My Year of Dirt and Water

questions that are larger than the life in which they arose. The very act of reading this journal is meditative, prompting a profound stillness worth experiencing and definitely worth recommending." -World Literature Today "My Year of Dirt and Water incorporates Zen, pottery, living abroad, and Franz's past and present with skillful delicacy, connecting these elements as if by analogy. Traversing territory defined by lack, My Year of Dirt and Water offers the singular pleasure of a story that 'obscures but is not obscured'." -Foreword Reviews "The vivid and highly distilled prose drew me in from the beginning and gave me the pleasurable sense of a journey to a world different from my own." -Tricycle Magazine "My Year of Dirt and Water is a wonderfully intimate and brave work. . . The reader will be enriched by a sanctuary of words, by the author's heartbeat and compassionate sense of beauty." -Richard Gilbert, author of Poetry as Consciousness: Haiku Forests, Space of Mind, and an Ethics of Freedom (Keibunsha) "Crisp, glittering, deep and probing..." -Dai-En Bennage, translator of Zen Seeds "[Tracy Franz] is a warm, calm, and curious voice that allows us to see Japan in an accessible way." -Cannonball Read "My Year of Dirt and Water turns out to be a narrative treat. Even the brief journal entries capture vibrant peeks into life in Japan-the good, the bad and the frustrating. From her pottery classes to family visits, Tracy Franz takes you to a sometimes magical and sometimes complex world, but one very much full in enriching experiences." -JQ Magazine "My Year of Dirt and Water is filled with questions - on love and loneliness, on fulfillment and failure - and as Tracy ponders them (both behind and away from the potter's wheel), it prompts a self-examination by the reader of their own state of awareness, happiness, and acceptance." -Uncovering Japan "While waiting for her husband to complete his year of formal training, Tracy teaches English at a university for young women, takes pottery classes from a Japanese teacher (hence the dirt and water), and chips away at her meditation practice. Amidst it all, she keeps a daily journal that eventually becomes this book. Her lyrical prose and sense of moment bring each vignette to life." -Sumeru Press "In a year apart from everyone she loves, Tracy Franz reconciles her feelings of loneliness and displacement into acceptance and trust. Keenly observed and lyrically told, her journal takes us deep into the spirit of Zen, where every place you stand is the monastery." -Karen Maezen Miller, author of Paradise in Plain Sight: Lessons from a Zen Garden "It is a long poem, a string of koans and startling encounters, a clear dream of transmissions beyond words. And it is a remarkable love story that moved me to tears." -Bonnie Nadzam, author of Lamb and Lions, and co-author of Love in the Anthropocene "A remarkable account of a woman's sojourn, largely in Japan, while her husband undergoes a year-long training session in a Zen Buddhist monastery. Difficult, disciplined, and interesting as the husband's training toward becoming a monk may be, it is the author's tale that has our attention here." -John Keeble, author of seven books, including The Shadows of Owls