Sakura and I have been trying to find comfortable ground without Madoka. We have to deal directly with each other without Madoka’s help. Madoka made everything easy because she could relate to both of us. We could communicate more easily and cordially through Madoka. Now I’m approaching Sakura more like I would if I had met her on my own, more considerate, more tolerant, less critical, more at arms length.
We might be getting a gig. Sakura knows this white woman who’s a DJ in Kyoto and runs a promotion agency. She wants to promote and manage Sakura and hook her up with some semi-pro musicians she knows who are looking for someone to back up. However, one of them is a bass player.
I’ve been telling Sakura to take whatever opportunities she can get, even if it meant dropping me. But she stuck her neck out for me and got me in on rhythm guitar. Guitar? Moi? I have my doubts, but I totally appreciate that she’s looking out for me. It has blazed new horizons of trust and commitment, although none the more in true friendship or affection.
Shiho and I got together. She came down from Tokyo on Friday on the first Shinkansen and we spent the day at Osaka Castle, talking and getting reacquainted with our silences. She is more “Japanese” than I remember, which hammered home a point she made several years ago that kind of felt like a betrayal to me. When I was discovering my Asian American identity, she stated that she wasn’t Japanese American, she’s Japanese. But almost her entire grade school and high school education was in the U.S., she spoke fluent English without an accent, and she was totally competent being in the U.S. and with U.S. culture. And she was saying all those years of being in the U.S. and all it shaped of her personality meant nothing, she’s Japanese. She was saying her years in the U.S., including me, were insignificant.
Now I understand better. Despite her familiarity, she has grown and matured and has changed a hell of a lot. She’s now a photographer and has a darkroom and nice equipment. She has her own thing now, her own interests and her own hobbies, she isn’t the follower I remember. More confident, more self-identity, and she’s going out with someone.
She left that night to go to her grandmother’s house in Hiroshima, only an hour and a half away by Shinkansen. Her parents would never allow her to stay in Osaka with me. They never liked me being so close to their oldest daughter all through high school.
So I went down to visit her in Hiroshima on Sunday. It was my first time to Hiroshima and just going there was heavy. The city’s unwanted and undeserved historicity hung in the air, and it was beyond credibility that 47 years ago, on an August day, perhaps much like today, certainly as hot and humid, this entire city was devastated by a single bomb. What horrible reality is missed by our imaginations now? On a day, perhaps much like today, hot and humid, and yes, it was clear so it was sunny like today, a single B-29 bomber, hardly cause for alarm, named Enola Gay flew across the sky.
On a day, perhaps much like today, by the same time of day that I arrived in Hiroshima, the city was destroyed, on fire, and thousands of people were dead, incinerated where they stood, their shadows burned into the ground, or their skin melting off their bodies. The horrors memorialized in the semi-ironic “Peace Park”.
The thoughts were sent back to history as Shiho became reality, and with her we went around Hiroshima and decided to go to one of her favorite places, Miyajima, an island just off the coast. There were lots of deer there. We watched the sun set and then it was time for me to go back to Osaka. She accompanied me to the train station where we had dinner and our first beer together, hopefully not our last.
There’s something happening here, some sort of guidance, this is all happening for a reason. When Shiho and I got together on Friday, obviously we talked about our old high school acquaintances, one of whom was the significant M. Holdaway. He was our Physics teacher and an amazing musician and a good friend to us both. He tried to tell me on numerous occasions how Shiho felt about me and I always ignored it. Idiot that I am. Anyway, we talked about him and wondered about him and decided it wasn’t a terrible loss to have lost contact with him. Not a reflection on him, but just that the past is meant for the past.
The next day, Saturday morning, I get a phone call and a dopey voice says, “A voice from your past”. It’s M. Holdaway!! This is NOT a coincidence, something is happening here and for a reason. He had gotten my number from New Jersey. He now works at the VLA radio telescope in New Mexico and he is coming to Japan for a conference in October. Apparently Japan is planning to build a baseline array. He tried calling me in New Jersey to see if I had Shiho’s number so that he could get together with her when he came here. Instead he got my number.
It’s too weird to be coincidence. Two significant high school figures, remarkably absent from my even more significant college years, suddenly appear at the same time and place right after I graduate from college.
Shiho came to Osaka again today on her way back up to Tokyo. We felt more at ease today, the familiarity sinking in, a little more open. We got stuck in the rain and we were close sharing an umbrella. We had the coffee I knew we’d have one day. I thought about the fact that we were once a couple and that we had a break-up in our past. It made me sad. She was a victim of my recklessness, problems, and instability, and as much as I feel I had hurt her out of selfishness, she seemed to remind me and understand the position I was in back then with my parents. She knew how much I hated them. And now she’s going out with someone else and it’s my loss. It’s still my loss.
