Upside Down

August 22, 2003
(I posted this elsewhere, but wanted it hear as well.)



The fingers of a stoned bassist wrapped around my ankles, toying with me like a rag doll. One slip and I plunge face first to the ground twenty feet below. Urgent and trifling thoughts swim around my head at supersonic speed: Will he actually drop me (by accident or design)? Why is he doing this? He is an adult; adults don’t do stuff like this. During that dirt bomb fight my older brother Peter and I had when he got me in the neck and I picked up a rock to throw at him, did I throw it? If this idiot lets go, can I flip 180 degrees and land feet first like a cat? Are there any big rocks or broken glass in those bushes? Why are all these people going on like nothing out of the ordinary is happening? Why don’t they notice me? I hate them. I hate them.

They are laughing and smoking and stuffing their faces right there, at the air vent, while my long, straight, strawberry-blond hair stands on end—rather, points in the direction gravity wants it to go: down. Was my face as red as a beet or white as a ghost? Was I flailing like a maniac or frozen in fear? The large curl vent was located in the center of the tarred roof, which most often served as our private patio. Imagine a giant curved horn standing unnaturally on its mouthpiece, with a flattened bell and painted wasabe green. A serendipitous acquisition was bolted to the flattened part:　a picnic table top rescued from a premature burial at the village dump (like our dog Cookie and other sundry items). All kinds of goodies were piled on it:　cellophane packs of bar snacks and professional drink mixing supplies along side straight people stuff like burgers and dogs and buns and ketchup and potato salad and paper plates and iceberg lettuce with chunks of hothouse tomatoes and Thousand Island dressing. In the center of the smorgasbord sat Grandma and Grandpa’s antique crystal punch bowl, overflowing with sangria.

A cooler and some galvanized garbage cans stuffed with ice and bar bottles of Rheingold, Pabst, and Schlitz stood there portentously like the shrines they were. The cooler was twice the length of a normal “large” cooler, like the family car: an extra, extra long hearse-black four-door truck, custom built in Oklahoma and perfectly suited for taxiing merry pranksters and party supplies to ponds and lakes and beaches and forests and drive-in movies on hot August nights. A twenty-five gallon industrial lobster pot threatened to crush the barbecue grill it stood upright on; boiling water spiced with bottled beer and a family of lobsters shook the thing from inside out.

Uncle Denis, who to date still has the biggest, baddest stereo money can buy, was the purchasing consultant for our sound system: an elegant but ballsy unit, no frills but lots of loud crispy rock music and wood cabinetry. Yes, the tunes were loud, but not excessively (Dad, the consummate bar host, knew how to lubricate but not drown a party with music): Janis Joplin, CSNY, The James Gang, The Moody Blues, George Harrison, Canned Heat, and Dylan.

Ritchie the bearded bartender from Brentwood, Barefoot Mike, Bald Hank and Bitchy Bunny, “Lick you all over for 5¢” Mike and “Can do” Stew, Chatty Cathy, several Marys, Rat and Cat, cute little Kate and her three big sisters from Florida, Burt the Bachelor, our cats (Socrates, Friday, and Flug) and dogs, Obnoxious John, Lazy John, Big John, Kevin “Lord of the Rings” Clancy and “Little” Annie, and Saddle Rock and their groupies. The leader of the band, Jerry, would yell at his girlfriend while she shrieked like a lunatic from the apartment next door one summer, the last summer the group played at the bar. The place was indeed referred to as the band’s apartment, but later Barefoot Mike’s, Mik the Prick’s, and Montana John’s. The summer I was dangled over the side of the roof by my feet, the four or five Saddle Rock band members and their girlfriends were the ones crashing in that single room with attached bathroom. Dad erected a six-foot fence between our half of the roof and theirs (replete with swinging saloon doors), more to support the back side of the cabana (a prototype for a much grander architectural delight built several years later with hand-hewn logs and driftwood) than to provide privacy. Camping out there under the cabana, snuggled in old sleeping bags, musty throw pillows, and the ugly orange blanket that Cat crocheted for her two-year-old son and forgot at our place one night when she flopped on the couch after an evening of revelry in the bar, Peter and I would watch Creature Feature on Friday night and Saturday morning cartoons on his black and white 12-inch Zenith while munching beer nuts and potato chips with our dogs: Jimmy, Pookie, and Butterball.

On a pleasant September or October evening after playing kick ball with neighborhood friends or skateboarding or putting pennies on the tracks at the station or something like that, Barefoot Mike comes bounding into our apartment and, white-faced, bleary-eyed and shaking like he had his finger stuck in a live light bulb socket, and announces that Rat killed Cat and some guy the night before. Maybe from Mike that night or from Newsday or my mother, I learned that Rat had been drinking in my dad’s bar (just under our apartment!), then walked to his place in North Sea, got his hunting knife or a kitchen knife, came back to town to Cat’s place to her and her lover, and cut their hearts out. Rat spent six years in jail for this gruesome murder, then started hanging out at the bar again like nothing happened. A busty, hirsute woman with a provocative proboscis found him irresistible, I speculate not because of his long, stringy, greasy dirty-blond hair, his horn-rimmed glasses, or his pointed ugly rat’s face. The rest of us found him a repugnant demon. But no one wanted to be the one to ask him to leave. After a couple of months of no one (but his new girl) coming anywhere near him, he disappeared.

Who knows why we had parties on the roof. The original structure of the building, built at the turn of the nineteenth century, was a perfect box, maybe 40’ X 40’ X 40’, three stories tall, with a full basement. The first floor addition, built during the 1940s, stuck out from the building, about 20 feet on the side over the bar’s “living room” and in the front and back but less on the Polish Hall side. Imagine the shape of an inverted carpenter’s T when viewed from any one side, or if you prefer three dimensional objects, think of a giant upside down mushroom with all strait lines and square corners and no curves.

Across the street was a half acre of groomed lawn　—　the natural repository for bar empties, which me and Peter exchanged Saturday on Sunday mornings at Three Finger Joe’s for pieces of Bazooka bubble gum (that is, if Frankie, the stock car driver’s son from across the street, didn’t get to them first). The spot was energized, not by the minimalist landscaping job it had received from the village land maintenance crew, but by the nature of its location: on the corner of Elm Street and Powell Avenue, pinned between the train station and three bars (cultural institutions) and smack dab in the middle of one of two routes to down town and between the walking route connecting the village’s two Black neighborhoods: The Hill and The Ave. You could play volleyball and frisbee or hide and seek there, but since it was public land, consumption of alcohol was prohibited, unlike Agawam Park down town, where locals were prohibited from playing with Frisbees or balls, but rich tourists could drink booze on Summer Jazz Nights.

Why not the back yard? That was even bigger than the triangular patch of land across the street. Well, because the part of the back yard closest to the building was a hard-packed, lumpy spent coal and broken glass parking lot; the yardage behind that was Atlas’s exercise area. Atlas was let out to pasture there behind the bar, not because he was too old or weak or small (12 years and 18 hands tall) to pull the Hansom House carriage but because his owner (i.e., Dad) could only maintain so many interests at one time; properly caring for an English riding horse was not one of them. That task was left to Peter and me, who were about as interested in shoveling horse piss barn straw, scooping oats, and filling the water trough (first breaking the ice on top) on winter mornings before school as we were in doing homework or cleaning the bathrooms in the bar on Saturday and Sunday mornings. (In all fairness, there was a bonus or two to having a horse, beyond the status he brought us as the only family in the village with a horse. After putting oats on the fence, while he was standing there munching on them, three or four or five of us kids would jump on his back. The last to fall off was the winner — usually me, if anybody wants to know. Also, the bails of hay we were supposed to feed him were great fun to make forts out of and jump onto from the barn roof.) The backyard eventually evolved into the preferred party place: a sort of English garden and volleyball park, which was developed to the extent that it once served as the venue for the Pernot Long Island Volleyball Classic, 5¢ beer nights for throngs of college students, and a few alternative mixed media events which blended fusion music, performance art, and graffiti.

