2) People often ask if I’m still happy living in Japan, to which I can only answer, “Of course. If I weren’t happy, would I still be here?” However, it’s not that simple. There are things that bother me, and I don’t know who’s to blame– me or Tokyo. One of my primary reasons for moving to Japan was to save money. I thought the strong yen, and my adequate salary, would make it easy to put money aside. After all, I’d watched episodes of House Hunters International where after two or three years, couples were able to take their savings made while teaching in Tokyo, and buy villas in Mexico… Ecuador… Colombia. Yet, here it is, almost two years later, (20 months to be exact), and my savings are just about in the same place as when I moved here. For someone who enjoys beautiful things, spending, and comforts, as much as I do, Tokyo may not have been the best choice. Perhaps, I could’ve saved more if I’d taught English in Shizuoka or Gunma or some other city that wasn’t ranked the most expensive city in the world.

3) What happens to friendships with age, with distance, with each passing day? Even those built on solid foundations, if not protected, are damaged. It’s the day-to-day check-ins, the calls, the regular concern that fortifies, not the occasional, random “Hey, how’re you?” As I’ve said before, Tokyo is temporary, transitory, fleeting– and so are the relationships formed here. I expect nothing from Tokyo, and have already gained and lost much in regard to relationships here. And, the friendships elsewhere? How has distance taken its toll? Hm. I must make more of an effort, but I’m tired lately.

4) A student and I were talking about high school days the other day. He told me in Japan, from elementary school to high school, lunch is provided by the school board; there are strict rules about what students can eat. No soda, no snacks. Children eat rice, fish (or chicken), and drink soup. I told him what my friends and I ate for lunch in high school; pizza, hamburgers, Coke, Skittles, Munchos, Snickers, bags of cheddar popcorn. He was astounded/flabbergasted/ repelled, and recounting it, I was too. How could we think rationally on such junk and sugar highs?  For an entire year, my lunch was Munchos, M&Ms, and a can of Coke; the other year, popcorn, Coke, peanut M&Ms and Sprees. Why pay attention to everything so late?

5) It’s dark now. The sun has set on another day in Tokyo. There are things I should know and still haven’t learned yet. Some things will be learned or realized years from now, and I’ll say, “Finally. Better late than never.”

Why is the last mile the hardest mile ?
My throat was dry, with the sun in my eyes
And I realised, I realised
I could never
I could never, never, never, go back home again– The Smiths

It’s not different, nor is it new. Things stop becoming new quickly. We sound like imitations of ourselves. Our words aren’t new. The things we say to each other aren’t new; we’ve said them before to each other; we’ve said them to different people. We forgot we did. Then, it hits us; it’s déjà vu, “Hey, I said this years ago, but not like this.” Let me make it different this time; let me smile as I say it; let me sigh as I say it; let me take it back. There are no take backs, so the words sound insincere. They’re not false, you just forgot. There’s nothing new. What to do?

Sweeter than wine….

There’s no taking anything back, but the mind can go back. That’s a danger, isn’t it– a mind? A body and mind that stores memories like dusty boxes on a shelf? A danger and a pleasure. Let’s open one and see. Let’s reach… Ah, there it is: an everlasting sea, sand too hot to stand on, pricking feet like dozens of heated needles, and the water waiting, expansive and ready, and your arms open, expansive and ready. Half-pink almonds falling one by one, and them being wiped on water-dotted arms. The tang of the seed, the husk, the crunchy salt and the tartness. (Memory can be so faulty, but it’s at that moment it must be shaped– so where were we?) The shade of an almond tree, a vendor selling woven bracelets on the beach, another selling reggae cds, and yet another selling bags of pepper shrimp. Birds calling and waving, vendors calling and waving, the sea, calling and waving. And the sun and the fish and the sand and the almonds and the love and the heat, sweeter than wine.

Softer than the summer night….

Music played and we danced until our clothes clung to us, pasted on with the salt water of sweat. Shirts claiming bodies that wanted only to absorb rhythm. Was it a birthday party? Or a street dance? Or a festival? (The occasion isn’t important; dance is the message.) And the deejay played hit after hit, and each song elicited a cheer, more foot stomping, swaying, hands in the hair, groping for air, for someone there. Sweat dripping down noses, streaming down backs, down fronts.

