I subscribe a newsletter from 幻冬舎 (Gentosha Inc; Japanese publisher). I always look forward to their newsletter. Whenever I receive it, no matter how I am busy, I make time to read it.  

I love their newsletter because it starts from a short letter to readers from the representative. It is around 300 letters in Japanese, which is relatively short, but it is always fun to read.

It had been fun for me to imagine about the writer of the short letter. At the beginning, I had imagined the writer would be a middle-aged man, because most of the contents were about the current news and political issues. Then, gradually, the contents were changed to something lighter, such as a story in daily life. That made me imagine the writer might be a young girl in her 20s. However, in the recent newsletter, the writer mentioned that it is a man aged of 34.

Now I enjoy his short letter even more than before. It is fun to get to know him, although I never met him in person.

I hope my short articles are the same way to somebody whom I never met in person. I hope my short articles will make my reader’s day brighter.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

When I was in 20s and 30s (1990s and 2000s), I frequently took an airplane for both domestic and foreign trips. Those days the travel by an airplane was not hard for me at all.

There are many reasons for me to say that.

The biggest reason is the price. Since there were many flights that were competing in prices, it was easy for me to find the reasonable priced airline tickets. Besides, most airline companies allowed to reschedule or refund up to a certain date before departure. I used to buy an open ticket so that I could freely change my return date. Currently, most airplane tickets are non-refundable. An airplane ticket is not a cheap shopping. If you want to get refund, you need to pay extra to buy an insurance to cover that expense.

The second biggest reason is the airport security system. I never felt uncomfortable for the security check those days. Nowadays the security check got much stricter than before, which makes many people pissed off by just going through security check. It is not fun to be surrounded by many angry people in the airport.

And the last reason is about pets. Those days we didn’t sit with pets in cabin. Recently, some American airline companies allow pets to sit with the owner in cabin seat. I cannot imagine that, but it is true.

My daughter is allergic to pets’ hair. In worst cases, pets’ hair affects her throat and she has hard time to breath.

Today I talked with the airline company about my daughter’s pets’ hair allergy. The representative input a note in their system about that, but she says it does not guarantee that any pets won’t sit next to our seats. I guess it is up to our luck. I prayed the support from my family spirits.

It is a universal law that everything has been changing. I cannot do anything for the change. Maybe I am not the only one to feel that way. We like certain changes and dislike certain changes, but we cannot do anything for that. All we can do is to adjust ourselves for the change, or take an appropriate action for the change to protect us.    

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I was looking for an airplane ticket to go back to Japan. I had spent almost all day for two days. I am so exhausted.

Three days ago, one travel agency offered me a reasonable price. I was satisfied with the price. They could hold on the price for one day, and I was supposed to confirm and pay for the ticket on the following day, which was yesterday. However, yesterday, since I became sick from dental drilling and anesthetic, ended up throwing up and having a very bad headache, I could not confirm and pay.

So, today I called the travel agency again. But, today’s their price was by $1,200 higher than what they offered me two days ago. I didn’t get it. The flight plan was exactly same.

I prayed my family spirits for support.

Then I felt like I should call other travel agency and ask for their price. So, I followed the guidance.

Then, Aha, I knew it! The new travel agency offered me a reasonable price for the same flights details. It was by $50 higher than the first offer from the first travel agency, but I liked it and I took it. It is much better than paying $1,200 extra, anyway. 

From this experience, I learned one thing. I should buy an airplane ticket as soon as possible. I usually sleep on it when it comes to shopping an expensive item, but I should not do so for buying an airplane ticket.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

Today I went to the dental appointment. It was supposed to an easy fixing. However, when the doctor started drilling my teeth, he found out my cavity was deeper and worse than he thought. He ended up drilling a lot, almost everything of my teeth.

In America, dentists use more amount of anesthetic than in Japan, in my opinion. During such long drilling, I didn’t feel any pain in my teeth. But my body reacted to anesthetic. I got rushes all over my body.

After spending more than 4 hours for the treatment, I finally came back home. In the evening, I had a heavy headache and threw up everything I ate after the dental treatment.  

In recent years, I feel I am getting weaker in my health. Every time when I get sick, I receive the unconditional love and support from my family. I appreciate them. But really, I hope I will get stronger and healthier than now, so that I won’t make them worry about me.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

The other day I received an email from my Japanese mom saying she had a heart attack. She had a heart surgery and stayed two weeks in hospital. She told me this after she got recovered.

I thought about her and cried for days. I felt bad about myself that I was not there to support her. I did have certain types of dreams that implied my mother having some tough situation during these past three weeks.

Since I have many traumatic issues with my mom, I had hesitated to go see her right away.

I looked at my angel card decks blankly and attracted one card; Talking to Heaven Mediumship Cards by Doreen Virtue and James Van Praagh. Although this card is supposed to use to communicate with someone who already passed away, I felt like to use this card to communicate with my mom’s soul.

While I was shuffling the cards, one card fell off. I took a look of the card and busted to laugh. The card says “I am not dead”. I thought to myself, “all right, that is what my mom thinks right now.”

Then, I was guided to pull one card. It says “I am sorry; please forgive me.” I thought to myself “okay, I already have forgiven you long time ago.”

