My daughter, Kathryn, on the other hand delights in her relatively modest forms of body art. Her latest tattoo – her second, the first one being on her ankle – is what she refers to as “our tattoo.”

I knew she was thinking about getting a new one – I’d heard her discussing it – but she was careful in not revealing her idea. On Saturday afternoon she dropped by for a visit. I noticed her jacket collar was just a little too snug. Soon she relaxed a little to reveal what appeared to be a piece of tape on the side of her neck.

“What’s that? Did you cut yourself?” I ask.

She scrunches her shoulders and grins. “Don’t be mad at me.” (This is something she says a lot. I can’t remember when I’ve ever been more than slightly irritated with her. Maybe she’s thinking, There’s always a first time.) She goes into the bathroom to peal off the bandage. There is the purple lotus topped with the om symbol. Lotus, a symbol for the Buddha. Om, the ancient one-syllable mantra.

I see that each the three leaves at the bottom of the lotus has something written in it. “What are those letters?” I ask, instantly knowing the answer. They are my initials.

That’s my daughter.

Although I stayed safely on the periphery of activity, helping only when asked, this was the first wedding I’d attended where my involvement was more than just showing up on time. A wedding really is an ordeal, and one that takes on a life of its own. It’s an event that requires the coordination of many thing. It also requires notable amounts of patience and tolerance.

By some standards, this one was a relatively small (a guest list of 120) event with simple appointments. Instead of hiring a florist, the girls drove out to Swan Island Dahlias a few weeks ago and placed an order directly from the source. One of my jobs was to pick up the flowers Wednesday afternoon. I delivered them back home where a small band of family and guests began arranging them in vases.

We hosted the rehearsal dinner Wednesday evening, for which we prepared way too much food – ten people didn’t show up. They had their reasons, but there were several in the wedding party who didn’t know what was expected of them until the ceremony itself.

The Edgefield is a complex of historic buildings that have been renovated into a hotel, restaurants, pubs, a brewery, and halls for activities like weddings and receptions. There also is an outdoor concert area. The wedding ceremony took place outside during the enforced quite hour between 5:00 and 6:00. It took a while to get everyone seated, and we were pushing against 6:00 when Patrick and Erin recited their vows. A few minutes later, the concert started with Taj Mahal as lead in to Bonnie Raitt playing in the background.

Officiating at the wedding was Joy, a friend of ours who also performed Robin’s and my wedding ceremony a year ago. It was a delight to have her involved.

My space, needing maintenance

Being a writer, I know all about writer’s block and the many things that get in the way of getting down to work. One of those things that always, eventually, gets in my way is the condition of my work area. Although I think of myself as being well organized, I’m not necessarily a neat person. I’m  no slob, either, but things do tend to accumulate around me in little piles of things undone or otherwise not attended to. Eventually, I just can’t stand it any longer. Before I can do anything else, I realize I must clean up.

Today was one of those days. I took everything off my desk and put it in a pile. I dusted the surfaces and cleaned the accretion of grime from my keyboard. That was the easy part. It wasn’t difficult, either, to put the big stuff, the obvious stuff, back into place. More difficult was the stacks of papers I’d been ignoring, sorting through them and deciding what to file away and what to toss. This kind of thing drives me to diversion. It’s a perfect time for blog reading and catching up on email correspondence. I did get it all back together, and my space is leaner for the effort. Now, once again,  I can get things accomplished.

I live in Vancouver, Washington, where commercial fireworks are legal – this year from noon June 28 to midnight July 4. Legal means different things in different places. In Oregon, for example, fireworks can’t leave the ground. Here, though, they can and do.

This was a mercifully short season compared to last year, which was about a week longer and ending at 11:00 p.m. on the 5th. Next year, the legal season will be shorter, from the 1st through the 4th. I can’t wait.

Still, there will be that period of three or four hours on the night of the 4th when the blasts and flashes throughout the neighborhood are nearly constant. I don’t know what the legal limits are here on the size of the explosives available to the general public. But I can tell you it’s enough to rock the average house. I’ve never been in a war zone, but I imagine it’s something like that – minus the screams and debris flying through the air. And I can only imagine the effect on people who have been in a war zone and who may expect that any minute a chunk of shrapnel will come ripping through the wall.

The frenzy begins around mid June, when the big tents start appearing at the major intersections of my part of town. When opening day arrives, you’ll see hawkers clustered together along the curbs waving massive yellow signs directing drivers this way and that. The competition can be amusing. One sign read: “Straight Ahead for High Prices. Turn Left for Discounts!”

I’ve never been in one of these tents. But I’m told that individuals may spend hundreds of dollars on fireworks. My neighbors must be pretty wealthy to be able to blow their money on explosives.

It’s really hard on our dogs. We have to drug them every evening of the season. They wear themselves out with their anxious pacing and whining and panting. We could call July 4 National Torture Your Pet Day. And of course there are all those animals who aren’t pets. But what do animals matter when they can’t even appreciate what it means to live in this country?

I hope tonight will be quieter. But it won’t be without a blast or two. Not everyone believes in following the rules. After all, isn’t that what independence is all about?

I nodded.

“What does ‘roshi’ mean?”

I told George it was a title used in Zen Buddhism, but I wasn’t sure what it meant.