That music lives in you, your DNA, your blood has bass clefs, and trebles. Oh, to feel that song, to know that song. (At that moment, you feel love, and you think you’re in love, but it’s the beat you love.) Your feet following your mind, your heart following your hips.

Forever til the end of time….

Are you waiting for me? I’ve been so remiss. What happened? I should tell you, my feelings are fickle.

The night was cooler than it should be in spring. Scarves were being thrown around necks, and the neglected heater was turned on. Someone started playing Buju Banton, Beres Hammond, and you know how one feeling, one note leads to another…. Leroy Gibbons. There’re movements inside one that can only be understood by that one, and there’re movements inside one that can only be understood in a particular place, a particular time. If you don’t understand this, it’s not for you to understand.

It took me by surprise.

The missing took me by surprise. The presence and absence, the loss and multiple gains, the sorrow beside the happiness, the desire and lack of desire, the youthfulness and the aging, the hunger and satiety; this time took me by surprise. Well, it didn’t take me by surprise; (remember), it’s not different, nor is it new.

Forever til the end of time….

Dear Friend and Friend and Friend and…,

Living in a foreign country has been wonderful, but there are times, when silence can overwhelm. I no longer have you within reach, even by telephone; you, who I could rely on at any time. Truthfully, needs are ever-evolving, and what I needed then, I don’t now; however, a true friend fills a space that one’s not aware is empty until there are hollow reverberations. When stitches start to unravel, a shirt can still be saved. Yet, it’s not the same.

Living in a foreign country allows one time to think undisturbed. Time to process and understand, out of necessity, oneself. Time to think questions like, “What is home? Where is home?” (Question two can’t be answered without an answer for question one.) Living in silence forces one’s spirit to grow.

Living in a foreign country proves to me that as much as there is, there is so much more, and in this life it’s impossible to touch it all. The universe can’t be grasped, only reveled in. There are more bottomless seas, more blue mountains than we knew, more loving words, more waves slowly coming in, more sunrises, more moons, more orchids and roses and hibiscuses, more stars crumbling, more of us turning to dust, more boat rides, more starts, and full stops.

Dear Friend and Friend and Friend….,

Our wells never run dry; there’s more ink, more tears, more fountains of hope. When we see each other again, will it be with the memory of who we were? Will we see each other as the girls we were or the teens we were or the young women we were or who we are now?

Every year, there are more people who join this voyage, but none have had more of an impact on my soul than you and you and you.

Much love,

Val

2) In this place, a very old couple sit down at the counter. The old man is more able than his wife, and he waits as she struggles to sit. The seats are low. He says nothing, but offers her a hand– patience. I think about this guy I met at a party a few weeks ago; he’s nice, but young and timid. I remember when I was young, when I was timid, but I’m neither now, and can’t pretend to be. I asked a friend, “How do I feign shyness?” He laughed, and rightly responded, “You can’t.” (You’d think by now, I’d fully know myself, but of course, I don’t.) My friend said, “This isn’t the place for you.”

3) In this place, babies are soothed, as are we who have lived more years, by the soft voice of the female crooner on the speakers overhead. It would be great to know who’s singing, but of course, I can’t ask anyone around me. The singer’s voice, the accompanying strings, and the steady silence of us here, makes me want to cry. The good cry.

4) In this place, there’s one small window, and outside the window, there’s an emerald shrub. An old man has been sitting beside the window since I came in. He has been smoking the same cigarette for what seems to be a very long time. I don’t smoke, but he looks so pensive and absorbed, it makes me want to inhale some of the truth the cigarette seems to hold.

What is he thinking as he gazes out? Is he thinking, “That’s just a patch of green, but beyond that shrub lies fields?” Is he thinking, “I’ve lived eighty years and I’ve reaped fields and tumultuous seas, but there’s so much more to see?” Is he thinking, “I’m looking out of a pane of glass, but I’m just glass myself, a surface that even I have barely scratched?” Is he thinking, “I’m breakable and have been in pain, but there’re few more resilient than me?” Is he thinking, “Afternoons are made for dreaming, lazing in coffee shops, watching smoke exhaled from nostrils, sipping black coffee, reflecting on chances held and chances lost?”

