Catching lightening in an akiya.
So today’s almost daily dispatch comes to you from my charging station—aka, my side of the bed. Yesterday was a full day of bed rot, allowing myself a day to rest and heal from either a really horrible bout of allergies or a mild cold. Take your pick. I had fully intended on mapping out this segment of our adventures, and an introduction to Ron Podmore yesterday, but a thick layer of brain fog had other plans.
Confession time.
I have been keeping a little bit of a secret. I am trying to catch lightning in a bottle, well an akiya. There is a master plan, a hope, a dream with this little blog of mine that includes a film project that my honey and I have been very blessed to be a part of.
The Reddit Thread That Changed Everything
It is time to introduce Ron Podmore. One fine evening while I was in our home in Otaru, Japan, I was on Reddit and snarkily replied to someone who was critical of people who were buying homes (specifically akiyas, abandoned houses). I popped off with the sarcastic, critical wit that I am more inclined to do behind my Reddit anonymity. As fate would have it, Ron read my comment and, thankfully, appreciated my snark.
Ron reached out to me via Reddit direct messages and said that he was working on a documentary about Americans buying properties in other countries—would we be interested in participating in the project?
As if my Leo Sun, Gemini Moon, Aries rising self would say no!!
“Sugar Nuts, How Do You Feel About…?”
I looked over at my honey, blissfully unaware of what I had just said “yes” to.
“Ummm, honey? Sugar nuts (don’t ask)?”
“Yes, dear?” he replied—slow, steady, and measured, which is his norm.
“How do you feel about… being featured in a documentary about buying our house in Japan?”
He stared at me intently. Minutes tick by—okay, only seconds, but it felt like hours.
“Come again? What?”
As relationships evolve, there are certain phrases, inside jokes, and keywords that become a recurring stitch in the fabric of the relationship. My honey is now well-versed in the fact that if a sentence starts with “How do you feel about…”, I am either about to propose the most amazing adventure ever, or I am going to argue to my near demise that raising quail on our deck in a 100-gallon aquarium is a brilliant idea.
It was at that exact moment that all my pent-up excitement came flooding out. Armed with a total willingness to jump into this project headfirst—without a single consideration for our privacy or any other consequences—I launched into a hurried explanation of what had just happened. On Reddit, of all places.
From Tokeland to Otaru: Lights, Camera, Action
Within 45 days, my honey and I were in front of Ron’s cameras. We filmed our first day at the historic Tokeland Hotel in Tokeland, WA. From there, we filmed in our Washington home, which was completely surreal. To have lights, cameras, and to be mic-ed up in your own private space is both exciting and a bit jarring. It was in that moment that both my honey and I realized we were opening ourselves up—embracing vulnerability and taking risks that we had always longed to take.
Finally, Ron traveled to our home in Otaru, Japan, in February of this year. This was surreal in a different way. We welcomed someone that we now consider a friend—an American friend—into our home in Japan. Nine months ago, we found this akiya, this abandoned home, on the slope of Mount Tenguyama. It was a Google Street View image of the former owner—meticulously tending to her garden with scissors—that wooed my mystic heart and convinced me we had to buy it. And there we were, only five months into ownership: my honey and I, two kids with broken dreams from two different parts of the United States, filming a documentary in Japan about dreaming big and pushing boundaries and borders.
In Flight We Trust: The American Exodus
As of this writing, there is a trailer for the documentary, In Flight We Trust: An American Exodus on Ron’s YouTube page. It has already racked up over 164,000 views and 2,600 likes so far. The Pittsburgh Moving Pictures Film Festival has accepted the trailer for their annual competition, and we are eagerly awaiting the results. While we do not have an official release date just yet, we do know that two small regional theater chains in the Northwest and Midwest have already picked it up for a limited theatrical release.
And so, my dear sojourners, I decided to follow my own passions: taking up the pen again to give Joy her voice back and pursuing my dream of authorship, screenwriting, motivational speaking, and more.
Maybe this is more than becoming a journalist for a local paper as I once dreamed of. (And if you haven’t read about the junior high counselor who tried to crush that dream you can find that story here. ). Maybe, just maybe, the universe has something bigger, better, bolder in store.
All I know, is that I have to try.
For all of us.
Maybe I can catch lightning in our Akiya, after all?
My honey, Scott Beatty, has written beautiful, long form content on our adventures in Japan. You can access his blog here.
If you want to follow along for the release of the documentary and more updates from our journey, please enter your email below.