Before all that, the second floor roof was the most natural spot for spontaneous summer barbecue parties. The very top roof, the third floor roof, could in theory have been an ideal location for partying: a 40’ X 40’ flat chunk of space 40 feet in the air, overlooking the entire railroad plaza. But only someone young or dumb enough to balance on the fire escape handrail long enough to sling him- or herself to the roof before plunging to the ground could make it up there. That, and there was no guardrail around the perimeter to keep party people from stumbling to the second story roof to their deaths. In fact, besides my wife an me and my buddy Bret, who clawed our way up there decked out in Halloween attire when in graduate school years later to hurl water balloons at plastered patrons in the parking lot, and besides me and my brother Peter, who went up there to sneak cigarettes when in elementary school, I don’t know anyone else who reached that altitude.

Glen, who looked like the Frank Zappa of 1969 (which I thought looked pretty cool), once consumed a libation spiked with LSD at the Mad Hatter. The things he saw, that if he knew in advance were coming, might not have had such a deleterious affect on his demeanor that summer, in as much as whatever mind he had, got turned inside out and stuck there. He was a comparatively quiet person — I think I liked him not being a loud asshole, like so many of the others¬ — who transformed into a monster before my eyes and became an expediter for an epiphanal loss of innocence experience: adults don’t know everything, the right things, or even how to act; they are just larger, hairier, more violent versions of kids; they are just as stupid, irresponsible, and selfish as kids.

I cannot say that I really knew Glen, that I had more than a superficial understanding of his personality. But, at that moment, anticipating imminent blackout, maiming, and death, I perceived (as children are want to do) what was going on inside his head: not much, and thus nothing to focus his attention on the seriousness of the situation. It was his bassist’s fingers that knew what to do; they knew that when the set is over, the guitar gets laid gently on the ground — as I was set back on the roof. The adults who witnessed the episode were laughing.

Kyoto Conferencing, Chapter Three: Turning Japanese

Three: Turning Japanese

Lorraine, before I get to the point, I’ve got to tell you this one: I’m in Osaka now, at Starbucks, across from my hotel, the Hotel Monterey. Hold on, it gets better (worse?): I’m sitting in a courtyard-like area, at the edge of a plaza in the center of four or five flashy skyscrapers. The Monterey is the aging granddad among these upstart punks, but it has a bit of character, where they’ve got flash (and size!). The environs here look like one of those plaza areas at the base of the skyscrapers in L.A. or Seattle or I guess a lot of other cities west of the Rockies. The climactic conditions now (8:00 p.m.) are perfect, the calibrated waterfall spilling its guts into a symmetrical hole in the ground behind me, the polished granite facades of the skyscrapers, and the ... how can I say? ... oh, I don’t know ... the periphery of the station area ... are humming like a fecund beehive after dark on a hot summer night, all making for an excellent circumstance for lonesome little me. By the way, by the looks of this neighborhood, the Japanese economy isn’t doing all that badly, despite what you might read in the newspaper.

I just got back from a great day in Kyoto. Maybe you read about it? And since I have a reasonably drinkable cup of joe and a solid writing surface before me (cascading water behind), I am now going to do something which occurred to me earlier today: introduce you to our good friend Andrew. Here goes: Lorraine, this is Andrew; Andrew, this is Lorraine, Colleen’s mom.

Andrew is one of the first humans I met in The Burg – on campus to be specific. I walked up to him and introduced myself, which is definitely out of character for shy (unsociable? private?) me. I did in fact accost him because he looked like a hippy: long hair and beard, handmade accessories, tie-dyed shirt, Birkenstocks, and a hemp shoulder bag. I was looking for some pot (ganja? reefer? weed? – I didn’t know what the locution in those parts was at the time); I like a little puff every now and then, and living in Japan I hadn’t sampled any in a particularly long time. He probably thought I was a criminology major (doing research or looking for a snitch), given the number of such students on campus, also because of my buzz cut and otherwise all-American wardrobe: Levis, T-shirt, and sneakers. It didn’t take him long to figure out that I wasn’t as square as I looked and me to learn he wasn’t as loose as he looks (for one, he didn’t have any Mary Jane). He is a complex, kindly person. And elusive. And moody! And like me, he’s one of those paradoxically outgoing yet private people – maybe that’s the glue that binds us.

Andrew is a tall man – 6’3” I think – with a good sturdy build, healthy though not muscular per se. Dirty blonde hair, sometimes kept very short, like mine, and sometimes on the long side, and a very fast growing beard; he can go from a close shave to a bushy beard in about a week. I’m telling you, his beard will grow right before your eyes. Sometimes when it’s long, he’ll put a braid or two in it, which suits his demeanor well, which is, among other things, fun-loving and adventurous.

The summer before we moved to Japan this time around (August 1999, to be precise), the boys and I made a trip to New York to hang with the family there for a few weeks. Colleen had to work or had some other obligation to attend to in Ellensburg (or she didn’t want to come—I forget), so it was just us men. We had red-eye flights. Andrew drove us the 100 miles back and forth to SeaTac on the other side of the Cascades, because Colleen was definitely not interested in making that long mountain drive at three in the morning. At the end of the return trip, we come stumbling off the plane in the wee hours of the morning, and who do you think is waiting for us but a 6’3” clown in full regalia, holding a colorful placard saying “Welcome Home Zakary, Adrian, and Tommy!”  Zakary and Adrian barely flinched; ironic little smiles flickered across their faces, which communicated something to the effect “Oh, Andrew’s here.” I squirmed then almost cried to have such a friend do such a thing for us. The boys responded so casually to Andrew because they know him well, like family. For one, he was their nanny one summer, when Colleen was working and I was taking an intensive Spanish class at U-Dub. He’s the one who said, “I don’t baby-sit. Number one, they are not babies. Number two, even if they were, I wouldn’t sit on them.”  Just for the record: no, they are not babies, though I do believe he has sat on them one or two or three times.

I don’t discount that part of my own reaction was a response not only to having our close family friend welcoming us home at this ungodly hour wearing a clown suit, but also to the kind of clown he was: not your two-dimensional, unambiguously hilarious, slapstick, rib-tickling, fumbling clown, nor your pitiful send in the clowns, tears of a clown sort of sad clown; rather, he was ironic and brooding if not outright perverse looking. Frankly speaking, he was a bit scary. Like I said, Andrew is tall, certainly taller than your average clown. But not untypical was his clown suit – colorful, checkered, and satiny, though his was a bit grimier than the one your paid professional wears. And those weren’t oversized floppy clown shoes he was wearing but a pair of seasoned Birkenstocks. Yes, an earring or three, but no makeup or bulbous red nose. And he looked worn out from driving and wired on coffee. Of course he needed a shave. Yep, he was a little scary looking. But still, the hesitancy in Zakary and Adrian’s step on the way over to give him a big fat hug was barely detectable.

