There is a thread I keep discovering in my life that I did not consciously plan.
Not travel.
Not tourism.
Not “bucket list” behavior.
Something quieter.
Participation.
Or maybe more precisely:
A desire to briefly enter living traditions.
Not to master them. Simply to touch them honestly for a little while.
That realization arrived sideways, the way most meaningful things do.
The Volcano
When Lynn and I did the OAT New Zealand trip in 2023, I somehow arranged — and I still can’t quite believe I pulled this off — to row with a local club on my first morning in-country.
This was not:
- a tourist excursion,
- a “try rowing in New Zealand” package,
- or some curated athletic experience.
This was an actual rowing club.
(The only one that agreed to let me come to practice.)
The club rowed on a volcanic lake.
Which sounds cinematic and dramatic until you realize the volcano was not enormous.
At all.
Meaning the actual practice involved a tremendous amount of:
- rowing in circles,
- turning,
- rowing back the other direction in circles.
In an eight, going across the diameter of the lake would probably have been fifteen hard strokes.
The entire thing was hilariously earnest.
And wonderful.
I got there at an absolutely unreasonable, spectacularly jet-lagged 0-dark-00 in the morning via Uber from the OAT hotel, while everyone else was still sleeping or preparing for the “walk around town” activity.
I was wearing my South End Rowing Club 150th anniversary kit.
This became funny later.
The boat itself was old. The oars could not be adjusted up or down. I am taller than nearly everyone, so there was a lot of awkward leverage and what felt suspiciously like carrying the 8 solo.
Later came the revelation.
The coxswain/coach — for this tiny local New Zealand volcano rowing club — turned out to be the voice of women’s rowing at the Olympics.
Which I only later connected, because I attended Olympic rowing the following year with Leann.
Of course.
Because this keeps happening to me.
Tiny humble local place.
Quiet people.
Ancient equipment.
Completely serious hidden expertise.
And then came the anniversary conversation.
After passing out MRA flag pins, I joined the team for coffee and pastries. They were proudly discussing preparations for their upcoming 150th anniversary in 2025.
Camera pulls back . . . NZ rower suddenly realizes I’m quietly sitting there wearing South End Rowing Club kit commemorating OUR 150th.
South End Rowing Club.
San Francisco.
Founded 1873.
Theirs was still approaching.
Mine was already on the swag.
The cosmic timing of this remains deeply funny to me.
But the emotional part wasn’t the piece of clothing.
It was what it represented.
Not:
“Look at me, I row.”
But:
Continuity.
The Barge
I row a fireman’s barge at South End.
“Heave, ho.”
A giant communal pulling boat.
We don’t carry it down to the water – it weighs a ton (literally).
And one day it hit me that this barge might have helped people during the 1906 earthquake.
Not metaphorically.
Not symbolically.
Actually.
Human urgency.
Human labor.
Human coordination.
People pulling together in crisis.
And suddenly the barge stopped being:
“a big ole’ boat.”
And became:
A thing that has carried human need.
A living object.
Not preserved behind glass.
Not “heritage.”
Used.
Repeated.
Continued.
That realization changed how it felt in my hands.
And I think this is why certain things affect me so strongly now.
Not because they are old.
Because they are still alive.
The Sword
This realization explains something else too.
Why my anticipated Japan trips (yes, now two) are affecting me differently than I expected.
At first glance it might appear to be:
- aesthetics,
- temples,
- lanterns,
- Kyoto,
- samurai-adjacent interests.
But that is not actually the thing.
The thing is continuity.
Living continuity.
That is why:
- Butokuden matters,
- Lady Nene (whom I named my iaito after) matters,
- Kodai-ji matters,
- old kissaten matter,
- Tozando matters,
- dawn temple sweeping matters,
- quiet dojo practice matters.
Not because they are “Japanese.”
Because they are still inhabited by repetition.
Still used.
Still practiced.
Still carried.