5) A middle-aged couple want to remember this place, and I do too. They’re capturing the sea, he with a long lens camera, and me with a pen. He’s moved the camera from the waves to her face. She’s posing; her hair’s flying, but her face is serene. He starts running; she races behind with glee. This is what is called youthful exuberance. They play hide and seek behind a rock. They stop and survey the ocean. I pause to survey them and recognize that we’re in the same place, a part of the same thing– what is this joy?

(This is a special place.)

Dear Friends,

When I leave Tokyo, barring any unforeseen circumstances, it will be spring. The streets will be lined, as they are today, with cherry blossoms. Trees blooming and blowing pink and white. It will be the frailty of the buds floating, then crushed on concrete, and the balmy air mixed with smoke that will encapsulate all that Tokyo means to me.

I have no plans to leave Japan anytime soon, but there’s always a leaving, some day, some place, and my time will come. The thought of departure presses on my mind today, because yet another friend is leaving Japan. We rode to Yurakucho to eat lunch at an underground Italian restaurant that serves a fantastic uni pasta, and she remarked while we were riding, “This isn’t a day to go.” It was the perfect spring day; the streets, devoid of cars, a steady, warm breeze whipping around us, and flowers being stripped from branches– the loving caress of the wind.

In succession, friends are leaving for Europe or other countries in Asia, while I burrow more into Tokyo life. I’ve been setting myself more firmly in place, more like a potted plant than a tree; I’ve bought and acquired furniture, decorated my studio, accepted additional repsonsibility at work, and even, finally, started learning Japanese. My resistance to learning Japanese, a language only useful here, no longer serves me, since I plan to live here for at least another eighteen months.

These last two months have been activity-filled; there’ve been dinners, lunch meet-ups, drinks, my first house party, and of course lesson after lesson. In this fashion, my friends and I have raced into a new season. I often comment that it seems time rushes past us like an excited child, faster and more frenzied than it should, but that’s how it is. Truthfully, it scares me when I look up and see that another month has fled as quickly as a snap of two fingers. (Yes, that’s how it is.)

Moderation and blance are important, so I’ve tried to spend as much time in silence and meditation as with friends socializing. This evening, I left Tokyo on the 6:26 bullet train to Atami, with a transfer at Ito, and another to Izukyu-Shimoda. Shirahama Beach is my final destination. Just last week, I’d taken the bullet train with a friend to Niigata and tried snowboarding for the first time. The water’s much too cold to go swimming, but the intention of the trip is that of reinvigoration, relaxation, and restoration.

(8:15pm) I’m on the third and penultimate leg of the journey, and the sky is emptying itself; huge rain drops pound our compartment, and it’s wonderful to be inside a heated space, looking at glistening platforms, and streaming night. The stay in Shimoda will be short, only two days, but I’ve left my phone, therefore internet, behind, and thus anticipate inner calm. No Facebook updates, no browsing the ‘net mindlessly, no distractions, no  texts. What I have brought on this trip is one change of clothes, toiletries, Junot Diaz’s novel “This Is How You Lose Her,” my journal, and an umbrella.

Today, I was: an idea, an idea realized, a bound thing that skirted the wind, a live thing in a warm place cocooned and surrounded by water, an idea giving place to more ideas, a thing ready for anything. Now, it’s lovely to know that I’m ready for all good things, ready, in fact, for anything.

Love,

Val

My mother sent across many seas and rivers another package of “a few of my favorite things” (Chippies banana chips, lipstick, books, magazines); in the box was my copy of The Enlightened Heart. I haven’t read this “anthology of sacred poetry” in some time, and upon reading, I remembered why its poems are a daily must read.

The Golden God, the Self, the immortal Swan leaves the small nest of the body, goes where He wants.

He moves through the realm of dreams; makes numberless

forms;

delights in sex; eats, drinks, and laughs with His friends; frightens Himself with scenes of heart-chilling terror.