November 8, 2003, 8:30 a.m., Kyoto bound. On the Rapid Express, which takes just under 30 minutes from Osaka; not bad. Seeing as how it’s a Saturday morning, one might expect to get a seat. But, oh no, instead it’s hot and crowded in here. A reminder: yesterday, the weather was lovely: clear blue skies – not especially humid, as this part of Japan is want to be during certain seasons – and warm. I wore shorts and a T-shirt all day. Well, it looks like another shorts day today. Yes! Yesterday I changed out of my jeans in a Kyoto Station men’s room handicap stall; beyond being impeccably clean, it was roomy and un-awkward, unlike the regular stalls, which for starters have a hole in the ground where you’d expect to find a floor.

Andrew visited us two summers ago with his girlfriend Karen. The lovebirds and the Jaques family did not tour Kyoto, as they would have liked to, due to monetary constraints, I believe. Andrew is a historian (he has a B.A. and is working – and working and working and working – towards his M.A. in Japanese history), so he would have loved visiting Kyoto. I’m really sorry we didn’t. If we had, we likely would have visited some of the places I am going to today. Speaking of which, today I am like one strong young backpacker, moving at the speed strong young backpackers like to move. I don’t have a tour group today.

Andrew and Karen met at the Ellensburg Rodeo, in the beer garden behind the shoots. The country and western band was swinging, and the couple in question met then and there on the dance floor. On the one hand, it is quite hard to imagine a less likely pair of people line dancing to country and western music at a rodeo; on the other hand, knowing these two, it’s harder to imagine anyone more likely to be kicking it up in such a venue, given their dispositions: extroverted, kinesthetic, a tad exhibitionistic, and iconoclastic.

Karen used to be a model; this is what she says – often – at any rate. To my eye, she is what you would call good-looking but not stunning, though I can imagine that she might be photogenic given her coloring and height and so on. Now in her mid thirties, age and gravity have done their thing to her hips. Still, you can picture here being thin – long and lean – ten or so years ago. She’ll tell you that she’s big busted (which I thought wasn’t supposed to be a good thing for models), though to my eye she ain’t no bigger than average.

Now at the Konichi-in temple. It’s 10:00 a.m. I came here because my Lonely Planet tells me it is the home of a lovely Zen garden. 300 yen gets me in. The fellow at the ticket booth was soft spoken and kind. We chatted for a few minutes in Japanese and English. He didn’t look like a Zen monk, but he was about as mellow and unassuming as one. (He had short bushy hair and was smoking a butt.) Now standing at the entrance gate to the garden, Akechi-mon. “This gate represents Chinese style architecture of the Momoyama period; built by the General Mitsuhide Akechi (1528-1582) in 1582 for the repose of his mother’s foll [sic.] with a donation of one thousand gold pieces at Daitokuji temple. It was dismantled and reconstructed here in 1868” (sign in front of gate). It has a curvaceous, woody roof, which suits my taste just fine. Through the opening, a wall of shrubs and trees burst with autumn coloring. This is the peak of the autumn color season in Kyoto, by the way. In the foreground, at the base of this wall of flora is a lily pond with a single arched stone bridge at the far end. Unparalleled beauty and I didn’t even enter the joint yet.

Now in. Moss galore, bright red berries, and the most delicate Japanese maples in the universe. A number of large, docile koi (carp) leisurely lumber around the pond. They’re obviously Zen koi. This entire time the sound of a single drum beat and several tweety birds have been wafting my way. This next thing, I’m going to say, then I’m going to leave it alone, because it would appear to be relevant, though I’m not quite sure what that relevance might be; here goes: like my brother Mikel and your son Tim, Andrew is a drummer. The three of them seem to have a shared personality trait too, though I am not quite sure what it is. For one, they all march to the beat of an unconventional drummer. (And all four of us idolize the Clash.) There, I said it. Oh yeah, that would now be two arched stones which make up the bridge at the far end of the pond where I now stand. (Yeah, stand corrected!) We don’t get to walk over it, maybe so as we don’t ruin the lovely lichen and moss growing on it. The path winds around the pond, which ain’t round. Rather, well-rounded. A little waterfall adds a pleasant layer of natural noise to the moment. Now a gaggle of grannies who I can’t see punctuate the regular rhythm of the drum beat as if on cue from the other side of the wall. But there aren’t any benches or other dry places to sit down – and I want to sit down! I mean, I just want to sit down and soak it all in, for about like twenty years. Here before me presently is a pond "dedicated to the Goddess of Fortune on the island. Reflecting the yearly changes of scenery, the pond is lovely throughout the four seasons, particularly during the time of the falling leaves in autumn" (visitor pamphlet).

Oh my, every turn in the path brings another lovely view into site. I think I picked a perfect time to be here, because there is no one else around. I love it! A group now walks by. Ordinarily, I am one of the faster walking people you’re going to meet (I mean, duh, I walk about 10K a day); but this group of grannies blows right by me.

Presently passing through another curvaceous gate. This one has a mossy cypress roof. A koto or some other sort of stringed instrument and an occasional gong have joined the drum beat and the tweety birds. Andrew would enjoy this moment. Now at a medium-sized black shrine in a walled-in area. You don’t see many black ones. Above the front door to this black building, which we cannot enter but can see into, are three carvings: on the left and right are pheasants, in the center a dog-lion, all meticulously carved and colorfully painted, though time has caused the paint to fade. It is dark as hell inside the building. It looks like there’s some cool stuff in there; I wish I could go in. Oh, the back side of the shrine! The entire back is very colorfully painted – like those carvings up front. Interesting: the front part is black-black and the back is all color. Take the whole kit and caboodle and surround that by a clay wall topped with a mossy tiled roof, then you’d be here with me.

Now at the back of the Tosho-gu shrine, “the only building in the gongen style of architecture that still exists in Kyoto” (visitor pamphlet). Wow! Not like Sears Tower or Golden Gate Bridge wow; more like exposed roots and curvilinear trees and tall straight bamboo. Wow! All very green and undiminished in pulchritudity by the lush moss. Furthermore, given the season, splotches of vivid reds and yellows and oranges punctuate the light and dark greens and the baby blue sky.

Andrew would love it. He’s a real nature boy. He lived in a yurt for a year or maybe more alongside a river at the foothills of the Manashtash Ridge in Ellensburg. Cold river bathing in January and all. No electricity of course; just the nature around him. And his dogs and cats and bongos and accordion. And his girlfriend: at the time, a pretty young lass. She was maybe nineteen or twenty; he was maybe twenty-seven. Interruption: now the instrumentation has faded, a chorus of well-harmonized deep male voices begin chanting inna a Mongolian stylee; a chime gets tinkled every now and then. Funky monkey! Back to Andrew: he was taking care of Zakary and Adrian for us around those yurt days. I forget the lass’s name, but she was real nice. The boys liked her, and so did we. So did Andrew, but she left (for England, I believe), not because she and Andrew weren’t working out but because she was young and ready for adventure and he was committed to things in Ellensburg. Naturally, I have no flying idea why they didn’t get married and have two kids and a house like me and Colleen.

Andrew has had a bunch of girlfriends over the years we’ve known him – always earthy, mindful people who like both music and dancing to the beat of a different drummer. And suave dude that he is, he goes for the pretty ones. I think Karen was his last, or at least his last live-together girlfriend, or permanent squeeze, or significant other, or whatever they’re called. I wonder if something is wrong. I wonder if he is thinking more about boys than girls and is not saying anything to us about that interest. This is not the "wrong" thing I’m thinking about, because nothing wrong there in our liberal opinion, and we wouldn’t love or like him any less if that’s where he was going. I’m talking this way, because he doesn’t seem to have had a significant other of any persuasion in his life for quite some time – and that just ain’t like him. Or he’s not sharing such personal aspects of his life with us anymore. "Oblivious me" never noticed that Andrew might lean that way (despite the painted nails, braids, accessories, sari-looking wraps, and whatnot), though a mutual friend once retorted something like, “Yeah, Andrew was saying he doesn’t know whether he’s Phil or Philomena from one day to the next,” indicating bisexuality, when once I said something like “Andrew is one funky banana.”

