chotto muzukashii

I’ve been here three months now, less a week. There’s so much to say, I find it really overwhelming. I can only think in moments sometimes, when I’m reflecting back on what my time so far in Japan has been like. There’s no cohesive arc linking it all together. It makes me not want to write anything down. Foolish.

I have been to Miyagi-ken twice since the earthquake. Miyagi Prefecture is the home of Sendai, the center of the horror that is the tsunami wreckage. There are still half a million people displaced from their homes – some have fled to other prefectures but the vast majority of them are living in refugee centers, ie., city halls, schools, and community centers.

I was invited by some Japanese friends to go and volunteer. We brought food – stir fried rice and hot soba soup – because the people in the shelters are generally eating one meal a day, and a cold one at that. Usually just a little ball of rice rolled around in some sesame seeds. There was a little boy who ate three bowls of soba soup and two bowls of fried rice. I asked him if he was full. He said, “No. The only thing that can make me full is chips. Do you have any chips?”

And I asked him if he would be full after eating ten onigiri (rice balls).

“Of course not! I tried that yesterday. I have a special stomach. It can only be filled with potato chips.”

We drove out to the coast to see the actual tsunami area. It was appalling. Miles and miles of foundations of houses. A sink or a toilet held fast here and there but mostly it was just concrete blocks standing amidst rubble, stairways to nothingness, here and there the shell of a house still stood but you could see through it to the other side, more foundations, more muck, more splintered houses, more stuffed animals, more appliances.

Life here in Murayama is completely normal. The grocery stores are almost filled back to capacity (I am having a hard time finding cream. There’s plenty of milk and butter, though. I don’t understand this at all. If the cows can make milk, what are they doing with all that lovely damned cream they are skimming off the top!? It’s a sore spot for me right..)

In fact things are so normal here in Murayama that I’m bitching about not being able to find cream just one paragraph after describing the desolation that is Miyagi’s coast. That’s fucked up.

I haven’t been teaching for the last month. I’ve been sitting in the Board of Education, at my desk. Trying to study Japanese but the motivation for self-study definitely comes and goes. I spent most of my time perusing Google News. First obsessively researching all things radiation-oriented, then expanding to read mostly all the articles that were available. Didn’t help my state of mind any. America, you’re fucked up. I don’t want much to do with you. Period.

In other news there’s a boy. Of course. I’m sort of annoyed at myself for having discovered him so early on. What to say about Alex? I don’t know – there’s already a lot. I can be myself around him. He’s always willing to try new things. He helps me a lot with my Japanese. We’re going to Thailand together for a week and a half, in eight days. (VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS)

But, of course, it can’t be simple.

I was sitting on the train the other night, on my way to Alex’s. And I was thinking about Ted. And how much I missed him. And tears welled, and at first I sort of welcomed them because I didn’t think anyone would notice. I didn’t think they would progress. But as I thought more and more about what it means that I am “officially” dating Alex (It means that Ted and I will never be together again) I couldn’t stop thinking about what it is that I’m throwing away. Well, it’s not really that I’m throwing it away. We don’t work together. There was so much that was not right about our relationship but then again I loved him so much. And I grew so much from our relationship. And I have him to thank for so many things. And I am going to miss waking up by the sea with him. And riding bikes through fields of tulips. And standing under the full moon with him while he smokes. And spending absurd amounts of time looking for The Perfect Spot to set up a tent and spend the weekend. And more, and more, and more.

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