The good and the bad, and joy in the midst of it all

I have a lot to be thankful for this week . . . maybe I'm learning how to have joy in the midst of pain?

On the one hand, I've been weary and overwhelmed, and I've struggled with headaches all week. 

Playing French cricket with our UK friends on Saturday was fun.
And the sky was magnificent viewing: all day! It's not often you
get so far from other people and buildings in the greater Tokyo area.

But on the other hand, we've had some great things happening. Last Saturday, despite being unable to do our planned camping trip, and having some last-minute hiccups, we were able to spend the day with friends/colleagues. I was able to have a long weekend—a quiet day of just relaxing at home on Tuesday was very unusual, but matched with my family's schedule (school's Fall Break) and was needed. 

And, after months of waiting, we're seeing some positive changes in the local situation. The number of new COVID-19 infections is the lowest it's been all year. This week three meetings that have been online for many months have been, or will be, in person: a prayer and fellowship meeting with our mission, a prayer meeting at school, and worship on Sunday at church. 

All good, but also a tad overwhelming in the suddenness that it's all changed. We've also seen forward movement on a couple of fronts for one of our guys, which is very encouraging, but has made my schedule next week a bit busier than I'd like.

Another unexpected thing I've been doing this month is a daily photo challenge with Taking Route, an online community for expat women. The challenge is #thisglobalwalkoutside. Using daily photo prompts, expat women around the world are taking photos outside and sharing them. I've not been interacting much with the community, but been simply enjoying taking the simple prompt and searching each day for a photo to take (or one that was taken earlier) and post, plus something to write about the prompt (I can't resist the writer-side of me). It was something I stumbled upon at the start of the month and I have to say the results have been unexpected. My reflections have surprised me (as have some of my photos).

I have to say also, that despite all that I've had going on, plus a headache, I've been remarkably productive in even this short week . . . but that reminds me that I must get back to my To Do list before this working week is over.

Feeling a bit buffetted

I think it's been nearly four months since I rode to the big park to the south of us. I made it there on Wednesday for a solo picnic. I’ve had a lot of Zoom time in the second half of this month. So when it dawned on me on Wednesday morning that I had a small window where I could escape from the house (and work), I seized it. 

Even though we’ve had some hot days this week, the season is definitely early autumn. Nights have cooled down. In the park some of the leaves are starting to change. And though Wednesday was a warm day, it was a tad cool in the shade at times. 

As I always do before going on a longer ride, I'd checked the weather and there was no forecast of rain. But as I got closer to the park, the sky got greyer and the wind stronger. Had the forecasters made a mistake? When I arrived, I pulled up my trusty weather app and looked at the radar. There was a small thunderstorm headed my way! So I parked myself at a table near a small non-ornate gazebo and ate lunch.

Thankfully it never did rain, though it looked like it could for quite some time. The sky eventually cleared to the white puffy clouds we’d started the day with.

If I'd hung around longer, I might have gotten
better captures of these two bugs who were
very intent on harvesting the remains of this
past-its-prime flower. I think they are Middle-east 
flower scarabs.

After I ate I read for a while and then took some time searching for photos, having been inspired by a nature photography seminar I participated in the day before. The seminar encouraged us to take our time, to breathe, to be renewed as we looked for things to photograph. I have for some years now been on the lookout for things to capture, often small or unusual things or angles, but mostly opportunistic things. That is, as I’m out and about doing other things. It was good to take a few minutes to change focus a little bit, to feel like it’s more than okay to do that. In the midst of so many video calls and intense interaction, it was very good to be out in the fresh air, and away from buildings and people.

But this morning, as I sat in my relaxing chair in our lounge room, rotating between various activities: Scrabble, game on phone, Japanese vocab and kanji (character) review, I’ve been reflecting on the last couple of weeks and wondering why I’m feeling a bit buffetted. I think it’s not just the busyness of those days, but also the emotional highs and lows. And a list is good to help explain that, so in the last two weeks I’ve—

Light was difficult for capturing this ant,
but I tried.

