ACROSS THE WORLD
Memoirs of a sensei
(Excerpts from my journal entries dated August 1997 on the tenth anniversary of my first summer in Japan.)
THREE: Subtle Changes
"Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still" (Chinese Proverb)
August came. My life began to stabilize. People and things began to distract me.
I sang. I found myself at the centre of the musical crowd in town. Accidentally I began singing in public. One night at the pub the guitar was out and suddenly I was singing Simon and Garfunkel to a roomful of strangers. My confidence slowly began to build.
I travelled. I couldn't speak any Japanese, but I travelled with a friend who had been in Saga for 6 months, so I thought we'd be just fine. It turned out that 6 months of Japanese is pretty basic, so we had an interesting (read: cursed) week. I think we spent more combined hours waiting for transportation in various locales than we actually spent travelling to any given destination. But it was fun I admit. And educational. I learned a lot. I learned not to believe Ben when he says it'll be more rewarding to climb the volcano than pay 10 bucks worth of yen to take the tour bus. I learned to look at the map myself rather than trust his sense of distance when he suggests that we not walk down the volcano the same way we walked up because he'd rather see different scenery and the other way down doesn't look much longer. I learned not to believe Kevin O'Keeffe of County Kerry, Ireland, when he says he'll meet you on Wednesday at 5:30 and will split the hotel bill with you. I learned to bring extra cash because when Kevin decides not to show up, you have to split the bill two ways instead of three which was not what you originally budgeted. I learned to book accommodations ahead because we might just spend an entire day travelling to a famous mountainous area in the pouring rain, only to arrive 40 minutes before the last bus heads back to where we came from, only to find out that all the hotels in the area are fully booked except for the ones that charge 100 dollars per person per night. I learned that a frustrating experience like that can be worth it just because of the split-second glimpse of an amazing waterfall en route, that only I seemed to notice. I learned that sunrises in Japan are spectacular. And I learned that in six short weeks I came to regard my little house in Ise Machi as a home, since coming back to it felt so good after my week of travels.
I wrote. I regularly sat on my 2nd floor patio and mused about the world. Sometimes I watched the reflections of the sunset, and sometimes I watched the moon follow it's course across the night sky. I wish I knew the words to describe the awesome works of Nature, but they are beyond my grasp. Nature is the art of God, I think Dante said. I could never actually see the sun setting because I don't have a clear view from the balcony...too many houses...not too mention the huge statue of Buddha overlooking the cemetery next door. But I could see the effects of the sunset on the sky above me. It reminds me of God, who we can't see...but whose presence effects the world around us every day. It also reminds me of God because it has two distinct natures. It is excruciatingly hot these days, painfully hot, but the heat is necessary for the growth of crops. It gives what is needed whether we like it or not. But that violently hot sun is at the same time so magnificent in it's beauty and artwork, the way it rises and sets, the way it changes the image of a cloud or shines through the leaves of a tree. One entity, two personas. As it is with God, who teaches me things I don't want to learn, and leads me places against my will. But only God knows what it will take to grow me, whether it be extreme heat or gentle breezes. And the art produced by God, otherwise known as Nature -- this moonlight I've grown so fond of, the volcano I climbed last week rising out of the water, the tree that has stood for hundreds of years reaching for the sky and refusing to relinquish it's goal, the dark clouds that move so swiftly across a clear sky to bring thunder and lightning and refreshing rain -- all these things I have seen in one week of living, and the time I take to appreciate them changes me in subtle ways.
Showing posts with label Memoirs of a sensei. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Memoirs of a sensei. Show all posts
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Memoirs of a sensei, part two
ACROSS THE WORLD
Memoirs of a sensei
(Excerpts from my journal entries dated July 1997 on the tenth anniversary of my first month in Japan. More excerpts to come.)
TWO: The Journals of July
July 3. I feel sick to my stomach today. I can't get home out of my mind. Everyone thinks I'm being so brave, but really I'm so frightened! Before I came here I had no doubts that this was something I need to do in my life. Now I'm not sure I'll even survive.
I miss my family. I miss my friends. I can sense the distance already. Not just geographically, emotionally too. The pictures I've put up on my wall make me cry. This week has been terribly lonely with C, who I talked with an average of 5 times per day the six months prior to leaving home. This is actually the first time I've let myself think about it since I arrived here. I've been shutting off my emotions so that I could absorb as much as humanly possible this past week. The person training me (and leaving next week) asks if she's telling me too much and I can't say yes because that would make me vulnerable and my guard would come down and I'd lose it. So I shake my head and keep trying to take it all in. And I continue to put on a veneer of sanity despite the fact that I'm hurling on the inside. I thought I had learned how to be vulnerable, but maybe it'll take more than a week.
