MORE NOTES COMING HOME

On the way back from the doctor's, where we turn onto the road at the top of the hill, there's a bunch of banana trees. I'd asked Kinya if he wanted any banana, but he grinned and shook his head. I noticed the only one on the red-purple banana flower who was interested was a bee!

Along that river were a kawasemi (Japanese kingfisher), sandpiper, beetle, butterfly...but I knew most living things would disappear from Okinawa's heat and humidity until the fall. I took pictures of as much as I could--even if I wasn't getting good shots--just knowing I wouldn't be seeing my friends for very much longer this year.

I saw a family of turtles, remembering how, in mainland Japan, I wanted to spend as much time with them as possible before hibernation because I wouldn't see them during the winter months; would it be backwards now, did it never get that cold in Okinawa that they had to hibernate?

I mean, it never snows; the ponds never freeze over; and some people don't even own overcoats. I remember growing up as a little girl in Okinawa there used to be shops that rented overcoats--honest! I'd forgotten what the climates here were like and have to remember again.  

One thing I remembered fast I told Kinya about were the Okinawan outdoors afternoons, and how you had to keep moving if you sweat a lot, or the mosquitos ate you up.

TO THE CLINIC

Cold weather had been forecasted, so I was going to put off my doctor’s visit for another day, but I opened the door Fri. afternoon and saw how nice it was out. Kinya and I found ourselves donning windbreakers and taking off for the clinic.

Apparently, we weren't the only ones who'd decided to go out today. I stopped in my tracks and got a picture, when I saw, down in the river we were crossing, a...Cormorant! I'd NEVER seen one there in the almost 10 years I've come here to visit!

The Common Coot nearby, I've seen before so didn't get excited about. This is the bumpy-toed bird that doesn't know it's not supposed to be able to swim well because it doesn't have webbing. His red-masked cousin, the Morehouse Hen, is the other non-webbed duck I've seen in this Tengan River. I told Kinya about the swimming birds. 

"Look! There goes the Kawasemi!" He motioned to a shiny blue dot flying across the water. I saw it as it was flying but lost it when it stopped. 

"Where?" I asked.

"There, in that brown area!"

I pointed my camera in that direction and pushed the shutter blindly. Later, when I checked the closeup, look: it was there!

I think Kinya and I work together well, don't you?

He goes to the clinic with me, spots the flying sapphire for me, and I get a nice picture. Okay; so he does all the work, and I get the happy results just by instantly turning the camera in the direction he said.

Isn't that the way it is with Grace?

THINGS TO TALK ABOUT

Now that I'm in Okinawa, I can talk about what I saw. The Iwatsuki Park is 1000 miles away.

I didn't tell everybody when I saw the Kawasemi mostly because I didn't want cameramen to come running to take its picture and scare the bird away.

But snakes, I dared not tell anybody, because I knew as soon as I did, people would just hunt them down to kill them.

So, when the beautiful albino snake DIAN showed up at the Irrigation Ditch; or I got to be good friends with LEGOLAS on the hill behind Quasi Pond, I said nothing.

Even when the large Ao DAIsho let me sketch her on the front park; I tried not to utter sound of it for a while, at least until she'd had time to slink away or be hidden in her shrub, where she'd be safe.

I mean, she was nonvenomous and completely harmless, but huge so could be kinda unnerving.

I just remembered something else I needed to talk about.

In my book about Mommy and Daddy, Parts I-III had Japanese subtitles which were excerpts from a sign on Daddy's headboard (roughly translated: "Living in the Lord's Memory").

When Jesus walked the earth, His memory was of a time He was perfectly one with the Father in heaven, and He died for us so that we could live like this someday. How thrilling it is to think we are privileged to have fond Father-child thoughts with the King of Heaven!

Yes, He could've created us to be clouds, rocks, or even snakes (this is Legolas)--but He chose to have us born as human beings that we could have relationship with Him. Are we fortunate, or what?