It was through Den-Den town, the electronics center of Osaka, that we were walking in the rain. It was wet, gloomy, and artificially bright. She was so familiar pressing together under the umbrella. Anyone who saw us would have mistaken us for a couple. There’s something funny about that, almost comforting. She should be back in Tokyo by now.
Time doesn’t exist anymore. I’m here. I do what I do. Day in, day out, I don’t have to be conscious what day it is or how many days have passed.
Madoka left for the States today and I feel empty and alone without her. She is just amazing, so good at being her, so good at being Madoka, and that I admire most of all. Without her I would be lost here and would have absolutely nothing going for me. Her leaving makes me really want to appreciate all I have, including Sakura.
Sakura and I are on our own now. We have to figure out what our real relationship is. Madoka acted as a junction, or buffer through whom our relative energy was channeled. I need to be more actively patient and tolerant without Madoka. The three of us got together for the last time on Saturday, and out of tact and respect, Sakura and I didn’t plan another rehearsal until she left. So we’re getting together tomorrow.
It’s rainy and windy because a typhoon is moving in. I thought it was appropriate to take a long, long walk down the Yodogawa. I actually couldn’t have gone that far, several miles, but in a foreign land in an area I’ve never been, I was in another world. It was a journey to get there, not just a short drive down the river.
My cousin Mi-chan has two sons, Hiroaki and Te-chan, ages 5 and 3 respectively. They spend most of their time upstairs with their grandparents because both Mi-chan and his wife, Hiromi, work. They are hyperactive and on the verge of fighting age. They are really violent and destructive, and whenever they find something new to play with, or when they receive a new toy, their first impulse is to destroy it. They are uncontrollable to the point of frustration. They are a potent birth control for witnesses. It may not be the reason Mi-Chan and Hiromi leave them here all day, and I’m not saying it isn’t, but I would certainly understand if it was.
I find it fascinating, though, as I watch them, and feel frustration inside me at their recklessness and their unpredictability. They are unable at this age to establish value and connect what action leads to what effect, like breaking things or hurting each other. Putting it that way, not too different from adults. I thought it might be how God, or Allah for lack of a better term and totally open to subjective interpretation, may be “watching” us. I don’t want to anthropomorphize Allah, so these human verbs are used for lack of anything more appropriate.
So much to learn from children, that’s what Prof. Morris had said as he is raising a family now. I thought he was referring to the obvious, that children have a more pure approach to life that is lost upon the initiation to a jaded and judgmental adulthood. That adults have much to learn from watching children about life and growing and about how we should approach the world.
Maybe that’s what he meant. But then maybe he was referring to the relationship between parent and child as a metaphor between Allah and humans, and that is what is there to learn. Look at how we view children and that is how Allah views us. It’s totally subjective, and Allah is vast and indescribable, but we don’t need to understand Allah since we are the children in the metaphor. Do the children have the slightest idea of what’s in the adult mind? Children can only understand what we send them by how they interpret what we send them. That’s why we have touch, feelings, senses, and knowledge, they are tangible things that we can interpret.
Sakura, Madoka, and I used to have some awesome discussions. I realize now that I can talk to Sakura about these things because she was an open enough channel to listen and accept the possibility of these things. She knows a lot of the basics that I do. There’s still something missing there, or different, so we don’t completely click. It’s superficial, it’s just words.
Shiho is coming this weekend. Why am I holding my breath? That name. Shiho. She’s still here. All my learning occurred after she left, but she’s still here and an important part of my life. But how does she fit in my now with Amina? Now of Amina? In Japan? What am I saying? She doesn’t write that often.
I found another river to run along, the Kanzakigawa. It runs kind of parallel to the Yodogawa, so heading in the opposite direction that takes me to the Yodogawa will take me to the Kanzakigawa. It’s also the first stop from Juso on the Hankyu line to Kobe. I think I want to run a marathon before I die. I think I need to for some reason. I figure I need to build up endurance and work on how long I can run in terms of time before I think of distance.
The plan was to set my timer for 30 minutes, set off for this new river and run as far as 30 minutes takes me. After 30 minutes, take a short break to get a drink from a vending machine and run 30 minutes back. Pretty good plan.
The first 30 minutes weren’t bad. The run to the Kanzakigawa was actually pretty short and then I ran on the path that ran on the flood plain alongside the river. Most rivers in Japan have flood plains for obvious reasons, but to conserve space, they make recreational use out of them, so it’s common to have paths in them and even baseball and soccer fields.
