The dojo was rather a puzzle yesterday morning. Stalks of bamboo, cleanly cut as though with a blade, laid in fanned clusters. There was a red votive candle in the middle of the field. The plain clear glass holder had a wedge broken out of it. A small untouched cellophane bag of animal crackers, damp from drizzle, lay near the peeling wood door which is a permanent fixture in one corner. (Flat on the ground, the door works as a table for jacket, or keys, or bokuto.) Perhaps people had camped out there, created rough mats of bamboo as a cushion from the hard ground. They'd discovered a pocket of wilderness in the city.

But the one find during sword that pushed me to fetch my camera at the end of practice was the old smashed glasses.

(This is odd subject matter for a blog, isn't it? When I could write of more important matters, family matters or state of the planet or beautiful Jupiter and Venus fast approaching their rendezvous. But it's late, and the smashed glasses are what I've got.)