It's a bit of a surprise to me that my little essay writing hobby is still rolling along steadily. I described earlier how it got started, with a small request from a weekly newspaper, but when I look back at the pile of pieces I've produced over the past nine months since I really 'got serious' about this ... more than 70 essays and one 'book'; I find it hard to believe that I really wrote all those. (I certainly haven't generally felt that I've been getting much accomplished recently, but evidence to the contrary is there in front of me - not only these essays, but a new woodblock print every month, the quarterly newsletters, the monthly print letters, and then of course, all the housework, cleaning, shopping and cooking, etc. What could I do if I really felt energetic?!

The other evening I spent a nostalgic couple of hours reading through some of the older pieces (can one actually be 'nostalgic' about something from only nine months ago?), and was struck by a couple of things. The first was how much they need editing; how clumsy many of the sentences are, and how poor I am at expressing ideas clearly. I had thought they were so well done ... But I have a good excuse - I am a beginner at this. Hopefully, if I keep it up, and try and be fairly self-critical, they will gradually improve.

The second thing I noticed, was that the shorter pieces were the 'better' pieces. I think this comes from the fact that anybody can put an idea down on paper, but developing it properly is far more difficult. (It is also probably due to the ideas being so 'simple' in the first place. They don't really need much more than one page to be expressed.) But even though I now read those pieces with a critical eye, that does not detract from my pleasure at having created them. Beginner I may be, but that means that the only way to go ... is upwards!

Although it is relatively easy to see defects in work produced some time ago, it is much more difficult to self-criticize new work. So in the interest of improving my writing skills, I have recently passed some of these pieces out to friends and acquaintances for their comments. Generally though, this has not resulted in much really productive criticism coming back to me. Friends are friends, and thus are not particularly willing to risk endangering a friendship with any 'hard-edged' comments. Their 'criticism' is thus almost universally positive ... nice for the ego, but doing nothing for the skills ...

It was interesting for me therefore one day recently, to get a chance to watch someone read a short piece of mine printed in a weekly newspaper. This person was only the most casual of acquaintances, and felt absolutely no obligation to praise the work, or indeed comment on it at all. And somewhat to my surprise, that's exactly what happened. I saw him read through the piece quietly, and when he got to the bottom of the page, he folded up the paper ... and tossed it aside. No comment. He then started talking about something completely different. Now, although I hadn't expected him to start raving about what he had read, I had expected something - some kind of reaction to the ideas expressed. But no, it had obviously struck no chord at all. It was completely of no interest.

I sat back quietly, and didn't press the matter, but when I returned home, I took out that little piece and re-read it myself ... Was it really that boring? Well, I didn't think so, but he was the judge, wasn't he! This little episode made me think a bit about the 'what and why' of writing these essays. What am I trying to do to the readers? Why am I doing this?

The second question is easily answered ... answered with that word used by kids everywhere - 'because!'. Just because. Because it gives me pleasure, and whether or not there are deeper hidden reasons for doing this interests me not in the slightest. I'm having fun!

But as to the expected reactions of the readers, I am not so sure. Am I trying to teach them something? No. I am not such a gross egoist (egotist?) that I would place myself in that position. Am I trying to incite discussion? That's closer. I love discussion and arguments, and never lose an opportunity to draw people out ... to find out what they think about things ...

Perhaps the easiest way to answer that question 'What am I trying to do to the reader?', is to reverse the situation. When I am reading someone else's essays, what do I want to see? Once put this way, the question is easily answered. I want to read something that will strike sparks. Maybe I will agree with it ... "Mmmm ... mmm ... mmm!", or maybe I'll be dead against it ... "No way!", but in either case, I want to read something that will incite a reaction, that will make me think. This is why I was so disappointed when I saw my newspaper story tossed aside so casually that day. Obviously it hadn't struck any sparks. Nothing.

But I had got what I wanted, hadn't I! I had been looking for comments and criticism, and this was certainly a comment. So thanks a lot for the advice, J . I'll take your silent criticism in hand, and keep it in mind when starting the next essay. The next one that is ... It's too late to put some more fire into this one!

(May 1995)

Posted by Dave Bull at 01:49 PM | Comments (0)

It's raining, it's pouring,
The old man is snoring.
He bumped his head, and went to bed,
and couldn't get up 'till the morning.

