First Days as a Nomad Creative

Jiru-sama! ☕️ is how my coffee was called out.

Kyōto is infinitely beautiful with so many things to see, and all I wanted today was to work in this dream café and have a pretending-I-live-here kinda day. I’m slowly learning how balance and temper the pressure to do/see all. the. things. and actually get enough rest to thrive, enjoy life, and be productive. In these exceptional locations it’s a boss-level challenge. 👾

I deeply needed to make and create and write today, and brought all my toys. (Not pictured: Watercolors + my tiny “sound crew” microphone that I use to collect field recordings.) I’m at the Blue Bottle near Nanzen-ji Temple, a real architectural beauty in a refurbished traditional machiya — I’ve wanted to see this for a long time and will enjoy this for a few hours before heading out to record crows, rivers, and trees on this lovely cloudy (finally!) and calm full moon Wednesday. I head back to Tōkyō tomorrow.

I arrived in Japan about a month ago, spent a few weeks in Tōkyō, and came down to Kyōto for a week to soak in some art — specifically, the 2nd annual Ambient Kyōto event featuring the work of Ryuichi Sakamoto, which was an incredible, transcendent experience. These first days and weeks are about getting my sea legs as a nomad — acclimating, soaking up environments and beauty, and getting some holiday rest after a busy few transitional months moving my things into storage and such.

The vibrant cityscapes and natural worlds of these destinations are creative soul-feeding in and of themselves, and to these I add artistic feasts and inputs of all kinds — from immersive exhibits to manga museums to live music to shodo (calligraphy) classes. I’m charging my battery as an artist and designer and human, clearing and calibrating all my senses. It’s all excruciatingly and exhilaratingly raw and present.