We really need to be nice to these less fortunate slithering critters, don't you think?

LAST FEW HOURS

This was part of an e-mail to my sister yesterday:

The gas man was supposed to come turn off our gas at 5, and we were supposed to go to Omiya at 6:30, but it was 5:30 and he wasn't here. I asked Kinya if he wasn't coming after all, and he said he'd said he'd be late. I'd hoped we could be early and maybe stop by and say hello to my friends at the park. I could go now, he said, just be back by 6:30. I'd been hoping he'd say that and had been wiping myself down with a Gatsby sheet, making it cool, rushed off to the park--God kept it amazingly cool today!

There, I said out loud--and I didn't really care if people around me thought I was looney for talking to the animals because I was going to be moving anyway--I was moving, going to Omiya tonight so had to say goodbye, would not be coming to the park anymore.

And Jannie, call me crazy, but I think the animals responded and came out! I'm attaching photos of Snorkel the turtle, Speckles the carp,

Alabaster the egret, and Peter the Kawasemi, but there were much more. The crow, GBH, various dragonflies, spider, sparrows and pond skimmers were out, and probably the mosquitos, altho' I never see them. But I had to hurry because I had to go back home by 6:30. And altho' I usually don't take photographs of the Kawasemi--and he knows that--this past month, I've asked if I could take pictures to remember him by, and he seems to pose for me. He did so today too.

--

When I got home, Kinya brought me out here to Omiya. First, we ate at a Mcdonalds, then we checked in at a really. nice hotel he'd found for me--one of those that has security elevators you have to put the card key up on a panel to operate, and you put the key in the pocket in the wall at the door to turn on the room lights.

But the first thing I did when I got to the room was find out if they had Wi-Fi then get MCC prayer meeting. Of course I was late--they started 7:30, and it was already 8:30--but they were still going strong, so I got to ask the Japanese group for prayer as we went down to Okinawa, then switch to the English-speaking breakout group. Did I tell you the head deacon of that church is the grandchild of the chairman of the mission committee that was part of Daddy's ordaining committee, also prayed for his ordination service? We were done with everything by 10:00.

I took a nice hot shower in the hotel's nice little bathroom...ahhh. But then I didn't think you'd be that interested in seeing a photo of just the bed, so I took a picture of the hotel's complimentary bottle of water, which I use to take my medicine. And in packing, our house wall clocks got taken down, and I learned to keep looking at the cellphone for the time, so Goya-Boy, the mascot you gave me, takes his responsibility seriously to remind me to take my medicine every time the cell alarm rings!

Tomorrow morning, Kinya and Keima are supposed to come around 10 AM and call my cell. I need to check out by 11 (they cannot come up on the elevator, since I have the key!) I will go down, and we will bum around the stores and probably eat at Mac again, take our limousine bus at 1 for Haneda. Our flight doesn't leave until the P.M., and people are worried typhoon might make the flight cancel. We shall see. Either which way, I need to have my quiet time and get some shut eye and be all purtiful by tomorrow's tyfoon, yes?

STILL IN IWATSUKI

The hatchling with the red shell had been photographed earlier in the month, wanting to be sure to get on the blog before June and her family went down to Okinawa, but it was already the last day!

"That's okay sweetie. I'll put you up here, okay?" It blinked for me a few times. Onto the post then...

   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

"What do: a Journal, Lab Results, & a Key have in common?"

Well, when I got to the U.S. and began writing in my journal, I realized I had only a few pages left and would run out way before I got back home. You want me to go the tail end of the trip without journaling, that's fine with me, I prayed.. But a few days later, my sister Joyce, completely unaware of the situation, asked if I could use a spiral notebook journal with elastic placeholder and pen.  Could I? Wasn't this God's smiling provision?

Joyce was with me when the U.S. endocrinologist said he'd send written support of use of medication--I wanted this so badly--after seeing the Japanese clinic's test results for my thyroid. Yet, a few weeks later, when Japanese clinicians refused to release test results, I wondered if I needed to trust God more, not try to ensure my own safety, and put it all back in His Hands. Imagine my surprise this past doctor's visit when results of thyroid bloodwork the past 13 years had been printed out to be given me--another wink from God?

