dreaming the life

Most days are remembered like dreams. `Did that really happen?` is a question I find myself asking a lot. The lochness monster, for example, was discussed while walking over a stone pathway over a mote to get into the Hikone Castle grounds. I believe the question was,'do you believe in the lochness monster?' or would you kill it and capture it if you saw it?' or Does it live in Japan?' - but all of this was discussed as I peered into the green darkness of the mote as I walked single file to the Mascot summit.

Do you see what I mean? This really happened.

Also - singing Old Crow Medicine Show, Wagon Wheel as I exited the train in Otsu. The people staring at me seemed to disappear either from the drowning music coming from the ipod or the blindness of the booze. Efrem says, "Do you mind? Some people have to live here!"

I was overcome with a sense of free-ness. I reminded Efrem (in between musical stanzas) that I did not live in Otsu and would never be seeing these people again. And as I continued to sing I also let my body follow into joyous dancing all the way from the train to the taxi to the lyrics, rock me mama like a wagon wheel, rock me mama anyway you feel, hey mama rock me, rock me mama like the wind and the rain, rock me mama like a south bound train, hey... mama rock me.

and I was happy and free.

*I would like to thank the beer suppliers at the Round1 bowling alley in Kyoto and the Heineken suppliers at Lawson's for contributing to my state of enlightenment - oh ya, and thanks Japan.

My Mother and her Wonderful Sneeze

She pretends not to care when she really does

and she really cares when she wants to

she cares too much when no one cares

feeling good

I can only begin to describe how wonderful my experience in Japan is by saying, space.  I have found space here.  Space to breath.  Space to think and learn and grow and hide and come and go as I please.  Tonight I am watching the Fifth Element as I am stretching in my living room.  My "extra" tatami mat room where only a coffee table resides and some pillows to sit on.  It is simple.  I have room to stretch.  I have always wanted an empty room to just have space.  I have that here.  It inspires me to stretch.  It gives me room to breath as I let the oxygen fill my muscles and room to exhale as I stretch a little more.   It is quiet here.  

I am definitely feeling at home.  I am settling into my job and love my town.  I am getting the jist on how to handle my students and looking forward to my weekends to go crazy.  My Japanese is kicking in...sorta.  I find myself using some sentences when having conversations with my coworkers.  

The other day I thought, 'when would I come back and visit Japan' after I return home, and realized it wouldn't be for a long time.  I started to miss Japan as I sat at my desk in school.  I missed Japan and I haven't even left yet.  I still don't know exactly how long I will be here, 1 year is what I am thinking...but it is so wonderful here.  The culture is smooth, the traditions are grounding the honorific systems they use are endearing and motivating.  It is easy to want to work somewhere where we are all working with and for each other.  Everyone wants to help each other and are grateful to have you with them.  Grateful.

Maybe I'm just grateful.  Grateful that I haven't keeled over and died since I got here, grateful that everyone has helped me so much and have made me feel at home.  I'm grateful that I have this amazing apartment and great friends to explore with.  I'm grateful for the room to breath and grateful that I have amazing friends back home to lift me up when I'm feeling down.  I really threw myself into this experience, just fell backwards and everyone has put their arms out to catch me.  So, thanks.

It feels good to be alive.  This world is a trip.  yay me.

loves.

it won't hurt you

(dream last night)

I was buying a backpack ~ but I was reluctant to spend money, but it fit so comfortably.

Then - I was showing someone a baby bird in a cage.  When I looked down, it jumped out through the bars.

I was scared of it.  It was quite small and fast.  Someone reassured me it would not hurt me and I would not hurt it.

So I put my hand down and it jumped onto my finger, but then fell off.

Someone showed me how to do it, but when the bird was securely holding on to their finger, this person pulled it through a puddle as if it was teaching the bird to swim.

The bird had light curly feathers and though I was concerned at first about the water, it seemed to enjoy the experience.

turn it up

Maybe you've noticed I haven't written anything in a while.  It seems like I can write endlessly for days about annoying shit and weirdness and maybe some taboo ideas.  However I haven't been really dealing with anything like that lately.  My life is settling and I'm enjoying Toga parties and Takoyaki parties and bowling and everything is starting to simmer down.  

Except now, I am in "like" with a boy named Brian.

and I have nothing to say about it.  

I have a lot to say about it actually but I don't want to.  I don't want to tell anyone about it because if you know me, you know I'm a crazy person in relationships...or at the beginning of relationships right before they end.  I don't want everyone to tell me - "oh Kyla, you always like someone" and then feed the fuel to my insecurities about sharing my heart.  I don't want to pull anyone into my psychosis of emotional issues but I'll be the first to admit, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

Here's what I'll say, here's the jist.  

