I'm finally ready to finish.
Nobody understands why it has taken me so long to write a book. My family don't understand, my friends don't understand, my ex didn't understand, and one of my closest friends certainly hasn't got a clue what is going on, and her increasingly frustrated messages to me now begin and end with "are you done yet?" and "where the hell is it?" Not for Helen a bohemian waft of my hand and a mumble about inspiration: she's extremely successful, extremely hard nosed and "not interested in anymore of your stupid shillyshallying, Smale. Finish it. Do I make myself clear? How hard can it bloody be? When you worked with me I couldn't get you to stop writing fiction when you were supposed to be writing press releases." And, if she's extremely irritated by my flower-in-the-hair-responses, she brings out the big guns, which are either: "My aunt has written and published three books in the time it has taken you to write one," or (the one that hurts the most) "You realise that you're no longer eligible for any young writers awards now anyway?"
As the friend who probably understands me the best, though, she's right. I have been shillyshallying. Shillyshallying, in fact, is exactly what I've been doing: shillyshallying with all my might. Because the truth is: it's not hard. Since I started writing the novel, I have written over 300,000 words of this blog: enough for four full-size pieces of fiction. If I sit down and try hard, I can easily write 6,000-8,000 words a day, which means that I could write a novel in two weeks, with space to edit at the end. And it hasn't taken me two weeks. It's taken me nearly two years, which - considering I wrote the first six chapters over the Christmas weekend of 2008 - isn't very impressive. I even managed to fit in a great deal of chocolate eating, a couple of black and white films, a pub session and about 32 cigarettes on that particular two day writing stint, and I still managed to pull something together coherent enough to interest an agent.
The truth is simply this: I haven't wanted to finish. It's like a smoker who wants to quit smoking (and I can say this with some authority): no matter how many times you try to quit, it won't work if you secretly don't actually want to. For whatever reason - because you think it's cool, because it calms nerves, because it tastes nice, because it reminds you of being young or of better times or of not caring about the lines around your mouth because you don't have any yet - you can throw your cigarettes away as many times as you like, but if the desire not to quit isn't actually there, you'll simply replace them the next day. For me, it was only when I woke up a few months ago, ran my tongue around my mouth and realised I had no interest in ever smoking a cigarette again that I actually stopped smoking (and haven't touched one since: the desire has simply gone).
It's like that with writing. It hasn't mattered how many times I've told people I'm ready to finish The Novel: I haven't actually wanted to. Secretly, deep down, I wanted to keep it going. And not for just one reason: for a million different reasons, and all of them powerful ones. Because I love writing it, the way I love reading a book I love, and so by slowing it down it delays the pleasure and chews it up into bite sized pieces I can eat whenever I'm hungry and sad. Because it's comforting to me, and something to think about. Because when I'm lonely - which is often - it becomes my best friend (I'm aware of how terrible this sounds). Because it gives my life meaning, and I've not been sure what to do when it's over. Because I drive home from school to a flat that isn't empty, because my book is sitting on the computer, waiting for me. Because everything I do is a procrastination away from it, which sort of gives my life a heavy structural feeling, which I have learnt to depend on. Because while I'm still writing it, I'm not just a teacher; I'm a writer who teaches. And I don't want to be just a teacher. Because it gives me a reason to stay where I am, without feeling like I'm opting out on life. Because I'm writing.
And because I'm terrified of my life without it, and I'm terrified of what will happen if it's not good enough.
Which is it in a nutshell, and the people who love me know it. The book isn't finished because I'm scared of finishing it, not because I can't finish it. I'm scared of not writing, or having something to write, and I'm scared of being alone, and I'm scared of having no direction, and I'm scared of failing. In essence, I am doing with this goddamn novel what I do in relationships: refuse to commit, refuse to throw myself into it wholeheartedly, because I'm scared of what will happen if it doesn't work out. And because I don't want to have either everything or nothing, so I'm sitting in limbo where I can have both (and neither).
It's finally time. I'm 20,000 words from the end (four days, if I concentrate), and I'm bored. Not of the story, thankfully (because that wouldn't bode well), but of my own fear. And of the procrastination which is born of it. I'm bored of being a teacher-stroke-writer in a little flat in Japan because I'm too scared to finish the book and either be a writer-stroke-teacher or just a teacher. I'm bored of dancing around the ending, of glancing at the manuscript from my bed and hopping around it: not because I don't know what to write, but because I know exactly what to write and I have done from the start but I don't want it to be over. I'm bored of putting the ending off so that there is still something in my life that I can control: when and how I finish. And I'm bored of not moving onto the next step because I'm frightened of where it will take me. I'm bored of being frightened of the things I love most, and of all the things I love most, writing is what I love the most. It always has been.