That afternoon, we had a visit from our landlord. When I got back from my U.S. trip, and decided to move, we tried repeatedly to contact the landlord but couldn't reach him. In the end, we thought we would pay the final bills, turn everything off, and mail him the keys. But he contacted us several days ago and came so we could have a nice talk. He'd been gone a while and will be on another trip the day we leave, but we were able to see him today. It felt like God was smiling again, giving us much better closure than what we had foreseen.

A notebook, test results, a landlord? All things that had been out of my hands...then God handed back to me--what an Amazing Father!

TAKAKO ICHISHIMA

Remember the June 1 post, I'd mentioned the person I'd bumped into here at the park first photographing the Kawasemi and how after meeting her several times I'd managed to talk about the Lord then found out she was a staunch Buddhist? Most Japanese are demure, polite, will not offend you no matter what. But Takako was born into a Soka Gakkai, clearly anti-Christian militant Buddhist family.

Despite the fact our world views are diametrically opposed, Takako and I have developed an unusual friendship. Would you pray? I thought: 1. Our differences in belief, when they became apparent, would end everything, and she would disappear from my life, but she did not. She not only kept coming back; she actually brought me some crops from her father-in-law's nearby farm.

2. When I went to the U.S. and Canada, I thought she would more or less forget about me and go about her life. After all, we had met only about two months before that. She had been a Buddhist for years before she knew about me! But when I came back and called, she had not only not forgotten....  Despite high temperatures preventing visits to the park, Takako has phoned me, and we have had good, long talks).

In them, she wanted to talk about reincarnation, about the necessity of finding eternal truth when we die because we can never be sure of things in this life, and that's a reality we must face, she said. I had to stop her there, saying, reality, to me, wasn't religion or truth in the afterlife, but things like how to get along with your husband, how to enjoy your food, how to get through a hot day or pack for a move. Maybe this is a simple way of thinking, I told her, but I'm satisfied with, need a God that loves me now and meets today's needs.

Takako gave me her mailing address to send her the drawing of the golden-ringed emperor (dragonfly) that stopped on her visor. Along with it, I plan to send her several other pictures from that sketchbook (she would recognize the places at the park.) Please pray one day she would recognize, in life, a Heavenly Father Who has loved her all along.

--------------------------------------------------

(No, I didn't have time to sketch. I found an old outline I'd started and fiddled with lighting, color tint, saturation and contrast, etc..., to get you the above blue drawing; since I did meet Takako when she was photographing the Kawasemi pictured above. The other drawings are old and have been in previous posts. They are ones I will be giving Takako--oh; she works on the farm so is not afraid of snakes, actually helped me find one.)

PETER AND THE RIPPLES

I need to pick up medicine before heading to the U.S. for my month's trip, and it'll be a cool day today, so I decided to go to the clinic and put up another post about an evening Kinya came with me to the park. I didn't want to be by myself when it got dark (I told you about the atheist who advised I bring my husband with me then in "Some things don't Merit Discussion", Nov.11, 2023).

An unusual number of turtles and carp surfaced that day, and Peter the Kawasemi usually makes his round in the p.m. at 3:30, but altho' it was well past 6, he came too! He surprised me by coming right up to the boulder at the landing on Lower Bridge.

I didn't dare spend time making a good sketch since I'd make Kinya wait the whole time so made a quick initial drawing. Here's what it ended up like: Peter and the ripples created by the four turtles and many carp who came to Lower Bridge! Okay, so I cheated.

ANOTHER CHANCE？

"You're lucky," I remember years ago crouching down and telling the Kawasemi bird in the brush at the edge of the pond; "my camera's run out of battery today, so you're getting off scott free. Otherwise, I would've gotten a picture of you here for sure."

