Blog

Occasionally I’m asked to be on a stage under bright lights with a microphone facing an audience staring and maybe listening. Before I go...

My friend just lost a precious body part. She writes that she grieves the loss of something so wonderful and vitalizing. Isa is a master...

98 years, what a miracle! Not many people get to celebrate so many birthdays. A rebellious Tokyo girl who survived war, sexual and racial...

There was a huge earthquake just before our son was born but all our attention was on him. He needed to get out of the womb and begin...

It’s my birthday. WHOOPEE! Another year older. OH BOY! One step closer to the grave. CAN'T WAIT! Yeah, the thrill is gone. Just can’t...

Re-member— to put ourselves back together after being torn apart by life. Remember your lost loves with a poem. Make rituals and special...

She jumped on the bed and licked my face. Was I in heaven? Or was I dreaming? Neither, I soon realized. I was awake and the dog was...

When people who have met for the first time or anticipate some future connection, the ritual ending in Japanese is, Yoroshiku onegai...

The trees in the temple garden were scarred and yet still growing. Some had been split in half, burned, or shattered. But the wounds had...

"How can you mend a broken heart? How can you stop the rain from falling down? How can you stop the sun from shining? What makes the...

In the play Blue Lotus, written by Elaine Lai, I was the Old Man, a temporary emanation of the Awakened One, in an utterly ordinary form....

Making my acting debut tomorrow in Blue Lotus, an audio play written and directed by Elaine Lai with co-direction and sound design by...

When I received the news that my book had reached a fourth printing I thought I’d find a happy photo of the time when it had first been...

November is my doggie month. That's because it's the eleventh month and the number "one" sounds like a dog's bark in Japanese, "wan." So...

In response to the horrific violence against Asian elderly we held a stuck-at-home concert in May celebrating the power and grace of...

紙芝居　Kamishibai. A classic story of Kamishibai is Momotaro, the Peach Boy, that goes back at least to Edo Japan. The gods bestow kindness...