I’m not worried about youth cut short anymore
When I am somewhere new, I return to a little girl – sometimes to teenaged sorrows–, always
return to an eagerness to explore
Like John Bowlby wrote, I have a secure base
so I am not scared to witness fresh geographies and people
;
Before three Buddhas at Toshogu in Nikko, my face: wet.
Felt something expand in me:
intangible purge /
a deep joy. Wished my dad had seen it.
Wished we could be healthier in our heads and in our bodies. Wished it and wrote it.
Paid 200 yen.
The monk will bless it tomorrow morning.
The first real thing I’ve prayed for in months
;
My childhood friend asks me over the phone if she can paint me [nude] for her art course assignment:
I’m undressing for the onsen wondering if she will include the scars on my knees
Public bath: I get so hot, head throbbing
This is my chance to be comfortable,
unclothed, to relish in the normalcy of nakedness in this space
This society feels at odds with itself:
- Wrinkleless, pleated pants
- Perfectly-tucked collared shirts
- High heels
- Not a hair out of place
- Conservative dress–even in the night, at bars
- Porn magazines in the convenience stores
- Thirteen American dollars for a night with a woman on the street corner.
- The sexworkers dress more professionally than me on any given day
;
Eloiza falls asleep against my shoulder on the train
I try not to move so she can rest
the women across from us make a heart with their pointer fingers and thumbs
Physical contact is not the standard in Japan and so I wonder if they are
mocking us or if they wish they lived in a country where they could hold hands down lantern-lit alleyways
without feeling watching eyes
;
I look bloated in pictures and wonder how that can be when I’m walking 20k steps a day and eating non-American food
Maybe it was that bad sashimi I ate days ago.
Yusei advises not to drink a particular electrolyte water at 7/11
“It will make you fat”
He had only eaten one serving of yogurt that day, mind you
;
Laugh the exhaustion away and drink the foot pain down down
Love that no matter where I am in the world,
children playing always sounds the same
Love that poets are seen as “national treasures” here too
(When I get back to the states, remind me to buy some translated waka collections)
I try to imagine a life were dying for my country is my biggest joy, but Trump is on the news here…
A 14-hour flight away and I can’t escape the reminder of this thickheaded
pig. We turn the channel to sumo wrestling and shush ourselves in the hotel
after screaming when the massive men hit the floor.
“Even though the plum, peach are cherry trees are blossoming in the mountains
Know that I am filled with sorrow”
– Komicha Takashi Mikoto
;
Something is wrong in the history museums. All of them. I’m starting to understand that.
Betrayed by my own education too.
Even the peace birds [the cranes] are fighting at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial
That’s symbolic of something, but I won’t attempt to analyze it
Today has been hard enough.
The fate of all of us is in the hands of a few people
;
My toes in tide pools, delighted at the bustling hermit crab armies
that have claimed mollusks’ shells as their own
I’m on my best behavior (not touching or feeding the sacred island deer)
Eventually the Earth wraps around me
Everyone is swaddled in sunset
;
Back in the Bronx now, feeling lighter than when I left
and dually disgusted at the state of city life [now that I know clean subways can exist]