I feel different.  After all my panic attacks and talking myself out of this bisness I end up still feeling good about it, like I trust it.  I sorta like being liked - which usually makes me fairly uncomfortable in the sense I might not be in control of everything.  I can admit it.  We have agreed to be "just friends" while I'm in Japan so we can keep it real...which is a huge relief even though it might be a tremendous lie, it's a psychological lifesaver.  I mean I'm here and he's not so........So...wish me luck.  When I agreed to let go of control in my life and move here I put no boundaries on it and am letting the love in.  No expectations just mystery and learning.  Let everything wash over me like an ocean.  What's the worst thing that could happen?  I could end up on a beach?

So no words.  No words.  just magic.

random thoughts, please don't feel obligated to comment.

Every twist and turn of the day brings more and more answers, as if my life in Japan is a game of Tetris.  

side note : "I'm Japanese, I don't use candles!" she exclaimed as she bitterly recalled a story of how she threw away all the left over shit (i.e. candles) from her "ex" boyfriend's house after he had allowed his ex girl friend to stay with him against my friends request.  --> I had no idea that is a non-Japanese trait....the use of candles?  I had to laugh at how vehemently she said it.  hm.

I  love it here.  It's not just Japan so much as this life provided by JET.  I have been given a wonderful group of friends who are "jetting" down the same adventure as me.  Everyone is game to celebrate everyday and every person here.  I have a job that I dip into for a few hours a day that opens my mind to a cultural divide and then have the rest of the day to swim in it.  The days go by and the more I learn about Japan the more I have to shuffle my ideas about myself as an American.

kobe is a city in Japan

Congratulations you are still in the running.....

Oh my, what a sob session I had about 30 minutes ago.  The kind my little sister Kara would so kindly go out of her way to tell me to stop doing because my crying sounds are really annoying.  But I couldn't help myself.   I got my favorite roommate's (Lindsey's) package in the mail and it couldn't have come at a better time.  This week has straight up kicked my ass.  I suppose I had to shed some tears to make room for more smiles.  I also think it was the smell of lavender in the soap, incense and lavender pillow that Lindsey sent to me that reminded me of home.  Everything in this country smells a little on the wet side.  Vinegar or mildew.  My apartment especially is made mostly of plastic and there's no dryer so my clothes got to dry last night draped over every door and doorknob in my place....They could go outside but there is a spider bigger than God out there and I was tormented  considering it might touch me.  

Also, this week I got my enlarged pic of my cats for my entryway so I miss miss miss miss miss them terribly.  I feel like a horrible mother.   Typical story, they are going to forget about me.  This thought quickly spirals into everyone will forget about me (despite my incessant skyping and blogging) and then came the, 'what the fuck am I doing here?'  'What am I doing with my life?'  How will I get back into design when I return?  Did I fuck up my "path" whatever that is, by coming here, or can I really live life day to day?  So maybe now you see how this lead to tears.

I didn't say they were necessary tears, I just said I cried.  Sheesh.  I lit a lavender incense and cried in a pool of my own tears and laundry on my bed.  I cannot wait to use my lavender soap and I have almost consumed my entire box of yogurt covered pretzels....which took me back.  

I know that it is just a waste of time to worry about the 'what ifs' in life.  There is only today.  There is only this second, right now.  I need to let go of control and roll with it.  Life is so much more enriching that way.  I mean if you can't get sexually harassed, speed walk 4 km in the blazing heat, hand your sexual harasser his balls in front of his bosses and coworkers, get drunk at an enkai afterwards and then watch Lauren Brie get kicked off America's Next Top Model all in one week....and do all of that surrounded by people you CAN'T understand at all, then hell, what's living?

I mean America is great and I cannot wait to get back there, but today is a day for doing something new and basking in the vastness of it, and out here, it's vast.

Quick shout out, Lindsey your package was amazing and you have deflated and revived me all at the same time.  I am so so lucky you are in my life, and too bad for you I know where you live.  You can't get rid of me.  Text message reading corner when you get this okay?

 

Sandra Bullock can change lives

What is that amazing feeling when you have a crush on someone and it feels like your chest is going to cave in on you in the most amazing way?  When I was younger, I remember this feeling could last forever.   It would get me through the day and anticipating the next.  It was such a high.   I am bringing this up because it has been a long time since I felt like this.  

I think I have one now, a crush.  But at the ripe old age of 26 this wonderful feeling of...hope and anticipation has turned into a frantic throbbing pain in my chest.  As if a crush were a knife in my heart this whole time but I finally am able to see the object that creates this and just want the damn thing removed asap.  It's my damn heart.  

