Take me out to the ball game…

Just like America, spring is time for baseball in Japan.  The days grow longer and hotter, the cicadas start singing, and through it all there is the call of strike, ball, safe, and out.  The thwak of a pop fly snagged by a leather glove.  The clink of a grand slam on its way out of the park.  The cheers of the crowd, the dugout, and the announcer.

School is winding down as natsu yasumi, summer vacation, approaches.  After final exams, classes are pretty much lame duck sessions, just filling time required by the government.  Instead, students and teachers buzz with excitement.  The prefectural baseball tournament starts this week! 

The last hurrah for third year students, they practice tirelessly, determined to make a good showing in the last games of their high school careers.

In Japan, sports and extracurricular activities work a bit differently.  In their first year, students join a club, a single activity that will define their identity and schedule for the rest of their enrollment.  In Japan, clubs, even sports, are run by students.  They arrange their activities, budgets, and training regimens.  There is a coach, but most of the responsibility falls on the students.  Students will remain in this club throughout their high school career, working their way up through the ranks of the club from kohai to sempai.  Their club mates will become their closest friends and mentors.  They will spend evenings, weekends, and holidays with their club.  As a multi-sport athlete and someone who could only have been involved in more after school activities if I had Hermione’s time turner, I can’t help but feel sad for the opportunities my students miss by having such a strict system.  But then I watch them interact with their club – see the camaraderie they have.  Closer than teammates, they are family.  And this alleviates some of my anxiety.  They may not be as well rounded or indulging in all their interests, but they are happy.  They have friends and support.  And boy are they good at that one thing they have chosen to focus on.  Like insanely good.  Just imagine if you had a whole team with the dedication and focus of the star on an American team.  They eat, sleep, and breath their club activity.  Even those not naturally gifted end up pretty darn impressive after years of constant, intensive practice.  But then it all ends halfway through their senior year.  All their effort is focused on doing their best in one summer tournament their third year of high school because after that they retire.

And so everyone is excited for the coming tournament.  Baseball is incredibly more popular in Japan, but our school is also really good at it.  Our pitcher has a great arm.  We have a strong batting lineup.  This should be a really good tournament for the team and the school.  The whole tournament will be televised, but about a hundred students and a handful of teachers will be allowed to play hooky for the afternoon and attend the team’s first game.  I am super excited to be invited to such an important event.  I want to know what all the fuss is about.  Baseball in Japan is a very different experience than baseball in America.

Unlike Texas, where I grew up and where football is king, baseball seems to be the apex sport in Japan.  But there is a fundamental difference between Japan and America when it comes to school sports.  In Japan there are no pep rallies, no homecoming, no Friday night lights.  Sports in Japan are for the athletes, not the spectator.  Games take place as part of tournaments; attended by a few parents and the members of the club not on the playing roster.  Unlike America where staff and students, parents and alumni wear school colors and cheer on their team, Japanese games are quite and subdued.  No concession stand, no cheering squad, no fanfare.  Students are usually busy with their own club activities.  Staff are accompanying their own clubs to events and games.  There are some parents and families, but the atmosphere is wholly different.  I found this out when I attended a basketball tournament earlier in the year.  My students were shocked and thrilled when they saw me.  As I said, staff don’t usually attend.  Not that there is room for them if they did.  The gym had no bleachers.  I ended up standing with a small group of parents in the catwalk that surrounded the gym floor.  I couldn’t see the score or the clock, kept on a small tabletop display.  Baskets were met with polite applause and disappointment was met with silence.  While I will admit this is better than the jeers and angry shouts at refs and players heard in the States, I couldn’t help feeling the whole affair was too subdued for a real game.  But it was not meant for fans.  It was meant for players only.

Baseball on the other hand, was completely different.  I boarded the bus with student fans, the brass band, and the Japanese equivalent of a cheer squad.  Excitement was palpable as students twittered excitedly while passing around tubes of sunscreen.  At the stadium we were met by a parent organization, much like a booster club.  We were given hats, towels, and fans with the school name and logo.  Waiting for us inside were large blue trashcans filled with ice and various drinks – canned coffee, sports drinks, water, tea, and soda – free for the taking.  They were provided by the boosters and available for all staff, students, and fans.  As we settled in, Okasans passed out megaphones – two per person.  These were blue, the school color, and meant for banging together.  Everything needed to show school pride had been provided!  Which was great because the students were still in their school uniforms of white shirts and plaid trousers or skirts.  No face paint or t-shirts in school colors.