Do you know this old English kids song? I don't remember when I first heard it, although I suppose I must have been very young. People from England are of course very familiar with rain, and some of them joke about the length of the rainy season in that country ... 12 months! But as I left England when I was only five years old, I don't remember much about such things. I spent the next ten years living on the Canadian prairies, where there really isn't any such thing as a 'rainy season'. There are plenty of thunderstorms during the summer, and lots of snow in the winter, but I don't remember ever having an umbrella ...

When our family next moved to the west coast of Canada, to Vancouver, I became much more familiar with rain. Although the Vancouver winter is very mild indeed, with not much snow at all, it can be very wet. Nobody can live there without using an umbrella! The grey days pass by endlessly, one after the other ...

Here in Japan the entire national mood seems to change when the weatherman tells us that the rainy season has officially started. Mold grows on the walls, our bedding becomes stale and stuffy because there are so few chances to air it out, and sometimes it even seems to be raining indoors! But after some weeks have passed, just when you think you can't stand any more, the weatherman then brings the news that "The rainy season ended yesterday ...."

Of course, that doesn't mean it stops raining, only that the rainy season has ended. We still have to keep an umbrella close at hand, and will need to do so right up until the blue autumn skies appear. But children in England know an easy way to make it stop ...

"Rain, rain, go away ... Come again some other day ..."

(May 1995)

Posted by Dave Bull at 01:32 PM | Comments (0)

Back in the days when I was a 'salaryman' in Canada, I had mixed feelings about the kind of working life I was leading. I basically enjoyed the work I was doing, felt myself to be fairly productive and an asset to the company, and in general, had little to complain about.

But being human (or just being me?), I of course did complain. Not so much out loud, because I'm not a 'whining' type, but mostly in my own head. I didn't complain about the salary, or the days off, or the working environment, or any other 'details' such as these, as I am a basically fatalistic type, and tend to go along with whatever environment I find myself in. And in any case, as my employer treated me very well, these things were not suitable source material for complaints. The two things that were bothering me however, were things that were beyond his control, and indeed were perhaps not causing much concern to any of my fellow workers.

The first of these was the repetitive nature of our business, stemming from our position as a supplier of products to schools. Our work thus followed the school calendar, and the patterns repeated almost exactly, year after year. I'm not sure now just why this repetition bothered me; I suppose it was the "here such-and-such comes again ..." feelings that were always present. The first few years in the job had been years of discovery and challenge, but after a decade had gone by, it felt like being back in school again, not being a working adult ... "Here comes September again ..." Ughhhh!

By itself, this would not have been enough to drive me away from that life, but there was a bigger 'complaint' that grew in my mind, year by year. "Why do I have to go to work like this?" I didn't mean, why did I have to work, as I accepted (and accept) that I had to make a constructive contribution to society, but that why work had to be so separated from 'normal' life. I had to be two people, the 'company employee David', who resided at that particular desk in that particular building from nine to five each day, and the 'private David', who resided at a different place, and engaged in completely different activities.

The switch back and forth was of course directed by the clock. Nine to five. Nine to five. Day after day. Year after year. I ranted on (to myself, mostly) about how, since the time of the Industrial Revolution, we had built a system of schools, factories and offices that, although based on sound principles of division of labour and organizing production, had grown into a huge monster that now devoured most of the daylight hours of most of our lives. Especially during that bus ride each morning on the way to work, did my thoughts turn in this direction.

I felt under no illusion that life before the Industrial Revolution had been any kind of Golden Age, and wouldn't dream of seeking to restore that kind of society, but felt that surely there must be a better way to organize our lives. With all our machines, robots, and computers, couldn't we somehow set up a society where I could be productive without having to behave like a robot, sitting on the same bus each day at the same time each day, going to the same desk ... month after month ... year after year ...?

Such thoughts gradually became a kind of obsession with me, and led to me eventually quitting the job and striking out on my own. I planned carefully, very carefully, for a long time ... planned how I would be able to live the type of life I envisaged by turning my hobby of woodblock printmaking into a way to make a living. Working and living together in one location. Operating on my own schedule, working when I felt like it, and leaving it alone when I didn't. I was quite sure that I had enough self-discipline to ensure that I would not fall into 'lazy' habits and end up being unable to support myself.

The plan was sound, and the dream did come true, although taking somewhat longer than I had anticipated. About six years after resigning from the job, I was finally well established as a craftsman - a woodblock printmaker - earning a steady income from my activities ... activities conducted in my own home, on my own schedule. Wearing no wristwatch, working in one room of our apartment, when and as the mood took me, I lived the very dream that I had imagined.