• Led nine hours of meetings with my magazine team over two days. This was an emotional high, but also a heavy responsibility that exhausts me.
• Sat through two days of online field conference, during which we farewelled ten colleagues who are retiring in the coming year and brought tears.
• Interacted in person, via text, and on video calls with a handful of friends and colleagues who wanted to know how I really was, and I got mixed responses. One of which really disappointed me and others that really lifted me up.
• Had to share briefly in a small group of OMF colleagues about the challenges of the last 18 months. I know none of these people well, and wasn’t sure how much to share. It turns out my brief summary was enough to make them feel like they had nothing significant to share :-( So I felt that perhaps I did have reason to be feeling a bit overwhelmed and tired, if other people, who hadn't heard most of the details, are taken aback.
• Made a small step forward in planning for the next few months for a member of our family. It was a small, but significant step that had me feeling elated.
• Low-key celebrations of a birthday and our wedding anniversary.
• Led a prayer meeting online for our mission. At night, which is a challenge for me.
• Had an article published in the US that was quite personal (it’s here). It was great to have a writing opportunity, but also emotional to get my thoughts out there.

That’s probably enough! Yes, I think there are a few reasons there to feel like I’m a bit depleted. So in retrospect I see that the couple of hours I was able to spend in the park on Wednesday was a real gift from God. As is this quiet weekend. And no, I’m not going to be an overachiever today. I think sitting quietly is really okay, otherwise I’m probably going to end up saying something to someone that I really will regret (a classic sign of exhaustion for me).

So, here are a few photos from my God-given time out.

• 

  Summer cypress

  
  

  

  Balloon flower.

  
  

  

  Not exactly where I sat to eat and read, but close by. You get the idea that this park has
  some lovely tall trees, and more than a few.

  
  

  

  A dahlia, I think, reaching for the sky.

Spring in my garden

I got an article through my Facebook feed today saying that the cherry blossom season has been declared open today, one day earlier than predicted. I haven't been out and about today, but I can say spring is happening in my own scrappy little garden.

Here's proof.

Can anyone tell me what this is? I presume it's a bulb, it's come up of its own accord.

Our hydrangea is getting all "leafed up".

And my wonderful, hardy geraniums. This one is outside and there's one upstairs on our only sunny windowsill.

We've got birds moving into our birdhouse and the Dogwood tree that it's hanging on is getting ready to sprout leaves too. I'm no gardener, but I'm happy to appreciate God's handiwork and the work of others more talented. 

This is our little garden, it's scrappy, but we love it all the same.

Photos from Perth

I'm getting back into the game gradually, almost feel "normal", whatever that means. I got a good amount of editing work done this morning, then some running around of children and an hour at the gym. So an overall productive day!

But here is a flashback to Perth. It's Australia, but there are different native floral species there than on the east coast. The area we stayed in was particularly pretty, with some enormous trees. I shared a good number of these on social media, but not all. You'll particularly want to see the "Dr Seuss" tree.

No idea what this is, it looks like a version of the
common red bottle brush.

One of the large trees in a local park we visited several times (the park had a significant Pokemon Go attraction for our boys).

Plenty of roses flowering at this time of year.

Another large tree in the suburb that I walked past a few times. I love it that they've
not just knocked these down.

Trying to appreciate art in the local park...

This truly was enormous. Actually there are two or three large trees here, but the one on the left is very large just on its own. Same park as the one mentioned above.

Another rose.

White bottle brush?

This is a bit random. I had lunch with two WA friends I met through blogging. Our families were slightly alarmed that we were meeting up with "internet friends" that we'd never met in person before. This was my view throughout a delightful, though somewhat rushed (it was squeezed inbetween two ministry appointments), lunch.

Our one concession to tourism. We took Friday afternoon to visit Fremantle,
Perth's port, and wandered through this museum. I live in hope that one
day I'll be able to read all the signs in leisure without being pursued
by children who just want to "get onto the next thing".

It may be a little difficult to recognise, but this is the hull of a large ship, wrecked
off the coast of WA (along with many other ships in the last 400 years). The
low-light inside the museum made it exceptionally difficult to get good photos.

Someone carefully made a replica of the ship above that was wrecked.
Actually, it was a retired marine archeologist (if I remember the sign correctly).

An anchor so large they had to cut a hole in the floor to accomodate it.