The game started with bows rather than handshakes.  Then our boys took the field first.  I found it hard to watch the play, though.  My attention was constantly dragged away by the band and cheer squad of the other team.  Unlike American sports where cheering is usually suppressed till the end of a play and music only blasted during down time, the band and cheers never stop during a high school Japanese baseball game.  Each school chants, plays, and shakes their pompoms while their team bats.  The songs and chants include the batter’s name and are sometimes completely customized.  Members of the baseball club not on the playing roster don’t sit the bench in Japan, they lead the chants and dances from the stands.  They hold up signs with the batter’s name and the whole fan base stands and shouts as the batter faces off against the pitcher on the field below. It is a bit distracting to say the least.  Before I knew it, our team was running toward the dugout and our first batter was taking his practice swings on deck.

It was our side’s turn to stand and chant.  Ike, ike, ike, Takashi! Ose, ose, ose, Takashi! Ikotoba, Ta-Ka-Shi!  We cheered for each batter by name.  Beat our megaphones together.  Thrust them into the air and yelled with each hit.  Sighed and groaned with each out.

The game went quickly, but sadly not very well for our team.  In the first inning we had given up a run.  In the third, our pitcher seemed to be struggling.  Several walks filled the bases and allowed the other team to make second run on an error.  Our batters were having a tough time as well, getting only a piece of a pitch, enough to send the ball foul, but never enough to get all the way around the bases.  By the fourth inning we were down 3-0.  In the fifth inning, things really fell apart.  Our pitcher came out with a hand injury.  The relief pitcher, caught off guard and walking onto the mound with a full count, allowed a walk and several hits.  The fielders, frustrated by the course of the game, struggled.  By the end of the fifth it was 8-1.  Our team held them for the 6^th, but the game was called in the 7^th under Japanese mercy rules.  It was a blowout and a tragedy for the players and fans.

As a former athlete and coach, the end was inevitable.  One error let to two, led to three.  Frustration and tension running amuck.  Players losing heart.  I had seen it before.  I had lived it before.  But it didn’t make it hurt less.  And my own pain was nothing compared to the disappointment of the players – especially the third years.  We gathered in the trees outside the stadium.  The players wept openly as they apologized for the loss and thanked family, friends, and fans for their support.  Personally, I have shed many tears after an important loss, but always in the locker room or in the car after.  Never in public.  The openness of this emotional display was difficult to watch.  Don’t ever believe the Japanese are unemotional.  In many ways they are far more in touch with their feelings than us moody Americans.  Especially when it comes to the men.  The third year students tried to stem their tears for pictures.  Many just looked red faced and angry.  Others quickly wiped the tears away between takes.  This had been their last game as high school students.  Instead of the triumph they had worked so hard for, they had been eliminated in the first round.  They were devastated.

The bus ride back was a quite affair.  The sun, heat, and loss had robbed the students of their energy.  We rode in silence, all lost in our own thoughts.

While the outcome was far from what I hoped, I am still glad I got to see high school baseball Japanese style.  It was a strange and exhilarating experience.  So unlike baseball in America.

１周年

It is like I closed my eyes for a moment and suddenly a year has passed.  It is hard to believe.  And like those nights where you feel you just closed your eyes for a second and all of a sudden the alarm is blaring, I feel a great sense of anxiety and loss.  Not that I did not fill the days and weeks with as many experiences as possible, but that there is still so much I want to do.  When emotions like this well up in my throat, it is best to take a step back and reflect on all the amazing things I have seen, experienced, and learned this past year.  They haven’t all been good, but they have all helped reshape me, physically and mentally, on this journey of self discovery.