No offense, Andrew, but Karen wasn’t our type. (Good for us!)  We were automatically predisposed to liking her – because she was your girl – but she always talked about her Ex, a moderately famous funk rocker. I mean, you’re like our favorite person in the world, and she keeps blending comments about that bozo into the conversation. It may not have bugged you, but we thought it was disrespectful and insensitive, not to mention the fact that it meant she wasn’t putting you on a pedestal at all waking moments – which is fucked up. Nuff said.

Time to walk, because I’m starting to get a little chilly, sitting on this damp stone in the shade, wearing shorts and T-shirt. The carved wooden Buddhas over here in this smallish shrine look Japanese. Well, I mean, to me they usually look Indian. A bunch of funeral mourners pass by, wearing modern black garb. Maybe they’ve got something to do with that ceremonial-sounding music that I can’t hear anymore.

Now inside the main hall at the Konichi-in temple, which smells of old wood and incense – and my sneakers! Yes, we have to take our shoes off and carry them when we come in, and I’ve been walking around all morning, getting the dogs nice and hot and sweaty. There’s one of those signs again: “No Photographing.”  Ha, no problem for us writers. I’m getting a tad burnt out on gushing about how impressive and awesome and lovely these temples and related structures are. Well, now I’m on the viewing deck, sitting in quasi-lotus position, admiring a spectacular garden: a huge expanse of fancy raked sand in the foreground, rocks and shrubs and trees in the background – choreographed to a T. This Tsurukame no Niwa is “a beautiful, dry landscape garden also designed by Kobori Enshu. The white sand represents a treasure ship and the ocean in which it is sailing. The tsurukame motif of stonework is arranged between the flat stones. Along the border, at the far end of the garden, there are several large stones, which represent the Horai mountain range. Beyond this several layers of shrubbery rise, which symbolize steep mountains and deep valleys” (visitor pamphlet).

Now at the Sanmon gate, approaching the Nanzen-ji temple. I’m calling it a gate, but it’s like no gate you’ve ever seen: maybe sixty or eighty feet tall, a couple-a-hundred feet wide, made of timbers that must have come from something like giant sequoias. People are up top; I think I’ll join them. Yep, I just sprung 1,000 yen to go up the gate and then into the main temple building and a few other buildings in the temple grounds. Unlike Konichi-in, this is obviously one of the Kyoto absolutely must do things; Tommy the genius has deduced this based on the hordes of tourists in the immediate environs. OK, up top now. Oh my, it’s so big! A gate? Rather, you might want to call it a giant elevated building. And made to last, let me tell you. I don’t have the kind of superlative lexical items at the tip of my tongue at the moment to do it justice, so just believe me when I say it’s super duper bitchin’. And the view from up here: yowee kazowee! The boys and I came here with Mikel and Naomi a couple years ago; I had to come back. From this side, I can see the Nanzen-ji temple, which sits portentously at the foot of the Higashiyama mountain range, so I’m looking at those showy, autumnal mountains too. From the other side ... just a moment ... OK, here I am: oh, nothing special. Just kidding – it’s the entire city and the Nishiyama mountain range all spread out before us, autumnal trees separating that business from us oglers on top of this gate.

One thing I notice is that I seem to be grooving on the little things – like the grain and texture of the wood, the materials these places are made of, and whatnot, more than your average tourist. I mean, on an up-close and personal level, where you can smell and feel the stuff, it seems to me no less impressive than it does at the macro level. Wow, looking into the building up here, which we can’t go in but can see through this here wooden grating, is a spectacular shrine: squatting praying Buddhas, and so on and so forth. The entire place, except for the floor and parts of the ceiling, are colorfully and delicately painted. The natural raw wood and the painted stuff juxtaposed side by side do each other a complimentary, esthetic favor. And the Buddhas are colorfully and meticulously painted too. Usually they are painted simply, or not at all, or maybe covered in gold leaf. I said that last bit like I knew what I was talking about  – which gets me to thinking I might want to do some research (light research) on the topic. Research complete: The Sanmon gate of Nanzen-ji temple “symbolizes the three roads to Buddhist liberation. The original gate was destroyed by fire several times. The existing gate was constructed in 1628 by Todo Takatora. In the center of the gate can be seen a statue of Buddha with a jeweled crown. The statue is accompanied by 16 Arhat wooden statues. This gate is also famous for a Kabuki scene featuring Ishikawa Goemon and is well known as one of the three biggest gates in Japan” (backside of 1,000 yen entrance ticket).

Down for a break, about halfway to Ginkaku-ji temple (the “Silver Pavilion”) from Nanzen-ji, which along with its garden is really spectacular and really famous. I was enjoying a writing break, so you don’t get a description of these things. Today’s snack-lunch is the same as yesterday’s: an energy bar and a fill-up on water. You see, I am not eating a regular sit-down lunch because I am dieting (and economizing). I’m not fat, but I exercise a lot and I just can’t seem to flatten this gut as much as I’d like (who, me, vain?). Being away from home, I can avoid sit-down meals with the family. And thanks to your daughter's good cooking, a guy just can’t help taking seconds if not at least a large single serving. To her credit, Colleen cooks healthy dishes with lots of tofu, fish, and veggies, spiced with fresh herbs and so on and so forth. She didn’t used to be such a good cook, but since I became the full-time money-earning person and she the full-time house person, she has made amazing progress. Andrew is also a good cook. His specialty is baking, and he’ll make a couple of loaves of tasty bread every week and an occasional pie or quiche and other such goodies.

Andrew is quite smart and conscientious, bordering on the obsessive sometimes. He looks like a relaxed, laid back hippy, which he is, but he is also a studious, responsible community-minded individual. He is so community-minded and responsible in fact that he ran for city councilman this past election cycle. Andrew, Green Party candidate, took 43% of the vote, while his Republican rival took 57%. Remember, Ellensburg is on the conservative side of the Cascade Curtain; there is simply a preponderance of conservative, middle class white people in the Burg. And there are cowboys and cowgirls galore, as you know. A number of the overall population don’t care for people who are different from them, like the international students at the university (mostly Asian), the growing Latino community, and the few blacks and other people of color who call Ellensburg home. Forget about gays, artists, and other whackos.

And so Andrew and Karen met in the heart of enemy territory, as it were. Karen is bisexual – she said so anyway, I think five minutes after we met her. Karen shaves her head; she is pretty, so she can get away with it. And she is black.

My resting place here is on a stone bench next to the brook that runs along Tetsugaku Michi (Philosopher’s Lane), the famous walk my guide book suggests I take. I guess a lot of other people have the same guide book. Speaking of which, as you know, you don’t want to judge a book by its cover or people by the way they look. I say this because I am both thinking about Andrew’s appearance and was about to say something like: “Not very many of the folks strolling down Philosopher’s Lane look like philosophers to me.”  Yep, another mouthful of water (after removing my foot), then off to Ginkaku-ji, because they may very well be more philosophical about life than me, who cogitates upon the subject fairly often.