He then explained the reason for his question. The explanation here requires some background, which centers on George’s experiences during World War II.

George Sidline is the younger of two sons born to East European Jews. His story, though, has nothing to do with what one may think when European Jew and WW II are mentioned together. George was born in Kobe, Japan, where his father owned a small store. He was seven years old when Japanese Navy planes bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. In 1945 George’s own house was firebombed – with him and his family inside. He’s alive to tell about it because the incendiary bomb that crashed through his roof didn’t detonate. He tells the whole story in his book Somehow, We’ll Survive: Life in Japan During World War II Through the Eyes of a Young Caucasian Boy.

George’s modest home in Kobe – before the bombing – was next door to a mansion called Marks House. During the war, it’s American owner, Mr. Marks, was deported and the house confiscated. The mansion was used as an internment camp for prisoners of war – American prisoners of war – which is getting to the  point of this story.

As George explains in his book, the guards were fairly lax in their duties, and the prisoners would often climb the fence during the night and cut through the Sidlines’ yard on their way into town. Sometimes George and his brother would chat with the prisoners from atop a shed built against the fence.

Asking about the meaning of “roshi” was not the only reason George had brought up the subject. Knowing that I had read his book he wanted to tell me had learned that one of his former neighbors of Marks House is a roshi and is very ill.

Two days later I came upon this blog post, which in part says:

Robert Aitken Roshi is one of the earliest Western teachers of Zen still alive today. He was exposed to Zen while in a Japanese internment camp in Kobe, Japan after being captured as a worker in Guam.

Aitken Roshi at 91. Photo from aitkenroshi.org.

I’m not a Zen follower, but this name is a familiar one in Western Buddhist circles. Knowing George and having read his book, I felt an interesting connection with two people, one of whom I do not know. And the coincidence of my encounter with George followed quickly by my reading about Aitken Roshi was just too uncanny.

Click here for a photograph of the Marks House prisoners. According to a comment in a string of email correspondence with Aitken Roshi and others that George shared with me, Robert Aitken is third from the right.

1) How do you sleep at night? Is your sleep affected by the national angst? Do you drop off easily, as you always did? Or does it take a while to get to sleep?

It depends on the night. Sometimes I sleep soundly. Others, like last night, not well at all. I’m anticipating a new way of life coming my way and wonder how I and my family will adjust to it. I’ve survived more than a couple sweeping changes to my life already, but this is the one I’m faced with now. Will we be able to keep our house? I don’t know. Will life continue with it’s relative ease? It doesn’t seem possible. I feel I need to make a plan, to do something, but I have no idea what to do or where to start. So we just keep going day by day, night by night.

2) What strategies, if needed, do you use to get to sleep? Pills? Sheep? Late night television shows? And/or…?

I’ve never taken sleeping pills. Nor do I take a drink of alcohol – not for 12 years, anyway. I’ve used melatonin and valerian, but haven’t for years. Usually, when I can’t fall asleep, I meditate. I keep the mind focused on the breath. This helps keep obsessive thoughts out of the way. The drowsier I get, however, the more difficult it is to stay focused. I want to keep my unpleasant thoughts. Perversely, I take pleasure in them. If then I can’t fall asleep, I will get up and read for a while. That helps, maybe. Sometimes nothing helps and I’m awake for hours.

3) Do you wake up in the middle of the night, plagued by obsessive thoughts?

Occasionally.

4) What strategies do you have to get back to sleep?

Same as above in #2.

5) Are your dreams affected? Are they more anxious than before? Do they wake you up in a sweat? Or are they peaceful, innocent, undisturbed by the general malaise?

I rarely remember my dreams. But when I do, I don’t notice any differences from the way they’ve always been. Some leave a pleasant feeling, some definitely unpleasant.

Begging your pardon if you find this intrusive, I tag the following. Respond if and as you see fit. Please link to the original post as well as this one.

Joy

Ted

Everett

Two weeks ago came the prediction of the worst snow and ice storm in five years coming down from British Columbia. Day by day, hour by hour, we checked the forecast. We went to the store to stock up on groceries. Monday, when it was to start, it was cold but dry. Tuesday, however…, But Tuesday was wet and 40 degrees. But Wednesday, just you wait…., But Wednesday was wet and too warm to worry also. Thursday, though…. Thursday schools were closed at the last moment because it began to snow hard at about 7:30 a.m. Then it stopped and the sun came out for a while. Friday, the same thing. Schools closed at the last minute for what ended up as not much more snow than for maybe half dozen snowballs.

Unlike other parts of the country where snow is a way of life, here it’s just a nuisance. But roads can be treacherous in the outlying areas, so school administrators have to keep that in mind when making decisions. And where there is no need for heavy and abundant snow removal equipment, the roads aren’t well serviced in that regard. But that’s beside the point.

This past week, each day was different from what was forecast, and each day the forecast changed hour by hour. But yesterday, Saturday, the storm that took its sweet time getting here got here. But hey, it wasn’t going to amount to much, right? The forecast was for one to three inches. This morning I measured eight inches of snow covered with half an inch of ice. I spent much of the day clearing the driveway and getting Robin’s car out from under ice-laden limbs. Its precipitating right now. Kind of rain, kind of snow, kind of sleet. The forecast is for more of the same. But the same as what?