I'm bored. It's 2011 in three days, and I'm ready. I will be back at home from my little holiday on the 2nd of January, and I am not moving out of my flat for any reason until it's finished. And then I'm taking whatever the next step is. Wherever it takes me. Even if it's a bad one. Even if it's scary.
Because at least then I'll be going somewhere.
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Capsule
When I was a baby, my first ever bed was the bath.
I don`t quite understand how this happened. The official parental line is "we lived in a tiny studio apartment and we didn`t have anywhere else to put you," but this depends on my birth being utterly unexpected, like a surprise bouquet of flowers from a stranger. And it wasn`t, presumably, because I was a baby, and not a bouquet, and my father was not a stranger because he lived with my mum as her life partner and had bought her quite a lot of jewellery over the previous few years. So the only real question left is: at what stage in the nine months previous did they manage to skip the topic of where they were going to put the kid?
There was no water in the bath, I`m relieved to say, and according to my mother it was "extremely comfortable and I was very happy," which I don`t think she can really vouch for, not being me as a three day year old child. Either way, my first few nights in the world were spent in the bath, at which stage my parents realised that they probably needed to wash at some stage and needed to find somewhere else to store me. At this point, they took the door off a small single cupboard, removed their clothes, filled it with cushions and blankets (it was snowing), hung sparkly things from the ceiling to distract me from the therapy I would need in the years to come, and then stuck me in there.. Where I spent the following two years of my life: in a cupboard.
Dad has conveniently wiped all of this from his memory; when I ask him, he says it was "more like a very small room," while mum maintains that I "was the happiest baby she ever saw and never once cried" (at which stage I point out that I probably was crying, but they couldn`t hear me because I was in a cupboard). But in all truth I probably was happy. If part of the shock of being born is moving from a tiny, safe space to a very large, unsafe space, then a cupboard is probably the best upgrade possible. And, when we moved house and I finally had my own bedroom, I was naturally terrified. At any given moment, my mum would come into my bedroom to find me either asleep in the airing cupboard, curled up like a small cat, or in my sister`s cot (yes, she got a cot. No cupboards for the second born).
Because of this past, it shouldn`t really come as a surprise that I`m not scared of small spaces. I`m not scared of big spaces either - I`m not scared of any kind of space: only what is inside it - but it`s true that when I`m sleepy I will seek a warm, soft, dark, small space, and if I find myself in a warm, soft, dark, small space by accident I will automatically fall asleep. In my fantasy dreams of The House I Will End Up In, my bathroom is massive, and my piano is massive, but the bedroom is tiny, and dark, and it has sparkly things hanging from the ceiling.
As a result, it is with great excitement that I have tracked down the Japanese Capsule Hotel: the smallest space anyone can pay to sleep in. Originating in Japan - for business men who used to visit all-night public baths after a late night drinking session and then fall asleep in the corridors outside - these are literally capsules: spaces large enough to crawl into and lie down in. They are stacked together like bricks, they are cheap(ish - for this horribly expensive country) and they are supposed to be tiny, dark, economical and private.
Which is why I write this line with heavy disappointment, following a year of anticipation: they are not.
Spending the night in bed with a stranger is bad enough, but eight of them? Twenty of them? Thirty of them? It`s the world`s most uncomfortable one-night-stand. You`re literally half a metre away from the next sleeping body in every direction, and you can hear every single noise they make. The most private of times, the most intimate of moments - the moments where we dream, where we sleep, where we fend off our nightmares and hold up our dreams - are shared with people you have never seen before. You are woken in the night by the sound of loud and congratulatory farting, by snores, by people turning over, by women crying, by drunk hiccups, by people turning the pages of books. Next to you, the girl moans in her sleep: on the other side, a boy is texting somebody something important enough to say at 4am It`s like being part of a science fiction novel: I have never felt more conscious of the lack of originality of myself and my own body functions - my need to crawl into a space and sleep, my need to sort through my dreams - than when I am lying as a part of a thirty block capsule, in a 400 capsule building, wearing the same complimentary outfit as 400 other people. All dreaming and snoring and farting the night away. All feeling the same as each other.
I have one more night in a capsule in Osaka. My friend joined me from Tokyo yesterday; tomorrow I stay with another friend from Miyazaki. I have one more night to crawl into my very own science fiction and feel like what I am: just another brick in the wall, identical to all the others..
But I`m so incredibly relieved that I did it. Because a dream achieved is a dream achieved, even if it`s created next to a billion others, and the same as all of them. And although I won`t sleep tonight - the girl opposite has a cold, and some sort of obsession with scrunching up what sounds like crisp packets - I`m going to be fascinated to lie awake and think of all the sleeping people around me. Of all the intimate moments that I never get to hear, or see, or understand usually. Or want to.
And, at the very least - when I`m staring at the three foot high ceiling at 5am and making fingers at the walls - I can comfort myself with the following thought:
At least now I`m grown up I don`t have to sleep in a bath.
