I read my posts from the beginning of last month, days before we left for Tokyo, and I feel like they were written by a person from another time.  Not another person.  I am the same in many ways.  Still mothering Julia with a lot of resistance, still looking for what she will do when we get home (You can email from anywhere although responses are no quicker from far away), still bickering with Julia which is doing neither of us much good, still trying to figure out how to deal with her body dysmorphic perseverations, still trying to inspire her to desire to do something, anything.  

But there are other “stills.” No, perhaps, still is the wrong word, the wrong idea.  

Three weeks into this journey and I acknowledge that I feel challenged on many fronts.  In these wee hours of a night time becoming morning, I acknowledge that watching Julia fit into our Asian adventures brings a certain amount of pleasure.  I have not technically brought her home, not yet anyway, but we are somewhere where she is much more related to the dominant culture than I am and that feels right.  I’ve found a way to get her drawing and painting, at least somewhat.  A few days every week we trade a very small notebook back and forth, taking turns drawing and painting.  Not great masterpieces but some simple pleasure.  It is also wonderful to have a traveling companion who likes to do so many part of travel that I love—long and sometimes multiple visits to museums, days when we are closer to just living here than sightseeing and being tourists, and reveling in the unexpected which lies around almost every corner.  It has meant that I have to give up control of everything but there is comfort in that too.  Not that releasing my killer grip on travel plans has been without discomfort.

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