran around shopping for Saturday (tell you about that in a minute), then had a phone meeting with my OMF boss and spent the rest of my "office" time (about two hours) trying to get on top of computer work before the weekend arrived.

Then I met my language exchange friends and we talked in Japanese and English for two hours.

I raced home and made two meals: one for us and one for Saturday (tell you about that in a minute).

Friday night I was about done in. I'd had a horrible headache the night before and, well, it was Friday night, wasn't it? We enjoyed an NCIS episode after dinner, as we often do of an evening.

Saturday
CAJ hosted nine schools for a wrestling tournament. I helped out with catering for the coaches and refs and helped a bit with the admin for the event. It is amazing how much writing is involved. I won't bore you, but some of the wrestler's names were probably written at least a dozen times!

I had a really enjoyable day. I spent a lot of time talking with people (as usual). I caught up with parents of three of our son's former opponents from other schools, one couple I met for the first time, another couple I met in Korea for the first time in February. All three boys are still at school and so were wrestling. It was great talking with all of them. To one mum I got to explain that we are Christian missionaries.

It was a little odd not to have any wrestlers at this meet, but it did mean I
could relax more and enjoy meeting people and helping out.

I also hung out with parents from our team, a couple of new parents too, who had some questions that I could help with. Cheering a good friend's son as he won the final, his first wrestling gold medal, was a highlight. But I was holding my friend's iPhone recording the match at the same time, so we've also got a souvenir with our own unique commentary ;-)


It was a long day: about 12 hours from start (7am) to finish. Thankfully we live close. But hosting an event like this includes sweeping the gym afterwards and removing the wrestling mats to their appropriate places, so that the gym can be used for basketball and PE again on Monday. It was fun to "party" with the team afterwards as we helped clean up the hospitality room. We all ate dinner before packaging up the left-overs to be taken home by those in the team and support team who wanted them.

Sunday
We went to church as usual then afterwards did our annual 100 yen Christmas shopping. This is where we all go to a big 100 yen shop and buy presents for one another. It's fun and low stress, and also now a long-standing tradition!

After lunch I rested, then made fudge to give the boys' teachers, as well as to keep in our fridge for various random occasions (not to mention just nibbling on ourselves).

Monday
I did a "field trip" out to the Christian printers that print our magazine. I've also had some dealings with them for OMF. It was good to get an overall impression of their operation. Not to mention gain a great deal of admiration for the challenges of turning the electronic files we send them into something beautiful on paper. Their biggest machine is two storeys high and many metres long. Huge. One of their main things is printing Bibles, especially for countries where its hard to get Christian material. They also print Bible-manga, and have them in many different languages now (I forget how many, but their website says 33 languages).

Christmas decorations at the party (yes, I finished the post after
I got home)

That trip was out into more rural parts of the Kanto plain and took an hour to get there on three trains (including a 500m walk between train stations). After I got back early afternoon, I made a menu for the rest of the week and did my grocery shopping. Then I had a couple of hours to catch up on email etc. before dinner was needing attention.

Tuesday 
Today I've been at my desk all day. I had an magazine Skype meeting at 9 that I was ill-prepared for and hence it went longer than necessary, then a video call with a friend over lunch. But other than that I've been pecking away at these keys all day.

However, I'm about to go down the road to the annual CAJ Staff Christmas party, which is something I always look forward to. A nice ending to the day!


I really didn't expect that my schedule would be quite so full as that over the last week. I'm an eternal optimist, which works against me often: I usually think I can fit more into my day/week/month than is actually feasible.

On this day seven years ago

One of the things I like to check in the morning is the "On this day" on Facebook. It brings up a lot of interesting things that I've posted in past years: events, photos, etc. Because I've posted links to my blog on Facebook pretty much since the beginning, it also shows me those and they can be fun to read also. 

Today I came up with this, a glimpse of what my life in was like when I had 11, 8, and 5 year olds. Sometimes I'm asked about when my kids were younger and even now I can't remember a lot of it. Having written about one particular day on my blog, we can go back and have a peek into life in 2010. Indeed quite different to my life now.

Here are some extracts (for context, we were at a fun sports day for home schoolers, held at CAJ):

Parks were a big part of our family's recreation when
the boys were younger. So much energy!

At lunch-time my kids ate and ran - typical. They really don't eat much at school usually, because there is too much play to be done. However I lingered longer in the bright autumn sun. Eventually I realised that the girls on the next table over were dressed the same, had the same drink bottles, their hair was done in the same fashion etc. Yes, they were twins. 5 y.o. twins. The more amazing thing was that they sat for the entire lunch-hour. Just sat, and ate, slowly. My boys never sit and eat. They squirm, they shove it in and they leave. Getting them to linger over a meal is like extracting a tooth without anaesthetic. Very painful. I can only imagine what it must be like to have children who just sit quietly. . . 

Very soon my eldest was trying to entertain the others by putting the road cone on his head, by playing with water and blindfolding himself and others with the bandanna that awaited us at our relay-station.
My middle son was intense at the games. Competitive to the last. Determined that we obey the rules, even if it wasn't clear what they were!
My youngest was the victim of the other two as well as his youth. He quickly tired of the competitiveness, of the intensity and the pressure. He folded and assumed that it was all too hard. . .

