MY DAD just arrived in Japan. It feels like nothing’s changed; met him and brought my friends for dinner and some drinks in an upstairs izakaya.

The three of us came back to our apartment building, 12am; it feels like a college dorm.

Santana just moved into the building for a couple of weeks, another friend in Japan who’s dedicated his time to studying matcha, living on a farm near Kyoto for the last month.

I didn’t think about the time and banged on his door; minutes later he came out smiling with his eye mask on.

We sat on the floor and talked in the hallway for a while, then he asked if he could make us matcha.

When you get your first whisk, the bamboo chasen, it’s important that you make the tea for friends, not yourself, I believe is what he said.

We went up to my room and put on some tunes.

Santana brought us the tea in a bowl. Bright green matcha, a beautiful, iridescent and silvery bowl. The best tea any of us have ever had.

If you have something you love, a simple thing like your matcha bowl, you don’t need much else. For me, that’s a pen. A good pen; a good mug, great friends.

1am. Home. Passing around the tea and talking about what we love and how we’re struggling and what life truly could be — what it is — what’s brought us here, where we hope to go. Life is absolutely wild.

Memories to last a lifetime; a dorm room tea ceremony; oto-san seeing my life in Japan.