I don`t quite understand how this happened. The official parental line is "we lived in a tiny studio apartment and we didn`t have anywhere else to put you," but this depends on my birth being utterly unexpected, like a surprise bouquet of flowers from a stranger. And it wasn`t, presumably, because I was a baby, and not a bouquet, and my father was not a stranger because he lived with my mum as her life partner and had bought her quite a lot of jewellery over the previous few years. So the only real question left is: at what stage in the nine months previous did they manage to skip the topic of where they were going to put the kid?
There was no water in the bath, I`m relieved to say, and according to my mother it was "extremely comfortable and I was very happy," which I don`t think she can really vouch for, not being me as a three day year old child. Either way, my first few nights in the world were spent in the bath, at which stage my parents realised that they probably needed to wash at some stage and needed to find somewhere else to store me. At this point, they took the door off a small single cupboard, removed their clothes, filled it with cushions and blankets (it was snowing), hung sparkly things from the ceiling to distract me from the therapy I would need in the years to come, and then stuck me in there.. Where I spent the following two years of my life: in a cupboard.
Dad has conveniently wiped all of this from his memory; when I ask him, he says it was "more like a very small room," while mum maintains that I "was the happiest baby she ever saw and never once cried" (at which stage I point out that I probably was crying, but they couldn`t hear me because I was in a cupboard). But in all truth I probably was happy. If part of the shock of being born is moving from a tiny, safe space to a very large, unsafe space, then a cupboard is probably the best upgrade possible. And, when we moved house and I finally had my own bedroom, I was naturally terrified. At any given moment, my mum would come into my bedroom to find me either asleep in the airing cupboard, curled up like a small cat, or in my sister`s cot (yes, she got a cot. No cupboards for the second born).
Because of this past, it shouldn`t really come as a surprise that I`m not scared of small spaces. I`m not scared of big spaces either - I`m not scared of any kind of space: only what is inside it - but it`s true that when I`m sleepy I will seek a warm, soft, dark, small space, and if I find myself in a warm, soft, dark, small space by accident I will automatically fall asleep. In my fantasy dreams of The House I Will End Up In, my bathroom is massive, and my piano is massive, but the bedroom is tiny, and dark, and it has sparkly things hanging from the ceiling.
As a result, it is with great excitement that I have tracked down the Japanese Capsule Hotel: the smallest space anyone can pay to sleep in. Originating in Japan - for business men who used to visit all-night public baths after a late night drinking session and then fall asleep in the corridors outside - these are literally capsules: spaces large enough to crawl into and lie down in. They are stacked together like bricks, they are cheap(ish - for this horribly expensive country) and they are supposed to be tiny, dark, economical and private.
Which is why I write this line with heavy disappointment, following a year of anticipation: they are not.
Spending the night in bed with a stranger is bad enough, but eight of them? Twenty of them? Thirty of them? It`s the world`s most uncomfortable one-night-stand. You`re literally half a metre away from the next sleeping body in every direction, and you can hear every single noise they make. The most private of times, the most intimate of moments - the moments where we dream, where we sleep, where we fend off our nightmares and hold up our dreams - are shared with people you have never seen before. You are woken in the night by the sound of loud and congratulatory farting, by snores, by people turning over, by women crying, by drunk hiccups, by people turning the pages of books. Next to you, the girl moans in her sleep: on the other side, a boy is texting somebody something important enough to say at 4am It`s like being part of a science fiction novel: I have never felt more conscious of the lack of originality of myself and my own body functions - my need to crawl into a space and sleep, my need to sort through my dreams - than when I am lying as a part of a thirty block capsule, in a 400 capsule building, wearing the same complimentary outfit as 400 other people. All dreaming and snoring and farting the night away. All feeling the same as each other.
I have one more night in a capsule in Osaka. My friend joined me from Tokyo yesterday; tomorrow I stay with another friend from Miyazaki. I have one more night to crawl into my very own science fiction and feel like what I am: just another brick in the wall, identical to all the others..
But I`m so incredibly relieved that I did it. Because a dream achieved is a dream achieved, even if it`s created next to a billion others, and the same as all of them. And although I won`t sleep tonight - the girl opposite has a cold, and some sort of obsession with scrunching up what sounds like crisp packets - I`m going to be fascinated to lie awake and think of all the sleeping people around me. Of all the intimate moments that I never get to hear, or see, or understand usually. Or want to.
And, at the very least - when I`m staring at the three foot high ceiling at 5am and making fingers at the walls - I can comfort myself with the following thought:
At least now I`m grown up I don`t have to sleep in a bath.
Sunday, 26 December 2010
Christmas paper
This weekend has been a weekend of firsts.
