One of the books I'm currently reading is volume 3 of I'm in Love with the Villainess, a Japanese light novel by Inori. As I was reading this morning, I was struck by this quote from one of the characters:

They say the elderly tend to look back fondly on the past; I think it's because we envy our younger selves, who had yet to make the mistake we've made now. It's easier to wish to change your past than to acknowledge what you've done.

While I wouldn't classify myself as elderly, I can certainly relate to this idea — when I look back, I find myself not thinking that the past itself was inherently better, but instead that had I done something different — if I could have magically had then the knowledge I have now — that I might perhaps have been able to end up in a better place now.

Like many 1980s kids, I was introduced to bonsai trees through The Karate Kid. In the years since, I've intermittently entertained the idea of trying to train a bonsai tree — and maybe someday I'll get around to it. In the meantime, though, I enjoyed reading this article from NPR celebrating the 400th birthday of the Yamaki Pine, a bonsai tree which survived the atomic blast at Hiroshima and then was gifted to the United States by the government of Japan in 1976. I was particularly interested to discover that one of the bonsai experts/enthusiasts featured in the article was from New Orleans, and that one of his trees which was photographed for the article was a bald cypress, which is a type of tree that I'd never seen as a bonsai before.