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| Part 2 Recent Daily Life |
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Minimalism (断捨離). This year in 2011, I abruptly stopped taking the golf
lesson in April, and put an end to the 10-year tennis school in May.
What are continuing? I go to Senior English Conversation Class every week.
I can't expect much to improve my conversational skill, but I enjoy mingling
with 10 attendants around the same age under Ms. Grace, the lecturer.
I haven't done anything else in particular. My usual day was like this,
until the end of this May............
I wake up at 5:30 a.m. for TV "Morning Zuba" on weekdays, at
5:45 a.m. for "Satazuba" on Saturdays, and at 6:00 a.m. for the
"Sunday Debate" on Sundays. Then, I brew coffee and watch TV
while sipping.
My breakfast is:
vegetable juice with black vinegar, homemade yogurt, homemade pizza toast, hot milk and coffee. Seasonal fruits from time to time. Emiko, my wife, shows up from bed to the living room around 8 o'clock.
I have quite a few things to do during the daytime, and I don't have time
for being bored. Library, movies, conversations with friends... I try to
walk everywhere. Otherwise take a bicycle or a bus in the city far from
the house. Giving up the car a few years ago was a brilliant decision for
me.
My iPod is helpful through a headphone, while wandering around the city,
parks and shopping centers, and also hanging out in the library or a coffee
shop. The sound during the time is generally classical musics. Occasionally
studying English. Even in such a time, on the other side of my mind, I'm
thinking about the next essay or travelogue. I cannot help my nature.
I've been reading novels more than before lately, and I have a feeling
that they will eventually be of some use. For the time being, it may contribute
somewhat to this essay.
I start watching news programs on TV around 5:30 in the evening. After
a little while evening drink begins. That leads to dinner, and after 7
o'clock I begin to go blank. Then on my computer for a while and I'm definitely
lying in bed at 8 o'clock.
Until falling asleep, rakugo playing from the speaker connected to the
iPod is a lullaby. Since most of the stories are from a single CD each,
the power cuts off by itself in an hour even if I cannot turn off in sleeping.
Shinsho, Beicho, Ensho, Karaku..., there is no shortage of talkers and
stories, so I choose some story by some talker according to the mood at
the time. |
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Sanyutei Ensho
from Sony
Music Entertainment |
Oh yes, big good news to me. Recently, one whole set of "Hundred Stories
by Sanyutei Ensho" was lined up on the shelves of Urayasu Central
Library. More than 10 years ago, when I was still running a company in
Toyo Town, Tokyo, I found it in the Toyo Library and listened to it.
It's not a live performance. It was recorded in the studio from 1974 to
1977 (Showa 49 to 52), and each story is played with all his heart and
soul. There are also dialogues and voluntary narratives everywhere, and
it's like "This is what Ensho is all about."
- - - - -
Sure enough, the master passed away two years after completing the Hundred
Stories, so it is a legacy of his last challenging work. Combined with
the "Compilation of Humane Stories" (also a studio recording,
9 stories including Shinkei-Kasanegafuchii and Botan-dourou) just before
the Hundred Stories, thank him very much for leaving behind such fantastic
works. Everyone will be amazed and frightened by its enormity and careful
hand-making.
All of them can be borrowed at Urayasu Central Library. That's 116 CDs.
I wonder how many LP records they were on the original. More than half
of them are in my iPod, so I can't afford to be lazy in bed. It will also
be of great use to my upcoming "Baltic States and Poland for 12 Days"
trip.
Mr. Nobuo Uno, who supervised this great works, introduces the words of
a French writer as a preface is good.
"Old ages are just bad habits. Those who work with enthusiasm do not have time to grow old. A creative person is young, even at the age of 80." |
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| At the time of Great East Japan Earthquake |
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How many more years are there for me? Even if I don't think about the end
by accident, there will be no more than 10 years to me left. It's been
more than 25 years since I had a brain infarction. A similar disease may
be creeping in. The colon cancer five years ago seems to have been completely
removed by surgery, and I passed the regular checkup a few days ago. However,
my father passed away from kidney cancer.
It has been several years since I had a strange feeling around the Adam's apple. Also worrying about phlegm. Why don't I get caught in the annual adult checkup? Two years ago, no abnormalities were found in the otolaryngology department. However, subjective symptoms continue. Soon I will have again to go to otolaryngology and respiratory medicine.
