Rain slammed against the window yesterday, furious and unrelenting, like it was trying to shake loose whatever lay quiet inside. Today, not even a trace remains—the sky is pale and kind.
After a full day indoors, curled up with tea, I needed to breathe fresh air. I hopped on my bike and rode the ten minutes to the small shrine Hiro is letting me use as my studio. It’s a little rough and overgrown, dedicated—apparently—to wheat and wolves. I’m not entirely sure I understood that part correctly, but it adds to the mystery. This morning, I went and played music there for hours.
There’s a deep serenity in this space. I’ve been weaving in samples of voices—my mother, father, grandfather, my daughter Zoe, even my younger self. As I wrote and listened, I felt something surreal—not quite joy, not quite sorrow. Just a kind of drifting.
The new songs are meditative and reflective. Each piece feels like a quiet conversation between the past and the present.
The 2 tracks I’m working on now are called Tincture of Dissonant Light and Amber of Voice—a melodic brew of broken themes, gentle and disjointed. One of the samples is my voice from high school, studying with my friend Stella before a math exam. Another is from a video letter I sent my parents just after I moved to Vancouver. I sound so young, excited, silly—full of that messy, open-hearted energy.
Then there are the recordings my mom made. Long before social media, she was a kind of documentarian. She asked questions. She made us talk. In one clip, my grandfather gives advice: “Get your smarts so you’re not slinging hash on Main Street.” In another, my dad tells the story of how his great-grandparents met. These stories drift through my memory like ghosts—but hearing them now, they feel vivid and alive. Like time folding in on itself.
These voices—they’re just as real to me now as when those moments were happening.
Life here moves slowly, and I love that. I bike everywhere, even for groceries. Shopping takes time—I have to stop constantly to translate packaging with Google Translate. Two hours later, with a full bag of groceries, I rode home the scenic way, through the rice fields.
I stopped on a narrow bridge to take a video of the baby rice plants. I left my bike standing with all my groceries strapped to it. A gust of wind came, and in one swift moment, the bike toppled. Everything tumbled into the narrow river below.
I stood there, frozen at the edge of the embankment, wondering if I should climb down. But the slope was steep, and all I could see was the image of myself falling in after them.
There was no retrieving anything. I had to go back to the store and start over.
I felt so guilty leaving the groceries behind, watching them float away. On the ride home, I ran into Juan. He laughed and said, “Just go to one of the shrines and pray to the cleanup god—forgiveness for messing up the rice field.” I smiled, but honestly, I still don’t know what to do.
Sometimes all you can do is stand there—helpless—watching the river carry your groceries away.