So much happens in a month, and when I go without posting I don’t even know where to start.

Today I went to Rikugien. It’s a garden with a beautiful pond in the center and paths all around it. There are 88 scenes from classical Japanese/Chinese poetry reproduced in miniature throughout the park. For example “The rock splitting the river,” where a small pond to the side of one path was fed by a small waterfall that flowed down and parted into two streams.

My phone battery died shortly after that last picture. I spent the rest of the time contemplatively, considering my perpetual desperate need to capture moments instead of just living them. Even the desire to live mindfully, fully in the present, is just another manifestation of that need. One day I hope to be comfortable in the knowledge that all existence, even each moment, is impermanent, and then live in the true freedom of that awareness. Or, to put it another way, in the words of my hero:

Recently I went to a drinking and eating establishment where you got to catch your own fish and eat it.