逆の世界

Sometimes I don't update because nothing much is happening, and sometimes I don't update because so much is happening that I don't know what to say. Right now I'm sitting on the couch at our Cape Cod house watching the Little League World Series and eating pasta, and Japan feels like a dream. I've also entered the parallel universe that I've felt fluttering just out of reach of the real one, and it feels like the (admittedly rather lame) ending of the Narnia books, when they realize that what they thought was reality was actually a pale shadow of it. I don't know how to write about any of that. Instead, here is a random little snippet, a moment when I almost dipped into the new universe, I guess. It's not very good but whatever, it gave me something to do during all the rain delays in the baseball. ^_^; I'll post a more rambly, anecdote-y update sometime after (eep!) my grad school classes begin this week...


~ ~ ~

"Soro soro," she whispers to the dark ceiling.

"Ah," comes his voice from his futon, an affirmation. Soro soro, what you say before you leave. Like all aisatsu, Japanese greetings, there is only one accepted response. You don't contradict aisatsu. "Soro soro ne."

She lets out a breath and runs her hand slowly over the tatami, up to the futon next to her on which she rests her head. The futon she finally pushed off of herself so she could breathe; the futon he had grabbed from the closet, springing up from under his covers, startling her as she lay on the floor, and piled on top of her, burying her as she giggled helplessly under the weight. It's Gyaku-Land, he told her as he shoved a pillow on top of the futon over her feet. Gyaku, backwards. The air still rings with those giggles, with their laughter as she fell to the floor, giving in to pure tired silliness. "Taorechatta!" they had yelled in spontaneous unison. Fallen, defeated. That's how she feels. After a day of tension and confused longing, completely defeated. Light from the hazy full moon shines weakly through the sliding balcony door, which hides the wet laundry hung up to dry out in the drizzle. It won't dry by tomorrow, and it's her fault, her fault that it will mildew curled up in the suitcase, her fault because she didn't think of this sooner, because she was supposed to think of everything, because she has to be the perfect host, because this trip has to be perfect, perfect, because this is her only time with him, just one more week before he goes back to Her. Because he belongs to Her, and he always will.

But not in Gyaku-Land. In Gyaku-Land it didn't matter. In Gyaku-Land, clothes are put out in the rain to get wet before wearing, and the futon goes on top of you. Maybe in Gyaku-Land, he could belong to her...

But now the futon lies next to her, and the aisatsu hang in the air, banishing the traces of their laughter. Inescapable. She said it because she has no right to be here. No right to just want to lie near him, giggling and breathing and forgetting. Soro soro, she will push herself up, stand, step down into the hall, send more aisatsu across the room as she leaves -- oyasumi, mata ashita. See you tomorrow. Descend the stairs to her own room, where she can't hear him breathe as she can now. Soro soro, soon, soon...

Tidbits

A post of unrelated tidbits.

イ) It's probably a bad sign about me or society or both if I find it hard to believe something is true as long as it's contradicted by facebook, isn't it?

ロ) I will miss the sound that rain makes on the roof of this house. Last night it rained harder than it's rained all year. It was gorgeous.

ハ) It's hard not to get angry with Noelle, my successor, for little things she has every right to do. Like put the rice cooker on the shelf by the fridge. Or lock the bottom lock on the door, or use the top light switch in the living room instead of the bottom. I'm grateful that I could claim my bedroom as a sanctuary right now. If she had taken it over I would be going crazy.

ニ) There was a little kid on the train back from Toyooka today, three years old, and for a while he was wearing his father's sneakers and wandering around the front of the train car babbling to himself. The cutest part was that most of his babbling, I noticed, was in polite desu/masu form, which sounds somehow quite incongruous coming from a tiny three-year-old in sneakers three times too big for him.

ホ) When Val was driving me to the station I saw one of the twins from my old third-year class walking along the sidewalk with a girl, holding hands. Val rolled down my window and I waved, and when he saw me he gave the cutest embarrassed smile, and continued looking back at me and grinning and waving as they crossed the street in front of us and turned the corner. I don't know which twin it was. I had gotten to where I could tell them apart pretty well if they were standing next to each other, although after Masashi cut his hair it was significantly harder. If I had to guess I would guess Masashi. But maybe just because he was my favorite. Which was really just because he was the left-handed one. Although also because he wrote me a message once. In any case, whichever it was, it was adorable.

エ) I am not really here anymore. I have a hard time conjuring interest to do even things I know I ought to enjoy, because my spirit has flitted ahead of me back home. I want to fall asleep now and wake up in New Jersey. I love Japan but I've left it, and it's an odd feeling to be here in body but not spirit. I am not miserable and I can still enjoy scattered moments. But every day feels like an expanse of time with nothing real to fill it. Just a lot of motions.

ト) I took a nap just now and after about forty-five minutes woke up panicked because my right leg was completely numb, and not coming back just from shaking it. I spent several seconds still partly unconscious and convinced that I was having a stroke. Finally it started to tingle and feeling came back and I calmed down enough to go back to sleep...but when I woke up two hours later, my left leg and half my right arm were numb or tingling. They're mostly better now but my body is on hyper-alert and every weird prickle or ache registers sharply in my brain so that I'm sure it's not normal and any second my whole body will go numb and I will stop being able to talk. This is, of course, untrue, but I have a hard time internalizing that even when I know the fear is irrational.

チ) It's odd for me to carry around so many un-articulated emotions. It'd odd for me to be patient -- odd enough that I worry it must seem like I don't care all that much. そういうわけで・は・あ・り・ま・せ・ん。 It seems that when something is important enough, I actually have some reserve of strength that overrides the natural desire to spew everything that's on my mind at once even when I know it's selfish. This kind of surprises me.

