Having a baby is being a student of human emotions. Every day I live in my son’s sea of feelings ranging from anger to absolute joy and excitement. It never ceases to amaze me how he can angrily bite on my finger one second, and hug me like a koala bear the next, not letting …
It is Saturday evening and I am sitting on the floor just behind a mosquito net in front of an open veranda door. My wife and son are sleeping and I have just finished the dishes, having cleaned the bathroom after a long bath. It is dark ouside, although I can discern a faint glow …
I wonder if Japanese houses are built with cherry blossom in mind. Cherry blossom, sakura, one of the quintessential symbols of Japan, capturing the frailty of existence while celebrating life in the most exquisite way. During a few short weeks every year, the sakura season arguably exhibits unparalleled beauty in nature; in some ways I …
Between the hostile winter winds and the full bloom allergy chock, there are usually a few weeks every spring to really enjoy. Those weeks the air is soft and the plum blossoms are shining white on naked branches. I believe that period is now – on our daily outing, when walking a narrow street sheltered …
From not really knowing how to open his mouth, to opening and swallowing the offered food like a hungry baby bird – our son has gone from beginner to master at eating in two short months’ time. His eyes start shining when he sees his little bowl and spoon coming towards him and he starts …
Today I take a little dive into the beautiful and (unintentionally?) sweet and funny English translations that can be found everywhere in Japan (please catch up on the story poetry on a mountain if you are curious). There is a spacious park area next to the river close to where we live. In these Corona …
Clouds have fascinated me since I was young. I liked finding animals in the cumulus clouds (actually I still do), seeing their shapes, watching them move over the sky, putting faces on them. As I grew older I started to find stillness and peace from looking at the grey skies or watching streaks of white …
Raking leaves is really the only thing I do not like about autumn. When living in Sweden, raking leaves on a big lawn every fall was my least favourite chore. I found it boring, tedious, a necessary evil that had to be done before being able to enjoy the clean beauty of winter. So raking …
Getting used to changes, I find more and more, is like climbing over the threshold of friction and then keep moving; the effort required to make change happen, to overcome the urge of wanting everything to stay the same, is the force required to make an inert object start moving and once overcome, once the …
Looking into the eyes of a baby is going through a portal opening up to a dimension beyond what was previously possible to encounter; that is how I have felt while giving milk in a bottle to our little son, meeting his big, unwaveringly eyes. Apart from a memory of the first time my wife …
Under the big highway, on the other side of the road from our apartment, there is a little playground. My wife calls it a park, though for a park it is a quite sad place, a patch of dirt for ball games, a little bit of vegetation, and from our window we can see a …
The weather is always. No hiding from, no ignoring, no pretending. Every hour changing. There is always weather, day and night, every interval of time. That means that there is always something to talk about, no matter the circumstances. When not knowing what to say, comment on the weather. When meeting a stranger, comment on …