Since we took up residence in Tokyo.
Almost everything is completely different than before, when we were American people living in Skokie, Illinois.
And then again we are somehow almost completely the same, except that we are older and bigger and rearranged.
Misaki turned four, three days after we arrived. Since then, according to the handy chart in the back of the little book her teacher writes notes in, she has grown 1.5 cm. I don't know how many inches that is and I don't want to figure it out.
I just want to hold these pictures, the top made by Misaki and the bottom by Izumi (she's seven now, one blink later) here.
The next ones they draw won't be just like these.
But I have to clean up the 699 square foot apartment and wonder if I will ever deserve again to live somewhere more spacious. Which means throwing these in the garbage.
Thankful, deeply so, that I can "keep" these here, and with them, this moment on the first day of summer break 2013.
The moment is this: Koji is at his first day of school swimming lessons and "summer school" (in quotes because it's less than two hours long and the first of a grand total of two sessions.
Izumi and Misaki are playing on our double futon, spread in the living room, where we sleep now to be near to the AC.
I am vacillating wildly between cleaning up and clinging to now.
With love from the suburbs. Did you know that Tokyo has suburbs? Here we are.