It's been decades since I quit smoking, but alcohol drinking has continued
as banshaku every evening. The amount has decreased, but a hangover has
increased recently. Dr. Tanaka (Department of Neurology, Juntendo Urayasu
Hospital), who likes joking, has stopped his usual words, "Isn't it
good to drink alcohol as you like?" |
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At 2:46 p.m. on March 11, when the earth began to shake due to the Great
Tohoku Earthquake that caused the Great East Japan Earthquake, I was sitting
in my home study at the microphone of my voice recorder on the 11th floor
of SunCorpo Apartment building in Shin-Urayasu area. I was reading Lincoln's
Gettysburg Declaration in "American History through Speech."
I practiced over and over again, and it must have been in the crucial moment.
It shook and shook again. It soon turned into a big shake, and it would
continue further more. Two bookshelves propped up against the wall shook
and fell down. I turned off the PC in a hurry.
In the living room next door, the right side of the tall, four-meter-wide
sideboard is shuffling on its bottom. Souvenirs from domestic and overseas
travel occupy half of the space inside, and in the center is a 32-inch
TV monitor. Glassworks brought home collapse on the floor and are smashed
up. Luckily, the sideboard itself is still upright, even shuffling.
Almost all the dishes are rattling and falling from the kitchen cupboards
making terrible noises. The important bookshelf on the right side of the
living room begin to shake. Inside are all books given to me by the late
senior Tatsuo Nakamura, and for that reason I bought this valuable bookshelf
at a department store in Ginza.
As I was convinced later, the shocks were much heavier on the 11th floor
than on the 1st floor. The original shaking accelerates, and even if the
original subsides, it will still continue. Wasn't the important bookshelf
just before crumbling? In a hurry, I stuck my hands out at key points and
endured the shaking, bending down slightly. Eventually, the vibrations
became smaller and stopped.
I call my wife's cell phone. It's nice to be able to get through, but isn't
her cell phone ringing in this living room? She should be on the tennis
court at Meikai University. I can only pray for her safety. |
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In the evening Emiko, my wife, returned in a hurry. Suppressing her excitement,
she explains the dire road conditions. As she admits, she could manage
to come home.
Naturally, the lifelines were cut off. Water supply and sewerage took two
weeks to recover. There is no comparison with the disaster-stricken areas
in Tohoku District, but even now, six months later, the devastation still
remains everywhere in Urayasu City.
That's all for this misery. The sideboard is still there when the right side is shuffled about a meter, and I haven't bought a replacement for the broken bookshelf yet. Books are piled up in an empty space in the study. |
| (As of September 30, 2011) |
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| Health Comes First |
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My pattern of weekday mornings has changed since June.
I started going to the four-story Sapporo Sports Plaza "PAL"
that can be seen right there from the window of my home on the 11th floor. |
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After 9 o'clock, I warm up myself with a bicycle machine or a walking machine. From 9:45 a.m., morning stretching exercise for 30 minutes and then soft aero full-body exercise for another 30 minutes. Both of the exercises are with twenty or thirty attendants around the same age.
When it's over, sweat is on my t-shirt. Home-made barley tea is good!
I swim and walk in the pool from time to time.
All my menus are finished, and when I sweat it out in the shower, it's
almost 11:30. In the afternoon, I do mental gymnastics at home or in the
library.
"PAL", the gym, has a number of other strength training machines
that I hope to try out gradually and find other suitable ones. |
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| For reference, the usable facilities of PAL are as follows: |
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| 2nd Floor |
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Studio B (Stretch, Aero, Ballet, Yoga, Pilates)
Walking Pool, Swimming Pool, Open-Air Spa |
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| 3rd Floor |
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Relaxation Room
Bath (Large Spa, Carbonated Spring, Sauna, Shower)
Lounge (TV, 3 Internet PCs)
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| 4th Floor |
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Studio A (stretching, Aero, Hula Dance, Tai Chi, Yoga, Pilates, Jazz Dance,
Street Dance, Zunba, Shape Boxing, Tube Boxing, Balance Muscle Training,
Various Exercises)
Training gym (Various Aerobic Machines, Various Muscle Training Machines),
Terrace Lounge |
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