Heaven, right? Well, yes ... and no. It was truly a delight not having to commute to work each day, and not having to work on a nine to five schedule. These two differences transformed my life, and I will never, never become an employee again, under any circumstances. I have tasted freedom, and I can assure you that it is delicious indeed.

Why then, am I writing about these events now? Isn't all this fairly self-evident? Am I just trying to show off what I have accomplished? Well ... I did say yes and no just now. There has been a down side. I had forgotten about one thing - something I had read about in books, but had just felt was somebody's attempt at being 'clever'. I had forgotten the Peter Principle: "Work expands to fill the time available."

Instead of being in an office from nine to five, I was now in my 'office' from the moment I awoke in the morning, right until I fell asleep each evening. My 'time available' for work had hugely expanded. And yes, the work did indeed expand to fill it. To fill it completely. I worked mornings, I worked afternoons, I worked evenings, and I worked nights. Rather than bringing my work to my home, to do in a convenient location at convenient hours, the reverse had actually happened. I had 'moved' to my office, and now lived surrounded by work 24 hours a day. There was no more 'private David', only the 'working man David'.

Of course, this hadn't all happened overnight, but over this past winter I finally came to realize what had happened to me, and to understand why life sometimes seemed so tiresome, when it was nominally so 'perfect'. Once the light went on though, during a conversation with a friend a couple of months ago, it became immediately obvious what the solution to such a problem would be. Become a nine-to-fiver again.

No, not back on the bus, heading off to a company, but simply by reorganizing my daily schedule. I promised myself that I would 'down tools' every day no later than six in the afternoon (I don't usually start work until about ten each day, as I take a morning swim at a local pool). Down tools and not touch them again until the next morning. The evening hours were not to be used for printmaking work, under any circumstances.

Could I actually get all the work done in eight hours? Work that had been taking upwards of twelve hours a day? So far, so good. I'm wasting less time during the working day, and am finding that the 'expanded' work does seem to be compressible back to its original size. It's all a question of sensible utilization of the time available ... ten to six ...

And the evening hours? What am I now doing with them - the hours that had been 'lost' during these past few years? Well of course, there are no shortage of activities waiting to expand to fill this time: catching up on shelves of unread books, talking on the phone with a lady friend ... or working on my new hobby - a computer/synthesizer system for music composition. I've recaptured the 'private David' part of my life again ... none too soon.

... But I wonder now, do you think there is any way that I could organize my life to somehow make a living out of my music hobby ...?

Have you ever met such an idiot?!

(May 1995)

Posted by Dave Bull at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)

Have I written before about my two daughters and clothes? I remember writing about my own stupid behaviour when it comes to clothes shopping, but I don't recall talking much about the girls ...

Getting suitable clothing for Himi and Fumi has never been much of a problem. We made many friends soon after coming to this country, and as a lot of them had girls somewhat older than ours, we frequently received bags of 'hand-me-down' clothing. I had been somewhat surprised to find such a system operating here in Japan, as I had previously been led to believe that "Japanese people usually hate to use second-hand things. They would much rather buy new ones ..." But social patterns have obviously been changing, much to our relief. In our early days in Japan, money was very tight, and these bags of clothes were a godsend!

The clothing was always in good condition, and as Himi and Fumi were too young to be embarrassed at wearing such hand-me-downs, the greater part of their 'wardrobe' was made up of such clothing. Of course, our family contributed to the system as well, passing on clothing that we had used for a while, and adding things that we had purchased or made.

This was all very well as long as the kids were very young, but once they started school, the picture changed. From that time on, the people who we were most familiar with were families with kids just the same age as our own ... classmates. As the children were the same age and generally the same size, there was no meaning in passing clothing around from family to family.

Over and above this practical reason though, there was of course another reason for the decline in our use of hand-me-downs. As my daughters got older, they started to be aware of the fact that this clothing was 'used', and they became less willing to wear it. Although I didn't think their idea was very sensible, I was not so stupid as to try and force them to wear these clothes. I bowed to the inevitable and started to buy more clothes for them.

But could there be any situation more fraught with the potential for trouble than ours ... a three-person family - a father and two teenage daughters? We get along together pretty well day-by-day, and I want to keep it that way. But can peace and harmony long survive such conversations as this one?

"Dad, can I have some money? I need a new 'such-and-such'." "But you have a closet full of 'such-and-suches'." "Oh, they are all too old/the wrong colour/the wrong style/no good ..."

