Personal Accomplishments during the Pandemic

Hello Folks, Seizan here, you know – the karate’n’cat guy.

The pandemic just doesn’t seem to be letting up. On Okinawa, our hospitals are packed to capacity with room only for the most serious cases and life-threatening emergencies. Most of us plebes, whether infected or not, are in isolation as much as possible and doing telework.

That pretty much sets the scene for a sort of “lemons to lemonade” discussion. I wonder what positive things have come from the isolation that we can share to boost morale among other readers and lurkers. What have we done that couldn’t have been accomplished, or maybe even couldn’t have been imagined, unless one was stuck at home, isolated, feeling physically imprisoned but mentally and emotionally free to create and achieve? And can we encourage others to do the same?

To get things rolling (I hope this rolls), I’ll start.

In Mach 2020 we went into isolation and strict telework for two months straight. After that, we went in and out of isolation and various levels of restriction, mostly involving spending more time at home. We don’t watch TV (by choice - we don’t even have one in the house), we listen to various style of music in the background as we work, and my wife loves cooking when she’s not busy with her military-related duties.

During that time between March 2020 and the autumn, I collected my notes and journals of the previous few decades, and wrote the first English-language book of our system’s old-style karate concepts and philosophies. When it was finished around New Year 2021, I ran into difficulties with the printer formatting the text and the publication was delayed for another few months. I changed printers and the book was published in April 2021. I was working on Volume 2 but in the end I combined both volumes and printed a near-600-page book, “Bunburyodo” (the way of academic studies plus the way of stopping conflict combined as one). I then went on to write a book about (ostensibly “by”) our cats titled “Anna’s Tales, Lost and Found, and Bear’s Song” (many photos). My wife wrote a book about children’s life philosophy and discoveries in the world around our five-year-old granddaughter (also fun placing many photos).

Also, I started practicing violin again. Sumako resumed her studies in sanshin (the three-stringed banjo-like instrument of Okinawa).

The summer brought may Mainland Japanese tourists and they generously brought their Delta virus with them. Seems the Okinawan Governor wanted to make up for last year’s economic losses by opening up to tourists from the Mainland. And so, on Okinawa we are now going through a series of spikes for Covid, and my wife and I are both home doing telework again. I have two more karate-related books and a series of children’s books in the works, and Sumako is working on her second book titled “Along the Way”. It’s her lifestyle guide that includes everything from the meaning and value of yoga and karate, the benefits of a daily walk, and the usable (edible and medicinal) plants around us and found pretty much everywhere in the world. She even found a way to make drinkable noni fruit juice, loquat and guava jam and juice, guava bread-spread, tofu lasagna, and more almost every day. All will go into her next book.

Neither my wife nor I would have written these books if we were just going on with life as it had been prior to the pandemic. I thought I might get around to it when I retired from teaching, maybe when I reached 80 or so. Sumako never even considered writing beyond saying “Yeah, good idea, maybe someday...”

So, if we can share some of the positive things that we have found, created, or produced while forced to use our brains during isolation, maybe we can encourage others to do the same – and come out of this with personal achievements we can be proud of.

Oh, an update for those who have been following the cat stories... A nice application of unscented mineral oil all around the outside walls of the cat food bowls has been keeping all bugs and ants out of the food for the past year-plus. Also, a layer of metallic copper tape edging the area of the food dishes (in my case, a fiberglass serving tray) really does keep snails and slugs out of their food too. I believe the slimy mucous they produce to get around creates a slight electric charge when it touches the copper tape, and they just skedaddle off...

OK, hope to hear from others soon...

Stay safe and keep well, everyone.