July 5. The rains have come and washed some of my sadness and inhibitions away. Today I was laughing out loud as I learned how to ride a bicycle through a downpour (yes, holding an umbrella which really ends up being useless as you roll through the puddles).
I met many excellent people yesterday, but I can tell they won't understand me very well. We have such different backgrounds. I'm starting to censor myself already.
July 10. I have never felt so sad and lonely. My brother told me, just after I arrived (he met me at the airport and came to visit me the next day ...he's going back to Canada next week) that one thing he's learned by living here (for 4 years) is how to accept loneliness. That it isn't necessarily an emotion to be avoided. That it's important to learn how to embrace it.
Great. I can hardly wait.
Today marks the two week anniversary of when I left home. Exactly two weeks ago (right now it's Wednesday evening at home), all my friends in the near vicinity were gathered to say goodbye. I felt so special, so loved. My faith in the sanctity of friendship was heightened. I was so excited about this adventure, felt like I was sitting on cloud nine (to use a cliche). Now I'm sitting on a futon in my bathrobe, dissolved in tears.
The rain is beginning to bother me. It doesn't seem to stop --- EVER. It's been raining all week. Where does it all come from? Where is it kept so that it all comes down at once like this, like a tsunami from the sky?
July 13.
I'm watching the moon to the tune of the crickets and locusts. It's a brilliant orange half-moon with the edge fringed just enough to make it look soft, but strong. Today was beautiful. The rain stopped just in time to save me from insanity. It hasn't stopped for good but at least it took a coffee break.
The moon is sinking below the houses now. Soon it'll be shining at home. Part of me wants to go with it, but part of me is slowly gaining confidence in this strange and challenging place.
July 19. When I wake up in the morning I can usually tell if it's going to be a homesick day or not. Today I knew as soon as my feet hit the tatami. Weekends are so quiet. Too many consecutive hours of silence is quite a challenge when I'm feeling out of my element (which is definitely how I'm feeling). That IS what I wanted for this year of my life though...to be out of my element after spending 23 years IN it. I'm discovering the depth of my innocence and naivete because the "gaijin" (ex-pat) lifestyle is so different from what I'm used to at home.
I got a package from my mom! As it turns out I even get weepy just listening to certain CD's. What a sap I am. I'm smiling, laughing and crying all at the same time - listening to the disc that C gave me as a goodbye gift. Remembering the two of us bopping around the store to track #3. Laughter through tears.
July 21. I think I've figured out my addiction to the moon. I think it's my symbol of God in this place. Lately I've been talking to it, pondering it, missing it on the nights that it rises too late for me to see, or when it's hiding behind the clouds, but knowing all the time that it's there.
July 25. As tired as I am, I have many thoughts floating around this head of mine tonight. Interestingly enough, I always get introspective after spending an evening at the pub -- and I don't think it has anything to do with the alcohol!! As always, the moon is supportive. I look at it tonight and it's a half moon, and I realize that's about as much as most of the people here are ever going to know about me – unless I choose to let them know more. I guess I'll never stop missing those friends that I have back home who already know me so well, and who I feel so loved by. They'll never be replaced. But I need to start making some friends here or else I'll have to get very comfortable with loneliness, very soon. And I'm not ready for that! Not yet, anyway....
Memoirs of a sensei
(Excerpts from my journal entries dated July 1997 on the tenth anniversary of my first month in Japan. More excerpts to come.)
TWO: The Journals of July
July 3. I feel sick to my stomach today. I can't get home out of my mind. Everyone thinks I'm being so brave, but really I'm so frightened! Before I came here I had no doubts that this was something I need to do in my life. Now I'm not sure I'll even survive.
I miss my family. I miss my friends. I can sense the distance already. Not just geographically, emotionally too. The pictures I've put up on my wall make me cry. This week has been terribly lonely with C, who I talked with an average of 5 times per day the six months prior to leaving home. This is actually the first time I've let myself think about it since I arrived here. I've been shutting off my emotions so that I could absorb as much as humanly possible this past week. The person training me (and leaving next week) asks if she's telling me too much and I can't say yes because that would make me vulnerable and my guard would come down and I'd lose it. So I shake my head and keep trying to take it all in. And I continue to put on a veneer of sanity despite the fact that I'm hurling on the inside. I thought I had learned how to be vulnerable, but maybe it'll take more than a week.
July 5. The rains have come and washed some of my sadness and inhibitions away. Today I was laughing out loud as I learned how to ride a bicycle through a downpour (yes, holding an umbrella which really ends up being useless as you roll through the puddles).
I met many excellent people yesterday, but I can tell they won't understand me very well. We have such different backgrounds. I'm starting to censor myself already.
