Asakiyume mita

Yesterday morning I saw a construction across the asphalt path that runs through the common area in our neighborhood. It was a long stick, and leaning on the stick were smaller sticks and twigs, bits of lichen-covered bark, and moss. It looked as if ambitious small-scale beavers had decided the path was a flow of water and were attempting to dam it.

Later in the day I was passing by again, and three little kids, two boys and a girl, were happily at work on it. It was, they told me, a bug city, complete with bridges, roads, parks, districts--everything.




This morning Wakanomori and I found it expanded, so I took a video:



They were all so wholly engaged with the work, excited and happy, feeding off each other's ideas.

What White Horses, Nazca lines, pyramids, citadels, or hanging gardens did you get up to creating in childhood? Or now, for that matter?

many Tims
The other day I saw the two neighbor girls onto the bus as both parents had to leave the house very early. I went over at 7:15, and they were still in their bedroom playing an imaginary game together. They are nine and eleven years old (or maybe eight and eleven; not sure), and it was the most charming thing to hear them talking and dramatizing together so happily.

"There's many Tims; what do you expect?!" --that was the one line I wrote down from their game.

And they were so good about getting themselves organized and out the door on time. Their parents should be proud.

favorite word
The ninja girl tells me that one thing her students in Japan like to ask her is what her favorite Japanese word is. By this they don't actually mean just any old random-ass word; they're really meaning more like favorite concept, but they ask in terms of favorite word. She said she usually turns the question back to them and asks them what their favorites are, and it's interesting to hear what they say: they are concepts that are very approved of, admired, promoted, etc., like 一所懸命 (isshokenmei: all one's might/effort) or 思いやり (omoiyari: considerateness, attentiveness, thoughtfulness). You couldn't ask the question "what's your favorite word?" in English to get answers like this; you'd have to make it "What's your favorite virtue?" or something.

Tower of Babel
And that got me thinking how we can understand the story of the tower of Babel as a blessing that God gave people rather than a punishment. When everyone was working together on the tower of Babel--and incidentally, all speaking the same language--they were single minded. One language, one idea. But when the tower was broken and they all found themselves speaking different languages, suddenly they were multi-minded. Many languages, many ideas. Many ways of expressing how it is to be human. And, when we learn each other's languages in a world of many languages, we're expending effort to understand each other--not just "see through another's eyes" but "borrow another's tongue." If we all spoke the same language, we'd lack that diversity and that opportunity to make an effort to understand one another.