It`s the first time I`ve ever been to Kyoto; the first time I`ve ever seen the Golden Temple: the first time I`ve ever seen a real Geisha (but not the first time I`ve forgotten my camera at the exact moment I need it most). This weekend was the first time I`ve ever helped to make mochi; the first time I`ve ever witnessed the incredible politeness and accurateness of a Japanese internal flight (in approximately twelve minutes we will be experiencing turbulance, and we are very sorry for this); the first time I`ve fallen asleep next to a shrine (it was at the top of a really big mountain). It was the first time I`ve ever started doing a little embroidery in the middle of a pizza restaurant - and the first time I`ve really realised how weird I can sometimes be - and the first time I`ve ever ordered a two pint glass of beer by myself and gotten drunk with nobody to make it socially acceptable. It was the first time I have ever had a long Japanese conversation with a stranger, and the first time that when a stranger congratulated me on my language skills, I felt I deserved it. It was the first holiday I`ve ever been on and not lost my camera, and the first winter weekend where I haven`t bought and lost a pair of gloves. This time I only lost one.
It was also the first Christmas I have ever spent on my own.
I thought it would be okay. In fact, I thought it would be great. I would take my savings - most of them, thanks to the expense of Japan and the goddamn neverending purchase of gloves - and fly to Kyoto: luxuriate in my freedom, read books, drink coffee, wander around temples, and pretend that I was Scarlett Johanson in Lost in Translation, because my hair now looks just like hers did then. I`d be at one with Buddhism and Shintoism and go shopping and buy pretty things and listen to my iPod and connect with various Gods because, after all, it was just another day, wasn`t it? Just a day after the 24th of December, before the 26th, at the end of 2010, and I wasn`t even Christian. I was whatever I felt like that day, and everything else was nostalgia and the trickery of irrational emotions. My heart making no sense at all against the logic of a brain that told me that Christmas didn`t matter because it was a day like every other.
It did matter. If I`ve been quiet for the last two weeks, it`s because my heart and my head have been at war again; because every time I sat down to write this blog all I could write was I don`t want to be alone at Christmas. Five drafted blog entries that start with I don`t want to be alone at Christmas. And because I knew that I couldn`t start every blog for two weeks with I don`t want to be alone at Christmas, and because that was all my heart was saying, and because my brain couldn`t talk loudly enough to cover it up, I wrote nothing. And I tried to think nothing. I got on the plane, thinking as little as I could, and I fought with myself for the whole weekend.
Look at that lovely temple, I told myself fiercely; isn`t it beautiful? Isn`t it a once in a lifetime experience?
It`s Christmas. I want to go home.
Don`t be silly. Look at the red leaves on that tree - take a picture to bore other people with for years to come.
I don`t care about leaves. I want to go home.
Come on. You are lucky to be here. So many would kill for this.
I`m lonely.
You`re not; you`re independent.
I`m sick of being independent. I`m lonely. I miss my family. I miss my ex boyfriend. I miss being loved. I miss loving. I miss love. I don`t want to be on my own anymore.
And everywhere was full of love. Everywhere I looked was bursting at the seams with it. Couples, touching hands on the edges of lakes; little kisses, little presents, little hairs moved away from eyes. Tiny children squealing because their father was pretending to drop them, the way I squealed when my father pretended to drop me. Conversations that only two people understood: looks that only two people could see. And I didn`t feel reassured by it, or wrapped in it; I felt outside of it; as if every single touch, and look, and word, was building a fence around something I couldn`t be part of. And it didn`t matter how much mochi I made, or how many Geishas I saw, or how many temples I walked around at fell asleep next to: it wasn`t Christmas for me. It couldn`t be, when I was all I had.
I walked through too many Christmases this weekend. There was no Kyoto, no matter what the roadsigns said. I walked through the Christmases of when I was tiny and lay awake, heart pounding because I was scared of Santa, and the Christmases where we all clambered into bed together - my sister, my mum, my dad and me - and the Christmases where we`d go through each present one by one, and open them at the same time. I went through the Christmases where we all got drunk together - all 14 of my family - and the Christmas last year where I took the boy I loved on his first ever rollercoaster because I didn`t want him to be scared of them anymore, and he didn`t take me anywhere to help me not be scared of my love for him anymore. I walked through all of the Christmases and all of the love, and they lay behind me like a long path I wanted to be on, and Kyoto wasn`t there. It was just me, alone with the past and the love I wanted.
Still want.
There are little bits of paper all over Kyoto; little bits of paper in stars and hearts and circles, tied to things and stuck to things and written all over. And they are wishes. Thousands and thousands of wishes and dreams, stuck to the fences and tied to the trees of Kyoto. And some of them are now mine.
