Some of you may have been wondering, what happened to Sam? A lot, actually—most profoundly the unexpected birth of my son in June, a full two months before his due date. From small beginnings, Shoko and I have been watching in awe as he’s tripled in size and grown into an adorable baby. More on that experience to follow.
But my newsletter lull began earlier. Aside from the usual busyness of renovation/remunerated work/life, the wider world was certainly weighing on my mental state. Because of the gap in publishing, I have paused subscriptions for a while (a few months after returning to a steady pace, I’ll turn them back on). Under the surface, though, wheels have been turning—big projects have started to take shape, and a number of mostly finished essays have been accumulating. A firstborn son is a good reason to take a step back and rethink routines and priorities, and I know I want to focus more on writing in the next phase. There’s a lot I want to say, and I simply have to do the work, bird by bird.
The second-biggest milestone this year was wrapping up phase two of Labyrinth House, my Onomichi community space. Many of my readers supported our crowdfunding project back in 2024, and I have posted occasional updates, but a proper reflection on the last six years is in order. I have promised our crowdfunding supporters a booklet on the project sometime in 2026, and the thought of sorting through six years of photographs alone is…a bit daunting.
So here’s what I’ll do, every Tuesday and Friday, I will send out a 400~800 word essay on the philosophy and experience of the project, followed by a week-by-week technical recap of what we did, working my way a few weeks at a time from week 1 in October 2020 to week 45 earlier this month. These posts will be marked MLH—Making Labyrinth House. Committing to a regular publishing schedule will be good for me and my tendency to overthink everything that I put in writing. I’ll also publish some other things in between.
As it so happens, W. David Marx asked me earlier this year to write about Labyrinth House for the Setouchi issue of The New Japan. I also wrote a few other articles on the renovation culture of Onomichi and some of the local businesses, but the whole beautiful magazine is worth checking out.
As I wrote there,
Every month or two since 2020, I’ve been gathering with friends and volunteers to rebuild two abandoned houses on the Onomichi hillside—one dating from 1919 and one from 1938, connected by a storehouse. We call them collectively Labyrinth House, a name that describes both their interior layout and the maze of paths and staircases outside. It also hints at our motivations—the mental puzzle and physical challenge is what draws us to the hillside from the more standardized spaces of Tokyo and elsewhere. Rebuilding the houses is a form of play and a part of life, not work or a business. In other words, getting lost is the point.
Renovation-as-a-part-of-life now transitions into a new phase of figuring out what exactly it is that we’ve built. It will depend on how people want to be involved, and what purposes reveal themselves. Over the horizon, more renovation awaits in phase three (the library) and four (the house next door), and an ever larger vision beyond that.
For now, we’re experimenting. We held our grand opening during Golden Week in May, with different members each using the kitchen to serve something each day: home-made ice cream, cheesecake and citrus soda, tonkatsu lunch sets. Wataru served breakfast made with vegetables from his farm. There were poetry workshops, karuta and ninja games. Earlier this month, we split some bamboo and built a water chute through the sloped garden to enjoy nagashi-somen noodles with a crowd of neighbors and kids.
The joy of witnessing my son’s new life has been sweetened by the satisfaction of this long labor of love coming to fruition. One anchor in my life going forward will be this tangible place we have made with our own hands, but more so, the human richness of a community bound together through shared attachment. If we only get one turn at life, I feel lucky to have been able to create this place with these people. I can’t wait to show my little guy the world we’ve built.
See you again Tuesday!
Congrats on everything! Amazing on all accounts.