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Category Archives: The Daily Post Prompt

Buddha

02 Apr

Great Buddha in Kamakura
Length of face = 7.7ft
Circumference of thumb = 2.8ft

 

Every Wednesday, Yumiko came with her stool and her sketchbook and perched delicately in my shadow, applying pencil to paper to capture the scenes around her, sometimes worrying the small details for weeks on end. Shinji, with cameras dangling from his neck and bags of lenses criss-crossing his lithe frame, circled me week in and week out, intent on capturing the subtle differences in the sunlight on my face as the spring days lengthened into summer, but never unaware of those who shared this sacred ground with him. Today, the clicking of Shinji’s shutter grew louder as he maneuvered into Yumiko’s space, framing candid shots of the uniformed high school students boisterously posing around my base for a classmate’s iPhone snaps. Yumiko put her pencil aside and opened her bento bag, peeking from beneath the brim of her sunhat to offer Shinji an onigiri with a shy “Dōzo.” Bowing his thanks, he sank to the ground next to her, and small talk over the shared meal of rice balls eventually turned into tentative requests to view each other’s work. As Yumiko scrolled through his camera’s digital archive, Shinji flipped the pages of her sketchbook, expecting to see my profile but finding his own likeness filling several pages instead; that discovery sent a thrill through him and simultaneously made him a little less nervous about her reaction to his memory card’s imminent revelation of the portraits he had furtively stolen earlier today with his zoom lens.

 

I’ve combined today’s letter, B, from the A to Z April Challenge with the Weekly Writing Challenge: Iconic from The Daily Post…and threw in a six sentence limit just for fun. I realize Buddhism is not an exclusively Japanese religion, but Daibutsu, the giant Buddha of Kamakura, is THE iconic image of my time in Japan. Every time I see a photo of this Buddha’s placid face, I am reminded of the gentle people, beautiful scenery, and all-encompassing peace I found in Japan.

 
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Posted by on April 2, 2013 in Challenges, Fiction, The Daily Post Prompt, Tuesday Tales

 

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Menu

31 Mar

Mushrooms on toast @ Huffkins in Burford

You’ve being exiled to a private island, and your captors will only supply you with five foods. What do you pick?

My favorite prompt this week comes from The Daily Post. I loved it because I’ve been on a 1200-calorie-per-day diet since January and have become totally obsessed with daydreams about food. I thought it’d be easy to pick five foods that I’d want from my captors, but as usual, I’ve overthought the whole thing, and now am not sure what foods to request. Am I locked up, or free to move about the island? Are the captors providing me with five ready-to-eat foods (i.e. prepared dishes) that I just dig right into? Or are they providing me with five raw materials to cook any way I choose? If I’m my own chef, am I exiled to an island with a fully equipped kitchen, or am I cooking in a salvaged tin can over a campfire that refuses to stay lit when it rains?

If I’m free to wander but only get five ingredients that I can then cook for myself, I want:
1. Chicken
2. Potatoes
3. Apples
4. Bread
5. Butter

I’m confident I could manage all of these ingredients in a full kitchen or over a fire, and that I could keep my taste buds engaged by foraging for other fruits and maybe some herbs on the island. I’m also not a bad fisherwoman, so I could add variety to my protein intake that way. (How am I gonna catch fish, you ask? Trust me, MacGyver’s got nothing on me. I’ll scavenge the beach for washed-up bits of net, pull the hem out of my pants and tie on a repurposed bobby pin for a hook, sharpen a tree branch to use as a spear… I’m nothing if not resourceful, and doubly so if I’m hungry.)

If my captors are offering me only five ready-to-eat foods in a jail cell, then I’m ordering:
1. Mushrooms on toast
2. Pizza with pepperoni, sausage, green peppers, onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes
3. Oatmeal with cinnamon and raisins
4. Chef salad with ranch dressing, hold the hard-boiled eggs
5. Rib-eye steak, medium, smothered in sautéed mushrooms and onions

I think there’s enough variety here to maintain a healthy diet and rotate some different options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (assuming, of course, my captors believe in three square meals a day).

I notice that chocolate is not on either of my lists, and wonder about that omission. I can go for long stretches without eating chocolate, unless I know it is not available, and then I crave it to the point of madness. For the sake of my sanity and for the safety of my captors, I wonder if I should replace one item from each list with a Hershey bar? So many doubts and questions for such a simple prompt…

 
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Posted by on March 31, 2013 in Food, How It Could Be, Sunday Best, The Daily Post Prompt

 

Shiwase

11 Mar

100_2871-001100_2871-001100_2871-001Today’s post started out as a belated response to last Monday’s Weekly Writing Challenge: Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction over on the Daily Post, in which we were asked to take or find a photograph in which the subject showed true joy, rather than that I’m-smiling-for-the-camera brand of fake happiness. I had bookmarked this photo in my archives last week, but my postings went in other directions and I couldn’t find a day to squeeze this one in. (What?! Too many blogging ideas? Must we start two-a-days?)