If only it were a year made up completely of weekends (and if I had an infinite supply of money).  But I have managed to see many of the quintessential Japanese sights, as well as man more of the type you only see by living in a place – the striking beauty of the mundane and the special sights only locals know about.  Without a time turner and a vault full of gold at Gringotts it would have been hard to do more.  The things I have seen have inspired me to rethink my understanding of beauty, art, and architecture.  They have refilled my well of inspiration for characters, settings, and scenes.  They have taught me patience and the benefit of taking time to appreciate details.

But they have also challenged me.  And shown me my weakness.  I have felt defeated at many museums by my illiteracy in Japanese.  At theater, dance, and school performances, too.  My inability to read and speak Japanese has been a constant hurdle.  But there is also my physical weakness.  I have lost close to forty pounds since moving here.  Friends from a year ago hardly recognize me now.  This is a huge accomplishment, but it has come from hard work.  I have lost it all through walking – miles and miles a day.  But all that walking on a still unhealed injury has created new problems with my posture and feet.  It doesn’t help that Japanese shoes are not designed for western feet with arches.  And there is the unhealed injury itself.  Almost five years ago I ruptured my Achilles tendon in my left leg.  The injury was difficult to repair and my health care shoddy.  The following depression did not improve matters.  So when I came to Japan it was as a broken person.  As the weight melted away and I got used to walking a lot, some of the lost muscle and ability returned.  However, I am still unable to support my weight on the toes of my left foot.  I am missing half the muscles in my calf on that leg.  At this point I am unsure if I will ever get them back.  My recent attempt to climb Fujisan put this in perspective.  While the switchbacks from the fifth to seventh station were annoying and left me winded, I was still able to make the climb.  However, at the seventh station I was faced with a wall of ancient lava.  The only way up was a scramble that cut into hands and shoes.  Before my accident, this would have been no problem.  But in my current state, I had to accept it would be impossible.  I needed a place to put my whole left foot in order to use that leg.  Going up I could use my arms to help, but going down I had to rely on my footing.  And I couldn’t.  I was defeated.  This failure detracted somewhat from the beauty and majesty of the mountain, but it also reminded me that I am human.  Not a reminder one is excited to have as they approach a birthday, but one I needed all the same.  We will never be able to overcome every challenge, but we can meet it head on, do our best, and learn from failure.  I learned I need to keep trying, visit a doctor when I get home and figure out exactly what damage remains, and focus on building up the lost muscle.  Then I can return and conquer Fuji.

But all the setbacks, minor defeats, and slight negatives cannot overshadow the amazing things I have seen here in Japan.  Just as a few bad experiences cannot dampen my desire to do all the things.  I will admit that some days the stares and whispers can be overwhelming.  Being different in such a homogonous society can be isolating and I have felt loneliness, frustration, and on one occasion anger.  There is also a degree of sexism here that has not always sat well with me.  But there is also a kindness I have never experienced.  A friendliness.  A desire to share a special cultural occasion or ceremony that is rare in the world.  I have been briefly instructed in the tea ceremony and kendo.  Knowing what I do about the Japanese tradition of learning these culturally important things – mainly that it takes years and student must work up form the very bottom, not even touching the instruments for years – I understand what an honor this is.  I have been dressed in kimono and hapi with no thought of cultural appropriation.  I have sung, danced, and beat the drum in religious ceremonies.  I have been welcomed into acting troupes, circles of friends, communities, and families.  I have been able to experience so many wonderful things in this country and most of them with some degree of English.  It has really shown me what an amazing and rich culture Japan has, but also how kind its people are.  The understanding, tolerance, and friendliness of the Japanese people is something I doubt I could find in any other group.  There are things I don’t understand, appreciate, or sometimes like, but even then I am learning to accept the differences brought about by culture and understand what the core of humanity really is.

