Love, friendship and banana bread...

All three have been weighing heavily on my mind lately. I've been thinking about love and it's various definitions and what the word has meant to me in the past, and what it means now. I think about how powerful it is and how it sustains me. I think about what I love and who I love and I sometimes drive myself crazy thinking about all the things I want and need at the moments when I can't have them at all. Then I think about suffering, and while I know I have so much more than many others in this world (and I am thankful for that everyday of my life), my own emotions blind me to everything that surrounds me.

Friendship has also shared space in my mind and thoughts over the past while. Being far away from those who know you best forces you to alter/modify your perspectives on what friends mean during different periods in your life. As one who is adverse to radical shifts in personal paradigms, this topic has been particularly troublesome for me. Those that I need close to me are so far, and those that are close to me are far as well. Difficult to explain, even more difficult to reconcile in my own brain.

And finally, there is banana bread. I've been waiting literally months to make this, but due to the absence of any decent sized baking tins, I've been waiting and searching. Lo and behold, last month at the re-contracting conference, a speaker gave an excellent presentation on living well in Japan, complete with drool-inducing recipes. I finally had some time off to experiment with the one for banana bread in the rice cooker but I needed one more ingredient: baking powder. Now, I knew looking for it at the grocery store might be a bit of challenge, but I sorely underestimated my mission. I really wanted to do it on my own, but I broke after about 15 minutes of reading katakanized English (brutal when you're not in that headspace) and asked for help. That, coupled with the nudge-and-stare-at-the-dark-skinned-gaijin gawks, I was done. I practically flew home in my car and all would have been lost had it not been for the banana bread turning out absolutely perfect. Seriously, probably the best banana bread I've made in ages. The rice cooker made it moist and flavourful - the perfect banana bread. And while it gave me some sun during this our rainy season, it's potency was short lived...