“It was a day, God knows, not only of rampant signs and symbols but of wildly extensive communication via the written word”

J.D. Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters

I was just very naked. And I think that in a past life I may have been Japanese. Those will be the boldest statements of this letter so if you are already bored you can stop reading now. Tonight,I was at a Japanese bath house (sento) getting shaved up and cleaned up after a long work week. I have been sento bouncing for the past month. These places are a brilliant idea and just darn practical. Guys, over 50, and I, go after work and sit on little plastic stools naked and shave and scrub down and then sit in big hot bubbling baths together and relax. Everything is tiled so you can go nuts in these rooms and really throw water around during the cleaning process with the little bucket provided. Afterwards you get dried up and drink some chocolate milk. It’s my go to activity if I don’t have plans for the night and find it pretty satisfying. A somewhat awkward transition, but I would like to provide some background information for my claim that perhaps I was once Japanese in a past life that ties into this bath conversation. When I was a child and teenage I would make ramen noodles and sit in our bathtub eating them with chopsticks. Why would someone born and raised in Wisconsin do that? Example number two, yesterday I was talking with this very interesting boy who made a couple of us teachers coffee. He wants to be a barista in the future and apparently makes teachers coffee that he blends himself. I was goofing around and exaggerating describing the flavor of the coffee. I said if felt like I was on a turtle swimming in the ocean who suddenly dove down to the ocean floor with me on his back, leading me to a log cabin at the bottom of the ocean. I approach the door and open it to find an old man who offers me this cup of coffee and we sit and drink it by a fire. I have gotten a bit goofy being here and I often let my imagination just run to see what will come out. A Japanese teacher drinking coffee with me informed me that there is a very old Japanese fable that is almost exactly that weird story I told. I know. Weird.

When I first arrived people were nice to me here, but things really got out of hand this past month and it certainly caught me off guard. I will summarize one day to try and exemplify this strange occurrence. Let me preempt this story by saying this was a fairly extraordinary day but things like this have begun to happen more and more often. I arrive to work and there is a cup of hot tea waiting on my desk along an English language newspaper. At lunch time the groundskeeper has made me a type of egg dish that we had talked about the other day accompanied by a bowl of miso soup. Another teacher gives me a persimmon and a little wreath made of a type of gourd that is growing here now. Between classes I am called into the office to receive a tie. After school a girl give me a little bouquet of roses. I stop on the way home and ask for one rice ball and the old man gives me a free one alongside. I next buy some mushrooms and the man gives me a bunch of bananas and tells me good luck. I then go to dinner with a friend and the owner gives me some free wine. I’m a bit worried they are going to put me in a soup or something weird and this is some bizarre ritual prior to eating me that I haven’t been informed of yet. I would most likely taste of green tea, persimmon and oranges if someone ate me right now.

I am really enjoying being a teacher and my best moments are spent at school which is bizarre to say but I think that for now it is true. I really get a kick out of saying stupid stuff in stupid voices with the students and making them laugh. Most days I dance, and beat box and quote Martin Luther King Jr. and distract the kids from their school work. I dressed up like an owl for Halloween and that got some good reactions. Outside of school I have been exploring more and more on my bicycle. I have started to frequent a coffee shop where I am again the only one under 60 but the owner is very kind to me. We communicate in my very limited Japanese and his very limited English but from what I gather he sleeps there, and works 14 hours a day and has owned the place for 37 years. He plays old jazz on a record player and I’m very content there. People here have had a lot to talk about with hurricane Sandy and the election so I pass on their concerns and my own to everyone back home. I will leave you with one last quote from Rumi not because it has anything to do with what I have been talking about, but because I have the book next to me and thought this passage was beautiful.

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

-James