Geijin: Part II

Since I began writing this post, I thought, (as I remember more and more), that to be kind to my small group of readers, I would break this up a bit. A mini series, if you will.

So off we go...

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For most people, going on vacation to Japan would not constitute a reason to worry for one's sanity. And truthfully, I have no real reason now to believe that at that point my family would have turned me into a raving lunatic. I didn't have a real reason then, for that matter. I just knew that I was on edge. A pretty sharp one. The man who had helped put me there was far away only physically. The memory of our breaking point was still all too close.

It happened in the middle of a work day at Borders. Slightly sleepy, as the night before by boyfriend and I had gone to a dinner party. I answered a page on the floor...a phone call for me.

“Hello? Mark! Hi!”

“Hi, how are you?”

“Fine, fine, what's up?”

“So, you had a good time last night?”

“Yeah, so good to relax...”

“Glad you had so much fun.” it was at this point I heard the dripping sarcasm in his voice, and something in my stomach dropped. I won't go into details of the rest of the phone call. It was the first and only time (I hope) I will ever be on the receiving end of a psychotic break. Mark ranted, raved, and said some of the cruelest words that had ever been said to me. I realized vaguely that he was in some reality I did not share, but it didn't help. I was completely blindsided. By the end of the call, I was reduced to a sobbing, shuddering mess. I left work to try to get my brain going again.

Anyone who has ever had a conversation with someone suffering with schizophrenia will know the confusion and guilt and outrage I felt. Mark was (I believed) a charming, quiet, brilliant artist with an unassuming personality and wonderful smile. And honestly, he still was all those things. He was also schizophrenic. Undiagnosed, until a couple of weeks later when he tried to walk into the middle of an intersection. His brother rescued him and he voluntarily checked himself into a clinic. By then we had called it off.

At that point, I was still struggling to determine what my own baggage was. I was ill equipped to deal with other people's baggage. Baggage check girl I was not. Nor did I want to be.

This was the relationship that made me, finally, look into myself to see what it was about me that was attracted to “damaged” men. The process of self actualization is a gritty one, exhausting and painful. I was possibly in the most unapologetically bitchy period in my life when I climbed on the plane to Japan. I wanted everything to be clear, and obvious, and real. No denial of unpleasantness, no glorification. Just life, as it was, in the moment. In all it's amazing, flawed beauty and ugliness.

So as my brother drove us all through Tokyo traffic, I listened to my father go on and on about the gloriousness that was Japan, the amazing school systems, the wonderful sense of security, the low rate of heart disease, isn't it wonderful wonderful wonderful the students are so intelligent and motivated...I suddenly found myself stating “It's too bad the suicide rate for students is one of the highest in the world.”

Dad gave me the appropriate look along with a quiet “now is not the time...” and I lapsed into a sullen silence. I knew I'd been rude. I felt as though I had toads in my throat that were mercilessly struggling to get out. I've never felt so constrained in my life. And it was purely because I was with family, and in a sense, it was safe to feel all those things that, when alone, were just too completely overwhelming and frightening to contemplate.

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So where were we? A Mall in Tachikawa, as I recall. Food Court. Scheduling the next week, with varying degrees of success in between slurps of soy ramen.

The next morning, the 12th, bright and early, we left for a day of temple hopping. The day was clear and hot, and we drove through small towns that still had the aura of old Japan. Whenever the van paused at a stop light, I stuck my camera out the window and clicked.

“What are you taking a picture of?” my Mom finally asked in a tone that said “why are you wasting your film?” It's nothing but an old store.”

“No, that's Japan.” I said. It's what I want to remember. But I couldn't explain. Words got stuck in my throat all too easily.

So off we went to Kamakura Daibutsu, to the largest statue of Buddha I had ever seen. (Well, honestly the only statue of Buddha I'd ever seen, but really, it was so large you could climb up inside it and look out of it's eyes...how's that for a metaphysical mind fuck?) It was 13.35 meters tall, cast in bronze sometime in 1252 A.D. It is the image of the Amida Buddha, otherwise known as the Buddha of Everlasting Light. But solid as a rock. There is no wonder looking at it that this immense icon remained when the hall that once surrounded it was swept away by a tsunami in 1495. And there has sat ever since, complacently being one with whatever Mother Nature chooses to send it's way.

