each sentence, four times

Summer, where did you go? These days it is becoming quite cold, I sleep in wool socks and a sleeping bag, wrapped in a fleece blanket.  Then again, I wear a paper thin t-shirt and cotton booty shorts .. Also, as Japan does not use daylight savings (not sure how I feel about this yet, or if my opinion is even pertinent), it is dark when I get up at 6:15 a.m.  Also, I do not have enough time to paint after school these days!  It gets dark around 5:30 p.m.  I have readjusted my psyche though, and lately I have been completely unloading my creativity in my apartment.  Speaking of cold ~ houses (or most buildings, all buildings?) in Japan do not have any type of heating system or insulation.  This goes for my house and the schools I teach in, so it is in effect a perpetual feeling of slight chill.  Brr!  Recent strategy is to shut myself off in one room of my apartment with a fleece blanket, space heater, and a coffee or martini, depending on the time of the day.  I have been doing watercolor studies of people from fashion magazines (maybe I will get really good at painting Asians?).  Also spending a lot of time curled up on the floor with a pen and a pad, writing lyrics and journal-ing while listening to Common and Pharaoh Monch.  I have been playing piano a lot lately, and I am writing some new songs on it.  It has been a while.  I am rediscovering an aesthetic appropriate to who I am and what I believe in these days.  Of course that is all in flux, and even if it differs from my previous musical aesthetic, it does not discredit it.  I am quite eager to get an album of songs together.  You can email me and I will send you tracks I have finished. 
 
This weekend I may go visit some local temples.  It has been a while.  When I first got here, I was up and down the brick streets all day, visiting temples, exploring, swearing, and butchering the Japanese language.  People often knit or put on these red cloths on the Buddha statues.  It is quite beautiful and refreshing.  In an urban space where most of the buildings, streets, and sights are gray, it is nice to see splashes of intense red.  Red is a very special color in Japanese culture.

 These are two of the most famous temples in Usuki.  I recently painted a postcard of the latter (who will get it?).  It is a three story pagoda.  What is a pagoda?  Apparently it comes to English from Sanskrit "bhagavad," which means blessing.  Think the Bhagavad Gita!  A pagoda is any type of tiered tower.  They are usually Buddhist and located near a temple.  The other main religion here is Shinto, which is unique to Japan.  Shin means God, and To (Chinese Tao) means Way, so Shinto is the Way of the Gods.  To my knowledge, there is an equal number of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in Usuki.  The religions are very different -- Buddhism does not touch on any Gods or supernatural phenomena in the world, but stresses the nature of existence and life and provides a means of escaping suffering through curbing desires.  Shintoism is a much earlier religion that believes in spirits that occupy everything around us .. I have read that there are 40,000 Shinto deities.  Shinto shrines are devoted to certain spirits, such as cats, foxes, or other animals.  Old trees are often thought to have spirits within them.  No pictures of Shinto shrines, but someday soon!  There is a really beautiful Shinto shrine near the school that is full of cat charms.  Several cats hang out around the shrine, which adds to its allure.  I conveniently ignore that people probably put food out for them, and happily smile at the strange mystical charm of these cats to a sacred Shinto shrine.