No way, not now anyway. There are simply too many people. The crowd streaming up the hill to the temple looks like the rush hour crowd at the station. My guide book tells me that if I am feeling spry, I might want to take the 2.2 kilometer hike up the mountain behind the temple. I know there won’t be that many people and I am trying to shake the flab. OK, I can’t lie – well, not now anyway: I like hiking up mountains and I knew this one was here. Only, I thought I would give the temple the once over before climbing up. Hopefully, the crowds will thin out before I get back down.

It always happens this way: no matter how healthy I’m feeling – and I’m feeling strong these days – I always get puckered out going up a mountain. But there are old women and young children and a group of blind people (!) going up – and they give me no choice other than to make a show and pass them by straight to the top without resting. And let me tell you, the 2.2 kilometers are up, up, up – no level spots. Since we quit smoking a year and a half ago, I feel great. In fact, the lungs are rocking and rolling like a finely tuned machine – like the Triumph 900 cc motorcycle (!) brother Mikel is handing up to me when we move to Maine, and like son Tim’s Vespa scooter. I believe it was you who expedited that loan, so that I could commute from Balboa to UCI for classes and so that Colleen and I could buzz around Newport Peninsula like Roman Holiday-makers. We’re talking summer fun in Sunny Southern California. Thanks for that one, Lorraine.

The mountain climbing payoff is of course the view from the top. The climb itself is not intrinsically pleasurable. I mean, it is hard and it hurts and you sweat like a pig (me anyway). Colleen hates mountain climbing/hiking but she’ll go with me and the boys occasionally, mostly to contribute to bonding and doing family things together. And this is what an actively nurturing, concerned, responsible parent Colleen is: she charges up mountains with us to provide a certain model or image of women to the boys and to show them that there are really fun things that you can do in the great outdoors – because even though it may not be all that intrinsically pleasurable, it can be substantially more satisfying than playing video games for the tenth day in a row or obsessively engaging in other such lazy-ass indoor pastimes. To tell the truth, the boys will tell you they don’t exactly love mountain climbing either, though you wouldn’t know it if you saw them run up one – laughing and joking and looking for critters and back at me and Colleen.

Lovely, quite lovely! Well, it is a bit hazy today, so perhaps crispy clear yesterday would have been better. Still, it is like summer: hot and humid; you even come across those big fat summer insects – like spiders with four-inch leg spans – in these here hills. I am not lying, I’ve seen them. And I just gave myself the monthly buzz cut a few days before this trip. Uh-oh: what’s this going to look like going back to work after a week of being on a “conference trip” with a sunburn on top of my head? Andrew can be witty; I bet he would have a clever answer.

Well, here is a big temple and a big pagoda, and they aren’t even on the map. The sign here says ... “Kurodani Temple and Kurodani Pagoda.”  Actually, they are on my guidebook map, but apparently not too many other people’s, because no hordes are here. And it looks impressive enough to me that if you told me it was the most important Buddhist temple in Japan, for some historical reason or other, I’d as likely believe you as not. There is some sort of ceremony going on now – gong-a-banging, monks-a-chanting. Check: maybe I wouldn’t have believed you. I mean, the temple grounds are only nice, not spectacular; the buildings too are ever so short of spectacular. I decided to walk an alternative route back to Kyoto Station, back to Osaka for the night, and I bumped into this place. After descending Daimonji-yama, behind Ginkakuji (the Silver Pavilion), the hordes were still there at Ginkaku-ji, so I didn’t go in. Rats! Still this is quite soothing – so serendipity sent this favor my way.

Andrew is moody – like Colleen. That’s not what attracted me to either of them initially, by the way. Lorraine, I don’t know if you are, even after knowing you all these years. But I suspect not as you are so circumspect. This is another thing that they have in common: Andrew is now teaching in the same department at the university that Colleen taught at for six or so years. He teaches American History and conversation skills classes to the Japanese students there. I’m making something of this issue of what things Andrew and Colleen have in common, because they do when we're all together. I think they do in part because they think it makes me happy; more likely, it is like an on-going joke or a game – like license plate spotting (spot the quirks and other personality traits Andrew and Colleen share.) 

Back on the express train to Osaka and still can’t get a seat, though it’s 5:30 on a Saturday. And I'm pooped.

I love you,

Tommy

Colleen Speaks Her Mind

September 12, 2003

Colleen on Colleen: What does Japan have to with it? 

T　－ So, big fuck, we live in Japan. Or, what, we could have been living in like Key West and we’re just far away? 

C　－ What’s your point?

Thursday, September 4, 2003, in a grove of evergreens at the Mihonrin Tree Park, the sign says the specimens right here are “Pinus stobus Linn,” planted 1898, and that they’re from north-eastern United States. Over there are “Picea abies Karst,” planted 1902; they’re European. It is now 1:00 o’clock. Blue sky, a few passing nimbuses. There was a rainstorm this morning, so the bench I’m sitting on is wet in spots. What do I care?  It looks and feels and smells like one of the last days of summer. Some deciduous trees at the edge of the grove are starting to turn; the sunshine is especially sparkly over there. The easy breeze makes the red, yellow, and orange leaves ripple and roll: a pleasing effect, as the dark pines in the grove, in the foreground, barely move.

Beyond the Picea abies Karst is the Ayako Miura Literature Museum. A sleeping attendant, a half-dozen cars, a taxi, and four bicycles (including mine) do nothing in the parking lot. The visitors are a mix of men and women, and not just old fogies. It’s nice to see the literature museum getting so much business. A youngish lady thirty or forty paces away is now snapping a photo of the museum, making sure to get a prime view of the grove in the background.

Returning to my bench, I find a visitor dozing three benches over. I don’t want to interrupt her, and I know I won’t, so I just sit down quietly to write. There’s just us and the sound of the kids playing in the school grounds beyond the trees on the other side of the river. There is enough distance and running water and trees and breeze to allow just enough of the happy kiddy cacophony to reach us, to add to this lovely moment. I don’t know who is in more bliss, me or the person snoozing three benches down. I’m not kidding, she really looks at peace with the moment.

I came down here hoping for a quiet, comfy spot away from the house to prepare to interview my wife Colleen about her life and her thoughts about living in Japan, and what do I find but a little piece of heaven. She is presently preparing to make shiso juice with a friend, Yumiko, who is also our neighbor and landlord.

A young man dressed in a lot of black strolls by, looking to have just completed the walking course. A solid, green pine cone falls twenty meters away to land smack dab on a bench: pretty good shot.

T　－ So, I was at the Mihonrin Tree Park by the Ayako Miura Literature Museum yesterday, as you know, preparing for this interview. One of the first things that came to mind when I got there was that you read one of Miura’s books. How’d you like it?

C　－ Shiokari Pass. I still have the book.

T　－ She was a Hokkaido native.

C　－ Yeah, from Asahikawa. It has a lot to do with Christianity coming to Hokkaido and the missionaries and the prejudice that people suffered if they wanted to be Christian.

T　－ When was the setting; when did the story take place? 

C　－ I’m going to say turn of the century. Were there trains then? 

T　－ Yeah, yeah, definitely. Was it a ...

C　－ A love story ...

T　－ A love story ...

C　－ ... with a tragic ending.

T　－ A love story with a tragic ending.

C　－ You don’t have to repeat everything I say.

T　－ Was it compelling and  did it...

C　－ Yeah, sure, it was the quote unquote page turner.

T　－ Melodramatic? 

C　－ Yeah, a little sappy.

T　－ Would you recommend that I read it.

C　－ Absolutely not.