July 10. I have never felt so sad and lonely. My brother told me, just after I arrived (he met me at the airport and came to visit me the next day ...he's going back to Canada next week) that one thing he's learned by living here (for 4 years) is how to accept loneliness. That it isn't necessarily an emotion to be avoided. That it's important to learn how to embrace it.
Great. I can hardly wait.
Today marks the two week anniversary of when I left home. Exactly two weeks ago (right now it's Wednesday evening at home), all my friends in the near vicinity were gathered to say goodbye. I felt so special, so loved. My faith in the sanctity of friendship was heightened. I was so excited about this adventure, felt like I was sitting on cloud nine (to use a cliche). Now I'm sitting on a futon in my bathrobe, dissolved in tears.
The rain is beginning to bother me. It doesn't seem to stop --- EVER. It's been raining all week. Where does it all come from? Where is it kept so that it all comes down at once like this, like a tsunami from the sky?
July 13.
I'm watching the moon to the tune of the crickets and locusts. It's a brilliant orange half-moon with the edge fringed just enough to make it look soft, but strong. Today was beautiful. The rain stopped just in time to save me from insanity. It hasn't stopped for good but at least it took a coffee break.
The moon is sinking below the houses now. Soon it'll be shining at home. Part of me wants to go with it, but part of me is slowly gaining confidence in this strange and challenging place.
July 19. When I wake up in the morning I can usually tell if it's going to be a homesick day or not. Today I knew as soon as my feet hit the tatami. Weekends are so quiet. Too many consecutive hours of silence is quite a challenge when I'm feeling out of my element (which is definitely how I'm feeling). That IS what I wanted for this year of my life though...to be out of my element after spending 23 years IN it. I'm discovering the depth of my innocence and naivete because the "gaijin" (ex-pat) lifestyle is so different from what I'm used to at home.
I got a package from my mom! As it turns out I even get weepy just listening to certain CD's. What a sap I am. I'm smiling, laughing and crying all at the same time - listening to the disc that C gave me as a goodbye gift. Remembering the two of us bopping around the store to track #3. Laughter through tears.
July 21. I think I've figured out my addiction to the moon. I think it's my symbol of God in this place. Lately I've been talking to it, pondering it, missing it on the nights that it rises too late for me to see, or when it's hiding behind the clouds, but knowing all the time that it's there.
July 25. As tired as I am, I have many thoughts floating around this head of mine tonight. Interestingly enough, I always get introspective after spending an evening at the pub -- and I don't think it has anything to do with the alcohol!! As always, the moon is supportive. I look at it tonight and it's a half moon, and I realize that's about as much as most of the people here are ever going to know about me – unless I choose to let them know more. I guess I'll never stop missing those friends that I have back home who already know me so well, and who I feel so loved by. They'll never be replaced. But I need to start making some friends here or else I'll have to get very comfortable with loneliness, very soon. And I'm not ready for that! Not yet, anyway....
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Memoirs of a sensei, part one
ACROSS THE WORLD
Memoirs of a sensei
(Excerpts from my journal entries dated June 26, 1997 - June 29, 1997 on the tenth anniversary of my departure for Japan. More excerpts to come.)
ONE: The way I feel
“Somehow let me say how I feel. I think you’d take my hand if you could understand the way I feel.” (N. Honeytree)
Flight.
My weary swollen half-drugged eyes crack open. Blood shot, tear-streaked eyes. The reading light glares above me and it seems to have zapped all the energy from my just-turned-23-years-old body. I’ve always been paranoid of flying overseas because I think the worst place to crash would be in an ocean…the unfathomable depth, the inability to rescue yourself since no land is in sight, the interminable wait for the sharks to come looking for breakfast. How morbid. But it’s true I think. If a plane should crash on land at least there’s a hope of survival and the possibility of walking to a payphone to call for help. Ok, maybe not. But it’s my birthday so I’m allowed to exaggerate. It’s funny though, because if I’m going to drown to death on this flight, it won’t be in the ocean that stretches endlessly beneath me, it’ll be in a pool of my own tears. I’ll probably shrivel up from the saline water that drenches my face sooner than I’ll be eaten by sharks. Hmmmm. Comforting thought.
Staring at the airline logo on the paper bag in front of me, I wish myself a happy 23rd birthday and wonder, God, what the hell am I doing? I just left everything I know and love, and that knows and loves me, behind - in the only place I’ve ever known. Why exactly am I doing this to myself? Some invisible invincible force has wrenched me away against my will it seems. I didn’t choose this, I couldn’t have.
Although I’m emotionally stable for the moment, I have this ominous feeling that once I reach Tokyo I’ll lose it again. This is the wildest situation I’ve ever been in….there’s no telling how I’ll react when the plane touches down on the other side of the world. Ever since the plane lost contact with Canadian soil, I’ve felt myself being stretched. I am “different” for the first time ever. I feel so unsure of myself and of everyone around me.