リ) I just discovered that Noelle also put all the silverware that was in the drying rack away in the drawer. I've used the same three or four forks and spoons all year, and I always just take them from the drying rack. Putting them in the drawer seems like an unnecessary step. Now I don't know which are the ones I've always used.

ヌ) Walking around the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima I felt nauseous. I don't know if I can say more about the experience than that. I don't know that I can say where that nausea came from. I'm afraid that a large part of it came from knowing that it is completely impossible for me to imagine that much death and pain, or to actually come close to feeling as sad as I think I ought to. Part of it probably came from guilt about all the other tragedies going on right now that I'm not forced to think about much and am not doing anything to stop. I thought, honestly, that being in Hiroshima wouldn't effect me much. I thought, "I mean, I already know that we dropped a bomb there and I already think it's horrible; it's not like I have to be convinced." It hit me a lot more viscerally than I was expecting. In the evening I felt like I had to go back, and I spent half an hour sitting in the rain in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome watching people go by and take pictures. The trees above me were buzzing with cicadas and combined with the rain they made a sound that felt like a softly vibrating cocoon. When I closed my eyes I could feel each large raindrop from the trees above me hit my skin. I don't think I have anything deep or insightful to say about Hiroshima. But I am incredibly glad I went.

ル) I ought to be packing right now but I don't think I can. I did laundry today and that will have to be enough. Tomorrow night when I get back from the festival I will pack because then I will have to. I'm going to ship my suitcases to the airport on Monday, and then all I will have will be my computer, my iPod, headphones, clothes for three days, some toiletries, and Topo.

ヲ) I am excited to see Brownie.

ワ) Does it make any sense to care too much about someone's happiness to feel I could bear responsibility for it?

カ) I bought an umbrella last summer for 3700円. It was an impulse buy as I was walking around Toyooka by myself for the first time trying to being to feel at home there. I passed a little store on Sun Stork Avenue that had umbrellas on one side and fabric on the other, and couldn't resist. The umbrella is a slightly shimmery purple fabric with gold and blue-ish flowery patterns. The truth is that I haven't used it nearly enough this year; when I'm home and it's raining I tend to just drive places, and I haven't taken it with me on trips, favoring the more convenient but significantly less satisfying little folding umbrellas. And I have now discovered that it does not fit in my suitcases. I don't know what to do. The wimpy part of me wants to just leave it here, because I'm scared of trying to carry it onto the airplane and being told that I can't. I hate being perceived as trying to break rules. But Adam told me I can't leave it here, because I care about it and will appreciate it more than anyone who subsequently lives in this house. And I think he's right; I would be sad to abandon it. But I'm stressed about the whole thing and I wonder if I'll ever stop being so daunted by little awkward logistic things like this.

ヨ) My grandma offered me the room in the back of the apartment that's currently used as a computer room and study to have as my room when I live there. It's a nice, spacious room, and the only other room I could have is tiny, barely big enough to fit a bed. And I'll probably end up taking it, but...is it silly of me to feel a bit weird having my room be the room in which my grandfather died?

タ) My uncle and I were talking today about Christmas. Apparently fewer people than usual are planning to come to our family Christmas party this year. I suppose this makes sense. One of my great-uncles moved to Chicago. My dad's cousin and his wife are having a child this August. A couple of the other nuclear families that always come are starting to feel like they'd just as soon have smaller Christmas parties of their own. My cousin has a serious boyfriend right now and there's a chance that he will show up for some of the time, which will be a landmark: no one in my generation has brought someone to Christmas before. All in all, it sounds like there's a pretty good chance that this Christmas will feel like the tail end of the era of the Christmas parties I grew up with. But my cousin and I have said our whole lives that we'll never stop having Christmas together, no matter what. I hope she means it, because I do.

レ) A segment on the Daily Show just now inspired me to finally search around for this video, which we saw eight years ago (good lord, eight years ago??) at the Concert for New York. It was one of the only things at that concert (which I am still quite glad I went to) that I didn't find rather offensive and scary. I think it's quite well done.

ソ) I don't spend enough time just listening to music. I realized this a week or so again when Adam and I spent a little while listening to music on YouTube, and it struck me that it was the first time in a long time, since I haven't been to any concerts in Japan, that I've spent time in which the only activity I was concentrating on was listening to music. Even when I'm in the car and singing along, I'm usually also daydreaming about other things. (Not to mention, uh, driving.) And at home when I have music on, it's always background to doing things online or talking to people or washing dishes or something. I don't like to listen to music on trains for some reason. So it was really...refreshing, I guess, to just do nothing but focus on the music.

ツ) Speaking of music, I would just like to say that every time I listen to any Jethro Tull music after having wandered away from it for a while, the complete overwhelming genius of Ian Anderson blows me away anew. There is a lot of other music I love and deeply enjoy listening to, and a lot that I find satisfying in ways that Jethro Tull can't quite match; but when it comes down to it, there's just this intense quality to Ian's music that it's hard to compare other things to.

ネ) The next 144 hours are going to go so slowly.

That's enough for now (although I'm sorry I didn't get to ヰ or ヱ...). Sorry for the disconnected post. My thoughts feel rather disconnected right now.

Lyrics courtesy of Ian Anderson, in one of his more sentimental moods.

As the dawn sun breaks over sleepy gardens
I'll be here to do all things to comfort you.
And though I've been away,
left you alone this way,
why don't you come awake
and let your first smile take me home...