“Well, I mean... Anybody can do it. It’s not like it was my dream job or anything I desperately wanted to do. I just kind of fell into it. But I live on my own, so I have to work to support myself.” “You managed to find employment, you go to work every day and you can feed yourself. That’s a fine achievement.” Nobody’s ever summed up my life in

“You have to turn that ‘don’t’ into a goal.”

I just want to hide. Looking down, I say to Mrs. Numauchi, “I have a lot to learn.” She shakes her head. “At first, I knew nothing, but stick with it and you’ll learn along the way. That’s all that’s needed.”

Unhappily biding my time in an office doing a job that doesn’t excite me? And on top of everything, come home and not be able to stop thinking about work? There is never any escape from the petty frictions and irritations of dealing with other people, and having to come down on them about squaring the accounts and books. I might as well be at work

Sea glass is the glass from faraway places that you find washed up on the beach. Fragments of broken jars and bottles are tossed by the waves until the edges rub smooth, and they arrive on the shores of other countries looking like nature’s own polished works of art.

“The moment you say ‘don’t,’ you’re done for.”

Humans only see what suits them most, and make that their main focus, but for plants... Both are main. My mind jumps to the article about parallel careers where each job is complementary, neither is secondary.

So there I am, the budding career woman and local girl made good, crying and shaking with anger. This is not how I ever want Saya to see me.

“Everybody is connected. And any one of their connections could be the start of a network that branches in many directions. If you wait for the right time to make connections, it might never happen, but if you show your face around, talk to people and see enough to give you the confidence that things could work out, then ‘one day’ might turn into