Back to trees. This one is close to the shore in Fremantle. These aren't native
to Australia, but there are many in this park, I presume, planted by immigrants long ago?

Fremantle shoreline.

One of the many old buildings in Fremantle. I could have taken many more photos, but we had time limitations (and boys who were moving onto the next thing and quick to criticise lagging mums with cameras).

This sunset I snapped with my iPhone as we arrived at a friend's hosue for dinner.

The humble gumnut, but I'm enough of an "expat" in Australia to appreciate that these aren't found often elsewhere.

Another random photo taken as we walked around our local environmnet.
A cactus flower. I'm glad I shot it as it faded quickly in the days that followed.

These seem to be endemic to WA (aother one futher on in this post, with Dr Seuss possibilities).

WA floral emblem: kangaroo paw.

More trees in same park (first one I mentioned). Acutally it's quite hard to capture
the majesty of this tree, I felt quite in awe as we walked under these.

Same trees from the other side.

These galahs are so common but terribly cute (I'm told they are pretty silly too).

I'm amazed that I managed to capture this with my phone as we drove past.
It pays tribute to Fremantle's long history as a port.

Yellow sand seems to abound on the west coast.

Yes, the Dr Seuss-plant!

Fusion of Japan and Australia

Yesterday I met a close friend for lunch. That was super special. We have the kind of friendship that I don't have to waste time on the superficial, but can dive right in and know that there's not going to be any issues with that!

After that soul-refreshing time I went for a short walk around a nearby Japanese garden with my camera. The idea of a Japanese garden in Australia is quite interesting to me, after having lived in Japan and spent time in some of their very old gardens. Japan really takes gardens to another level! (Here's one of their top three gardens that we visited a couple of years ago. Here's an inner city one I visited on my own last year.)

Anyway, I haven't been to a Japanese garden in Australia for a long time. Here's what I found: a fusion of Japan and Australia.

The garden is called "Nerima Garden", a celebration of a sister relationship between Ipswich (where we are living in Australia) and the city of Nerima (which is only about 2 km from our house in Tokyo).

Our house is at the "pin" and you can see Nerima marked between there
and Tokyo city central.

But actually it is only about 2km between our place and the western border of
the city of Nerima.

This is quite a typical looking Japanese garden scene. It looks quite different to Australia in general, especially because it is so green and Australia really is very brown and dusty at present as we experience a significant drought.

They have a traditional tea house, which of course was locked up, but by getting close to the glass, I managed something of a photo of the inside. The floor is just like the floor in our  bedroom and lounge rooms in Tokyo. I'm sure the smell would have cast me into homesickness!

This method of paving paths is very much a Japanese style.

The fusion: this isn't a plant usually seen in a Japanese garden! I believe it's a member of the Xanthorrhoea genus and is pretty common in Australia.

In the middle of this Japanese garden were some huge eucalyptus trees. Something you'd never see in Japan. However it was surprisingly hard to get a photo angle that showed both Japanese and Australian elements (possibly would have been better in the morning or on a cloudy day).

Here you can see a gum tree and bamboo.

The gum tree (eucalyptus) with the Japanese-shaped bushes and the tea house.

Back to Japan, here's the tea house with some bushes shaped very much like they would be in Japan. I found the Australian sun is very strong, even on a spring day, it made photos with strong contrast between shade and sun difficult to take well. This year is the first time I've used a "fancy" camera in Australia.

And then a couple of Aussie lizards were sunning themselves, they're pretty flighty, though, so I only got one or two photos of this one.

Azaleas were out. These you see in Japan and Australia. They are used as hedges in our city in Tokyo.

A different angle on the pond and "lantern feature". 

The garden was walled, just like many Japanese gardens are. 

Just outside I found the gorgeous bottle brush. Also had fun trying to figure out the right manual settings to use, but I was happy with the result in the end.

This is bougainvillea, a prolific non-native in Australia (from South America, I believe). We once had one right next to our driveway and it needed constant trimming, because it not only grows fast, it's got nasty thorns. But in the right place it is a gorgeous plant. 

I've had little time to go wandering with my camera in nature, so this half-hour was a delight. I hope you've enjoyed this little excursion too.