But He is not attached to anything that He sees… – The Upanishads

These last few weeks have been contemplative. There’s nothing  major occurring, but there’s the feeling that something’s about to happen. Something great. In my anticipation of something wonderful on the brink, each day has become more joyful and positive. So, I think the “thing” that is supposed to happen is what has already become. This now, not tomorrow.

my new orchid Violetta

A good traveler has no fixed plans

and is not intent upon arriving.

A good artist lets his intuition

lead him wherever it wants.  – Lao Tzu

Life is like a canvas and we paint our lives with each thought, word and action. Light and dark moments. Vivid and bright. This life, thus far, I’ve called the dream series, because of how impressionistic all my memories have become. Blurry images undefined, but the idea’s there, some faces are there, most importantly, the feelings are there. (Even in this short time that I’ve lived in Japan, friends have come and gone in every respect– a blur.)

I used to think that I was “a traveler,” but it seems that the need to get up and be “anywhere but here” has flickered out in me. I’m not quite sure if it’s good or bad, something I should worry about or not. Is it stability or boredom? What does this mean? I think it means that I should get up and move around more outside of Tokyo prefecture, see more than the already known streets and alleyways. When collecting the paintings of my life, the written words, the canvases, the love amassed, there should be huge splashes of color. A collection of which to be proud.

Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat.

My shoulder is against yours.

You will not find me in stupas, nor in Indian shrine rooms, nor in

synagogues, nor in cathedrals:

not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding around your own

neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables.

When you really look for me, you will see me instantly– - Kabir

So much divinity and beauty all around us, in us. Sometimes, I meet people and find them so adorable that I feel love and want to express that somehow: students, people on the street, strangers of all ages. (I wonder what someone would do if I actually reached across and gave them a squeeze or pinched their cheeks.) A few days ago, I followed an old couple, at a safe distance, because of their appeal.

Reaching out to touch a stranger… I like living this way, I like loving this way. – Michael Jackson (Human Nature)

Tell em… - MJ

This journey is becoming filled with “oh, I get it” moments. How?

1) Meditation

2) Love and gratitude. (*If you’ve opened your loving to God’s love, you’re helping people you don’t know, and have never seen. – Rumi)

3) Avoiding negativity as much as possible: Situations, and sometimes people.

4) Creating thoughts, creating reality.

5) Silence, and music.

What they undertook to do

They brought to pass’

All things hang like a drop of dew

Upon a blade of grass. – W.B Yeats

Take care, and much love,

A few days ago, there were prolonged tremors. Usually, the tremors last a few seconds or at most a minute, but the other morning, they seemed to go on and on. The shaking didn’t faze me at all, and in my half-sleep I thought, “Wow, I’m used to earthquakes now.”

It’s amazing the things we get used to.

I moved to Tokyo several months after the March 11 quake in Tohoku that rocked all of Japan. After experiencing my first tremors, I wondered why I’d moved to a land that constantly moves. It’s quite a disconcerting feeling, and I often said, then, that if I’d been here when that disaster struck, like so many foreigners at the time, I would have fled. I used to say that, but now I feel all the good outweighs any bad that the earth may bring.

Scientists predict an earthquake of equal or greater magnitude in Japan in the next five years (seventy percent chance), and how that’ll affect us all is anybody’s guess, but I have no desire to leave, before I’m ready. It’s astonishing how everyday we live our lives knowing that, at any moment, all could break, crack or crumble around us, and while there is awareness, we live without fear.

Don’t we all live like that– knowing that it’s all so precarious, and we’re so fragile, and therefore recognizing the importance of living as fully as possible; appreciating each new day; loving as much as we can; being so thankful to be here now; learning the lessons we’re learning now? Let me change the question– shouldn’t we all live like that?

Play-fighting with a friend, I cut my pinkie finger deeply. A long slash down the middle. It has taken almost three weeks for the cut to heal, because it was deep and I never put ointment or a band-aid on it. I figured it needed to breathe and heal on its own, and eventually my body would heal itself, as it always does. Along the way of the healing process, my finger started to symbolize “life.” This given thing, taken for granted, beautiful and unappreciated, until one day there’s a wound. And, waiting and waiting for it to recover, and it does. (Hopefully, there’ll be a scar to keep the memory there.)

