March 4, 2024
Dear Leland and Everett,
Today is our first day back at school and work after our two-week trip to Taiwan and Japan. I’m hopeful this is a trip you will both remember, though I anticipate Leland (because he’s 8) will remember it better than Everett (who’s 6). Regardless, it was a wonderful trip, and I’m thrilled we were able to pull it together.
The primary purpose of the trip was for your mom to visit her 94-year old grandfather. We last saw him pre-covid, and your mom rightly wonders how many more chances we will get to see him. Even better, we were able to time the trip to overlap with Ah Ma’s visit, and we were even able to convince your uncle to join us…so long as we agreed to visit Japan in addition to Taiwan. In sum, we were able to travel with your mom’s whole family, which makes this the first time we have all travelled to Taiwan together (the family visited Taiwan together in 2016, but Everett wasn’t born yet, and Leland won’t remember that trip because you were only 1).
Our first few days were primarily centered around family in Chiayi, where your grandfather and Ah Ma’s siblings live. From there, we made an overnight excursion to Alishan, a beautiful mountainous area (around 7,000 feet in elevation) with glorious forests, trees, and hiking. We finished the Taiwan portion of the trip with several days in Taipei, where we visited with friends (and you both made new friends), went to the top of Taipei 101, went to see the lights and decorations for the Lantern Festival, and made a day trip to Shifen (where we lit a lantern and set it off into the valley) and Jiufen, where we poked around and ate fabulous foods.
We said goodbye to Ah Ma (for a few days anyway, as she’s now back home with us) in Taipei, and flew to Tokyo with your uncle. We stayed in Ginza, which turned out to be wonderfully centrally located. We ate sushi, tonkatsu, ramen, and udon (all your favorites). We went up to the observatory at the Sky Tree, visited a wonderfully quirky museum called TeamLab Planets (a sort of interactive art exhibit meant to engage the senses), played arcade games, and poked around the neighborhoods of Shinjuku and Shibuya.
You both loved the trip. The beginning was a bit challenging: we were all jet lagged, and visiting elderly family members is not your (nor most kids’) idea of fun). But you enjoyed hiking around Alishan (though none of us enjoyed the bus ride home through the mountains and hair pin turns). You loved making new friends in Taipei. And you both loved Japan. Our room in Tokyo was too small to fit all four of us, so Leland stayed with Uncle; you thought you were big stuff. And of course Everett enjoyed having Mom and Dad to himself. Japan especially suits Leland: the cleanliness, the attention to detail (in seemingly everything), and the precision and predictability I think all resonate with Leland in particular. But Everett enjoyed Japan almost as much; by the end of the trip, Everett said “Next year when we come to Japan…”; your mom and I both started when he said that, because (at least as of now) we have no plans to come back next year, and haven’t discussed coming back. Despite all the fun, Leland was ready to come home (as were Mom and Dad); Everett claimed not be ready, and intimated he had forgotten our home and was starting to think of Japan and Taiwan as home (which I can’t believe to be true, my interpretation is that you were trying to impress upon us how much you enjoyed the trip and wanted to stay longer or do it again). Everett even said he wished we had missed our flight so that we could stay an extra day with Uncle (who came back a day after the rest of us).
My personal favorite experience: in Shibuya Leland found a ramen restaurant he waned to try (aside: three times Leland selected restaurants he really wanted to try as we walked past. Each time we honored the request, partly because no one had better plans and picking restaurants in Tokyo can be tricky to say the least. Each time the results were outstanding, and accounted for two of my three favorite meals in Tokyo, with this anecdote accounting for the third). Everett didn’t want ramen, so I agreed to walk around with Everett while Mom and Uncle joined Leland. After a few minutes of exploring, Everett exclaimed “sushi!” and pointed to a poster promoting a sushi restaurant nearby. So we went to find the restaurant, in the 12th floor of a mall. Everett confirmed he liked the restaurant, and picked what he wanted to eat, so we got a table. Inside, I noticed several other patrons were wearing suits; this appeared to be a restaurant catering to business folk. Nonetheless we were treated graciously and gracefully (as with seemingly all experiences in Japan). Everett loved his sushi (mostly tamago), as I did mine. I even splurged on a small bottle of sake (junmai ginjo – I decided to go for the good stuff; it’s relatively cheap in Japan vs imported here). Nothing particularly noteworthy happened during the meal, but I loved it and it remains one of the highlights of my trip; Everett and I haven’t had a lot of 1:1 time, so I cherished this outing.
As for my spiritual journey, that took a bit of a backseat during the trip. I meditated the first day…and then not again until today. Through the first week I felt…the word that keeps coming to me is “destabilized”. I felt distracted, like I was losing my connection to myself and the deeper truths I’ve been exploring. I did not enjoy that sensation.
Around the end of our time in Taiwan, the adults all noticed that you both were starting to misbehave. You started bickering, and were either running off of falling behind in crowded places. We adults started to get frustrated. And then I realized (remembered?) you guys were looking for attention. The adults were anxious (we were in a big city in a foreign country, after all), and were generally consulting phones or debating with each other on what to do or how to get there. You guys didn’t feel seen or noticed, and were acting out to get our attention. And so I set an intention to reset, and prioritize presence with the two of you. Of course, as we travelled to Tokyo (an even bigger city that’s even more challenging to navigate), I still at times got distracted or anxious, but less so. Generally I was able to keep my focus on the present (which, especially when traveling, often meant keeping my focus on the two of you), and when you guys started seeking attention I was able to quickly reset.
Overall my takeaways were that 1) I’m still a long way from being able to carry presence into all environments (I’m mostly confined to personal time, time at church or with my group, or sometimes when I interact with you or your mom); and 2) I’m still making a lot of progress. I was able to reset midway through the trip and maintain more presence through the end, and being able to maintain presence by myself or with you and your mom represents major progress. I have come a long way, but still have a long way to go.
One final anecdote: at the interactive museum in Tokyo, we found a room where we lay down on the floor and watched projections go across a screen overhead. You guys claimed to get bored, and started gently roughhousing with me. You weren’t so rough as to be searching for attention. Perhaps you were enjoying the exhibit, but needed to make it more entertaining. Or perhaps you just wanted some cuddle time with dad (I’m convinced roughhousing is how men show affection with each other). Regardless, I began to weep, overcome by the beauty of the moment. I was enjoying the visuals scrolling by overhead, but mostly I was enjoying your simultaneous affection. The thought occurred to me: “I don’t know how many more moments like this I have left”. We don’t roughhouse quite like that often (though we do roughhouse regularly, but it’s normally rougher and more involved; one can’t get lost savoring our typical roughhousing), and eventually you both will outgrow roughhousing with me. The visual stimulus really added to the experience. It was a beautiful moment that I genuinely cherished as it was happening.
I love you both, and I look forward to traveling with you (especially to foreign countries) again. In the meantime, I look forward to getting back into my meditations and writing letters to the two of you.
Love,
Dad
Letters to Leland 