The truth behind the photo: I took the original photo (top left) during a visit to Hachimangu Shrine in Kamakura, Japan, in November 2010. I noticed a family feeding the pigeons, and snapped a few random shots in passing, without really stopping to compose the images. It wasn’t until I was back home reviewing the pictures from the day that I noticed that the little boy found it HILARIOUS that his father was covered in pigeons and I wished I’d focused my lens on him rather than just the overriding family scene. I wanted to draw the viewer’s eye to the boy’s shiwase (happiness), so I tried cropping the original shot (top right) to get rid of the empty baby stroller that was on the left side (his younger sister was standing tentatively on her own a few feet away, surrounded by a dozen pigeons), but by trying to keep the same scale, also eliminated the birds around the dad’s feet. I hate creating headless corpses when I edit photos, but in the bottom version the boy is much more the center of attention, although the severity of the cropping has highlighted the fact that he is out of focus. Now I wonder if I’ve removed too much of his body language for the viewer to truly appreciate the extent to which he was enjoying this close encounter of the feathered kind? Other than the obvious advice to be more thoughtful in the way I initially shoot my subject, any feedback on how I should have edited this image to highlight the little guy’s happiness would be appreciated.

Now I veer off the track of the original prompt, and contemplate the contrast between the shiwase in my photograph and the emotion the entire nation of Japan is likely feeling today. March 11, 2013, marks the two-year anniversary of the devastating Tohoku earthquake and its resulting tsunami and nuclear crisis, collectively Japan’s worst disaster since World War II. Some 19,000 victims perished and a further 315,000 either lost or were forced to flee their homes (300,000 are still lodged in temporary housing). I was living in Japan in 2011 (though was vacationing in Hong Kong on the day of the earthquake) and I witnessed firsthand the shock and sadness permeating the whole country as the scope of the tragedy became apparent. Yet almost immediately a wave of compassion, support, and encouragement (ganbatte!) spread across the nation, and survivors showed unbelievable resilience as they pushed through their personal anger, confusion, and heartbreak to work together for the good of their neighbors and communities. Today is surely a somber day for the country, as citizens mourn individuals, families, homes, schools, businesses, and entire towns lost to the catastrophe. But I also know today is a day of renewed hope and determination for the Japanese people, as they are wholeheartedly committed to rebuilding and revitalizing the devastated areas as quickly as possible. To all of those still struggling with loss, I offer wishes for comfort, peace, and hope. To all of those involved in the ongoing recovery efforts, I send prayers for continued guidance, strength, and endurance. Above all, I wish the people of Japan shiwase.

 
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Posted by on March 11, 2013 in Monday Mix, The Daily Post Prompt, True Life

 

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Twenty-five

05 Mar

100_1481

I turned twenty-five today.

I didn’t mind the number too much until Garrett pointed out at lunchtime that I’d been on the planet for a quarter of a century. Why did that particular wording make me feel ancient? Even more troubling, why did it make me feel impotent?

I hid in my cubicle for the remainder of the afternoon, pondering the life I had lived until now.

Did I believe I had lived each day thoroughly? No, after overhearing Heidi holding forth in the break room after many an adventure-packed weekend, I definitely couldn’t claim that I had.

Had I grabbed every opportunity that been offered? No, I’d been convinced by an inner dialogue not to reach too far beyond the familiar.

Could I be proud that I’d been in command of where I’d been and what I’d done? No, I tended to try to make other people happy, and that need to gratify had herded me more than once down a path I’d rather not have taken.

I did not like what I found in the examination of my initial quarter century. Without fail, I had done what had been expected of me. I had not rocked the boat. I had not created conflict. I had not incited worry. I had not provoked excitement. I had merely been.

No more.

In that moment, I vowed to approach life, MY life, with a different attitude. If only I had an indelible reminder of that pledge to break free from the predictable routine I’d formerly permitted…

Garrett appeared over the top of my cubicle, joyfully offering a chocolate cupcake while brazenly murdering the time-worn birthday melody.

“Thank you, Garrett. Hey, I’m going to get a tattoo tonight, wanna come?”

You could have knocked him over with a feather and I’m willing to wager he won’t be the only one left with mouth agape in the next quarter century.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hee hee! I took some liberties with this one, in my classic overachiever style. The original prompt from The Daily Post was a challenge to choose one letter of the alphabet to omit from my post, using only twenty-five letters instead of all twenty-six. I decided while I was at it, I’d also make the theme of the story twenty-five, and use twenty-five sentences in its telling. This post-script excluded, can you tell which letter I omitted? (Hint: I did not take the easy road by choosing q, x, or z.)

 
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Posted by on March 5, 2013 in Fiction, The Daily Post Prompt, Tuesday Tales

 
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