Monday, November 24, 2008

Dawn

Last Monday morning I sat on a bench at the train station as the sun rose. I had woken up fifty minutes earlier than I needed to, having remembered the train as being at 6:06 rather than 6:56. And so I had walked down the empty street, the sky still pitch black, to find the station lit and warm but the ticket window still closed. It was the first time I can consciously remember when I have been awake and out in the world before dawn having woken up for the day. By the time the train arrived, the sky was a hazy gray-blue.

Perhaps there's something inherently uplifting about experiencing firsthand the transition from night to day.

In any case, for the three hours and seven minutes of that train ride, I felt bathed in a sort of primal happiness. The sun peaking from behind the mountains reflected in the mist that still hovered along the ground. We sped by little villages with those characteristic curved roofs that never fail to remind me of sunlight on rippling water, and by stores with signs written in ridiculous English. I giggled for no reason: at the cute train worker who collected my tickets, who would stand formally at the end of the car and bow before heading down the aisle each time; at the woman who came by with a car offering boxed lunches, chocolate, fruit juice, coffee, and beer; at the college students sitting across the aisle from me, one of whom was working on English homework; at the middle-aged woman who wore a shockingly colorful striped sweater and sat gossiping with friends a few seats away from me; at the glimpses out the window of the castle in Himeji. I didn't feel like reading my book. I didn't feel like taking myself out of each tiny moment. I didn't even especially daydream. Somehow I'd slipped into a state where boredom didn't exist, where the seconds strung together at exactly the right pace, and all I wanted was to take them in.

The strange euphoria didn't fade when I reached Sannomiya. I knew exactly what I wanted and set out on a quest to find it: the Starbucks we'd stopped at the one other time I was briefly in Kobe. Setting out toward what seemed from a map to be the main shopping district, I had a beautiful instant of suddenly knowing exactly where I was. And yes -- there was the street I should turn down. And yes -- there was the Starbucks, right on the corner I knew it would be on. I ordered a Cafe Mocha. Behind me in line were two American men talking about psychiatry, and I swear we saw them the first time we were at that Starbucks as well. I sat sipping the mocha and eating a warm cinnamon roll, reading my book and listening to the phonemes of English floating to me from the table where the two men sat, and from the Christmas music playing over the speakers.

How lovely, I thought to myself, to feel so thrilled to find a real city, to immerse myself in the bustle and anonymity, in the vague half-illusion of sitting in a Starbucks in America, to let myself reconnect with that familiarity, to be reassured that I am American and America exists, it's out there, it's not just somewhere I read about on the internet...to let myself be submerged in that pleasure and know, at the same time, how happy, how relieved I would be to return to Kasumi, where everyone I pass on the street grins at me and crowds of students make their mouths into perfect round O's when they catch sight of me and say "Oooh, Reh-bek-ka?? Hellooo!!" The perfect sort of trip, I reflected rather sappily, when there's something so satisfying about both being away and coming back.

Among the Christmas mix that played with Happy Xmas (War is Over). I stopped reading and closed my eyes, just listening.

Really the whole trip was perfect. Walking around old neighborhoods of Kobe discussing Thick as a Brick, stumbling upon perpetual motion machines (just lying in trash cans! ...well okay, on shelves in a little shop, but whatever), drinking 抹茶ミルク in a tiny nautical-themed bar with an adorable bartender and a mylar Elmo balloon, singing Honey Blade at karaoke, the onsen at the capsule hotel...and then of course Kyoto and the perfect garden we found, which there is no point talking about with words -- go look at my pictures on facebook if you haven't already. And all of this coming on the heels of a lovely weekend of 文化祭, from Akinobu and some of his friends very sweetly taking on the task of chatting with me and helping me find things to do to help Saturday afternoon, to almost crying at the second-years' play about the earthquake in Kobe, to the third-year girls invading my house after it was over and watching Youtube videos on my computer and squealing 「かっっこういいい!!」...

But of those four amazing days, what I want to capture and remember in this post is that feeling from the train Monday morning. I don't think there's any way to describe it quite right, and I don't think there's any way to create that feeling for yourself on purpose. But it was beautiful. And perhaps sometime in the future when I've forgotten, I'll be skimming through my blog and find this post, and I'll be reminded.

I don't want to post lyrics, because what I really want to post is Elegy, which has no lyrics. So here:

Elegy

Friday, November 07, 2008

バラまいちゃうのさ

On Monday Valerie and I stood by a large shrine, right at the bottom of the wooden steps. We had passed through the large gate, stepping carefully over a wooden beam that blocks the path, and then down the walk toward the main temple. This shrine we now faced was off to the right, and at the top of the few wooden steps sat a wooden box, with a rope hanging down over it.

"Hey any spirits that might be listening," I began, palms together in front of my chest, "could you please help Obama win tomorrow? That'd be really cool of you."