I'm sure you know the kind of conversation I mean. The word 'need' can have quite different interpretations, depending on who you are ... Now I'm not such an 'old fogey' as to try and apply my interpretation of that word all the time. To do that would invite constant hostility and bitterness. But neither am I willing to always accept theirs ... To do that would lead to grossly spoiled children, not to mention personal bankrupcy! There is obviously a line somewhere in the middle ... but where?

It seems to me that a big part of this problem arises from the inconsistency in the way in which family income is received and distributed. My contribution to family affairs (one of my contributions) is the production of income, which as a result all 'falls' into my hands. Unfortunately for the girls, none of their contributions to family life (going to school, doing homework, helping a bit with the housework, just generally growing up ... etc.) produce any income. This leaves me in the somewhat uncomfortable position of holding all the 'power' in the household. Now although I willingly accept that by virtue of my age and position as 'head' of the household, I must carry the most responsibility, I have no desire at all to 'control' the other members, or hold 'power' over them. But because I have all the money, and they have none, that's what tends to happen. "Dad, can I have a new such-and-such?" "Yes you can ... No you can't ..."

It strikes me now, as I sit here trying to find words to express my feelings on this, that family life is actually perhaps best handled in a kind of 'communistic' fashion. What's their creed? "From each according to his ability. To each according to his need." May the gods strike me down for repeating such a revolting idea ... revolting when applied to society at large. But try applying this to a family ... Doesn't it perhaps make sense?

I make woodblock prints and write essays ... and get money in return. the girls do those things I listed above, and in return get food, clothing, shelter, etc. "From each according to his ability. To each according to his need." But there's that word 'need' again. Who is to decide what it means? Himi and Fumi ... or me?

I've been getting more and more concerned about this, and have been casting around for a solution to the seemingly irreconcilable differences in our definitions of 'need'. But this spring I found a solution (at least I think I've found one!). With the turn of the school year at the end of March, I sat them down, and without telling them what I had in mind, asked them to estimate how much money they would need for clothing for the coming year. Spring ... summer ... fall ... winter ... I asked them to look through their closet, check what they had, and then produce an itemized list of the clothing and accessories they thought they would 'need' over the coming twelve months.

A few days later they presented me with their lists. Blouses, socks, dresses, jeans, etc. etc., all neatly divided up by seasons, and taking into account their current 'stock' of clothing, and the probable change in their height over the year. The lists were a bit longer than I had expected, but in actual fact, were not unreasonable. We negotiated back and forth a bit, and I then presented them each with an envelope containing 50,000 yen, which I thought should do the job for the coming year, erring on the generous side, I thought. I attached a few conditions:

• Store this money separately from your other pocket money.
• Don't go shopping without planning first exactly what you are going to buy.
• Keep the receipts, so we can look back at the end of the twelve months and see what had happened to all the money.
• Any money left over after the year is yours to keep and do with whatever you wish.
• If this money runs out, no more will be forthcoming. No more.
• Whether or not this experiment will be repeated in future years will depend on how well you organize your purchases during this trial year.

Other than that, I left them completely alone. They now decide what to buy, when to buy it, and where to buy it. I have nothing to do with such decisions at all. I was a little afraid that they would go berserk with all that money, and blow it away in the first few weeks, but was pleased to see that they have behaved extremely rationally (so far!). It was weeks before they did their first shopping, and even then, they only spent a very small amount.

At this point, it looks like the experiment might well be a success. I certainly hope so, as it seems to me to be pretty good 'self-reliance' training. They are learning how to plan purchases over a long time scale, how to look for good bargains (they want to have as much money left over as possible ...), and best of all, just how to define that slippery word 'need'.

Will it really work out like that? I'll let you know next spring!

(May 1995)

* * *

Postscript (added a few years later)

So how did it work out? Very well indeed - the year passed by smoothly, and they did a wonderful job of planning their purchases and organizing their clothes closets. And yes, they did have some money left over at the end of the year.

One thing that did surprise me was their decision to carefully husband some of the money and purchase a fairly expensive outfit (they each did this). I had been somewhat apprehensive that with their general inexperience in clothes buying, they would go for the cheapest stuff they could find, to make their money stretch as far as possible. They didn't do this - I guess they weren't quite as naive as I had thought, and didn't fall into that trap. Those two outfits - the ones they took a great deal of time selecting, lasted for years, and were eventually passed on to friends only once they were no longer wearable because they were too small. This part of the 'lesson' was just as important as the financial planning, I think.