And this was what I wrote on Christmas day: I don`t want to be alone anymore. A dozen pieces of paper in Japan, all saying what I was too scared to write here. I don`t want to be alone. Not at Christmas, and not at all. I want somebody to brush the hair away from my face; I want to wake up to see the face of somebody who wakes up to see the face of me. I want to pick up a child and make them squeal because they love me; I want to feel that squeal as mine. I want those gestures: the fingers touching, the jokes I understand. I want somebody to love me enough to take me on a rollercoaster because they know I`m scared. I want my family.
I won`t be spending Christmas alone again; wherever I am in the world, I`ll go home. I don`t want loneliness. Because it`s not independence, no matter how many times I chant it in my head; it`s just shutting yourself outside the gates of other people`s love, because you`re too scared to ask to come in. Because it`s a rollercoaster you`re scared to get on, and there`s nobody who cares enough to help you. Nobody to hold your hand when you`re frightened of getting close to anyone. Nobody to hold your hand to keep you there when you do.
This weekend was a weekend of firsts, in many ways. And as great as it was, I hope that it was also a weekend of lasts. That next Christmas, it`s different.
And with every piece of paper I have, I am making the wish that this will be the very last year I have to end on my own.
It`s the first time I`ve ever been to Kyoto; the first time I`ve ever seen the Golden Temple: the first time I`ve ever seen a real Geisha (but not the first time I`ve forgotten my camera at the exact moment I need it most). This weekend was the first time I`ve ever helped to make mochi; the first time I`ve ever witnessed the incredible politeness and accurateness of a Japanese internal flight (in approximately twelve minutes we will be experiencing turbulance, and we are very sorry for this); the first time I`ve fallen asleep next to a shrine (it was at the top of a really big mountain). It was the first time I`ve ever started doing a little embroidery in the middle of a pizza restaurant - and the first time I`ve really realised how weird I can sometimes be - and the first time I`ve ever ordered a two pint glass of beer by myself and gotten drunk with nobody to make it socially acceptable. It was the first time I have ever had a long Japanese conversation with a stranger, and the first time that when a stranger congratulated me on my language skills, I felt I deserved it. It was the first holiday I`ve ever been on and not lost my camera, and the first winter weekend where I haven`t bought and lost a pair of gloves. This time I only lost one.
It was also the first Christmas I have ever spent on my own.
I thought it would be okay. In fact, I thought it would be great. I would take my savings - most of them, thanks to the expense of Japan and the goddamn neverending purchase of gloves - and fly to Kyoto: luxuriate in my freedom, read books, drink coffee, wander around temples, and pretend that I was Scarlett Johanson in Lost in Translation, because my hair now looks just like hers did then. I`d be at one with Buddhism and Shintoism and go shopping and buy pretty things and listen to my iPod and connect with various Gods because, after all, it was just another day, wasn`t it? Just a day after the 24th of December, before the 26th, at the end of 2010, and I wasn`t even Christian. I was whatever I felt like that day, and everything else was nostalgia and the trickery of irrational emotions. My heart making no sense at all against the logic of a brain that told me that Christmas didn`t matter because it was a day like every other.
It did matter. If I`ve been quiet for the last two weeks, it`s because my heart and my head have been at war again; because every time I sat down to write this blog all I could write was I don`t want to be alone at Christmas. Five drafted blog entries that start with I don`t want to be alone at Christmas. And because I knew that I couldn`t start every blog for two weeks with I don`t want to be alone at Christmas, and because that was all my heart was saying, and because my brain couldn`t talk loudly enough to cover it up, I wrote nothing. And I tried to think nothing. I got on the plane, thinking as little as I could, and I fought with myself for the whole weekend.
Look at that lovely temple, I told myself fiercely; isn`t it beautiful? Isn`t it a once in a lifetime experience?
It`s Christmas. I want to go home.
Don`t be silly. Look at the red leaves on that tree - take a picture to bore other people with for years to come.
I don`t care about leaves. I want to go home.
Come on. You are lucky to be here. So many would kill for this.
I`m lonely.
You`re not; you`re independent.
I`m sick of being independent. I`m lonely. I miss my family. I miss my ex boyfriend. I miss being loved. I miss loving. I miss love. I don`t want to be on my own anymore.
And everywhere was full of love. Everywhere I looked was bursting at the seams with it. Couples, touching hands on the edges of lakes; little kisses, little presents, little hairs moved away from eyes. Tiny children squealing because their father was pretending to drop them, the way I squealed when my father pretended to drop me. Conversations that only two people understood: looks that only two people could see. And I didn`t feel reassured by it, or wrapped in it; I felt outside of it; as if every single touch, and look, and word, was building a fence around something I couldn`t be part of. And it didn`t matter how much mochi I made, or how many Geishas I saw, or how many temples I walked around at fell asleep next to: it wasn`t Christmas for me. It couldn`t be, when I was all I had.