"And," Valerie added, "once he wins, please help him not to be killed..."

"Yes," I agreed, "That too." I looked at the wooden box. "Aren't we supposed to put money in it or something?"

"I don't think we're supposed to step on the wood," Valerie told me.

"But why are there steps and a box and a rope if you're not supposed to do anything with them?" I countered.

She shrugged. "Maybe the priests can go up there?"

But what if we do it wrong, and it doesn't work? I worried. I was sure you were supposed to put money in the box. I even saw a coin lying on the wooden porch. Were we supposed to throw the money? No, we must be allowed to climb the steps. I started to move forward, and stopped. But what if Valerie was right and the wood is off limits? I stared at the shrine.

"Sorry," I mumbled to the spirits, "We might not be doing it right but we're just ignorant foreigners, and please help Obama anyway!"


Wednesday morning at the end of second period, I pulled out my cell phone. Six new messages. The first polls had closed. I scanned the emails from my brother, standing by the electoral map I posted on the ENGLISH BOARD, blue and red markers poised in my hand. MSNBC has called Pennsylvania for Obama, I read. The blue marker hesitated in midair. I would not call Pennsylvania for Obama, not yet. It couldn't have been that easy. After months and months of wondering, it couldn't be as simple as reading this email on my cell phone, coloring a blob blue, and that's that. I couldn't let go of the suspense that easily.

I don't know when I first believed that Obama had won. In fact, I have believed he was going to win for several weeks. I just wouldn't say it, wouldn't even quite think it. But terrible visions persisted, of staring at an electoral map on the computer at school and seeing Pennsylvania colored red, Ohio colored red, Florida colored red. It took me a while to truly accept that those visions simply hadn't happened. It took me a while to really believe that the websites I was refreshing, the emails that kept flashing up on my phone, represented actual results. The actual results. Reality.

Florida made me happiest. When they called Florida for Obama, I felt a rush of victory for the first real time. Take that, 2000.


Wednesday afternoon I sat outside. The weather gods were celebrating; I took off my sweater and still felt almost hot. Two little boys strode up to me and held out a crumb of a sweet rice cracker. 「あげます!」 I took it and they ran off, waving to me. The girls in the second-storey window waved and waved down at me, giggling. Two little girls wandered over and we colored together, flowers and ribbons and animals and numbers, while the 三年生女子 took pictures of the guys' track team with my cell phone and played with my hair. The chapter the third-year students are doing right now is about the civil rights movement. When I went to the New York Times website and saw the headline: OBAMA!, I blinked back tears. Then I knew I had to be outside, that the teachers' room was too small a world to inhabit right then. The students who passed on their way home grinned and waved at me. The third-year girls were doing god knows what with my cell phone, and the two little girls put all the markers neatly back in their case when we finished drawing animals. The world was wonderful.

Thank you, spirits of 小浜市. どうもありがとうございました。


Thursday evening I sat in a Japanese restaurant in Toyooka, my chest and stomach tingling warmly from the soba I had just eaten, chatting with Valerie about societal constructions and scrips and creating agency, the kind of conversation I have thirsted for since leaving Swarthmore. Glancing at my phone I saw an email: Akinobu had dropped his present for me, in return for the sticker I got him in 小浜市, off at my house. A kit for growing a certain edible mushroom. After lingering for a delightful couple hours in the restaurant lit by lovely round hanging lamps, I arrived home to find the mushroom kit, with directions in Japanese and translated into English, very kindly, by Akinobu. After reading them, I folded them back up and set them next to my growing pile of notes from students. Four different students. I pulled out the song lyrics one girl had written and given to me. As I began typing them up to email to Adam, a message from Skype popped up. Holly was calling! I answered and we chatted for almost an hour, at the end of which my dad IMed me to say he was around. I gave up on finishing the email to Adam that night.


In the past few weeks, I have exchanged messages or IMs with four different people that I hadn't talked to for three or four or seven years. I have received random snack food from three little kids, and drawn flowers and ribbons with two. I've chatted with three high school girls in the supermarket. I've exchanged notes or emails with four students, and smiled and waved at hundreds more. Yesterday I discovered for the first time a large shrine at the end of my block. I've driven through three prefectures singing at the top of my lungs to N'sync, hide, and The Beatles. Twenty students bothered to put check marks in the box for Obama (17) or McCain (3). America didn't mess up. The little boy who told my mom on election day as she worked at the polls that he was going to be president will no longer see a long list of faces all different from his own. Tonight I will hang out with Andrew, and tomorrow is the Cultural Festival at 二中.


Life can be incredibly beautiful.


Hi-ho, 星降る夜 窓の四角に捕まえた歌
Hi-ho, 手を伸ばして くだらない世界にバラまいちゃうのさ
Say hi-ho!