思いで

Lately I find myself slipping more and more in and out of memories from the last year. When I first got back from Japan, I didn't think about it much. In fact, I wasn't even sure what to tell people when they asked me how it was. The best I could come up with was "interesting" and when they insisted that I must have had a great time, I could, at best, reply that it was a challenge.

It took me a long time to say honestly that I felt my ten months in Japan were exceptional, and longer to stop first giving people an odd sort of disclaimer before telling about what it was like.

Now, when people ask about Japan, it calls up memories of the good times, and loses me in a fond nostalgia. But when they ask if I have plans to go back, as if that's some sort of requisite for nostalgia, I still feel myself getting a little defensive.

"No way," was my default answer for a few months. Then I said I didn't think so. I still don't have any definitive plans to return to Japan, especially to live in Tokyo. I'll admit that it does intrigue me to see how I might view the city differently now that I have some distance from it and am in another frame of mind. I know that if I had unlimited funds and unlimited time I would, without question, take Justin on a trip through the Kansai region to Kyoto, Nara and the places Alex and I went... or perhaps visit Kyuushu.

I definitely have the drive to do more sightseeing. But in a country where some cultural and linguistic undestanding is requisite for a complete and satisfying experience, the stress of being a bi-lingual tourguide for my American compatriots is not at all appealing. Last week, Justin and I entertained the idea of living in Japan for the first time. IF we were married; IF I were offered a job at Kateigaho International Edition or a similar magazine; IF he learned some Japanese first and could find a decent teaching position; IF we had our affairs in order.

I don't know if it will happen. In fact, I doubt it will, but the door has been opened.

Then, Saturday night at Toyoda Sushi, I had a fluid conversation with a Japan-born bi-lingual 20-something and remembered the thrill of speaking. We talked about the displacement of being "American" in Japan. He had returned to Japan two years prior after living in Portland for a decade, and found that though he had maintained his language skills, he was no longer a nihonjin. But there was a lot of nostalgia, too, and we discussed the frustrating lack of Japanese ramen noodle joints in the Greater Seattle Area.

I am revisting random memories, sudden and uninvited reminiscences that are crystal-clear in clarity. These aren't impressive moments, but small instances of true immersion, moments of transition, and fleeting dreams of the East.

I walk through Kyoto station as if I were there yesterday. The maps I made of all these places are preserved and packaged for further use and investigation. I remember walking the streets of Sapporo looking for our low-end ryokan, slipping on pockets of ice, and calling the owner repeatedly on his cell phone when we got lost. And day after day, the new tastes, new smells, new sights and new sounds. Life seems somehow insufficient (but peacefully so) when you're no longer, as I put it, "a spectacle among spectacles."

Japan has left a funny taste in my mouth, something lingering and strange, but not at all unpleasant, like the first bite of (good) uni. If only I could take it in small doses.