Take full advantage of your day, ’cause and wait for it, the sentiment of my favorite cliche’s coming, though I strongly believe that life is continuous, and the end’s a beginning, these moments are short (and should be savored).

Take care,
Val

My album of memories, with laughing faces, tender hands, and sometimes even stern words, doesn’t contain many inhabitants. Thankfully, those dear to me, who have died, remain very few. However, for one life to leave, though inevitable, just seems too great a loss at times. As the years progress, more photos will be added. Dreaded emails and phone calls will come: “Uncle So and So has died,” or “Aunt So and So has passed on.” The album will come out, compartmentalized sadness mingled with joy.

I opened the album today, because I woke up to an email of my uncle’s death. I didn’t experience shock, just sadness and guilt. There’s always a side parcel of guilt when someone I love passes, like “Why wasn’t I a more attentive, loving so and so?” All the snapshots came flitting out, because one memory leads to another:

Aunt Lena serving me oxtail in a darkened kitchen in Crofts Hill, because  a woman needs meat on her bones, and “gyal yuh nuh have none.” 2) Uncle Wes allowing me to jump on his bed with him lying on it, while we watched a Michael Jackson ABC special. Him laughing and telling me that I’m crazy and crazy forever being an affirmation. (To think someone could be so fond of me.) 3) Uncle Wes lending me his favorite flannel shirt. I tried cigarettes for the first time that night, with the group I was with, and when I returned it, though it reeked, he didn’t reprimand me. 4) Driving with Uncle Harry, winding up Clarendon’s country roads, on the way to the house in Croft’s Hill. Aunt Lena’s house. He stopping to speak to every farmer, woman, and child on the way. Everyone on the road knew Mas Harry. 5) Uncle Wes moving in with us, cooking huge Jamaican meals for us every night, and really treating me like a child, though I felt at 15 that I was so grown up. He epitomized the word “care.”

I close the album, but the memories have already fallen all around me. Gone, but never forgotten.

Just this week, I was speaking to a friend about her desperate desire to have a child sooner rather than later. She feels time is slipping away, and as we get older chances or possibilities are diminishing. Opening my album has made it clear to me that parenting isn’t about giving birth. Who cares about matching DNA and all the biological stuff? Being a mother (or father) is possible in so many ways. To reiterate: a child doesn’t have to come out of your body to be yours. To her, I say, “Don’t worry. Worry’s not going to change anything. If you want to love a child unconditionally, do just that. They’ll love you back the same.”

Love,
Val

You might think it strange to have as many conversations about romantic love as I’ve had this week, since I’ve never been “in love.” I’ve been in love with many things in this life: a pair of amazing boots, a garnet egg-shaped ring, many songs (mostly from the seventies and eighties), Michael Jackson, Diana Ross and Al.B, Chanel lipstick (Lover– aptly named), a pair of black, satin pants bought in the West Village that fit like a second skin. The list of things goes on and on, but finding someone to fall in love with has been elusive.

Some of you will say that I have been in love, because at one time I claimed to be or that I cried cause my heart felt broken. However, with hindsight, it’s clear to me that although I haven’t been in love, I have been infatuated, in lust, and in a very deep like that was reciprocated for as long as it took me to put on those satin pants.

The problem is I don’t know what I want as much as I know what I don’t want. I’ve been listening to Abraham-Hicks every morning before getting ready for work and had a serious a-ha moment. She said, “You can’t focus on your need for something and let the solution in at the same time;” in other words, I can’t ask for something, complain that I haven’t received it yet, but all the while sending a million conflicting messages into the universe. My thoughts are confusing, and rightfully, I have received conflicting results.

I said to the universe “I want to meet someone special. I don’t want a boyfriend. I want to be alone, but with someone. I want to fall in love and have fun.” I met someone special indeed, but he’s involved with someone else. Very involved. Problem.　He’s just so sweet though that I’ve been unable to stop hanging out with him.

Had a conversation with two Ps about being in love and monogamy. (For the record, I’m not thinking for one second that I’m in love, though admittedly hung up, as I’ve been before.) Told P that falling in love’s just a chemical reaction that means nothing; it’s after the body calms down the true work begins. P  called me a cynic. An un-romantic. Would a druggie be validated for the first high?