It was quite pleasant. Occasionally I’d come across another runner or cyclist, and under some bridges there were homeless people who set up encampments. There were also people fishing in the river. It was pre-noon and Summers in Japan are of the hot and humid variety. The sun was getting high, but buildings alongside the river still provided some shade.
After the first 30 minutes, I really need a drink so I stop running and walk back towards a bridge I had just passed. Where there’s a bridge in Japan, there are people and traffic, and where there are people and traffic, there are vending machines, right? Am I to be so lucky when there’s a lesson to be learnt? No.
Well, bridges, people, traffic, and therefore vending machines exist in abundance in this country, so no problem. I head for the next bridge down the river, where I find a vending machine and continue the run, right? Am I to be so lucky when there’s a lesson to be learnt? No.
So there has got to be another bridge soon, I continue down the river.
I walk atop a concrete barrier along the roadside, the road on the left, on the right, the concrete barrier slopes steeply down to the flood plain. The pre-noon sun has become a midday sun and the shade is pretty much gone. I walk and walk and a bridge shows up not. On the other side of the road are large, sheet-metal, warehouse-like structures. I had run my way into a light industrial area. Occasionally I hear clanging and banging coming from inside the structures. There is no pedestrian traffic, it’s hot, and I’m dehydrating.
The next bridge is no where in sight, the last bridge is far behind, there are no roads leading from this road to more populated areas, only driveways into complexes of these hulking, sheet-metal, warehouse-like structures. I can’t run or I’ll certainly dehydrate. I find myself getting frustrated and angry. Where are the fucking vending machines? Why is this happening to me? Why do I always get into these situations? Then I think about the people working in these gloomy, sheet-metal, warehouse-like structures to my immediate left. They look really hot and the open windows suggest a lack of air-conditioning.
Here I am complaining for a drink. That’s the kind of problems I have. Those are lives working in those buildings. I’m not comparing miseries, just looking at myself and what I am and what I’m doing. Would I be happier inside, rather than outside?
From the window of the apartment in Juso, I can watch the descent of airplanes in the distance as they land at Osaka airport. They fly almost directly over as I’m walking atop the concrete barrier. I never could figure out where the bloody airport was. Oh, here it is. It’s not in Osaka proper. It’s not even on this side of the Yodogawa, it’s on THAT side of the Kanzakigawa, out in the boonies. It’s actually near Toyonaka where Kazue and her husband work. There’s even a Hankyu station in Toyonaka, I can take the Hankyu to the airport.
Cruel places airports. And kind. I could get on a plane and go any where and live under a bridge in some warm, tropical country. That’s more of the life I deserve but haven’t earned yet. To get away from people and get away from my role as a participant with other people. Yes, get away.
The feeling doesn’t last. Only 25 minutes of walking and I not only come to a bridge, but a bridge with a Hankyu line running across it. All three Hankyu lines stop in Juso, and all trains on all three lines stop in Juso. Juso is a pretty important place. In fact, Juso and Umeda, the Hankyu terminus in Osaka proper, are the only stations that can make that claim. There is one station in between Juso and Umeda, on the Umeda side, but Tokyu express trains don’t stop there.
I have ¥220 on me, enough for two cans from a vending machine. It’s also enough to take me back to Juso and then I could get a drink at home and spare myself getting there on foot. No brainer. I buy a ticket and get on the platform and boom, there’s a vending machine, one of the rarer vending machines that have drinks that I can afford even after having bought the train ticket. It was too perfect, maybe someone suspected I deserved it.
I thought alcohol had served its purpose, but the pattern has re-emerged and its role in marking cycles has returned. I drank myself to convulsions last night and crisis dealt with and done. I’m feeling quite refreshed now after a day of feeling god-awful yucky. I forced myself to go out for a slow steady jog which turned into a steady confident run. Afterwards, I showered and tidied up and am currently relaxing, amazed at it all. Patterns and cycles, predictable and reliable. Hiromi and I had our last communication.
I have to admit now that I’m in Japan counting time, waiting for some opportunity to show itself. A pretty bad reason for being here. I had nothing in the States so I came here to get away from the ‘rents. I’ve been piloting a ship blind, I have no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going. I’m not here for any reason, if an opportunity came up in the States, I’d head back in a second.
I got a letter from Amina and she made a good point about distance. It shouldn’t be forced. Nothing should be forced. Things get screwed up when things are forced. But I don’t think a distance would naturally happen between us and we need distance between us. Or at least I do. I shouldn’t be too hasty in what I’m definite about. I’d return to the States for her in a second. She’ll be back at Oberlin in a few days.
