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!