T　－ We’ve been to the tree park a number of times, I guess usually with the boys. Can you recount any of those experiences? 

C　－ Adrian had gone on a field trip with his class, to the Mihonrin Koen and the museum there. He really wanted to show me where they went, so he and I went by ourselves one afternoon on bikes. He showed me where they walked and he showed me the playground and he did some pullovers on the bars and then he showed me the paths that they took around the forest. And then we ended up at this itsy bitsy, teeny weenie, little beach. I mean, it wasn’t more than ten feet. But it was sandy. It’s the only really sandy beach I’ve seen on the river. And he and I could just sort of squeeze in there. We had gotten onigiri (“rice balls”) at the store, and we had drinks. We spent the whole afternoon making sand castles. You can’t really see the beach from the path above, so sometimes people would come down out of the path towards the river and get to where Adrian and I were, and they’d get so surprised to see two foreigners sitting there building sand castles. Sometimes they would turn and walk away. But, one man and his daughter　－ she must have been in her twenties and he was older, of course. They － they were visiting from Tokyo, they were on a tour, and they sat and talked with us for quite a while. That was fun. Yeah, it was a very special day.

T　－ Let’s get out of the park and into the bigger Asahikawa. We’ve been living here a year and a half now (in other parts of Japan a lot longer than that, but let’s save that for later); we’ll be moving back to America, to Maine, in a half a year. What are your feelings about what we’ll be leaving behind and about what we’re getting ourselves into? 

C　－ What are we leaving behind ... I guess maybe what you’re saying, the things we’re going to miss or the things I’ll miss. Well, if we look at the kids, Zakary, his elementary school years will be left behind, and he’s going back to the States and he’s a going to be a teenager, so his whole elementary school experience － I mean third grade through sixth grade　－ has been in Japan, and it’s been safe and creative and it’s been positive; it’s been challenging for him, I think. Zakary is bright, so I think being in Japan was a perfect thing for him. I think people don’t always understand that kids in Japan have so much independence; it took me a long time to get used to all the freedom that elementary school students have. In the morning they go to school and they hang out until their teachers come to the classroom, but they’re free to come and go from classroom to classroom and visit with their friends or play in the playground. It’s not like in the States where they weren’t allowed in the classroom; they had to stay in the playground and they couldn’t be in the classroom if the teachers weren’t there. After school they come home anywhere between 2:00 and 4:00, depending if they stay after school for their cleaning responsibilities, or if they have a project they’re working on, they can stay and work on it. Their classrooms are beautiful and － they’ve been lucky, both schools have been gorgeous　－ they have views of the mountains. They love to stay ... their favorite thing to do － especially Adrian － is to stay and finish art projects.   

T　－ Zakary is the library monitor. What’s that all about? 

C　－ Every child in the school has inkai, or “school responsibility,” and they can be part of the team that works in the nurse’s office or the team that works in the library.... In his group they decide what they need to do to improve the library. Sometimes they make posters and put them around the school that say ... you know ... “Read books.”   Sometimes they do little book reviews.

T　－ So, Zakary is on the library inkai team. What’s Adrian on? 

C　－ He’s on ... chotto matte (“just a moment”) ... I had it ...

T　－ Shakai? 

C　－ Shakai, yeah, they do shakai.

T　－ Social Studies.

C　－ Demo (“but”) that’s not right. I mean, yes, but still that’s not right. They do things like “No running in the halls,” and “Wash your hands after you go to the bathroom.”  They do like a “Don’t run in the halls” campaign.

T　－ That’s like seikatsu (“daily life”) skills.

C　－ Yeah, right. Mm, Zakary, he works in the library on Thursdays at lunch time. Oh yeah, see, that’s another thing, the library is open, and kids can come and go at recess or lunch. During recess and lunch they can come and go to any classroom, any floor, or the library. Kids can go before school or during lunch to check out books. Zakary’s at the check out counter.

T　－ OK, great, fine, we’re leaving all that behind. So, what are your feelings about leaving it behind?  I mean, Adrian is going to miss a couple of years of all that good stuff.

C　－ Mm ... he’s not going to get the art and music ... and the P.E.. That’s what breaks my heart. And the freedom.

T　－ Which is ironic, I mean ... from what people outside Japan might imagine Japanese education is like, because they don’t understand it very well. The stereotype is that it’s disciplined and rigid and a basically uncreative experience, which is true in the case of junior high and high school and, as I know so well, college, but elementary school is special. Lovely speech.

C　－ Mm, it makes me sad for Adrian. But then, we’ll just make sure we sign him up for art classes when we get back. You know, I mean, we know how important it is ... and I guess the thing that really disappoints me about our kids not having music and art and P.E. and those things is I think they have learned to appreciate those skills in other students. So, some kids that are not particularly academic are outstanding in art, and they do so much art that the other kids really appreciate that aspect of them, their strong points.  If they’re not academic, they have other chances to excel ... and calligraphy... the calligraphy is ... I mean the boys don’t like it but they have an appreciation of it. They know when they look at ... if they looked at five or six calligraphy works, they would know which ones were good and why.

T　－ Any bad points to the experience?

C　－ It makes me sad that Adrian doesn’t want to go to school sometimes.

T　－ OK, then, so it’s not such a good thing we’re leaving behind.

C　－ Oh, it is, but it’s not bliss. I mean, you know, they’ve had struggles.

T　－ Are his problems because he’s a foreign kid or just because he’s ... “Individualistic Adrian”? 

C　－ I don’t know.  

T　－ You really don’t know if it’s him separate from the fact that he is the only foreign kid in his class? 

C　－ It hurts his feelings when they call him names.  

T　－ Do they call him “foreigner, foreigner” ... that kind of thing?   

C　－ No, it’s just like baka (“stupid”).  

T　－ Like “stupid head” ... that’s not so bad.

C　－ I’m just saying ... Zakary ... it wouldn’t bother Zakary, because Zakary even tells Adrian to ignore it.

T　－ (Cat's got the interviewer's tongue, so interviewee volunteers a rejoinder to an implied follow-up question.)

C　－ I’m afraid that when we go back to the States ... I mean, I’ve enjoyed staying home and being a stay-home mom, and I’m afraid that might be over for me.

T　－ So what has been special about this stay-home mom experience? 

C　－ You learn a lot. It’s like, when you’re teaching, you get a lot of instant feedback. You get a lot of warm fuzzies. You can tell if the class went well. People thank you for things: “Good job!” and.... When you’re a stay-home mom, you have to find it within yourself to believe that you’re doing the right thing.

T　－ We always compliment you.

C　－ (Brief but pronounced laughter.) No you don’t. When the house is clean, you say, “You shouldn’t clean it, because it’s going to get dirty anyway.” 

T　－ The boys always thank you for breakfast and lunch and dinner.

C　－ Never!  Anyway, you learn a lot. You learn how to be strong and to just believe what you’re doing is the right thing; in the long run that makes it feel good.

T　－ Well, OK, I think you’ve been able to knock off two birds with one stone: you’ve been able to indulge in your own interests which in many cases correspond with the needs of the household, like sewing clothes for the boys. You’ve made some beautiful clothes for them, and you love sewing, and they get to wear cool, useful clothes. There’s one. Or, gardening; you really love gardening, and we get to eat the tomatoes and lettuce and whatever ... beans and stuff you grow. And cooking; you say you don’t love cooking, but there’s obviously love in some of the dishes you make.

C　－ (Laughter followed by the gurgling sound of the transfer of the contents of a beer bottle into a mouth and down a throat).  

