Shinshu

Summer heat builds through the morning like a slow fever. By noon, the valley shimmers with rising air, and the […]

This year’s garden taught me more about failure than success, which might be the most valuable lesson of all. The

We’ve had almost two weeks of stable sunny weather, the kind of high-pressure clarity that makes every morning feel like

This morning I found a blue longicorn beetle (Rosalia batesi) on the cabin’s wooden deck railing, motionless in a patch

Counting spirals is a kind of meditation. The cones don’t care if I get it wrong. I trace one ridge

Today the lake was crowded with more sailboats than I’d ever seen here—sleek hulls catching the morning light, bright spinnakers

A thin band of fog lay flat across the river, and the kites traced circles overhead in slow, wide loops

I set off this morning down the gravel path from my cabin to the lake. The day before, I’d put

Oblong and bruised and perfect; the vendor says the rain made them sweeter. I thumb the powdery bloom and it

I split my time between Tokyo and northern Nagano, where my cabin sits at the edge of a national park.