I walked through too many Christmases this weekend. There was no Kyoto, no matter what the roadsigns said. I walked through the Christmases of when I was tiny and lay awake, heart pounding because I was scared of Santa, and the Christmases where we all clambered into bed together - my sister, my mum, my dad and me - and the Christmases where we`d go through each present one by one, and open them at the same time. I went through the Christmases where we all got drunk together - all 14 of my family - and the Christmas last year where I took the boy I loved on his first ever rollercoaster because I didn`t want him to be scared of them anymore, and he didn`t take me anywhere to help me not be scared of my love for him anymore. I walked through all of the Christmases and all of the love, and they lay behind me like a long path I wanted to be on, and Kyoto wasn`t there. It was just me, alone with the past and the love I wanted.
Still want.
There are little bits of paper all over Kyoto; little bits of paper in stars and hearts and circles, tied to things and stuck to things and written all over. And they are wishes. Thousands and thousands of wishes and dreams, stuck to the fences and tied to the trees of Kyoto. And some of them are now mine.
And this was what I wrote on Christmas day: I don`t want to be alone anymore. A dozen pieces of paper in Japan, all saying what I was too scared to write here. I don`t want to be alone. Not at Christmas, and not at all. I want somebody to brush the hair away from my face; I want to wake up to see the face of somebody who wakes up to see the face of me. I want to pick up a child and make them squeal because they love me; I want to feel that squeal as mine. I want those gestures: the fingers touching, the jokes I understand. I want somebody to love me enough to take me on a rollercoaster because they know I`m scared. I want my family.
I won`t be spending Christmas alone again; wherever I am in the world, I`ll go home. I don`t want loneliness. Because it`s not independence, no matter how many times I chant it in my head; it`s just shutting yourself outside the gates of other people`s love, because you`re too scared to ask to come in. Because it`s a rollercoaster you`re scared to get on, and there`s nobody who cares enough to help you. Nobody to hold your hand when you`re frightened of getting close to anyone. Nobody to hold your hand to keep you there when you do.
This weekend was a weekend of firsts, in many ways. And as great as it was, I hope that it was also a weekend of lasts. That next Christmas, it`s different.
And with every piece of paper I have, I am making the wish that this will be the very last year I have to end on my own.
Monday, 20 December 2010
Gyu
Sometimes irony arrives as a gentle nudge; an elbow in the ribs and a subtle wink, like a friend down the pub. And sometimes it`s more like a red hot poker poked inserted straight into the middle of your face, or somewhere less prominent, by somebody who doesn`t like you very much. And pimping your own toilet only to contract a nasty bout of stomach flu the next day is probably the latter.
That is where I`ve been for the last ten days. In my pimped up toilet, sitting on my new fluffy rug, vomiting into my nice heated toilet and making the most of the toilet roll that the handsome man forced into a two-trip outing. And writing anything - blogs, books, emails, shopping lists - was pushed way down the list: somewhere underneath keeping down a bowl of rice and actually paying my health insurance so that I could go to the doctor. And cleaning my apartment, before the rats ate me.
I didn`t make it to the doctor (I spent all my money on re-pimping), and the rats didn`t get a nibble but a possum nearly did (I left a French window open and it wandered into my bedroom), but today the worst seems to have past. Apart from lingering nausea and total and utter exhaustion, I`ve made it to 1pm without event, and that`s the best I`ve done in ten days.
More importantly, my awful sense of humour has come back (it left somewhere between the second and third day, or round about the third bleary eyed reading of the manga comic in my loo I don`t even vaguely understand because the only hiragana and katakana I can read are a e i o u and they have yet to write a story that only features vowels).
And my humour, as humour tends to, made the most inappropriate return possible.
Every lunchtime, each class Jankens each other for a remaining carton of milk (plays Rock Scissors Paper, which is actually a Japanese game). The chant begins "Saishou gu" - which means: first the rock. Except that the word for milk in Japanese is gyu. And I`m nothing if not a total geek for word play. I have a qualification in Shakespeare, and he was the Emporer of it.
"You should say Saishou gyu," I told a group of twelve frantically competing ten year old boys.
"Eh?" they said with slight irritation. I`d broken the rhythm of the game, so keen I was to interrupt with my brand new pun.
"Saishou gyu. You should say saishou gyu."
"But it`s saishou gu," one of them said in confusion over his shoulder. Stupid foreigner hung unspoken.
"Yes, but gyu. It means milk. Gyu?" I wasn`t going to let it go, and started pointing frantically to the carton. "Saishou gyu? Instead of saishou gu? Like, meaning: first the milk?"
Nine eyebrows lifted, and one politely nodded to show that he had understood that I was attempting to be funny.
I, on the other hand, collapsed into a fit of tired, considerably skinnier giggles.
"Saishou gyu," I muttered to myself. "Saishou gyu." And then took myself to the staffroom, where my colleagues treated me to exactly the same reaction ("English humour").
