October 10, 2010

It’s hard for me to write now because this feels more like a diary than a travel guide, as it used to. I’ve never really kept a diary. I’ve started several, though. From what I remember, they aren’t meant to be shared. It’s Sunday night and my favorite Japanese drama comes on in 15 minutes, at which point one of my kids will barge into my room and drag me away from whatever I am occupied by, and we’ll watch “Ryoma, The Hope” together. Sometimes Aiko will fall asleep with her thumb in her mouth and either Junko or I will have to carry her to bed. And sometimes Junko San will cry and I’ll have to pretend that I didn’t notice. I keep busy with school and Japanese studies and an unhealthy sum of reading. I sleep hard. I bike often. Many quiet weeknights I get out of school just as the sun is setting, and I start biking towards it. And it doesn’t matter where it is taking me because if I pedal hard enough, I know I’ll catch it. That’s all that really matters. I used to keep track in my head of where I turned, so I could find my way back, but I don’t anymore. Somehow here, when I’m lost, it’s never for long. I still don’t know my way around town because I take a different route just about every day. And I don’t stop until I’m satisfied with my view of the sky. And it really does feel like I’m closer to the sun, though I know that’s silly.

All this weekend we’ve been celebrating the Buddhist gods. There’s a huge festival, starting 200 meters away from my window, with food and games and entertainment and just about everything else you could ask for in a day. Beating drums woke me up Saturday morning to a near empty house. Most of my family left town to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the death of Junko San’s husband and the kids’ father. I left because I needed new shoes, and because I couldn’t handle such a still, silent room. I figured I could do my Japanese homework at the mall, since people watching tends to consequent productivity. I don’t know how that makes any sense. I’ve just accepted it. That didn’t happen though, because when I sat down in the food court and started to take out my notebook, I looked up to see eight white guys eating udon noodles a few tables over. At first I didn’t know how to react to such an unusual occurrence. In a way I felt it somewhat of an intrusion—that whole “this town ain’t big enough for the both of us” kind of thing. After creepily peering at them from behind my notebook for a few minutes, I decided that I should probably take the initiative to find out their intentions with my town. I walked up to their table and said something that came out a little more offensive than I’d anticipated. But I quickly discovered that they were very friendly and were, in fact, not trying to take over Izumo by contaminating it with culturally numb Americans. We spent a good portion of the day together, and I even took them to the roof for what I think to be an especially impressive view of the city. I figured this was okay because they would only be here for another week and therefore didn’t have the time to corrupt my top-secret thinking spot with another human’s presence.

I spent most of the rest of this weekend at the festival, going with different people, taking pictures, losing and eventually recovering children. I missed dinner tonight because I got lost chasing the sun again, hit a curb in the dark, fell on the pavement and laughed until my knee stopped throbbing. My family was worried because no matter how long I’m gone or how lost I’ve been, I always seem to make it home right before dinner. I took a shower and walked out wrapped in a towel, as usual. There is only one shower in my house, as most Japanese homes have, and it happens to be downstairs by the kitchen. The stairs, leading to my room and the living space of the house, pass right by the kendo shop. This has never been a problem until tonight, when Ito San had company in the shop. So I’m standing in the kitchen in a towel, waiting for the voices to cease in the kendo shop so I can get to my room without old Japanese men seeing my bare shoulders and dripping hair. My host moms, still doing dishes, and Aiko couldn’t relieve the predicament while laughing hysterically at me. I’m thinking that maybe I could sneak up the stairs subtly, but that’s near impossible because the stairs are obnoxiously creaky and are stationed conveniently obvious to the store and its contents. It really wasn’t funny; I don’t know why everyone was laughing so hard. Finally Aiko takes my hand and leads me through the kitchen and past the tearoom and everything else I thought existed of the downstairs. Apparently not though, because we came to this room I’d never seen in the two months I’ve lived here, and up these stairs that I think were spiral, but I can’t be sure because I couldn’t even make out my hand intertwined with Aiko’s in the relentless dark. The whole time she was whispering to me like we were set out on a secret mission—a Japanese underground railroad where the purpose was far less momentous but the concealment just as vital. Anyway, we came out on the roof underneath my hanging laundry. It was rather thrilling. I walked past Isamu and he screamed, “Sarah-chyan’s naked!” and I countered, “Am not!” reinstating another strike of laughter downstairs.
So that’s the past 2 hours and the highlights of yesterday.

There’s no way I could describe each detail of my life here in Japan. In a lot of ways it’s just like anybody else’s. I still hit the snooze button twice on my alarm clock, the rain doesn’t wait for my clothes to dry, I’m constantly losing things, and everyday I’m reminded that bad things happen to really great people. Last week there was one day where a really intense storm hovered over Izumo. It rained all day and saturated my clothes on the bike ride home from school. I’ve biked in the rain plenty of times here, but not like this. The droplets were heavy and cold and stung like BB pellets. I couldn’t stop shivering and tried to take my mind somewhere away from the bitterness of the weather. I started thinking of everything inside my body, beneath my skin, how warm it would be and how every organ was still mechanically performing regardless of the external. And I felt holy, like my body was offering itself as a sanctuary and everything I was meant something more than a breathing being. I don’t know how else to say it; I’m not even religious… I’m sorry this makes little sense. I don’t ever make any sense anymore. The point is, all you can really ask for is the recognition that you are alive with a purpose, and that we have the choice and the power to fight what dies inside us while we live.
What really bothers me is how no one really understands each other. No one really knows anyone until they know themselves. That kills me.
I have to sleep now before I keep trying to force nonsense into words.