Time for an overdue presentation to the faithful blog-followers. Please open your books to page 2010, index 179.0081, class is in session.
New York was quite a trip. Going home was such a mindfuck, I could actually feel pieces of my memories of Tokyo-life and NY-life overlapping and fighting for dominance in my mind, like someone suffering from split personality disorder. Allow me to digress into a bit about the "counter culture shock" I mentioned a few posts back.
When I walked off of that plane, it was like stepping into a different world. I had been in Japan for about 18 months remember, the only break being a trip to Korea. So I was accustomed to many things which were turned on their heads promptly upon my arrival. To be frank, the sheer mass of people - yes I'm talking about obesity but also average height and girth - and ethnic diversity stunned me. Hearing everyone speaking English, not to mention speaking loudly in line, seeing the attendants looking bored, tired, and wearing blatant expressions of "I don't want to be here" on their faces was nothing less than shocking to me. You've got to understand what service is like in Japan: everyone always wears a smile, they say the veritable equivalent of "Someone honorable is present" (often less literally translated as: "Welcome to our store) every time you enter their place of business, and give you extended thanks and courtesy to the point of overkill. Flipping from that back to the American standard of courtesy on the job (which is pretty pathetic by all of my accounts) really made my head spin.
While I was standing in line for customs (it took well over an hour) I was at first talking to this professional fisherman from Guam on his way to Kentucky for some sort of business-related thing, and I was having a really interesting discussion about America's claim of eminent domain concerning Guam and the history and everything for as long as we were waiting. That distracted me well enough until I got into a separate line and had to take in my surroundings. Everyone was chattering so loudly, and in English mind you, that it flipped some WTF switch in my mind and I had to leave on my headphones for the sake of keeping it together. Granted I hadn't slept at all for about 24 hours but still, it was such overload. The plane ride from Newark to Albany consisted (as per usual) of taxing for nearly an hour followed by a 30 minute flight. I was cranky and just wanted to get home.
When I did, well that was very nice. To see my family, and my best friend Jessica, it was a relief but I was almost too exhausted to appreciate it. On the way home riding in my Mom's minivan and sitting on the passenger side was also really disorienting, it being a dark and frigid December night didn't help one bit (bear in mind that cars in Japan drive on the left side of the road and the passenger seats are also on the left side)
When I got back, I had the pleasure of a bowl of my Mom's homemade turkey soup and with a side-order of my Mom's two-month old kittens. They really helped me relax, although they kept walking on my face in the middle of the night. The one was named Bonnie, the other Butterscotch, though it turned out that contrary to my Mom's impressions the former was actually a boy, making him/her "Bonnie, the sexually confused kitty cat." He/she also has a serious mother complex and is always trying to nurse on peoples ears. WEIRD.
I was only jetlagged for a day or two, but I was wound so incredibly tight, and this feeling outlasted my jetlag. I will never forget the next morning, that lovely, crisp Monday morning roasting at a seasonable 34 degrees, walking into Price Chopper, our local super market, and being awed by the sheer size of it and the offerings of so-long forbidden delights: giant succulent red and yellow peppers, hummus, feta cheese, bagged salads, a plethora of canned goods, whole grain oat and wheat breads, tortilla chips, salsas and even an entire aisle dedicated to cereal!!!!!! My heart never sang with such joy as it did that day. It was almost magical.
Thanks to the kindness of my Father I was able to drive the old 97 Jeep Cherokee delivery-mobile of many a pizza around during my stay. And boy did I drive. A lot. And the majority of drivers in my area - and I'll be damned if it isn't true for most other areas as well - are terrible drivers. Especially in the winter-time. No blinkers, no flashers, sudden stops, running lights, erratic driving, sliding on fresh snow, overly aggressive and unwarranted driving, granny driving, I could go on and on. Long story short is I enjoyed traveling by car around the beautiful capital region of Albany New York and soaking in the never-ending waves of nostalgia, but my god give me trains for the rest of my days and I'll be content. I didn't realize how much stress driving can really add to one's day until I had the opportunity to compare it to living in an urban environment like Tokyo.
Which gives me a nice segue into the urban versus the "suburban," or downright redneck hick-town U.S.A. Upstate NY is full of the latter and I lived in it for like 95% of my life. Suffice it to say I saw my surroundings with new eyes, a greater appreciation for the beauty and historical character of the American city versus the clunky, overly modern and concrete-blockishness of the Japanese city. Albany and it's surrounding areas are also full of nature, and lots of it. So many trees, I'd never really taken the time to look at them before. It was as if I had seen them, but never had any breadth of appreciation save a fleeting one. Even in the wintertime they stood like glorious landmarks of NY's natural beauty in my mind, and I was to spend a good chunk of time just observing and appreciating my environment over the course of my stay.
I mentioned being wound up? I was wound tighter than a rattle snake on speed spun down a hill in a tractor tire. If it wasn't for the courtesy of my friend Dave (writer of this fine music blog plug plug) letting me rage in his apartment for a bit and vent out all the crazy thoughts that were swarming in my head, I don't know how I would have survived the whole ordeal. I did spend valuable time with (in no particular order) Dave, Rich, Phil, Danielle, Kevin, Josh, John T., Kerri, Kyle, Gabe, Jessica, Dana, Fran, Margaret, Kaitlin, Mike L., Mike C., Rick, John B., Alaric and probably many others who are escaping my mind at the moment. That doesn't even include my family, or the slew of people I saw for like 5 seconds and didn't have nearly enough time to catch up with. There are others I'd like to have seen but wasn't able to, and of course the few I was hoping not to run into and (luckily) didn't.