But the next day, when I went to the park, I heard a whistle, and when I turned, the bird posed for me on a branch, his form fully exposed, as if to say, "There. Get your shot. Now we're even." And after I'd clicked my shutter, he flew away.

Yesterday when I went to the park, I bumped into the Buddhist friend I mentioned last week. God brought a myriad of critters before our eyes this time--dragonflies from one end of the spectrum to the other; tiny hatchlings to giant turtles; catfish sporting long whiskers--Takako ended up using up her battery photographing them.

Then the Kawasemi appeared--was it a child of the one I knew years ago? Takako got a good look at it and wanted to take a photo, but she was "out of juice."

"Your father gave ME another chance when that happened to me years ago;" I spoke into the air; "Will you do that for my friend?" I wonder if he will. I make a trip down to Tokyo today but might see Takako at the park again Friday. I wonder what she'll tell me.

I DREW CARP TODAY

This looks like a picture of the electric blue Kawasemi bird, doesn't it? Well, see that red lily pad he's looking at? It caught my eye too. It wasn't jiggling of its own accord. There were two carp playing with it. I guess it was their shiny red toy sailboat, and THEY were the tugboats!

Yup. We may not be charismatic, smart or strong; but maybe we can be used of God to move others along to live for Him. Maybe we can be like tugboats.

ADDING A LITTLE FISHER BIRD

The Great Glue...I mean, Breat Blue...I mean, the Blue Heron, you know, the great big bird. Anyway, the big bird with the name that gets you all tongue-twisted (maybe that's why people just say "GBH"),...he was fishing at Deeper Pond, and I began sketching him, thinking,

"He's catching a lot of fish today; maybe drawing him in action plus sketching a hint of the pavilion on the bank will make it different from my other heron-pond drawings."

I heard a shrill whistle that sounded like, "Draw me, draw me!" It was Peter the Kawasemi.

One of the largest birds of the park, and one of the smallest birds; but both are fishers. what do you think?

SHOOTING the Birdie

Another look-for-old-park-drawings day. These are from 2021, a result, actually, from something I found myself writing in my journal this morning. I remembered longing for a better camera then. I'd been carrying a compact camera with me and admired the professional photographers at the park with their expensive equipment. They had tripods mounted with huge cameras with telescopic lenses.

I remember when all those shutters went off, they set off consecutive firing for movie-like photography, so the noise was like machine guns. I rather felt sorry for the little Kawasemi bird running away from all those "Kawasemi Hunters" (that's what some of the rest of us at the park called the photographers).

Well, they WERE shooting at it, weren't they?

I DREW HIM JUST A WHILE AGO

"You're going to Okinawa?" It was Peter. I told the Step Creek mallards I sketched the mallards on the other side of the park then told them I'd be leaving for my sister's soon. He caught my attention on the branch nearby.

"Then you won't be able to draw me for awhile, right? So can't you draw me again right now?"

So I did. I wonder how many of us feel the same longing for things of God, that we just can't get enough, and even the most recent encounters seem too far in the past.

A SPECIAL LITTLE TREAT

In the past, whenever the Kawasemi's come, I make it a point to sketch its basic outline real fast, because I know it never stays very long.

This afternoon, tho', I saw the unmistakable blue bird on the branch and began sketching quickly, looking up from time to time to see if it was still there...but it stayed...and stayed...and stayed. For the first time since my coming to the park, I left to go home before Peter did! I guess you could say it was a visual surprise, and I went home in a pretty good mood. Thank You so much, Father.

A WHILE

"Hey Junie, you need a picture? It's been a while." Peter seemed to ask as he came to Step Creek. I hadn't posted a nature sketch in almost a week--to him, too long.

"Okay then; if you'll hold still long enough, I'll draw YOU," I said, reaching for my things as I did. After I finished the drawing, I checked, and he was right: the last time the park made an appearance in my blog, it was Sunday, almost a week ago! It had felt like just yesterday...

How long, I wonder, do I let it go before tending to time with my Father?

