“This beauty, however, would occur but once. A man could do nothing but commit it to memory immediately and reflect upon it thereafter. Then too it was a beauty that preserved a noble futility, a purposelessness”.

-Yukio Mishima, Runaway Horses

I just missed my first typhoon. People had been talking about it all week at school, the way we talk about snow days in the States. I even heard that sometimes there is no class because of the rain and wind is too strong and dangerous. I was told to stock up on food so I did and I even bought a three dollar used toaster at my favorite recycle shop. The typhoon died out before it hit us so tonight I’m here with no rain and a fairly failed attempt at a pound cake sitting on my counter. I dreamed of making bread all day and my first trial run (in my toaster) is a sunken mess. No worries, for tonight the mate is flowing and I am ready to reflect and fill this page with reverie.

I am particularly reflective tonight because of something that happened to me last night. During April of last year, as many of you probably know, I walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain. After walking the 250 kilometers to the Cathedral of Santiago and returning home, I took off the sea shell which had been tied to my backpack and tied the sting that had been attaching it around my wrist. Back up even farther (I apologize if this is getting confusing), but when I had been in India I learned of the custom of tying a string around your wrist at a temple and making a wish. Then you have the entire time that the string is on your wrist to decide if you want that wish to come true or not. Well, my India string fell off quite some time ago, and well yesterday my Spain string fell off while I was riding my bike home. It made me think off all the people and experiences that I have met and been a part of during this past year and two months. It also made me quite literally stop in the middle of my ride home, and stand in the night rain to consider my life at the moment. I stood there with the string in my hand and a wave of memories and people’s voices poured over me. I often think about what I am doing here but as we all know it is very easy to cover up those true conversations with yourself with little trivial tasks and plans and avoid true introspection. My friends and I here talk quite a bit about the pros and cons of living here in Japan. Obviously we are living a wonderful adventure that is exciting and new at every turn and we have been granted the opportunity to learn a new language and culture vastly different from our own. However we are very far away from family and friends and other experiences that could also be very fulfilling, challenging and illuminating. To not draw this out any farther, last night while looking at that tattered, wet bracelet in my hand, something connected in my brain and I was able to find a peace with my decision to stay here for at least two years. I feel like for the past ten months I have been deciding (mentally more than physically) if I should really be here or not every day, and I feel like finally I am moving past that and just being here. Just be.

In all the books on Buddhism that I have been reading as of late, that seems to be the message that is emphasized over and over again. Just be. Some very beautiful things have happened in the past month of my life. One that immediately pops into my mind was a day that I spent at a former co-workers house. I knew Naramoto-san from the school that I have since stopped working at, Yakuendai.

She is the first person who made any attempt to really communicate with me in Japanese and would invite me to have lunch every time I was at the school. She showered me with simple and charming gifts and made me feel like a son while I was there. She invited me over to pick raspberries and to meet her family. I hadn’t seen her for almost two months so it was wonderful to see her smiling face when she picked me up at the train station. I was whisked off to her country home and soon we were in her enormous garden picking raspberries, digging potatoes and filling up bags with this wonderful fruit called loquat (びわ) which tastes like the banana flavored popsicles I would eat as a kid. I have written about her generosity before and I was again astonished with the overflowing bags I returned to my home with after the day was through (I laid out everything and took a picture for all of you dear readers). I loved being back with dirt under my fingernails, talking about agriculture and dreaming of one day having some plot of land where I could grow some vegetables for myself and be as generous as Naramoto-san is with me.

Some other small events and happenings I will just mention to better paint a picture of what I have been up to the past month. Wisterias have turned into hydrangeas and fill every corner of my nature surroundings with a variety of colors and smells. People here are really connected to the seasons and are very aware of what flowers and animals appear when. The other day in the office both of my co-workers perked up their ears upon hearing a bird chirping and started to smile and glow. They told me to listen and informed me that such and such bird was a sign that the rainy season was coming. It is fun to learn flower names and I am getting a gardeners education little by little just by sitting in this office and asking about things I see on my bike ride to work. I have a new neighbor that is 71 years old and lived in San Francisco for three years during the 70s. He is slowly renovating the big house next to my apartment complex and every day when I leave to school in the morning he is sitting cross legged atop the tatami mats in his house smoking and watching the rain fall. That image along is enough to make me smile for the rest of the day.

Also I finished reading Yukio Mishima’s Sea of Fertility and to anyone looking for a book suggestion I very very very much recommend these books. They are so extraordinarily full of intelligent and inspired prose that I find myself consulting them over and over again and being equally encouraged and challenged every time I reread lines. I have also been very motivated in two other areas of study this past month. One is kanji, the complicated Chinese symbols that Japanese uses as part of its writing system, and the other is classical guitar which I come home to every night. Both frustrate me so completely I want to throw the books against the wall sometimes, but both also fill me with a passion for learning that I haven’t felt for a long time. Apart from that I have been on some very interesting adventures on my bicycle carrying my bike through mountains, planted rice for the first time, began attending Japanese class again, seen and talked with old friends, met new friends and have been really enjoying my work.

Under a quiet blue tinged night sky, -James

p.s. Just another little observation, that I am still investigating so don’t take this for 100% fact, but, a lot of Japanese people laugh every time that I someone sneezes which I think is a great way to react. It is very satisfying to make that funny sneeze sound and then to hear chuckling. Personally, I find it is a very complete experience to throw your body into a really big sneeze and then to laugh along with everyone.