Note of the day

Red and White

White one in the left hand, and red one in the right hand.
I always see two trees of plum blossoms coloured red and white on the way to my office.
The composition of two trees reminds me of the drawings on the folding screens by Korin Ogata in the 18th century.
Although he draw two trees blossoming together, the white plums viewed in the real world have fallen a bit earlier than the red one due to the difference of their seasonality.
Korin put a wide and dark river in between these blossoming plum trees.
Instead of the river, I can see the Osaka bay sparkling with a morning light.

Rain Sharing

I was talking with a student. He was planning to begin the “Umbrella Sharing” project in campus. It goes like this.

1. Collect unwanted, or wasted, or forgotten umbrellas.
2. Put stickers on these umbrella indicating that anybody can rent it.
3. Put these umbrellas on some corners in campus.

Just like “car sharing”, this plan would help reducing resource use. He was in a hurry, since rainy season had already started, and it will end within a month.
To share something with someone is nice. It is cheap. It reduces waste. It facilitates communication.
Even if without the project, we can walk under a same umbrella. Even if both of us do not have an umbrella, we can share the rain.

Walk, Don’t Run

Walking is not just a physical exercise moving one’s legs one after the other. It is an activity that bring your body to somewhere you have never been to without any help from fossil fuel.

Bush Warbler and Hawaiian

A cafe is located at a few minutes walk from the station nearest of my office. My friend calls it “A Wood Shop”, although it does not sell wood. Inside the cafe, there is a big tree that has grown through the roof. We naturally imagine that they grew the tree until it broke the ceiling; however, in fact, the owner built the cafe around the tree n order to avoid cutting it down. They always play good Hawaiian music, but they hardly have any customers, since the food is not that nice.
Once, I was enjoying a cup of coffee there. As always, the Hawaiian music was played - tender acoustic guitar, birds singing, and sweet chorus were going on. It was like a sound of sunny spot in spring. After a while, although the tune ended, and the music stopped, I could still heard the birds singing. Finally, I realized that the chirping was coming from the birds dwelling on the tree above the roof.