I have started realizing that my Winter solo Japan trip is less “vacation planning” and more:
A continuation of practice.
Not only iaido.
Not only Shotokan practiced across coasts and continents.
Not only Japanese history/language immersion classes in the ’80s.
Not only Zen-adjacent household rituals with H.
It’s practice in the broader sense:
- attention,
- repetition,
- movement,
- ritual,
- pacing,
- useful beauty,
- intentionality.
This is why the idea of visiting Butokuden or Tozando feels emotionally coherent instead of performative.
Not:
“Look at me becoming Samurai Lady.”
More:
“I have already been practicing certain ways of moving through the world for years, and now the geography is finally catching up.”
Which led, inevitably, to one of the funniest imagined scenes of my entire life.
I joked that perhaps during the October/November OAT trip, I could theoretically design a new iaito for myself.
“No need to ship. I’ll just pick it up in January.”
At which point my brain immediately produced this absurdly calm sequence:
- pick up sword,
- return through snowy Higashiyama lanes,
- tie obi,
- casually walk into my tiny Kyoto ryokan (Ishibekoji Muan), sword at my side.
Like this is an entirely normal thing to do.
The funniest part of my daydream is not the sword.
The funniest part is the complete lack of drama.
Not:
“I have become a warrior.”
More:
“Well yes, obviously, I have my sword now. Could you pour me some tea?”
Tea.
Chilled hands.
Goshuin book.
Sword.
Perfectly ordinary Tuesday in Kyoto.
And somehow?
Inside the emotional architecture of this trip?
It weirdly makes sense.
The Tea Ceremony
There is another thread here too.
This past winter, before Japan had fully crystallized in my mind, I took an eight-week Japanese Tea Ceremony immersion class at the Zen Center in Tam Valley.
At the time, I thought of it simply as:
- learning,
- curiosity,
- aesthetic appreciation,
- a chance to slow down.
But looking back now, I think it was another example of the same gravitational pull.
Not toward performance. Toward continuity.
Week after week:
- folding cloths carefully,
- repeated gestures,
- attention to placement,
- silence,
- sequence,
- rhythm,
- shared stillness.
Again: not museum culture.
Living practice.
And what struck me most was how ordinary and human it felt.
Not mystical. Not precious.
Just: people carrying forward a way of moving through time together.
A bowl turned a certain direction. A cloth folded a certain way. A pause before a sip.
Small repeated acts carrying accumulated meaning.
The same feeling I later recognized in:
- rowing stroke cadence,
- iaido kata,
- temple sweeping,
- lighting candles,
- kissaten routines,
- the idea of quiet Kyoto mornings.
It all belongs to the same emotional family.
The Candles
Tonight another realization arrived.
I used to light Friday night candles when H was alive.
He was Zen Buddhist, but he appreciated the ritual deeply.
Not because of doctrine.
Because of the feeling:
The week is done.
A threshold had been crossed.
And there was something meaningful in the continuity itself.
Women had done this before me. For generations.
Again:
not preserved tradition.
Living tradition.
Repeated action carrying accumulated human meaning.
And suddenly I realized:
This is the same emotional current running through all of it.
The rowing club.
The barge.
Iaido.
Kyoto.
Temple bells.
Tea rituals.
Lantern alleys.
Goshuin.
Kissaten.
The idea of dawn practice.
The appeal of old institutions still functioning.
It is all the same thing.
Not spectacle.
Participation.
Not acquisition.
Recognition.
Recognition that certain rhythms, gestures, and spaces were already quietly shaping me long before I consciously understood why.
Objects surviving long enough to become useful.
Perhaps that is why certain ones have begun quietly revealing themselves as “Japan objects” too.
And maybe that is what I am actually seeking in travel now.
Not to consume places. Not to “check the box.”
But to briefly enter the continuity already alive inside them.
Tea bowl, oar, and sword
Ordinary things become
Threads we follow home