I tipped everyone in a reckless fashion - there being no tipping whatsoever in Japan and also on account of my feeling great about having money and free time at home for the first time in what felt like an eternity. I even dropped 10 bucks in the tip-jar at the pizza shop I used to work at. Some had left but a few loyal employees looked the spitting image of themselves from 2 years ago. Very peculiar, or maybe not so peculiar.
It's amazing how some things and people change so drastically in a short period of time and some stay completely the same. Constancy is a good thing mind you, routine is something we humans crave, but change is also good. Very good, and very necessary even if we don't always want it to be. I am in short glad I've made the choices that I have. My hometown is a truly beautiful place, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life confined there doomed to wondering if there wasn't something more that could've been. That's my take on things, and you can quote me.
I bought/received many amazing books, not limited to Salman Rushdie's latest, Howard Zinn's "A People's History...," "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," a Charles Bukowski anthology called "Run with the Hunted," "Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger: Can China and India dominate the West?" An index of classical to modern philosophers and their main theories, and several other tomes which weighed down my suitcase by no small amount. I'm currently digging eagerly through the Bukowski and audiobooking Moby Dick, both of which have so far greatly exceeded my expectations.
I ate so much delicious food when I was home. New York pizza at least 10 times, Indian lunch buffet at least 3 times, hummus uncountable times, my Aunt's homemade lasagna and my Mom's amazing taco dip, divine pork cops, ziti, tuna noodle casserole, exquisite salads, chilis, wraps, sauces, flavors, and all kinds of wonderful things. My tastebuds rejoiced like it was the second coming. Sometimes I just had to stop doing anything else, close my eyes and just bask in the glory of the things hadn't touched my tongue in so very long. I consumed them and it was good.
I even went to church for the first time in what must be nigh on 10 years, with my father and my sister. My feelings on the matter? It was very nostalgic for me, being the church that was also a private school I attended in the 4th and 5th grade (and I refuse to discuss these years in any more detail whatsoever for now) Was I converted back to a healthy life of God-fearing Christianity? Sorry to disappoint you but no, I was not. I did however recognize the beauty in the community that a church embodies in a way I couldn't when I was younger. I saw people supporting each other and reaching out in a very healthy and healing manner, and I thought: "That's great for them. It's just not for me."
I'm a staunch atheist by the way, if I haven't made that clear in the past. We'll leave religious musings for another post but let me preface anything you might think questionable about my stance on religion with the fact that I was raised a Christian, and that I believe in the righteousness of the ethics laid out by Jesus Christ, and even that the bible is full of morally rich teachings. I simply don't believe in any of the supernatural elements of it. Jesus was a man, and a great one, but just a man. That's all. Sorry Mom and Dad and the rest of my family which is uniformly Christian.
However, you don't have to be Christian to do good deeds, like charity of one form or another. It wasn't much but, thanks to Rian and JT and some other really cool people who supported the event or came out, we held a benefit show as was mentioned some posts back. This was a benefit for NBIA, the disease which afflicted my brother and continues to plague my two older sisters. The highlights for me were:
-seeing lots of friends all together in the same place
-Kerri preparing tons of delicious baked goods for us to sell. Thanks Kerri!!
-Damnation Alley's set. It was so tight. They even opened with River Runs Red by Life of Agony which is an awesome song. Thanks guys. I went up to Dave (guitarist) at the end of the set and told him: "I'm glad I quit the band. You guys got way better without me."
-Me raffling off a bunch of Japanese candy (mostly purposefully "gross" stuff like fried squid strips and fish-flavored shrimpy corn puffs) along with a few rare goodies (100 yen-store chopsticks and an F.I.D. CD). I never knew people got so into raffles, made like $60 selling tickets, crazy.
In the end we only raised around $300, but it's that much more to a good cause. You can donate, learn more and spread awareness of this particular cause if you so desire by checking out the official website: http://www.nbiadisorders.org/
This is also a video of my Mother, whose strength of heart I hope to achieve some day myself, being interviewed for the local news about the disease:
Heavy stuff isn't it? Welcome to my family life. I remember when that perfect model of an 80s-bloomed le femme news anchor turned to me with a look of longing to understand and asked me: "How do you process all this?" I could have answered in various ways but chose something along the lines of: "In my eyes, this has been the reality for more than 10 years. I've had time to process it, I accept things for what they are." I could have said a lot more... About the cruelness of the genetic lottery, the random coldness of the world itself, the unfair burdens shifted upon some and not others, how it effected and shaped my personality (which it played a heavy hand in), how my brother's death indirectly lead to my leaving the country. I could have said a lot of things, but I don't bother to say them to those who don't really want to listen. Or at least don't have the time. I bet some of you internet-readers out there care to know it a hell of a lot more than some local celebrity T.V. journalist does.
I can't properly detail and describe everything I felt and experienced throughout my Return to New York (although I do distinctly remember an elderly couple almost backing into my car while I was on my way to the aforementioned church that fateful Sunday). Some details I have left out are too personal, although they would undoubtedly make for great writing. Let me leave it to mystery and say that I love and appreciate the western woman and her independently feminine identity and attitude much more than I did before I left. It was refreshing to see a bit of that while I was home, cultural gender identity was, among other things flipped on its head, as Japan is stuck somewhere in the 1950s as far as Women's lib. is concerned.
At any rate, I made it back to Japan in one piece. And being here, now, I hold a greater appreciation for Tokyo and feel some of the awe and inspiration this city once instilled in me born anew. I won't be here forever. If things go according to plans, some time in 2011 should be an exit date. But while I'm here I'll make the most of it because baby, you only live once.
I'll leave you with a stunning reading by the man who has been reinvigorating my love of poetry from beyond the grave, one Charles Bukowski:
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