Dorm Living

6/08-8/08

Recently, I moved out of the Matty’s Dorm and into a homestay with a Japanese family. Here I would like to recount the most pleasant characteristic of dorm living: the bedroom.
The day I moved in, Mrs. Kyokuta showed me my room. It had tatami floors, paper windows, a bed and a large metal desk. From the outset, I desired to live and sleep in the Japanese style. I moved out the bed and the desk, and brought in a futon. Every morning I folded up the futon and stored it in the closet and every night I took it out and prepared it for sleeping. During the day, my room consisted of two walls of paper windows, two walls of closed closets and a bare tatami floor.

Such an arrangement brought many moments of peace. Its emptiness was a good environment for prayer, study and meditation. I kept the tatami floors clean and soft and the morning and late afternoon sun illuminated the paper windows with great beauty.

On the south wall, behind the paper windows, there were two sliding panes of glass that opened to a small wooden patio. The patio faced the dorm’s garden: a well-planned set of seasonally flowering bushes and trees, boulders, wild bamboo shoots and a traditional rock lantern. I would often eat breakfast on this patio, looking upon the vegetation and the surrounding hillsides blowing in the wind. At night, the patio often had open views of the rising moon. I would sit and watch it glow through the clouds. On such nights, I would open the window panes, lay the futon next to the screen, and fall asleep with my eyes watching the moon.

Such experiences will be missed, but I have been very happy in my current living environment. I plan to write about the family, the house and the way of life in future.