So did we repeat the process in the following year? I'm sorry to have to say that we weren't able to - that next spring our family went through another convulsion, with the decision to have the two of them leave Japan and move over to Canada to stay with their mother.

That's a long (and how!) story, and should be told properly in another place, but here it will have to suffice to mention that their mother sees the upbringing of children in quite a different way than I do, and it was not possible to continue the 'experiment' ... I was (and am) greatly saddened by that, because the next step was going to involve not just managing their clothes budget for the year, but in sensibly controlling their money supply with credit cards, etc. Far better to learn how to do that while still young enough to have a smooth relationship with their father, than defer it until they were out on their own in their early twenties ... ripe prey for finance companies, etc.

But anyway, the experiment did indeed work very well, and I would readily suggest you consider trying such a thing if you have children of an appropriate age and temperament!

Posted by Dave Bull at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)

I bumped into Isomoto-san in the supermarket yesterday. Her family lives upstairs in our 'mansion', and like us, they are one of the few 'originals' still living here nine years after moving into this then brand new building. We were both carrying shopping baskets, standing somewhat aimlessly in the middle of the produce section, and consulting similar ragged slips of paper ... notes on possible menus for the evening dinner. I frequently bump into local housewives in such a fashion, and the comments they make to me are invariably of the same sort, just as hers was this time ... "Buru-san wa erai desune ...!" They think I am pretty 'special', because I go shopping ... because I make dinner every day ... do all the laundry ... keep my house clean ... etc. etc. When I laugh and reply with words to the effect that they must be 'special' too, because they are doing exactly the same things for their own families, their answer is of course very predictable ... "But you're a man!"

Thinking and writing about this kind of topic poses an interesting question. I am just a man going through a simple daily routine taking care of his family (I was divorced a couple of years ago, and live with my two elementary school age daughters), and to my mind, there is nothing particularly 'good' or 'bad' about these housework chores, but to many of the people around me, my activities carry quite a large 'meaning'. And this 'meaning' differs hugely from person to person. I am thinking in particular of four particular groups of people, each of whom seem to have a fairly predictable viewpoint on my situation: the local Japanese housewives, the local Japanese husbands, western women, and western men. Which of the four quite disparate opinions is 'right'?

The local women, especially the older ones (those about my own age, that is!), watch me go about my work somewhat wistfully. "If only my husband would ...", is of course their main thought. They grew up in an era in which men worked exclusively outside the home, and women in the home, and although such patterns are now slowly changing, very few of them have any experience of seeing their husbands do more than the odd token gesture of housework. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I have bumped into a male acquaintance shopping in the supermarket. These women can only dream about having someone help them with work around the house.

Wistful is not the word that adequately describes how the local husbands see my behaviour. Just a short while ago, I was chatting with one of them, a man with whom I have become fairly friendly during these nine years in this apartment, and his comments ran to the, "Jeeez ... You sure are making life difficult for me recently ..." sort of thing. I guess the wives have been holding me up as a kind of example. "That guy downstairs does all the housework in his place. You could at least take out the garbage once in a while!", etc. etc. But these men honestly don't feel that sharing the housework is their responsibility. They mostly work long (hard?) hours at their company jobs, and when they get home, they certainly don't want to get involved in more work. This was the 'deal' they made when they got married - a pretty much complete division of labour. In their eyes, I am thus a bit of a 'troublemaker', blurring those previously clear roles, and stirring up problems.

I don't have much contact with western women recently, so perhaps I'm going out on a limb a bit here, but it seems to me that this group's attitude to this is also quite predictable. "So he goes shopping and does the cooking ... so what. What's the big deal? Some people feel he is virtuous because of that? Get real!" It's been a decade since I've been in a supermarket in Canada, but I'm sure that in any checkout line now, the numbers of men and women are probably not very far off fifty-fifty ... And I guess the word 'househusband' now appears in most dictionaries. My activities would not raise any eyebrows in Canada, and indeed, would not even be worthy of comment.

It is the thoughts of that fourth group, the western men, of whom I suppose I am one, that are perhaps the least 'visible' to me. I say 'I suppose I am one' because although of course I am clearly both 'western' and a 'man', the fact that I have lived buried quite deeply in this Japanese society for so many years now has certainly tended to affect my ways of thinking. I guess my basic view on this is that there is nothing particularly special about my housekeeping activities ... each member of a family should contribute to such chores to the extent that other factors (jobs, school obligations, etc.) allow. My 'real' work, woodblock printmaking, is done here at home, and doesn't demand all my time, so naturally I do housework as well. I don't have to particularly like it, simply that's just the way things are.

