.... and I Will Be Flying On a Broomstick

I see him on Monday mornings and every other odd day of the week. He would lean against the railings with a smile on his face and call out good morning to the regulars who use the bicycle parking lot. He always wishes me a good morning as I ride past him on my way to park the bicycle. Then, as I head towards the train station, he would send me off cheerily, “Itteirasshai!”, to which I would always reply, “Ittekimasu!” Some days, he’s busy with other customers who want to park their bicycles. Some days, when it’s raining, he’ll stay inside the small office building. But even on those days, he would smile or nod at me and send me off silently. He reminds me of my father, who always tells me to take care when I go out and who I would sometimes catch looking out from the window after I left home. She works at the bakery inside the station. I am not sure which days she usually works. All I can say is that she sometimes have shifts on Friday nights. I restock my bread supply for the wee

I love reading books and listening to podcasts about how writers come up with ideas for their writing and what their creative process is like. Even though I have shared pieces of my writing over the years, I realized I have never written a post about my own writing process. So for this week’s blog post, I thought it would be interesting and fun (at least for me!) to share with you about where I get my ideas from and how I shape those ideas into a piece of writing. I will be talking about the times when I write for myself, not when I write for school or work assignments. For this post, I dug up some old pieces of writing to use as examples. It turned out to be a good opportunity for me to reflect on my own writing process and how it has evolved through the years. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did while writing this. If any of my readers share the same interest and hobby in creative writing, I look forward to hearing from you about your creative process as well! Where do

The hike was not planned well in advance. It called for an urgent midnight search on the internet for “easy hikes around Osaka” and a last minute cancellation of a dentist’s appointment. Three of us had the same day-off on a Thursday and because we have not yet grown tired of seeing each other almost every day at work, we decided to spend our day-off together. The hike we picked was called “The 48 Waterfalls of Takihita”. The place seemed easily accessible. We would need to take the train to Kawachinagano station, which was about 45 minutes from Osaka station and take the bus for another 50 minutes to reach the starting point of the hike. The article we found on the internet informed us we can “Take a tour around the waterfalls and be refreshed by clean air and negative ions.” We were not very knowledgeable about negative ions and their health benefits but we were excited at the prospect of seeing so many waterfalls on a single hike. Even the fact that we had to go to work the nex

“How did I get here?” I am standing on a tangled mess of roots sticking out of a narrow dirt path. The ground is uneven and I feel off-balance. I have spent the last hour hiking up a steep mountain trail and now find myself surrounded by tall trees, their sinewy bodies closing in from all sides. I catch glimpses of blue sky and sunshine through the narrow empty spaces between the trees. I long to feel the sun’s warmth on my skin but it is dark and cold among the trees. The sun is setting soon. I am overcome with anxiety that time is running out. “Is this a dream?” I am calling out a name but there is no answer. My voice sounds small and weak as it echoes through the forest. I clear my throat and tries again. It does not work. It just starts to sound more desperate. But I cannot stop because I am more scared of the silence than the vulnerability in my voice. It is a futile attempt to look for someone when you are not sure if you are in the right place. This feeling is all too