Ever since arriving here in Japan and taking in the taking on of the life here I have been journaling. I have been journaling in effort to save my mind, save my brain from wonder and worry. I have taken care to utilize the cheap and affordable one hundred and something yen worth notebooks that you can most readily buy from the convenience store to use for my writing.
In the first few days I was journaling what happened when -at what time I was asked to sign a form, and just what was going on around me. I remember vividly when I was dropped at the middle school for the opening ceremony welcoming students back from summer break and taking me into the remainder of the year as the new assistant language teacher.
I remember sitting feverishly at the desk, metal, warped, a cool gray -its kind of like what I felt like on the inside. Nervous. I sat there in a fine-looking black suit with the summer sun scorching outside the fluttery windows of the teachers room and I journaled. I was told to wait there with rump glued to seat by the desk until I was collected and guided to the gym for commencement and welcome.
Even in those moments I had no idea what I should be doing, how serious I should be acting, let alone if I was allowed to be nervous. Well, nervous, I was. Perspiring under those trendy layers of cotton I pulled and arranged in front of me on the table a small, green lined journal and began to jot down what I heard, what I saw, and how I felt. I remember it felt a great rush to be in a Japanese middle school, let alone in a really, really foreign setting. I also recall that wonder I felt that literally everything that was happening right then, and right next was really beyond my control. There was no one to tell me where I should be looking and just how ready, and just what I should be ready for.
There was however, a secretary in the room -that otherwise empty teachers room, mind you, and I am sure that she had a great few minutes watching me sit and stir nervously, and scribble. Those minutes felt like rolling waves on a long and wide sea -it felt like forever. But I was soon shuttled to stage, parting way through lines of students all staring me from the corners of their eyes as I tried really hard not to stumble on my steps up to the microphone to tell in English and maybe a little Japanese just how glad and how ready I was to be here to bring English to them, the students.
And those were the humble beginnings of my first few days in town. The sweating, the bowing, the fixating and what I should be doing -worrying about everything. I tell you, if and when I give advice to the teacher that replaces me the first good tell-tale bit that I tell to them will be enjoy every single rushing, passing minute of their arrival because those oh, so foreign feelings may not come again -and if those moments do return they may not strike you in quite the same way.
But hang on, I was talking about journaling. And you know what? Journal I still do. Whether I opt to copy out a few dictionary terms, in English or Japanese, scribble notes about the latest cognitive behavioural therapy, or just ask myself question by putting ink to paper -like how I am feeling that very day, I write.
Writing has been my sanity-saver and it gives me the wonderful and mysterious opportunity to dialogue if not just with myself about every lonely moment, strange encounter, or startling, say, confounding-beautiful experience I have here in town.
Do you write? I have to say that I was never really one who, at first anyways, took well to writing or journaling. But if I have to repeat myself I will say that writing, for me, has become an inseparable practice in my every day.
Now, I don’t want to blunder on but I do want to tell that it is my hope that for whoever reads this blog that this work would be an insight and/or inspiration for something they are waiting to do in their future, or just their day. I recall how I was so very gripped reading blogs happening at very same time I was in Canada waiting for the chance to come to Japan and do what I am doing now. So let this blog be that -for someone else. Or let it just be a quick and fun read for you.
Okay. Let’s keep things Japanese and see what sliver of fun I can pull from my day to share with you. Hmm..
Well, I have to say that after a day of teaching and then wandering back to the office on foot through white streets painted and powdered with crystalline snow, there is nothing like deciding what to do for dinner -in Japan.
Well, hang on, what I mean to say is this. Sitting at my desk, after collecting all my papers post-workday and waiting for the work bell to toll, I was today toying with that thought of dissecting the leftover and fresh variety of goods in my happy, small-sized fridge, or taking myself out for a quick noodle.
There is nothing like suiting up for a winter walk home and treating yourself to a bowl of your favourite Japanese ramen noodles after a trial day of work. There is this old-ish little shop that stares at and blinks flashing signboard lights at everyone that comes through town. It’s right on the corner of the main road, you see.
Pushing in the slow and fashionably dated door saw me into the dining area. Jazz music singing through awkwardly placed speakers on the walls above sheet glass mirrors, and old chairs that sink a little too low when you plant yourself in them. This was my dinner-catch.
I ordered a bowl of noodles that I had never before ordered, and I waited. Punched a few emails on my phone to pass the time, and stared at the placard on the wall of a large portuguese ship slicing through a ravenous ocean. Gosh what a picture to have on a restaurant wall. I mean, its a really big picture.
Not too soon before I was done figuring out how sea-faring ships and jazz music pair together in a dining space I was met with a monstrous bowl of noodles, which, after clarifying with the server, was actually a de-luxe order of ramen. Now I know if I ever want to exert myself after work over a bowl of steaming veggies and broth I can order deluxe again. Yeah, it was good. Miso.
After a few glasses of water and a quick prayer to help me keep it all down I was soon back afoot heading home past silent mounds of snow and an almost busy roadway. A few people stopping to chat while one of them was hauling snow across the drive. A few students complaining about something around the corner just out of earshot, and the snow. The snowy crystals only visible in the dim street lamps, shimmering like a blanket of blinking diamonds. Rolling mounds of smooth, pasty snow. Yeah, yeah, you say. Well, I tell you, it was nice. Nature, nature here in my small town still catches me by the breath and stops me in my tracks every once in a while. Or maybe a little more often than that..
Alright, now you’ll have to excuse me. You got this post out of me, too but now I am deserved some reading time on a tiny sofa with a little wind-up clock staring at me as I sip tea and fold leaf after leaf of book page before I bed up for the night.
I hope you are finding productive or purposefully un-productive things to pass your winter days with, too. Even a walk in the quiet nights that only winter can give.
Right. Good night to you and good day tomorrow. For us in Japan tomorrow is a Friday, maybe a welcome day for many. I know Friday will be welcome for me.
Enjoy yours and I’ll enjoy mine.
Until next time, too,
ciao
The Traveller's Typewriter 