I can see the shadow of the plane on the blanket of clouds underneath me. I hope the clouds will protect me from the water below since they can’t protect me from my own tears.
Arrival.
Sitting alone in the Tokyo airport. When we broke through the clouds and I saw land, it looked so different from what I had expected. From the little I’ve been told of this place I was imagining infrastructure as far as the eye could see. Zero land, zero space. But I was so wrong. There are the same patchwork squares of land joining together into the quilt that is Japan. Not so different from home.
It hasn’t taken me long to notice how much I stick out here. The lack of foreigners isn’t bothering me so much…it’s the language barrier that is frustrating. Communication is one of my strengths, so I really hate being unable to make use of that strength now. I hate being illiterate. It’s a good thing the signs here in the Tokyo airport are bilingual. One more flight and a bus ride until I can go to sleep and dream of home.
Saga.
I made it. I’m here. Lying in my new bed (a futon), in the middle of my new room (with tatami floors). It’s much easier to believe that everything will be ok now that I’m surrounded by people who have already done it and survived. Now I know it can be done, I just have to find the courage and the creativity to do it myself.
Every few seconds the “why” demon flits in and out and my stomach turns. I have to remind myself during the seconds in between that the whole point of this experience is to TRY. Not to be guided or to depend too much on other people for direction. To learn. To experiment. To explore.
Kanpai…
Memoirs of a sensei
(Excerpts from my journal entries dated June 26, 1997 - June 29, 1997 on the tenth anniversary of my departure for Japan. More excerpts to come.)
ONE: The way I feel
“Somehow let me say how I feel. I think you’d take my hand if you could understand the way I feel.” (N. Honeytree)
Flight.
My weary swollen half-drugged eyes crack open. Blood shot, tear-streaked eyes. The reading light glares above me and it seems to have zapped all the energy from my just-turned-23-years-old body. I’ve always been paranoid of flying overseas because I think the worst place to crash would be in an ocean…the unfathomable depth, the inability to rescue yourself since no land is in sight, the interminable wait for the sharks to come looking for breakfast. How morbid. But it’s true I think. If a plane should crash on land at least there’s a hope of survival and the possibility of walking to a payphone to call for help. Ok, maybe not. But it’s my birthday so I’m allowed to exaggerate. It’s funny though, because if I’m going to drown to death on this flight, it won’t be in the ocean that stretches endlessly beneath me, it’ll be in a pool of my own tears. I’ll probably shrivel up from the saline water that drenches my face sooner than I’ll be eaten by sharks. Hmmmm. Comforting thought.
Staring at the airline logo on the paper bag in front of me, I wish myself a happy 23rd birthday and wonder, God, what the hell am I doing? I just left everything I know and love, and that knows and loves me, behind - in the only place I’ve ever known. Why exactly am I doing this to myself? Some invisible invincible force has wrenched me away against my will it seems. I didn’t choose this, I couldn’t have.
Although I’m emotionally stable for the moment, I have this ominous feeling that once I reach Tokyo I’ll lose it again. This is the wildest situation I’ve ever been in….there’s no telling how I’ll react when the plane touches down on the other side of the world. Ever since the plane lost contact with Canadian soil, I’ve felt myself being stretched. I am “different” for the first time ever. I feel so unsure of myself and of everyone around me.
I can see the shadow of the plane on the blanket of clouds underneath me. I hope the clouds will protect me from the water below since they can’t protect me from my own tears.
Arrival.
Sitting alone in the Tokyo airport. When we broke through the clouds and I saw land, it looked so different from what I had expected. From the little I’ve been told of this place I was imagining infrastructure as far as the eye could see. Zero land, zero space. But I was so wrong. There are the same patchwork squares of land joining together into the quilt that is Japan. Not so different from home.
It hasn’t taken me long to notice how much I stick out here. The lack of foreigners isn’t bothering me so much…it’s the language barrier that is frustrating. Communication is one of my strengths, so I really hate being unable to make use of that strength now. I hate being illiterate. It’s a good thing the signs here in the Tokyo airport are bilingual. One more flight and a bus ride until I can go to sleep and dream of home.
Saga.
I made it. I’m here. Lying in my new bed (a futon), in the middle of my new room (with tatami floors). It’s much easier to believe that everything will be ok now that I’m surrounded by people who have already done it and survived. Now I know it can be done, I just have to find the courage and the creativity to do it myself.
Every few seconds the “why” demon flits in and out and my stomach turns. I have to remind myself during the seconds in between that the whole point of this experience is to TRY. Not to be guided or to depend too much on other people for direction. To learn. To experiment. To explore.
Kanpai…
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