God, what do you write?

I've been slowly preparing myself to say goodbye to my san-nensei in the last month. I think I've been doing all right. I even told Travis last night when we were on the phone talking about it that I was feeling better about it because I was certain that I would still keep in touch with my some of my students after they graduated. Getting a chance to talk to and hang out with my students that graduated last year in recent days has been helping.

But I pointed out that it was still not the same as getting to see them every day. Pretty soon their hallway will be filled with different students and the transfer will be complete.

And now, this morning, the teacher in charge of sado-bu (tea ceremony club) gave me the stuffed animals that were to be their graduation present and asked me to write a message on them. She told me I had until the end of 3rd period.

It's more than half-way through 1st right now, and I haven't gotten any farther than writing their nickname on the first doll. Anyone who's met me, or reads this blog for that matter knows that I'm rather verbose, but today, I feel speechless. I don't know what to say to them.

I don't know how to say goodbye.

I thought I'd gotten better at it after 2 and a half years. I thought that I'd know the right things to say, to write when the time came.

I don't.

Do I try to be funny and light-hearted? Serious and inspiring? Sweet and nostalgic? What memory do I leave them with, after all the memories they've given to me?

The Way of Tea: Retroactive Post

A few weeks ago, my sado-bu teacher gave me this book and I just started reading it the other day.

The Book of Tea

It's DEEP, in the way that I remember Albert talking about other writings on Asian practices, like Buddhism or Kung Fu. I think I'm finally getting to the point where I'm getting past the superficial layers of this 'hobby' and really getting to the meat of it. It's enlightening and moving in a way that I have found lacking in religion or other spiritual writings.

I certainly don't want to be one of the New Age-y generation that comes from America and falls into "Asia" and takes up tai chi and becomes Buddhist or whatever, but I can see the draw. Living here does change you, in ways more subtle than you realize, and I think that I am certainly the better for it.

It's a tiny book, and one can easily finish it in an hour of reading, but another thing I've learned while in Japan is the value of 'slow' and doing things slowly. This is just the type of thing that deserves to be read and enjoyed and digested (mentally), slowly; that is better for having done so.