And this is perhaps the hardest and best lesson Japan has taught me.  That I will never truly understand the nuances of another culture, but I can emphasize with them using my own background.  I can also appreciate these differences since they allow for color and pattern variations in the tapestry of the human species.  And I have learned more personal lessons, too.  Like patience, silence, and how to be alone.  I have learned a lot about myself – what makes me happy and inspires me, what my shortcomings and downfalls are.  I have learned to be self reliant, but I am still working on self motivated.  I have learned to accept and live somewhat in harmony with the weather – taking off or adding clothes rather than reaching for the aircon remote.  I have learned that I don’t need much (as there is no room for it in my tiny apartment).  This limited space has also taught me how to use the area I have more efficiently, especially the kitchen.  I have learned about my thought process and the bits of history, culture, and personality that go into who I am and the choices I make.  I have learned how to evaluate relationships and balance the needs of others with my own needs.  I have learned a lot in this past year. 

I am not the same person I was a year ago.  It would be foolish to say all of the changes have been good (my cooking and house cleaning have devolved to college levels), but I believe I have come a long way to achieving the goals I set for myself when I embarked on this journey last August.  I have lived every moment, exposed myself to as much as I possibly could, and used each experience as a tool for greater understanding of myself and humanity.  I have taken the good and the bad (although there has definitely been way more on the good side of the scales) and found meaning in both.  I have met with adversity and acceptance and grown through each.  The time passed in a flash, and there is still so much that I want to do, but I think I can be satisfied with the progress I have made so far.  But don’t expect me to rest on my laurels.  After all, my adventures are far from over.

The Sleeping Dragon Hills

I started writing this story with no direction.  Not something a writer should really do.  But this is an experiment and an outlet – writing for the sake of writing.  This is not a finished piece.  In fact, this is only the very beginning.  But I have already fallen in love with the characters.  I feel like this will be a much longer story than I am prepared to write at this particular moment.  Let’s see where it goes.

Haruki stood near the foot of the hill, far enough back to see his destination – the wisps of clouds curling from an unseen clearing about halfway up the forested slope – but close enough to see the wall of trees marking the start of the gentle mountains.

The hard lump of emotion swelling in this throat drew him toward the tree line.  He had always imagined it was a dragon, its emerald body curled in the secret clearing, smoke rising with each sleeping breath.  Just like the local name for the hills themselves.  No, Niichan had always argued, it was group of monks, their bald heads bowed, their moss robes splayed around their seated forms as they chanted in deep, comforting hums.  They were sitting in a tight circle, a fire of fragrant wood smoldering in their center. They were the guardians of the mountain, the ones who kept the dragons asleep. 

Growing up they had argued constantly over the strange and wonderful weather patterns that played out in the mountains rising just behind their home.  Niichan, two years older, with glasses that refused to stay on his nose and needed constant adjustment.  Calm, bookish, and pale like their mother.  Haruki, his knees and elbows perpetually scabbed, constantly in motion, with the crooked, roguish smile of their father.  Two brothers – inseparable, but who couldn’t be more different.  How many times had they taken off into the woods, scrambling up the mountain side, searching for the source of the clouds, each determined to prove his version correct, only to be thwarted by the mountain, or the sun, or Kachan calling them home for dinner.

He started his assent, passing between two ancient trees, a living shrine gate.  His twenty three year old legs ate up the distance quicker than he remembered.  He was also out of breath quicker than he remembered.  He wove his way around trees and crashed through the undergrowth.  His destination was obscured, but the direction was fixed in his mind.  Just up a little further.  What will be waiting at the foot of those strange clouds, rising like smoke from the dark green slopes?

* 

Jack dropped the last bag in the middle of the now cluttered living room.  With a heavy sigh, he flopped down onto the narrow space on the couch left between boxes and suitcases.  How could someone acquire so much crap?  He hadn’t realized how much there was until he started packing.  One suitcase turned to two.  Two to three.  A trip to the grocery store for some of their empty boxes.  Two years crammed into Kraft and Coca Cola.  Another sigh as he looked around the new apartment.

He couldn’t see it as her apartment.  Not yet.  The white walls, nondescript furniture that was about a decade out of style – it was the apartment for now.

Utilitarian – that’s the word his father would use.  He liked big words.  He thought they hid the fact he had barely made it out of high school.  He had used decidedly smaller words, most with only four or six letters, when Jack told him about Kate.

A lifetime ago.  But the pain still fresh.  He had needed a new start.  Had found it in a new apartment, a new job, and a new town.

