There is a feeling, a strange lingering sense of "being watched," that I remember from my childhood. I can remember laying, feverish, upon the living room couch.
It was during my solitary stretch of insomnia--I lay awake all night there in that small room in our small house in Omaha Nebraska and stared at the ceiling. I was a strange child.
The thoughts I remember most vividly included, but were not limited to: reincarnation, my life or our lives all being for the benefit of some greater spectator or spectators, and time--I thought I could stop time if I thought hard enough. I was 6 or 7, but those nights I remember clearly--I can still recall the grand late 70's brown, orange, red and off white of the couch that my small body disappeared into every night that week.
So it comes from there, but it still emerges, somedays, to turn my head towards shop windows--both to look at myself and to see if there really are people there..inside. (as a child I tested my hypothesis that I was, in fact on some show, by looking for people on the ground while flying--or, as I thought of it then, "set changing." i eventually saw a single man---wandering some field somewhere between nebraska and wherever we were going..california?) There is no city more likely to make a foreignor feel both observed and part of something fake than Tokyo. It is a backdrop more than a life--and I am here, before it..acting.
In "Lost in Translation" two people float through a city together--everyone and everything around them both bright and pretty and utterly invicible. Its hard to think of it as more than this--when its so hard to break the surface of this pool. I do try--I study, I stumble boldly (brashly) into conversations with strangers..try to steer our conversation from the insipid to the insightful...before realizing I havent the ability. I could no more talk about existentialism than I could talk about how to drive a car..
The cultural differences add to this--I love pieces of Japanese culture...but there are other, more blatant pieces, that turn me into the TRUE little mermaid--they are the knifes in my feet at each hesitant step.
I struggle to hold back the Question I want to ask everyone I meet here--"Is this enough?" I have meet 30 teacher so far in Japan and they've all been generally LOVELY, giving people..but they've almost all been utterly overworked.. I come in 5 days a week to blank eyes that only brighten as caffeine kicks in.. Is working life like this everywhere?
I do have happy thoughts--the kids here are utterly darling, people look so happy (80% of the time) when I say hello to them in Japanese, and..well..its SO DANG CLEAN...you cant even get out a decent DAMN when describing it..it is that clean.
anyway. just a thinking day.
im going to go have a glass of wine.
It was during my solitary stretch of insomnia--I lay awake all night there in that small room in our small house in Omaha Nebraska and stared at the ceiling. I was a strange child.
The thoughts I remember most vividly included, but were not limited to: reincarnation, my life or our lives all being for the benefit of some greater spectator or spectators, and time--I thought I could stop time if I thought hard enough. I was 6 or 7, but those nights I remember clearly--I can still recall the grand late 70's brown, orange, red and off white of the couch that my small body disappeared into every night that week.
So it comes from there, but it still emerges, somedays, to turn my head towards shop windows--both to look at myself and to see if there really are people there..inside. (as a child I tested my hypothesis that I was, in fact on some show, by looking for people on the ground while flying--or, as I thought of it then, "set changing." i eventually saw a single man---wandering some field somewhere between nebraska and wherever we were going..california?) There is no city more likely to make a foreignor feel both observed and part of something fake than Tokyo. It is a backdrop more than a life--and I am here, before it..acting.
In "Lost in Translation" two people float through a city together--everyone and everything around them both bright and pretty and utterly invicible. Its hard to think of it as more than this--when its so hard to break the surface of this pool. I do try--I study, I stumble boldly (brashly) into conversations with strangers..try to steer our conversation from the insipid to the insightful...before realizing I havent the ability. I could no more talk about existentialism than I could talk about how to drive a car..
The cultural differences add to this--I love pieces of Japanese culture...but there are other, more blatant pieces, that turn me into the TRUE little mermaid--they are the knifes in my feet at each hesitant step.
I struggle to hold back the Question I want to ask everyone I meet here--"Is this enough?" I have meet 30 teacher so far in Japan and they've all been generally LOVELY, giving people..but they've almost all been utterly overworked.. I come in 5 days a week to blank eyes that only brighten as caffeine kicks in.. Is working life like this everywhere?
I do have happy thoughts--the kids here are utterly darling, people look so happy (80% of the time) when I say hello to them in Japanese, and..well..its SO DANG CLEAN...you cant even get out a decent DAMN when describing it..it is that clean.
anyway. just a thinking day.
im going to go have a glass of wine.
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