But interestingly enough, when I dig down a bit deeper inside, I find that my thoughts are more complicated than that, because actually, I seem to share the viewpoints of the other three groups as well ... all of them! Those Japanese women think I am 'special' ... Well ... I do too! It would be a lie to deny that. Not only do I provide a living for my family, but I do all the housework too. Is it so bad to feel pride at successfully handling both these jobs? When people like Isomoto-san make their supermarket comments, I politely 'brush them off' and outwardly deny the praise, but I would be less than human (less than male?) if such comments didn't make me feel good about what I was doing.

But do I also share the view of those Japanese men? Yes, absolutely. The situation they find themselves in is much like that of someone who starts playing a particular game, and then finds out that the rules have been changed while play is under way. The social contract that was in force during the time these men were growing up and getting married was, I believe, not such a badly written contract. Despite the image widely held in the west that Japanese women have been heavily oppressed and dominated by men, the reality of the situation has been (and is) quite different. Very few women indeed (I speak again of my own age group ...) had any interest in entering that male world, and found a very high level of fulfillment in taking care of their family responsibilities. This social contract is now under attack from many causes, most noticeably the general economic changes that are sweeping the world (and also the radically altered attitudes of the younger Japanese women), and this has left many of those men somewhat embittered. The more sensible and realistic among them will simply accept that their behaviour will have to change to some extent, but after growing up in one world they obviously find it difficult to live comfortably in a new one ...

And the third group, the western women ... Do I also share their views on these matters? Well, I guess enough of them are doing exactly the same thing as me - working all day and doing all the housework, that I can feel a fair amount of empathy with their position. Really of course, there is nothing special about my activities at all. But I do wish that some of them weren't quite so bitter about things ... "So ... welcome to the club!" was a comment from one woman I was speaking to a couple of months ago ... The quite pronounced feelings of bitterness and cynicism that surround many of these women leave me generally feeling quite uncomfortable in their presence, and I can't help feeling that they are in a way a kind of 'lost generation', people who have succeeded in overthrowing the old way of doing things, but who have yet to establish a satisfactory replacement.

I am sure that I can guess one of the questions that has come into your mind as you have read these words: "So what's this all about? Any of us do the cooking and cleaning when there's nobody else around to do it! Just how much housework did this guy do back when he was married?" Well, I didn't do much. My ex-wife and I had a division of labour sort of arrangement (unspoken), much like those I mentioned earlier. In the years we lived here in Japan before she left to return to Canada, I taught English classes, re-wrote translations, and made woodblock prints and wooden toys, while she did the first level of work on those translations, and also took care of the housework. We both took care of the kids, pretty much equally. I can't say whether one or another of us had a 'tougher' job. We both worked all day long. I don't recall that she ever complained because I wasn't sharing the housework, nor did I ever feel that I was doing the lion's share of the work. Things seemed to be in balance.

But now, after having this experience as a househusband, and demonstrating that I am perfectly capable of both providing a living for my family, and doing all the chores as well, what would happen if I was to find myself living with someone again? Would I slip back into my previous pattern, and never go near the stove again, or would she (perhaps having read this essay!) sit back and expect me to do everything! Of course, I don't expect that either of those scenarios would come about. The actual level of cooperation between us would depend I think, mostly on her desires. If she was heavily involved with 'outside' work, then I would do as much of the housework as was necessary, all of it if need be. If she felt less inclined to work at other things, but was more of a homemaker type, then I would find no problem in relinquishing the home chores. There is in my mind a huge list of things that I would like to do, and I would certainly not slide into 'couch potato' habits.

I guess that all in all, these years of being a 'solo' housekeeper, however long they may turn out to last (now four years and counting ...), will have been a valuable experience, whatever the future may hold. It can't be good for anyone to go through life being fed and cared for entirely by other people, and I had certainly been well down that road ... But now I see that it's time to put away this word processor, and head over to the supermarket ... Kitchen duty calls ... But maybe if I'm lucky again today, I'll bump into one of my neighbours. "Buru-san wa erai desune ...!" Music to my ears!

(May 1995)

Posted by Dave Bull at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)