Back in Japan. I’ve come here four times to teach—2011, 2012 and 2016, to be exact. But my first visit here was another lifetime ago, in 1979. It was the end of a year-long trip around the world with my soon-to-be wife that included 2 months in Europe, 5 months in India, a transition month traveling in Nepal, Bangkok, and Singapore en route to Java and another 3 months there (including a side trip to Bali). Japan was our final two weeks before returning to marriage, kids and 40 more years at the school where we taught. Here was my first impression:
July 15, 1979:: Kyoto, Japan— And so we begin our final cadenza. Off the plane at Osaka, through friendly customs, onto a bus to the train station, helped by a man eager to practice his English. Osaka feels like New York—raised freeways, glittering lights, endless concrete— and funny how at home I felt with it all. Off the bus, passed along from one friendly man to another who got us on the right train. Out in Kyoto at 11:00, called Karen’s Michigan acquaintance Bridget (How did we do that? Use a Japanese pay phone with the right coins and the right number? Extraordinary!), took a taxi to her house and sat over green tea talking with her and her Japanese friend until 3 in the morning. She selflessly offered us her tatami-mat floor to sleep on for a week in her small Japanese-style apartment with sliding screen doors.
July 16— Like a fish thrown back into water, I’ve come back to the world in which I move best. Yesterday a Noh mask exhibition and paper-cut paintings, both exceptional and beautifully displayed. A papercut of two Zen monks walking in front of a temple that took my breath away— felt like meeting a best friend after a long separation. The wonder grew yet wider as we approached Heian Shrine, a beauty so thick I felt I could reach out and touch it. My breath churned up from the depths and my eyes on the verge of tears. Bali and India were extraordinary encounters with the new and unfamiliar, but somehow this was home after a long exile. The pine trees, sense of space, the miso soup and rice— after months of travel that took time to move from the strange and exotic to the comfortable and familiar, this is no effort whatsoever.
Not quite the same sensation I had this morning waking up in my airport hotel, but when I went out for a walk, stumbled on to a bustling neighborhood with food shops and then a series of temples with people out wafting smoke into their faces and paying their respects. Back to the airport to meet Zadie and Hurrah! We connected! First hurdle past.
Then off to buy a Skyliner train ticket and get us set up with the equivalent of an SF Clipper Card (Suica) and managed to do both. Second hurdle.
Out at Ueno Station and here was the ultimate challenge, getting to our obscure address that was our Air B&B. My first thought was to get a taxi and leave it up to them to find it ,but figuring out where and how to hail a taxi was in itself a challenge. My Google Maps wouldn’t connect, but Zadie’s did, so she led us down back alleys to a place that didn’t quite make sense. A man stopped his car and got out to help us and we figured out she had put in the wrong address. Off we went again and miraculously found it and miraculously the lock box that didn’t quite seem to work suddenly did (thanks, Zadie!) and we got into our cozy apartment. Found a nearby market, came back with arms filled with Inari sushi and rice balls and egg rolls and matcha tea and mandarin oranges and that was enough to tide us over before Zadie could finally lie down after her 14-hour plane flight.
A different time, a different city than Kyoto, a different culture, a different way of navigating, than our Japan initiation almost half a century ago. How could I have imagined back then that I would be back here with my granddaughter!!!
That was then, this is now, both glorious in their own way. No plans yet for tomorrow, we shall see what the day brings.
