So, what happened?

In short?

A lot.

I meant to type some sort of followup post after our family fell off the internet blog grid last fall. I'm sure some people were wondering if I'd just given up on the blog, or maybe something bad happened. At the end of September last year, I was full of fire and going to shoot off a dreaded rant/post. Cooler heads prevailed.

Life is a series of events - of moments. We live, we learn, we grow. We make mistakes. I believe ours was truly a mashup of all of the above.

We can so easily get lost in anger or regret, but the truth is that you can only move on - forward.
Otherwise, you're not living in the present.

We love/loved Japan. We love/loved our life there. Unfortunately, our school/work/life balance was off, and when we tried to amicably find reasonable "middle ground," it blew up in our faces. We were forced with sudden choices of relocating within Japan (jobs, apartment, kids' schools), or returning to the U.S. Given the circumstances and dwindling resources, we resentfully chose the latter. We returned to the U.S. the first week of October of last year.

FAST FORWARD.

It's March 3rd, 2015. I'm typing from the 9th floor of the Hyatt across from Logan Airport in Boston. My two energetic boys are breathing heavily and contentedly, finally consumed within the realm of dreams. It's been a journey. We worked and we saved. We weighed the options. We weighed the consequences. Tomorrow before noon, I'll be flying with my boys to our destination of Osaka, Japan. First we'll touch down in Toronto, then a transfer in Tokyo. We'll be greeted by the warm smiles and open arms of my lovely wife Angela, baby sass Sydney, and Grandma Toni (Angela's mom). The trio of girls flew out ahead of us to scout apartments close to our new jobs/new schools/new city, and to get us setup ahead of time. I stayed behind with Noah and Seth and finished up business here, and spent the last week in Connecticut with my parents, mainly eating pizza and enjoying piles of snow. We've both gotten teaching jobs, but this time at different schools. We'll be living in Minoh, which is at the northern edge of Osaka. We'll be a short train ride from Kyoto, which is our mutual favorite place on earth. We're starting a new chapter in this life, full of hope and anticipation of good things to come. Our new beginning is signaled not only by another international move, but also the impending bloom of the cherry blossoms. The beautiful harbinger of the new season.

Are we crazy? The answer is yes.

Angela inspired the name of this blog - "Living and loving in Japan." How true this title has become! The journey there and back, and now there again has been challenging. But aren't the good things in life challenging? The things that are worth keeping and worth fighting for? In Japan I have truly felt awakened - and not simply in some stereotypical spiritual sense. It's a sense of being present, this crazy thing that seems so lost in western society. It's not that the Japanese exude this characteristic - in fact they also stare lovingly at phone screens and avoid conversation regularly in transit. But the country itself, and the lifestyle are designed in ways to make you present. Sometimes, I want to give credit simply to the fact that we are bicycling or walking everywhere - that we are forced to see the trees above us, the pavement beneath our feet, and to hear the buzz of the cicada. That maybe this is all just because I haven't locked myself into a vehicle and cranked up my music to get from point A to point B.

But it's more than that.

It's a feeling of true community. Living in tight quarters and in smaller scale forces things upon people. You see your strange neighbor. You realize maybe they're not that different from you. The forced isolation of American suburbia is something we willingly accept. Get in car. Go to place. Get thing. Get back in car. Go home. Pull into automatic garage. Safe fortress.

We aren't forced to see our neighbors. We aren't forced to breath in the outside air. When we aren't forced to be uncomfortable sometimes - we are simply too comfortable. We become complacent. I'm not suggesting everyone move to Japan - but Angela and I are trying to find our place in this world,

Semi-manifesto complete. Time for me to sleep. 19+ hours minimum of travel tomorrow, pending Mother Nature's graceful cooperation. And cooperation of a 4 year old and 6 year old boy. These guys are professional fliers now. Expect regular posts containing pictures and writing soon.

Onward!