I lived in Japan. And I loved it. I loved the cobblestones that predated me and my bloodlines by centuries. I loved the smoky flavor of humid summer air outside of temples and the crackle of fireworks along cool riverbanks. I loved the polite way old people ignored me because they couldn't understand my horrible Japanese when I first arrived. I loved the way they would refer me to someone younger who would have the patience to tolerate my persistent slaughter of their language or interrupt me with much more tolerable English. I admit I tired of the stubborn stares on trains, where I towered over everyone, male and female, but I love the memory now.
I remember bicycles, "borrowed" occasionally when the trains had stopped running and the night was too nice to abandon for a love hotel. I remember the cops, too, advising me and my friend that we should never "borrow" bicycles again. I love that they let us go, at dawn, after serving us tea.
I lived in Japan over two long summers, the first in 95, the second in 97. Between the two visits, I studied Japanese and found an internship that would provide me with housing in exchange for my work. The first time, I lived in Hachioji, a suburb near Tokyo, with a dear friend and her family who never treated me as anything but one of their own and who I dearly miss. The second time, I wanted to give back a little, although my family in Hachioji might have questioned my reasons. In any case, the second time, I lived in Kyoto, at a home for children either abandoned by or removed from their families. I was the kids' oneesan, or big sister. I helped with laundry, homework, dinners, bath time and gossip. I was best at the gossip. The older girls loved to tell me about the boys they loved. I loved to ask crucial questions about their heartthrobs' good looks and future prospects, which made them laugh and laugh and laugh, initially with hands held shyly in front of their smiles and, later, like beams of sunlight that wouldn't be contained by their discreet hands.
I haven't been back to Japan since 1997 and over time, I've lost touch with my best friends who inspired me to visit their homes in the first place. They never joined facebook and we communicated through texts until my number changed or their numbers changed and neither of them spent time on email. Sachi, Masa: I miss you and think of you and love you still, and your families (and your funny, little children who I imagine as small versions of the girls I knew in high school, with all the same silly humor and irreverence) often.
I'm pretty sure you're both okay, based on dreams I keep having of us three, walking with arms linked, through New York's Central Park, and also based on everything I know of you both. Sachi, you should be in Tokyo or maybe somewhere greener where you'll carve wood with looping curliques. Masa, on some small island near Okinawa. Your families, from what I remember, shouldn't be anywhere north of Tokyo. Your husbands' families, they should be near you, or in the West, but not in the North. I'm relying on faulty memory, but it comports with the dreams, in which Sachi is willful and Masa is falling down in front of approaching cabs but never hurt because her laugh draws everyone around to protect and save her. Like honey, that laugh. (I've checked the people finder and neither of you are on it, as you should not be. Because you're only missing from my life, a sadness that I know will be relieved someday and it will be a day full of belly-aching laughter when it comes.)
In the meantime, I send all my prayers to the people of Japan, that they will find peace amid the devastation and will not suffer long even in those insufferable conditions. I pray for everyone who has been lost and everyone who has lost someone and I pray for everyone who has lost a home that they find shelter and warmth and I pray for everyone who needs food and water that they will be comforted. And I pray silently too for all the things that I can't voice but that all of us, I think, are feeling around the world as we see the brave but distraught faces of people who have lost everything.
If you can, please give money to an NGO already established and prepared to assist with the relief efforts in Japan. Save the Children is one.
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