SATISFIED？

When I got to Deeper Pond, Peter the Kawasemi had been diving into the water after fish, waiting for me. I think he just wanted to know if his picture was finished.

"Sorry it took so long Peter, but here it is," I said, showing him the drawing. I hope he wasn't too disappointed. In it, he's drawn smaller than in the last few sketches I've made of him, because I drew more park featuring mallards too.

Hm; I wonder if my satisfaction in life has to do with how important I'm made to feel or if others are highlighted and I get less credit?

to be continued tomorrow

I had to go to the park while it was still warm. After all, when I went to the park last week, Peter the Kawasemi had come out to pose for me. I thought living things would be gone by December and had resigned myself to drawing the garden lamp.

But onto a branch near the lamp, a bright blue bird had come--Peter the Kawasemi! And a few minutes later, several mallards splashed down into the pond.

"Us living things--gone? Ha!" They must've been honking and singing as I hurriedly (and happily) scrawled away a rough outline to do a real drawing later. But it got dark much too fast, so there was time to do only a very general sketch...this.

Stopping by before Bedding Down for the Winter

The Kawasemi hadn't gone into hibernation yet and gleamed from his perch. God had kept it warm today so he could come and sing, "CONGRATULATIONS!"

I'd forgotten until I saw Peter. It took 3 years, but I finally finished memorizing the book of Hebrews in the morning. Katie Sisco, a retired missionary wife, just did Hebrews, so I decided to try. I've done shorter books before, but I don't think I would've dared such a long book until I heard someone else actually had.

Thank You Lord for encouragements like Katie before doing something, then for delightful surprises like Peter after it.

And we humans think we're so smart

I expected the Kawasemi--he is so pretty--to be gone for winter hibernation--the turtle too. Imagine my surprise when both showed up at Deeper Pond this afternoon. I wasn't surprised to see the greenhead mallards. I figured this might be my last chance this year to sketch the kawasemi & turtle so did. Here is the initial sketch.

Since I'd just finished looking through C.S. Lewis's narnia books, "King Peter" rang in my mind when I saw the Kawasemi Peter looking like he was surveying his kingdom, Deeper Pond.

Aren't you glad the Kawasemi didn't go around wishing he had a robe of purple like earthen kings instead of being a stupid blue rock? Maybe he'd tell us he wasn't smart enough to realize flying sapphires were supposed to want to be something else,

WHAT KIND OF "NOTICED" AM I?

"Junior came by himself this year, Maggie didn't come?" the park animals found it hard to believe. It seemed everyone knew about the female mallard, altho' it was the greenhead who had the bright enamel head.

It was Maggie who encouraged him through his juvenile days before he got like that, the spot-billed mallard M & M knew, who'd watched them grow up together at Step Creek.   Male ducklings look pitifully like females, until they're older.

And Speckles the carp had heard how Maggie had been the one who even on cold, wintry days cheered up the pond gang with walks on the ice; posed for sketches for a convalescing artist.

I saw Maggie call to those male greenheads and have them follow her across the pond, Peter the Kawasemi recalled. Most people notice only the bright green, not the dull brown--but Maggie was the one who got them there.

It was this year, when she didn't show up, I realized for the first time how noticed she had been.

HE LOOKS YUMMY!

"OK, OK, I'll sketch you guys next, I'd said lightly to the carp at Corner Cove, when they'd complained I'd sketched only the mallards." so I felt I had to draw them even if I don't feel I draw carp very well. They always turn out looking funny, I think. The image I have in my mind is so different from what I end up with. That's usually the case in my drawings, but moreso with carp than with other animals, it seems. And carp usually swim in the same place in the same poses, so it's hard to cover up bad drawings.

I began to sketch three carp at Lower Bridge when Peter the Kawasemi came and hovered right behind them. It would definitely make the picture more interesting, I thought, and added him to the back. But I wondered later if the picture looked like what my sister told me, that the carp just wanted him for dinner!