Days of Summer

The Sun rises now around 5 AM every day and I get up soon after to take a little run around the neighborhood. This happens every other day as I like to sleep later on the mornings in between. Slowly, but surely, I'm building back up my "running legs." I want to get into really good shape before our trip to the States this August.

Lilica's vocabulary, most especially her Japanese vocabulary, is growing by leaps and bounds these days, too. She's making many small sentences in Japanese, though only a few words in English are coming out of her lips. I think she knows more than she's speaking, it's just that she constantly hears and sees Japanese everywhere. I hope to get her to speak more English with me. It's important that she becomes fully bilingual.

My friends back in Seto sound like they're doing well, at least according to my Japanese father, Mr. Nagaoka. I miss them and hope that we'll be able to get down there for a good long visit sometime this year. Lilica's grown so much since we left there. It's been nearly a year ago since we moved away from the place I called home for five years. I want re-introduce Lilica to the beauty of the mountains, the orange trees and the seaside views that make up Melody Line's beautiful Sada Misaki peninsula.

In the mist of this nostalgic moment, I hear the whisper of the "Seto no hana yome" song in the back of my mind, as flashes of ocean waves lapping the shore and swinging circles of windmill blades trigger the memories of my late afternoon runs at sunset. It was a beautiful place and time to live and enjoy life anew as a newlywed and then as a new father. And now our Lilica is soon-to-be two years old. Wow, time sure seeps through the fingers like sand. The winds keep blowing through my mind, changing the thought patterns as I stare out the night window to see the newly planted rice field just below and hear the chorus of frogs sing their melody. Now, too, is a very good life.