I cannot say that I was having a fun time. Trying to wrestle a balloon off two intense brothers rolling in the dirt. Trying to placate the youngest and stop him being victimised by his brothers. Trying to explain to the middle son that it was okay that the neighbouring team didn't exactly follow the rules. Trying to make sure everyone had a chance to participate. It wasn't fun. . . 

Some people consoled me with the presumption that my boys would go home and collapse. They don't know my boys. My kids are like energiser bunnies and go and go and go. After sports day the younger two went across the road to their usual 1 hour swimming lesson. When they got home from that they wanted to play soccer outside or balloon volleyball in the lounge. It was only when I said that I needed help putting sheets back on beds that they feigned tiredness!
However I was tired, mentally if not physically. We parked them in front of a video for an hour before tea (dinner), just to give us a break and help their active bodies to slow down. Soon they'd rush through another meal and we'd push them to bed (energiser bunnies don't appreciate being made to slow down, they click). Then we could have some peace.

People now say to me, "You're lucky to have such active boys." But I don't know. I definitely feel like it's been a long, challenging 18½ years of parenting so far. I love to see them compete in sports now: I love that all that energy now has a positive outlet (and I don't need to organise or facilitate it). Also, then when they come home now, they are generally tired and don't bounce around like they used to!

Sometimes I'm asked if I miss the times when they were younger and the truth is that I don't. As you've just read, it was an exhausting period of my life. I had pre-schoolers for 10 years and that was long enough for me.

It's also good to remind myself that life is a little physically easier now than it was then, it is easy to forget. What I've forgotten a little, is that it wasn't mentally or emotionally easy back then either. The battles have changed, the boys have gotten bigger and stronger (but not more strong-willed, that's been steadily difficult, I think). It is harder now, though, to make them do things they don't want to do. They are definitely more opinionated and don't hesitate to let us know those opinions.

Enough reminiscing. Back to now. Tonight we have the first wrestling meet of the season (actually just a dual, should be less than an hour). The team is much smaller than last year and it's discouraging to see that. We don't have any of our family wrestling tonight, but I do have friends whose kids are, and I'm keen to sit with them and cheer for their kids. No disguising it—I'm excited to see live wrestling again, though I know it won't be as special as last year, but it won't be as stressful either!

Another messy evening: as I'll make dinner early and people will eat it when they're free (wrestling starts at 6, but two of our family won't be home from school till after it's over and another family member will be home before 6, but out until late as he goes straight to youth group from there, we're not sure if the fifth family member will even leave the house...).

Friendships with sports-parents

Today I met a friend for coffee. Not an unusual thing for me to do at all. I mention it because this is one of our friends who I've usually met during the sporting seasons. Our kids have done wrestling and track and field together, which both mean long days in the stands. We've spent many, many hours sitting on hard benches together.

This is the friend I travelled and shared a room with in Korea in February. Because the track and field season finished in May it's been ages since we sat down together to chat, though we did go to the park with our families in August and I gave her a lift, along with six other women to the missionary women's event in October. When sport isn't "in season" we have to make an effort to make time to spend together, not easy because we're both busy with our respective roles.

We're both in the same life-stage. We've got three boys each and our eldest sons graduated in June. They're both headed off early in the new year to the next stage of their lives. It's nice to have a friend who's in the same life-stage. Rare, in fact, for me. I've been reflecting recently that many of the friends I see most regularly have kids who are younger than mine (even if only by a couple of years).

One of the challenging things about being associated with an international school community is that most people leave the community (either for a ministry located in a different part of Japan or they leave Japan altogether) after their last child finishes school. Of course I've got no idea how long we're going to be here, but there is a strong chance that David will continue to teach at CAJ after our youngest finishes. 

That's going to be strange—to go back to being just a staff-wife. To have no one of my own to cheer on at sports meets. To have no other parents that I see as part of the school calendar. I'm sure there'll be plenty to fill the gaps, but it will certainly be a different stage of life. One that's only five and a half years away! Maintaining friendships will definitely have to be stepped up to a more intentional activity, like today's "let's do coffee soon" morning.

These last couple of weeks there has been some tension for me about wrestling. Our middle son has decided not to do wrestling, after saying he would (in May). That leaves us without a high school wrestler in our family this year. 

Does it sound strange to admit that I've found that hard to accept? I really wanted to be supporting our high school wrestlers again as a parent . . . but it would be odd to go to all the meets and duals and I can't really justify those long days if I don't have a wrestler in the team. Our youngest is in the middle school team, so I'll get to go to his meets. I still plan to go to some of the high school meets (especially the one at CAJ in December and probably the finals). But it's taking some time to accept that we don't have a high schooler in the team this year. Part of that, too, is that I'll miss the time in the stands with friends who do have wrestlers this year, like the lady I had coffee with this morning. I'm not happy about that, but can do nothing about it. It does make me feel sorry for people whose children aren't into sports. They miss out on a lot!

Our eldest is helping out the coach, so he's still at school working with the team till after 6pm most nights. David's helping out as a responsible adult/staff member too (the coach's second son was born last week, so David helped supervise training last week). So I guess they'll both be going to meets, while I sit at home quietly with our middle son?

Alas, do I have a wrestling withdrawal?

But it's more than wrestling that I'll miss, it's the friendships formed with other parents that call me.