T　－ Let’s get out of Asahikawa, into the rest of Japan now. What has living in Japan, or maybe I should say living abroad － I don’t know － given you?  Has it added to your life?  What has it taken from you?  I guess I’m including both times we’ve lived here: from 1987-92 and from 1999 to now.

C　－ (Pensive silence) ... (pensive silence) ... (pensive silence). My self-confidence. Confidence in our family ... to know we can live in another country.

T　－ Not “live,” “thrive!”  

C　－ ... live in another country and go to school and carry on as we do. I think that gives one self-confidence. And in our family, as a unit, I think we rely in each other more than we would if we were in the States. We trust each other and we rely on each other more comfortably. It’s a good reminder of how difficult it is to get along in another country. It’s a reminder for when you go back to the States and you meet foreigners.

T　－ We don’t say “foreigners.” 

C　－ I know, we don’t. What do we say?  “People from other countries?” 

T　－ “People born in other countries.” 

C　－ “People born in other countries.”  Thank you.  

T　－ So, you’ve been here for almost ten years, and that’s all you can say for yourself?  Come on!  You’re like a super person. I mean, what has this done for you? 

C　－ I told you, it’s given me more self-confidence.

T　－ So, you’re suggesting you weren’t an especially confident person before? 

C　－ I’m a different person now. Especially going from having a full-time job to being a full-time mom, to think that I could go from being a full-time teacher to being a full-time mom and maintain my sense of self, I think is important.

T　－ Is that especially because you’ve been living in Japan or do you think you would have had an analogous sort of growth if we’d stayed in the States? You’re just more mature.

C　－ No. It would have been different. I have more time. I have more ... I mean, I have hours and hours and hours by myself here that I wouldn’t have had in the States.  

T　－ Occasionally you’ve mentioned that you don’t have many friends. Why don’t you have friends? 

C　－ Probably because I don’t speak Japanese well enough; probably because I’m different.

T　－ You’re different? 

C　－ There aren’t that many people that are forty-three that cycle and go running and ... I like to play with the kids. Like, if they go skiing, I like to ski with them. If we go to the park, I like to play baseball with everyone.

T　－ And most parents aren’t out there doing those things ... mothers, women? 

C　－ No one I’ve met.

T　－ How has your personality changed? 

C　－ I don’t know if I can explain exactly how this fits into being in Japan, but I think I am a lot more aware of presenting the role of a strong woman in front of the boys, because I think they don’t see very many strong women. And it’s important for me for them, how do I say, to know that. I know my children like me, I know my children love me, I know my children respect me, so it’s important for me for them to know that they can love and respect and get along with a strong woman.

T　－ So you’ve done that consciously? 

C　－ Absolutely.

T　－ Why?  Because you perceive most Japanese women aren’t like that, at least compared to American women, say? 

C　－ Not as outwardly strong. And strong, I don’t know if “strong” is the right word; maybe not as direct, not as outspoken. Mm. And that’s really important to me.

T　－ Do you have an example or two? 

C　－ If I disagree with you, I will absolutely say it.

T　－ Yeah, but that’s not for Zakary and Adrian’s benefit!  You’ve always been like that.

C　－ No I haven’t, no I haven’t.

T　－ Excuse me, people of Abstractville, but bullshit!  I mean, you’ve never been afraid to disagree with me.

C　－ Am I interviewing you or are you interviewing me? 

T　－ Well ... OK ... I just want you to give a truthful answer.

C　－ That is a truthful answer, and you don’t know what it takes sometimes for me to disagree with you.  

T　－ It seems kind of reflexive sometimes.

C　－ Anyway, I just want to make sure that it’s well-stated that I disagree.

T　－ (Frustrated laughter.)  You don’t have to convince me of that.

T　－ How have you changed intellectually? 

C　－ Intellectually, I think, from the time I have to listen to the radio, I am pretty up on what happens around the world.

T　－ You listen to the radio. Explanation, please.

C　－ NPR or Democracy Now or BBC.

T　－ Via the internet.

C　－ Reading books too. I’ve been able to read a lot of books I’ve wanted to read.

T　－ Are you more sensitive? 

C　－ Yes, absolutely. And then again, I can’t say if that’s from being in Japan or being older.

T　－ Sensitive to what? 

C　－ I think sensitive to my family, because I’m home and I have time to think about what people are doing and what people are thinking and how they’re going to feel when they get home. Sensitive to what it’s like to be foreign. Sensitive to what it’s like to be different. Sensitive to what it’s like to be a middle-aged woman. I have time to think about these things.

T　－ Are you more sensual? 

C　－ Yeah.

T　－ In what way? 

C　－ Because I’m not all stressed out about work all the time. Before I was working full-time, and we had two little kids, and you were getting your Ph.D.. Oh, god!

T　－ Are you a more open person? 

C　－ Absolutely.

T　－ For example? 

C　－ My world is much bigger than just going from work to home, work to home, work to home.

T　－ What do you mean bigger? 

C　－ Oh, I get to hear students ... Japanese ... Chinese ... in my Japanese class, I’m the only Westerner. I mean, how cool is that?  I’m the only Westerner. People want to know how I feel about the war in Iraq.

T　－ And you’ve got opinions.

C　－ Absolutely.

T　－ So, you’re smarter, then, not more open. How can you be more open?  You were always an open, liberal person.

C　－ My world is bigger. But who’s to say if that’s being here ...

T　－ ... or being with me ...

C　－ ... No. Or if it’s ...

T　－ ... or being with me....

C　－ It has nothing to do with you.

T　－ Thanks.

C　－ That’s my beer, Honey.  

T　－ Are you more cynical? 

C　－ No. You take care of all of that. I don’t even ever have to be cynical about anything.

T　－ That was a cynical answer.

C　－ (Something between satisfied laughter and coy giggling.) You take care of all of that. You do.

T　－ That was funny?

C　－ (Glurgh, glurgh, glurgh.)

T　－ Do you have any regrets about living in Japan? 

C　－ No. The only thing, I guess, would be not having a friend. But it takes a long time to make a friend. I know that even when we lived in Ellensburg it took two or three years to make friends. And we’ve been in each of these places in Japan for only two years, so how can I even expect that?  But, that being said, I would never not do what we did so I could have a friend.

T　－ How have your political views evolved?  Like when we were twenty-four, just before we came to Japan, from that point through the last bunch of years. Yeah, so how have your political views evolved, whether it’s being in Japan, or watching TV, or listening to the radio, or reading the newspaper? 

C　－ The biggest struggle that I came up with was the presidential election between Bush and Gore. I didn’t want to vote for Gore. I would much rather have voted for Nader. But I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Nader thinking that Bush would be elected. So, it seems like, you hear lots of times that politics is a series of compromises ... and I voted for Gore, and I’m so shocked that I did, but it helped me realize the compromises that have to be made, and a lot of people who are really liberal would argue, you don’t have to make those compromises, you don’t have to make those compromises.

T　－ So are suggesting that you may have been more idealistic before we came to Japan, way back when, and now you’re more pragmatic?  Is that reading too much into it?  I mean, you’re sort of saying compromises are important ... I’ll compromise my values a little bit ...

C　－ It depends on the situation. Like, we don’t have a car, right?  So, that’s not a compromise I’m willing to make.

T　－ So, that’s a thing since we came to Japan?  Your views of energy use have changed?  You’re a more organic, natural person now? 

C　－ No, not necessarily. I don’t think so.

T　－ Yeah, you’re more likely to advocate more organic, natural, healthy ...

C　－ That’s because I know about it.