He looked at the stacks of boxes – half the pieces of the puzzle that had been his life.  They wouldn’t unpack themselves.  But not tonight.

He pushed himself up from the couch.  Not tonight.  He scooped up his wallet from where he had dropped it by the door.  The keys to the apartment, still not attached to his key ring, fell to the floor.  With a sigh, he bent down.

He had passed a small restaurant on the drive over.  A hole in the wall.  But it looked respectable enough.  No need to drive, it was only a handful of blocks, so he could have a few more drinks than a guy spending his first night in a new town should.

The mountains looked black in the fading light.  More hills than mountains, really.  A thirty minute hike would get you to the top.  If you could find a way through the thick vegetation.  They surrounded the town on three sides, seeming to melt slowly into the back of the houses in the quite neighborhoods on the fringes of the city – neighborhoods like this one. 

On Writing

When I was a kid, I could do things for hours.  I could get lost in a book or a painting. Okasan or Otosan would always have to call us in from the yard when it was time to quit playing.  Usually more than once.  But as I got older, it seems like my attention span has shrunk.  Or I have lost that childhood ability to let the rest of the world melt away.

I have noticed this the most in my writing.  Even in high school, I could spend hours writing.  I would forget to eat sometimes and just keep writing.  Now, even if I start out this way, lost in my words and the story running through my head, the flow only lasts an hour at best, but usually just a few minutes.  Then I stop, distracted by something around me or within me.  A bill I forgot to pay or a stray thought about something I need to do that completely derails my train of thought.  I try to get back on track – sometimes I can – but more often I can’t.  I reread what I have written and my internal editor takes over, pushing the childlike artist to the side while she critiques and criticizes.  The thrill and happiness of creation are now gone.  Replaced with self-deprecation and doubt.

Worse yet are the stories and journals I don’t even start.  Those pieces I put off tomorrow and tomorrow until it is a year later and the magic of the experience, the details and emotions, have faded away.

In some ways being in Japan has helped me get back to writing, but in many ways it has made me realize what a difficult path I have before me.  To really write, I will need to unlearn everything it seems.  I will need to forget the steps of the hero’s journey. Avoid plotting and forward thinking. Lock away the red pen wielding grammar maven inside my head.  I will need to regress to childhood, when I could get lost in the clouds of my own imagination for hours on end.  The ideas are there, but I need to relax and let them escape – a creative bleeding of the mind onto paper without interruption from the adult world.

Semi no uta

Cicadas’ song

She opens her eyes, blinks once or twice to clear the dream from her mind.  It slips away as she comes awake.

The room is already warm.  Not hot yet, but it will get there soon.  Sun streams through the frosted glass of the windows even though it isn’t even six yet.

The drone of the cicadas laps in waves against the glass.  Ebbing louder and softer.  She smiles.

She knows it will cost her the precious coolness held over from running the aircon last night, but she can’t help it.  She opens the window.

The sound is nearly deafening, a wall of solid noise.  She closes her eyes and lets it wash over her.

She soaks it all up.  The sun, hot on her cheeks, heating up the pink places it had been working on burning the previous day.  The overwhelming ocean of buzzing from cicadas hidden in the trees outside her window.  Despite its ferocity, the sound calms her, like sticking her head under the shower on full blast, the roar drowning out the rest of the world.  IT is the sound of summer.  Of childhood in a far away place and a far away time.

She opens her eyes.  The sky is perfect robin’s egg blue.  Darker at the apex and fading just slightly as it touches the dark green mountains that hide the horizon.  For now, there are no clouds.  But they will come, as the day goes on.  Fluffy white clouds, like the ones in children’s books.  So much cotton building and coming together to create a towering white pillar of fluff by the afternoon.  Mounds of white against the soft blue.

Sweat is already rising on her lower back.  She can feel it in her hairline as the sun prickles the tender skin.  On her arms, resting against the windowsill.  Still she hesitates, unwilling to close the window, turn on the aircon, and ruin the magic of the cicadas’ song.

The heat, the noise – they wrap around her, filling her with happiness – the simple happiness of a child on the first day of summer vacation.  The simple happiness of being alive.