Sorry to my crush.  I will try to work on it so that eventually hope will (as probably the worst quote of my life arrives) as Sandra Bullock says, "float up".  Or I will learn that sometimes it's better to leave the knife in rather than bleed to death.  What does that mean?  It just seemed right to say it.  

full, not pregnant with your baby

I knew it was sexual harassment because it left the sting of shame.  What an interesting exchange between two people to cause this feeling.  I felt like I had not acted appropriately to his remarks.  'I should have said'....blazed through my mind endlessly until I was paralyzed by it at my desk, unmotivated to do anything at all.  My body was rendered numb and heavy and clearly there was nothing to do but write it out.

Then the excuses came.  'Maybe it's just because it's a Monday', or 'Maybe it's because I was feeling kinda sick already', or 'maybe it's because one of my Japanese coworkers pretty much asked me to have sex with him? and later asked me to keep it a secret'?  I don't know.  Lost in translation leaning strongly towards the latter of the three scenarios. 

I had thought it strange when last week our post lunch English encounter ended with him asking if my "full" stomach was filled with a baby...his baby?!  I laughed it off as poor English and some crazy humor in this country. This teacher had always seemed meager and strange, frequently attempting at least 1 phrase of English a day, very slowly and stuttered usually - but kind and enthusiastic (it's always the meager and enthusiastics.)  I had discussed this situation as a lark at the birthday party on Friday - 'I was trying to say I was "full" as I put my hand on my stomach and he thought I was pregnant, ha ha and asked if it was his baby..haha?'  Many of my friends were shocked by his comment.  Perhaps I had brushed it off too quickly hoping to avoid awkward misunderstandings.  You know - benefit of the doubt type shit.  I hoped it would just be a joke of miscommunication and we would carry on with our daily English exchanges between the two of us.

(wrong)

Monday morning, he brings up the food/baby and after some comic facial translations and gestures he mentions something that sounds like 'full from lunch' and I was relieved all of my benefit of the doubt shit had paid off.  See, just a simple misunderstanding resolved...full from lunch, not baby ;)  

But then, there we are at lunch standing by the tray table, emptying our trays just me and him.   He looks innocent enough, older and almost frail, no one I would feel threatened by. 

Round two : "full belly?" he laughs and points to his stomach.  "Yes, full" I laugh.  The chicken curry was great but I couldn't believe there were 2 other sides to go with it!  This time he says again, "full with my baby" and I laugh.  "Dame (da-may which means bad, or don't do that)" I say with an awkward expression on my face, trying to pick up the laughter.  What is this?  Some kind of bad joke this guy thinks he's scoring points on?  Maybe the first time was funny but now I'm starting to get annoyed...you never ask a woman if she's pregnant let alone continue to do it after the mistake has been remedied.   I try to make this situation a joke by asking him if he is going to have a baby... He responds, "dame! haha your conversation is... interesting."  At which point I tell him "you're funny."  (translation : this better be a joke, because if it's not I'm giving you this one "out" to make it a joke or nothing good will come of it.)

Then he moves to the other side of me as I scrap my food into the compost pot...here it comes again, "my baby... ey?" only this time it seems more desperate, more of a real question.  He also adds an extra syllable at the end indicating he is looking for a real response.  His smile has faded slightly and suddenly we are a man and woman standing in front of that table having an inappropriate conversation (more so in retrospect...at the time it was just more....awkward).  I felt like I was looking at Ben Stiller in dodge ball in his silver spandex joking with me about the shackles he has in the back, but then adds, 'but seriously, I got em'.  If only this old man were Ben Stiller but he's not.  He's a school teacher for Christ sake...and this is not a funny movie, it's lame.  So for the love of God I answer "Dame, dame" said with a smile, can this just be over with already?  He repeats my answer and laughs, "dame" and walks away.  

I move to the sink to rinse out my milk carton and unfold it.  He follows me to the sink though his carton is already opened and rinses it off.  Well that makes sense I guess, this is me still thinking this is all in fun...no big deal, awkward but still just a bad joke because to me, he thinks, "she thinks my joke is funny, I'll just repeat it until forever," I don't know anything but let it lie.

I re-enter the teachers office and begin to do some work for my classes tomorrow.  I have copies to make and take them to the copy room.  I always forget my pen or scissors or white out (all essential worksheet making utensils) so I slide back to my desk to retrieve them when guess  who the fuck is there?  It's the meager enthusiastic.  This time I am waiting for some new stuttered phrases but to my surprise he knows exactly what he's going to say and says it in perfect English.

our conversation is a secret.

Bold, capitalized, italicized and underlined, exclamation point exclamation point.

Shit has gone down.  It's amazing how language works because had he NEVER said those words to me, I would still think, "that silly but creepy man" and left it at that.  Now I'm in the middle of some secret inappropriate behavior trap with the foreigner.  Like hell this secret is happening.  The word secret is like handing me a stick of lit dynamite and then saying, 'please, just hold this for me'.  