T　－ Because of living in Japan or because you’re an intelligent person.

C　－ Because of being home, having time to think about these things.

T　－ Yeah, but there are a lot of Haus Fraus that stay at home and they don’t come to that conclusion.

C　－ I’m not talking about other people; I’m talking about me.

T　－ So, there’s nothing about Japan that’s done this to you? 

C　－ See, I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s Japan, if it’s the times, or if it’s the fact that I’m stay home now. I don’t know that, because those things happened simultaneously.

T　－ How have your views of family, evolved during the time you’ve lived in Japan? 

C　－ What does Japan have to with it? 

T　－ We’ve lived here for a dozen ... ten years ... do you have the same views of family, whatever the hell that means, now that you did before we lived here?

C　－ I think that you learn ... in Japan family is really important. They live with extended family more often than Americans or other cultures do ... I don’t know how to phrase that correctly. So, I don’t know if it’s a result of that or not. Sometimes I wonder ... you know, my sister, who just finished, just got out of recovery, she’s living by herself, and my mom is living by herself. Why don’t they live together?  But I don’t know if that’s the influence of me being in Japan, or I wouldn’t even imagine that if I were in the States, right?  And when we go back, I think we’ve chosen to live nearer to family than we have. I mean, we would like to be near family. I think we’ve also learned to accept, you can’t choose your family members. So, you just learn to take them as they are and it doesn’t do you any good to be critical of them, they’re your family.

T　－ Because you’re stuck with them? 

C　－ Exactly.

T　－ So, it doesn’t matter where we lived, just far away from family for a long period of time. But then, by chance, you combine that with having lived in a country where family is an important concept. That’s sort of solidified your views of the importance of family? 

C　－ Mm, mm. Like I wouldn’t hesitate to take in sick family members.

T　－ How about, maybe forget all that, and we’re just older, and before we were just out being prodigal sons and daughters and sowing our oats and having fun and now we’re just old ... well, not that old, but...

C　－ Exactly. I mentioned that before. I mean, who’s to say if it’s because of Japan or if it’s an age thing or ...

T　－ Now I’m going to give you a list, sort of random － a word or phrase or maybe someone’s name, something like that, one at a time － and then you can respond to each one any way you want, kind of free-form and spontaneous. Don’t worry about saying something embarrassing or ugly; we can edit it out later if we don’t like it.

T　－ Lake Sanaruko.   

C　－ We used to jog around that all the time.

T　－ It was like a steam bath there half the year.

C　－ Yeah. And there was that funny little ... I remember the restaurant we went to the first time ... it was a little log cabin. We had just gotten there, and we’d decided to go out for breakfast, and we got that big, huge, fat piece of white bread with butter on it, and a salad with ...

T　－ ... disgusting dressing.

C　－ ... and  a raw egg and rice. Oh my god, we were shocked.  

T　－ And a cup of coffee the size of a thimble.

C　－ Exactly.

T　－ Racism which you’ve experienced in Japan.

C　－ They wouldn’t rent the apartment to us. They wouldn’t serve us in the restaurant. I remember, we went into a restaurant in Nagoya, and they didn’t serve us. And I don’t know if it’s ... we never called them to us. And they never came to us. So, I don’t know if it was miscommunication, you know, a cultural thing, or if it was out right discrimination. I remember being shocked to see signs on some of the stores: No foreigners allowed! 

T　－ In Nagoya. We’ve never seen that in Asahikawa.

C　－ But, they wouldn’t rent the apartment to us.

T　－ How about the asshole at the bank in Hamamatsu who wouldn’t serve you? 

C　－ Mm, yeah, because he thought I was Filipino.

T　－ Frustrations. These are spontaneous answers.

C　－ Tommy, please, you ... you know what?  You wrote these questions. You’ve been thinking about them for twenty-four hours. I never heard them.

T　－ Frustrations you’ve experienced?  Just answer the question.

C　－ Sometimes I can’t get things done because my language skills are bad.

T　－ OK, that’ll work.

T　－ Your relationship with me 

C　－ Maturing.

T　－ That was, like, diplomatic and safe.   

C　－ Maturing! 

T　－ Hot! 

C　－ Shut up.

T　－ Things that pissed you off about me 

C　－ When you get, when you want ...

T　－ This is easy.

C　－ ... to fight, you want ... you are looking for an argument.

T　－ That pisses you off? 

C　－ It cracks me up.

T　－ Well, you jump right into it.

C　－ No. When you want to go down to the worst case scenario...

T　－ OK, next...

T　－ Things that made you proud of me. Hah! 

C　－ (Sustained laughter)

T　－ Answer, please.

C　－ When you decided to take the job at Hokkaido.

T　－ Eh, why? 

C　－ Because it was a step down.

T　－ Doihit ssh!  What do you mean by that? 

C　－ Because at Nagoya it was high-power, high-stress, and Hokkaido is quieter, more normal.

T　－ So, you were proud that I could take a ...

C　－ ... step down.

T　－ ... pissy job.  

C　－ Well, you didn’t know it was going to be pissy. But, you know ... you think our lifestyle is more important ... you’re willing to make compromises with your career in order for the family to have a good lifestyle.

T　－ OK, let’s talk about me some more ...

T　－ Things that made you proud of yourself 

C　－ To think that I could be a stay-home mom. To think that the boys like having a stay-home mom ... they can appreciate it. To think that we could come to Japan and live and have a healthy family. And I think the boys are healthier for it.

T　－ And that you’re an integral part of that? 

C　－ To know that I was a part of that, sure, that makes me proud.

T　－ The sexual culture of Japan 

C　－ Oh, I think they do a good job.

T　－ Gg ... Gg ...

C　－ They’re not prudes. I think Americans are prudes. They’re a lot more open about their body functions. I don’t know what it’s like behind closed doors, but they’re a lot less prudish than we are, and I think that’s cool. I mean, the boys are totally comfortable with their bodies.

T　－ I agree. How about the little perverted comic books they have for the kids? 

C　－ It doesn’t bother me. I mean ... if you think ... yeah, I don’t know if it’s being here or not, but they’re going to see it anyway, at some point.

T　－ Better sooner than later, huh.

T　－ OK, Japanese old people 

C　－ They’re cute. Gorgeous!  Because none of them are fat, none of them are ... wait don’t say that ... “fat” ...

T　－ Why not? 

C　－ Because maybe there are some fat people in your class.

T　－ Good, I’m one of them.

C　－ They’re cute, and they work hard. And those obaachans (“grandmas”), oh man, you don’t want to get in their way; you stay outta their way. They elbow their way onto the busses, and they just go right to the front of the line. Because they put up with enough shit in their lives, they’re not going to take it anymore.  

T　－ How about the old men? 

C　－ A lot of them drink way too much. And they’re kind of “allowed to.”  But then I feel bad, though, because they work so fucking hard all their lives.

T　－ What do you think of your body?  You’ve spoken of this. You don’t look Japanese.

C　－ Mm, I feel huge.

T　－ For the audience in Abstractville, you are standard size.

C　－ Mm, but I feel huge in Japan.

T　－ What are your dimensions － this is for the audience here?  What are you, five-five? 

C　－ Five-five, a hundred and thirty pounds.

T　－ A hundred and thirty?  That sounds ... thin to me, from my perspective. OK, five-five, five-six, a hundred and thirty pounds, and you’re huge? How does that make you feel?  This is a personal question.

C　－ I don’t mind, though, I’m older:  forty-three.

T　－ That’s right, tomorrow. Happy birthday, yeh!