Ten days spent running in and out of the toilet, and I`m slightly insane with tiredness. But with one little terrible, terrible joke, I think I`ve started to claw my way back to the world of normal people again.
And as lovely as my toilet is, I think - after ten days of solid consideration - I definitely prefer being on the outside.
That is where I`ve been for the last ten days. In my pimped up toilet, sitting on my new fluffy rug, vomiting into my nice heated toilet and making the most of the toilet roll that the handsome man forced into a two-trip outing. And writing anything - blogs, books, emails, shopping lists - was pushed way down the list: somewhere underneath keeping down a bowl of rice and actually paying my health insurance so that I could go to the doctor. And cleaning my apartment, before the rats ate me.
I didn`t make it to the doctor (I spent all my money on re-pimping), and the rats didn`t get a nibble but a possum nearly did (I left a French window open and it wandered into my bedroom), but today the worst seems to have past. Apart from lingering nausea and total and utter exhaustion, I`ve made it to 1pm without event, and that`s the best I`ve done in ten days.
More importantly, my awful sense of humour has come back (it left somewhere between the second and third day, or round about the third bleary eyed reading of the manga comic in my loo I don`t even vaguely understand because the only hiragana and katakana I can read are a e i o u and they have yet to write a story that only features vowels).
And my humour, as humour tends to, made the most inappropriate return possible.
Every lunchtime, each class Jankens each other for a remaining carton of milk (plays Rock Scissors Paper, which is actually a Japanese game). The chant begins "Saishou gu" - which means: first the rock. Except that the word for milk in Japanese is gyu. And I`m nothing if not a total geek for word play. I have a qualification in Shakespeare, and he was the Emporer of it.
"You should say Saishou gyu," I told a group of twelve frantically competing ten year old boys.
"Eh?" they said with slight irritation. I`d broken the rhythm of the game, so keen I was to interrupt with my brand new pun.
"Saishou gyu. You should say saishou gyu."
"But it`s saishou gu," one of them said in confusion over his shoulder. Stupid foreigner hung unspoken.
"Yes, but gyu. It means milk. Gyu?" I wasn`t going to let it go, and started pointing frantically to the carton. "Saishou gyu? Instead of saishou gu? Like, meaning: first the milk?"
Nine eyebrows lifted, and one politely nodded to show that he had understood that I was attempting to be funny.
I, on the other hand, collapsed into a fit of tired, considerably skinnier giggles.
"Saishou gyu," I muttered to myself. "Saishou gyu." And then took myself to the staffroom, where my colleagues treated me to exactly the same reaction ("English humour").
Ten days spent running in and out of the toilet, and I`m slightly insane with tiredness. But with one little terrible, terrible joke, I think I`ve started to claw my way back to the world of normal people again.
And as lovely as my toilet is, I think - after ten days of solid consideration - I definitely prefer being on the outside.
Thursday, 9 December 2010
Loo
For those who assume that living in a different country can't change you: you're wrong.
None of us are set in stone. Not our personalities, not our ways of thinking, not our habits, not the sounds we make or the things we like or the way we behave. We're like those little plasticine machines I played with as a child. Push a piece through the star shaped hole, you'll get a star. Push a piece through the triangle shaped hole, you'll get a triangle. And take a piece of plasticine of any shape - however old - warm it up a bit, push it through a different hole, and it'll become a different shape. We're only what we are because of the holes we were pushed through when we were still soft, and we only stay that way because we've hardened up a little and nobody has pushed us through a different one.
I think it's safe to say I've now been pushed through another hole entirely.
After three months here, I was an English girl watching Japan from far, far away, from inside a little foreign bubble. Six months broke the bubble: nine months forced me to step nervously outside of it. A year, and everything around me suddenly felt normal. Sixteen months, which is where I am now, and not only does it feel like home, but I'm actually starting to behave Japanese. I've started wearing sunblock every day, because I want - yet barely realise why I want it - pale, undamaged, younger looking skin. I look for whitening agents in my moisturiser because the thought of a tan is now repulsive. My make-up has subtly changed to make me more doll-like. I genuinely like cute things: or, perhaps I should say, I get it. I understand why you'd want a tiny duck or panda hanging off your phone, or your bag, or your wallet, or your scooter, and I have a range of small fluffy things attached to all of the above. My coat is baby pink. Baby pink. I think nothing of wearing clothes that have diamonte stitched onto them, or of slamming on a pink dress over Union Jack tights with grey leg warmers and a green scarf. It's an aesthetic free for all, here, and I now judge things by how kawaaaiiiii (cute) they are, instead of how edgy or cool. I'm even much, much quieter: I speak more softly, I'm more reserved, and I no longer feel the need to dance on tables or get so drunk I vomit on myself (although this may just be a result of increased age, rather than cultural expectations).