I panic a bit thinking shit what am I going to say, I try the foreigner schtick - I don't understand - but he said it in perfect English!  So I try to just shrug /laugh it off with the finger shaking at him saying, "ah, ah" like you're in trouble, but not acknowledging his request for secrecy.   Get me out of here!!!  But he follows me saying, "uh, uh, secret".  I walk right past him and again he follows me back into the printer room.  It was a stupid idea to go somewhere private where I knew we would be alone.  I should have started another conversation with someone else - IDIOT.  But I wanted to not deal.  As he follows me into the room he says again, secret?  I say "wakarimasen" which means I don't understand.  And then he holds his finger over his mouth to make, apparently, the universal sign for shhhhh - even worse.  That moment was as molesting as the western style toilet.  Such an intimate gesture.

I should have said, "No, no secret."  or I could have said, "No secret, just don't talk to me like that anymore" or I should have said, "you are making me really uncomfortable right now, please leave me alone".  Instead I ask, "Why?" "Why is this a secret?" hoping to take some of the pressure off me but to put it back on him, why does he want no one to know if this was just an innocent mistake?  He mumbles something as he backs towards the door...his English is pooling into his brain and he tries to communicate this delicately and precisely.  He manages with, "my.....uh....English.....is....not....good" The school bell rings and he needs to get to class.  I answer him with "Hai hai, not so good."  And he is finally gone.

What just happened?  What do I do? Do I need to do something?  God, I wish I could just drop this in an instant and forget it ever happened, but after finger to the mouth I could just vomit thinking about being alone in a room with this guy again.  Do I feel threatened by this man?  No, but really creeped out.  That's for sure.  I need to do something because I am now sitting at my desk feeling helpless and powerless to the point of numbness.  This is my body telling me that it doesn't matter how I talk myself around this I have been effected by it.  Thank God some part of me is sane.  Action, now.  But how?  To who?

and this is the shit that women get a bad wrap for....damned if you do and damned if you don't. Why do I have to deal with this shit at work?  But if I pass it on, then I bring "my" problems into the office.  WTF.  Balls and shit.  

I try to imagine being a human about it.  Maybe he realized it was a mistake and tried to just not make it awkward, but don't you think he would have just apologized instead of his persistence in secrecy?  Secrecy keeps the door open.  I thought maybe I could just let him know, hey lets just not joke like that...but then what if one day we're alone and he thinks it's "funny" to touch me or it goes too far at an enkai?  In a perfect world I could deal on my own, but I'm not necessarily at work for my health, I'm there to do a job.  So this is not my problem, it is the school's problem.  That's what I think is best but.......as a human being you know life loves to get complicated, especially when there is more than one person involved.  Suddenly, cultural background and personal background come into play as decisions and interpretations are calculated.   

I am so by the book in my mind.  You have to have rules and principles.  That's why they're there...rules set up to help situations like this.  I don't think everyone should have to handle things alone.  We are all connected, there is a network.  So I will first talk to another woman ALT who has been around longer than me to get some advise.  Maybe I'll talk to my supervisor after I have some emotional support.  Just to let someone know and then maybe I can just let the offender know what he did made me uncomfortable.  If he does not feel comfortable about other people knowing what he is talking about then those are inappropriate conversations to be having with me.  

I don't want him to get in trouble, I just want to assert myself.  But I don't know what will happen and that is the complicated bits.  But I know that I will not hold onto this feeling of shame, first and foremost.  Not mine to hold.  I will stop worrying about what will happen to him and focus on what I need to do for myself.  Surprisingly something I feel I need to convince myself of.  This is not the first time this has happened to me.  And I could only hope it will be the last.  But I'm not going to stop talking to people or being friendly and open.  I will try to be more assertive and stand in my own skin when I am feeling uncomfortable and say no.  These moments will always be awkward but the more I get to know myself the quicker my reaction time will be.  I'm only 26.  Watch out.

Sidenote : even the experience writing about this is delicate.  I had to edit more than I usually do to ensure that people will not misinterpret my interpretations.  WTF.  When can I just speak my mind if not in this tiny box in outterspace?

 

let the sun shine in

What are we...these creatures that just float around and bump into each other in large groups or stand alone in the middle of a canyon or field.  We are so small but can feel so big and so dense and sometimes so empty.  We fill ourselves with all things perishable but we believe in eternity.   Where do we go?  Where did we come from?  What are we here for?  Are we here to really make a difference or just conquer our environment?  

I want to design space, partly because I can't help myself but maybe I just have control issues. Maybe I just want everyone to live where I want to live or eat somewhere I would eat.  Or are we suppose to share these things as part of our experience with others.  Is this how we relate? I'm swimming right now in some corner of the world and other people are doing the same thing somewhere else.  Some right next door to me.  I don't know them or where their day takes them.  

Some people stay in one place their whole lives and some love to travel the globe.  Where does that energy come from?  Wherever it does, let the sunshine in.