The third card was “We will be together again.” I thought this card came to me to encourage me to go see my mom while she is still alive.

With these messages from the cards, I decided to go see my mom in Japan.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I had always thought I am good at teaching. Since I was young, I dealt with teaching.

During my university and the graduate school days, I worked as a private school teacher and a tutor, teaching a variety of aged children from kindergarteners to high school seniors. I taught English and Math. I liked teaching math.

When my daughter had a hard time understanding math, I naturally started teaching her math. I thought it would be easy for me to teach her, but it was not. Whenever I teach her math, it ends up making her cry.

I mentioned it to my daughter’s school principle and other friends of mine. They all agreed with me. Teaching others and teaching your own child is totally different. It seems teaching others is much easier than teaching your own child. Perhaps, teaching your own child is difficult because you put too much expectation to your own child.

I didn’t know this until I actually experience it. It teaches me that there will be much more things that I would not know until I actually experience in the first hand.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

In today’s dream, I was carrying a car and crossing a shallow river where the water level was around my ankle. The people around me was supportive. They did not cheer me with loud voice; rather, they constantly sent me support and encouragement energetically. I knew it was not in the planet Earth. I was in the spirit world. The surrounding area was fantastic. Everything had a pastel shades and warm color, and each color was blending one another. It reminded me “和”. It is a Japanese term meaning “harmony”.

As always, I asked my family spirits the message from this dream before I woke up. They conveyed the message as “Don’t be afraid on your spiritual path. You have a great strength that you can deal with a big challenge.”

Later on that day, I chatted with my Japanese friend on Skype. During the conversation, she told me that I am stronger than I think. She mentioned that our guide sprits send the challenge that we can handle. Her statement gave me an “aha!” moment. She did a beautiful job to make me clearly understand the message of my dream.

So, my family spirits were trying to encourage me to take my courage and go for the upcoming challenge.  

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I watched the movie Lion. I love this movie because it has many quotes that resonated with my soul.

If you are planning to watch this movie, please read my article after you watch the movie. I might include some information that you don’t want to know before watching.

So, here it goes.

When the main character could not tell the truth that he was searching for his biological mother, his girlfriend told him that:

You underestimate her.

This line gave me goosebumps. I thought of my mother. Even though she is my mother, I don’t know much about her. We are not close and we don’t talk much. I was planning to send her a letter recently, but I still have the draft letter with me.

In the letter, I wrote down how I feel about my Japanese family. It took me hours to finish the letter. I wrote and read, deleted and added some parts, and then rephrased some words. I made my efforts not to hurt her but to focus on conveying my true feeling.

I spent my hours and days like that. But still, the letter has not been sent to her yet.

Perhaps, I might underestimate my mother. She might have deeper understanding than I think. Or I might overestimate her. Who knows? 

Unless I make an opportunity to talk to her in person, I won’t be able to know it. And, that is the hardest challenge for me at this moment.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

Yesterday I wrote in my short article that my energetic roots are finally well planted in the current living place. This was how I felt yesterday. But it seems my brain still holds a solid memory that I had lived my former life in Japan.

This morning, I noticed myself driving on the left lane even though I was supposed to drive on the right lane in America. Thank God, it was only for one second or so, and luckily I was the only one on the street, so that I didn’t cause any trouble.

As you know, everything happens for reasons. This small event happened to remind me that my energetic roots are not completely transferred to America. I am still Japanese. My appearance will stay as Japanese for the rest of my life. My way of thinking will stay as Japanese traditional way. I love being Japanese. I am satisfied of my decision being born as Japanese this lifetime. And that evidence will never change for the rest of my life.

So, I believe this small incident happened to remind me of my soul level decision. I will live in America for the rest of my life. During the course, I will adjust myself to American way somewhat. However, my deep roots will continue staying as being Japanese no matter what.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

Today we cerebrated Independent Day holiday. During the daytime, we watched the movie at the theater. And the evening, we went to the local park to watch the firework show. As our town is quite small, the audience was small too. The fireworks was held at the local park. Some people walked there while others came by car. There were no traffic jam or full of cars parked. Very quiet and calm. It is peaceful to watch people greet each other. That is how we enjoy the privilege living in small town. 

Maybe it is normal for the local people who grew up the place like here.

As for me, I grew up in a big city. In order to go see the firework show, I needed to take the public bus and train, then walked from the closest station. It took me more than one hour to get there.

The public transportation always got very crowded by the firework audience. Every year, after the firework show, I saw some sad news that people, especially kids, got hurt by being squished. This is what I don’t miss by living in my hometown in Japan. I don’t miss taking the public transportation with so many people.

While watching the firework show, I was thinking about such differences between my hometown in Japan and my current living place in America.

I see my energetic situation as in energy roots. During my first some years in America, I had missed my hometown in Japan. I often complained about everything and everybody in this current place where I live. My energetic roots were left in Japan. It created an unbalanced situation. My physical body existed in America, but my energetic roots were still in Japan. And that was why I had a hard time adjusting myself to this current land.

After eight years have passed, however, I have noticed myself energetically rooted to this land where I currently live. My energetic roots were finally transferred to this current living place and it makes me easy to live here. I started seeing differently than before. I started fully loving everything in this land; both everything and everybody.   

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