Love lasts? Love’s words not actions? Love’s falling under a sexual haze? Is love responsibility, commitment and dedication or not? Wikipedia gave multiple definitions of love, which left me as confused as before.

Told P that monogamy’s a farce. An unnatural thing that most of us should admit we tried and failed. “Discretion is key,” I said. Was told that I don’t understand, and how true that is. As someone who’s not in love, and hasn’t been, it’s easy to not mind who sticks what where and with/to whom.

This afternoon, I lunched with a beautiful, woman (teacher, mother, and former student) at Le Merveille in Nihonbashi. She treated me to a lunch that was nothing short of amazing (though, my stomach’s not built for creamy French food). Of course, after almost hours, the subject of the unavailable guy came up. She shocked me; she told me to build a friendship with him, because life is about being happy and being hurt, not just shielding one’s feelings. She told me that life is just a learning experience. Truth.

Now that this has been said, little by little, things are making sense to me. All a learning process.

You can’t get over there if you’re looking over here. – Abraham-Hicks

I’ve spent about fifteen minutes trying to untangle the necklace I’d like to wear tomorrow, and since it’s becoming frustrating I’ve decided to take a break.

In the fourteen months that I’ve lived in Japan, a number of people have left the school and the country. It’s crazy how many have come and gone in such a short period. It’s a job for transients mostly, and even some of the veterans, who’ve been here for years, express a desire to leave for Europe/the U.S/Canada someday. It could be looked at in two ways I guess– a friend to visit in another locale, or yet another goodbye party. Recently, in the teacher’s room, there’ve been mutterings of “wasted years,” “time for new vistas,” or just general dissatisfaction. What was once so novel, exciting, and beautiful has become tarnished, depressing, and almost hateful.

It’s only been a short time for me though, so there’s no resentment built up against my choices, my adopted country or my job, yet; but, they tell me it’ll come. Before my 6:30p.m class, I was sitting in Doutor, drinking an iced tea, waiting for Steve, looking out the glass window and marveling at the nighttime sky. A violet-indigo shade. Looking at the sidewalk, throngs of people, walking side by side, oblivious to each other. Everyone creates their own space. Cities, all of glass and sparkling holiday lights, are so cold. Beautiful and cold.

Though I’m still in love with Tokyo, there are times that I, too, have days when I miss the convenience of NY; the convenience, the diversity, and the prices. For example: Steve’s going home for the holidays, from him I’ve requested toothpaste and deodorant; YM’s going to Hawaii for the holidays, from her I’ve requested the purchase of makeup. For those of us who remain here, we give those that travel some cash to bring us back things we either need or would like for a third of the price.

For example: I’ve been to the hairdresser twice this year for a mild relaxer to eliminate some frizz. As much as I love the stylist at Hayato, I couldn’t see myself paying US$268 for another relaxer (the actual price). I decided to check out Amazon and buy an Affirm kit of nine containers. (For the record, natural hair is beautiful and fantastic, but just wanted a change.) The relaxer kit on Amazon is US$36.55, the shipping charges are US$106.

Shipment Details

Affirm Moisture Plus Conditioning Relaxer Kit with Protecto 9 Applications  Sold by UglyNBeauty Condition: new $36.55 Item Subtotal: $36.55 Shipping & Handling: $105.95 Total Before Tax: $142.50 Shipment Total: $142.50 Paid by Visa: $142.50

Example #2: I bought a pair of boots from Macys.com, because it’s impossible to walk into just any women’s shoe store and buy a 9.5 shoe. The boots were $150; shipping was $110. When I received the shoes, they were too big, and I had to return them. LD’s going home for the holidays, I’ll order boots from Macy’s, have them delivered to him in the States, and I’ll get them upon his return.

My brother lives in Hong Kong, and when he visited NY, he’d stock up on African Pride hair oil, clothes and shoes. I never really got it, until now. The gain of living in these places is worth the seeming sacrifices, right? For me, yes. Though sometimes I think of how awesome it’d be to walk into a Duane Reade and pick up some Ampro, or into a Macy’s where there are a ton of shoes in my size, or be close enough to visit family for the holidays, and those like family.

Take care,

Val