Then we walked, along with hundreds of other tourists, to a temple on a hillside overlooking Kamakura Bay. This was Hassekannon, a temple to Kannon, the 11 faced Buddhist goddess of mercy.

It was strange, with so many people, the sense of quiet that permeated the area. Maybe it was the silent stares of the thousands of little Jizo statues that lined the staircases and walkways that created the blanket of stillness. These thousands of donated figures each represented a child who had died. Many of the statues wore bibs. Jizo, not surprisingly, is the Buddhist deity who protects travelers, the infirm, and yes, children.

After a short ride to rest our legs, we climbed out to contemplate possibly the most steps up I have ever taken in my life. But what the hell. As the Dali Lama once observed on an NPR interview, “No pain, no gain” So we climbed, and climbed, and climbed some more, until we reached Sengakuji Temple, the resting place of the 47 Ronin.

The thing I remember most about these temples were the rich silences that seemed to amplify sounds...wind in the trees, footsteps, crickets, koi splashing in the quiet pools and ponds, hands clapped in prayer. In the silence within the temples, two blocks of wood were struck together, and the sound ricocheted off of the walls of the temple with clap loud enough to hurt. The sound was used to attract the attention of the gods. Hearing it, you believe it could.

August 13th Friday

This is Obusuma, in Ogawa, in Saitama prefecture. We were all walking up the steep village road to the home of SIL's Mom and stepfather. On the way, we passed groves of bamboo, and little shrines coexisting peacefully with parked cars and neighborhood cats. The house itself was a beautiful traditional meets western, but with no plumbing whatever. They were too far up the mountain for such things. The toilet room/WC/loo/John, for instance, was a very clean, very modern latrine.

So we met Moto and Juu Shin, and other members of SIL's family, for a strange yet tasty early lunch of frozen tangerines, turkey hot dogs, sweet potatoes, oreos, potato chips, and gum drops.

Junk food turned out to be the perfect precursor to Japan's answer to Plimouth Plantation meets Disney world meets Renaissance Faire...Nikko Edo Mura Village. This is where many film makers went to shoot all those great Samurai flicks I love to watch. Mom turned the bowl three times in a formal tea ceremony. Dad nearly got his head chopped off by a Ninja, I finally loosened up enough to ham it up with one of the “locals”, and my sister had her own quiet moment resting in the comfort of a rickshaw (or the Japanese equivalent). We went to the Ninja Theater for a very cool show, then set off to check out the Shinto Temple of the Three Monkeys.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

August 14 Saturday

T took us on a tour of the Yokota Airbase, It was like a town unto itself...a very. Beige. Town. EVERYTHING was painted beige. The houses. The roofs. The walls. The supermarket. The plane hangers. The utility sheds. The Dunkin Donuts. The effect of all this beige was that it made the grass look positively neon. And I don't mean in a nice, pleasant way. More like the color of a reeaally nasty poison. Radioactive. Glow in the dark. Rothko would have either been totally inspired or blinded himself in self preservation.

After this vision of color gone bad, we went for a late morning visit to the Saitama Craft Center and soothed our eyes among the fanciful dolls, hanetsuki, Samurai armor, screens, furniture and kimonos. We painted our own dolls. I sat next to Mom, and tried not to regress completely into the eight-year-old child I felt like.

Then, as we left, I saw a sculpture that brought me back to myself. It was a statue of a man, sitting on a bench that was used as an actual resting place. But the image...the figure was completely black, and wrinkled, and emaciated, and all looked to me like the charred remnant of a human being. All I could think of was Hiroshima...Nagasaki. The ghost of that time, quietly sitting in the sunlight, among the green potted trees.

We went to Moto's for lunch. After a warm welcome, he sat us all down before a low table on zabutons, and plied us with a feast of food ranging from fish paste, miso soup, noodles, rice, and edamame to sweet egg omalettes. And plums. Dad was thrilled.

“I LOVE plums!” he said with a broad grin, and popped a little bright pink one in his mouth. We stared at him, our mouths hanging open.

“Ah...Dad...”

We all watched as Dad's face turned a shade remarkably close to the color of the pickled plum he'd just swallowed. We nearly choked laughing. Moto plied him with Asahi cool him off.

Then we were off, into the mountains...where the slopes looked as groomed as a bonsai, over winding roads, till we reached Nagatoro.

For Obon. The festival of the Dead.

To be continued...and I promise, not 8 months from now. Really.