Even more strangely, the sounds I make have changed. Japanese has actually become a part of my instinctive, unconscious noises: when I'm jealous I'll say "eeenaa," (casually, I envy you) when I'm surprised I'll say "eeeeehhhhh?", when I'm agreeing or listening I'll make an "ur-ur-ur" sound instead of "mmm, mmm" and when I'm holding a hot cup of tea, instead of saying "ow ow ow ow" or "ch ch ch ch" which are variations of English expressions of pain, I'll say "t-t-t-t-t-t" which is an abbreviation of the Japanese word for 'it hurts': "itai". The food I crave is different: a bowl of rice on its own seems totally sensible. I get angry if I haven't had a cup of green tea all day, and the taste of sesame - unknown in Welwyn Garden City, unless you eat Sesame Snaps (and nobody does) - is daily and as familiar as cheese used to be to me. Buying stewed tofu and fish sausage and yam and noodles that have been sitting in hot flavoured water in the middle of a convenience store for a couple of days, being prodded at by old men, is a delicious treat. When I get a bowl of Japanese vegetables that 18 months ago I had never seen before, I get busy with my chopsticks as if I was born in the back of a truck in the middle of a field somewhere. Knives and forks are unusual and unnecessary, for the most part, and while I still don't like Japanese music (at all) I don't laugh or cringe when I hear it anymore, which I think is all Japan is going to ever get out of me.
It was only this evening, however, when I was on my knees, pimping up my own toilet, that I realised exactly how bad it had got.
Pimping up my own toilet.
Not decorating the bathroom. Not giving the powder room a makeover. No, I was fancying up the actual loo itself: giving it a fluffy purple seat cover, two long, pink fluffy stickers on the seat (to make it snuggly because, as the packet said, I deserve good sitting!), and arranging a nice stripy mat underneath it. I stuck a plastic detergent filled flower to the little tap that comes out of the cistern, and a sticker of a cartoon rabbit on the inside of the loo seat, so it looks nice when left up. None of this stuff, incidentally, I sourced for myself: there's an entire toilet pimping section in the local 100 yen store. And, on my way to finally buy toilet rolls, I thought: now, why does my toilet not have a fluffy seat like the ones at school? Is my toilet not as worthy as those toilets? Is that part of my house not worth 500 yen (3 quid) to make it cute? And I realised that my whole mindset had changed: where in England the loo was to be paid as little attention as possible - to be ostricised from general makeovers and ignored unless in use - the Japanese idea of making it the heart of the home (a place with its own soundtrack, and buttons to press, and heated seat, and own electricity supply) was suddenly far more logical. Frankly, I only resisted the fluffy toilet roll holder because I realised I had accidentally bought kitchen towels and they wouldn't fit.
It could bother me, of course, that I started off as one shape of plasticine and I'm gradually being forced into another. It could bother me that it was so easy to change me: could bother me that my identity - or whatever it is you call the parts of us that are set - is still so soft. But it's actually a beautiful thing: realising that who you think you are is all in your head. That the way you think and behave - even the noises you make - are all simply because of the shape you got pushed through when you were little, and you can change them so easily. Because it means that you can be anyone. And it means that you can move through the world and change with it, instead of forcing through it like a bullet. And it means that you can be whatever shape you want to be.
I doubt it will last when I leave Japan - I can't imagine pimping a toilet anywhere else in the world - but here? It's my home, and it's my toilet.
And they're both now entirely Japanese.
None of us are set in stone. Not our personalities, not our ways of thinking, not our habits, not the sounds we make or the things we like or the way we behave. We're like those little plasticine machines I played with as a child. Push a piece through the star shaped hole, you'll get a star. Push a piece through the triangle shaped hole, you'll get a triangle. And take a piece of plasticine of any shape - however old - warm it up a bit, push it through a different hole, and it'll become a different shape. We're only what we are because of the holes we were pushed through when we were still soft, and we only stay that way because we've hardened up a little and nobody has pushed us through a different one.
I think it's safe to say I've now been pushed through another hole entirely.
After three months here, I was an English girl watching Japan from far, far away, from inside a little foreign bubble. Six months broke the bubble: nine months forced me to step nervously outside of it. A year, and everything around me suddenly felt normal. Sixteen months, which is where I am now, and not only does it feel like home, but I'm actually starting to behave Japanese. I've started wearing sunblock every day, because I want - yet barely realise why I want it - pale, undamaged, younger looking skin. I look for whitening agents in my moisturiser because the thought of a tan is now repulsive. My make-up has subtly changed to make me more doll-like. I genuinely like cute things: or, perhaps I should say, I get it. I understand why you'd want a tiny duck or panda hanging off your phone, or your bag, or your wallet, or your scooter, and I have a range of small fluffy things attached to all of the above. My coat is baby pink. Baby pink. I think nothing of wearing clothes that have diamonte stitched onto them, or of slamming on a pink dress over Union Jack tights with grey leg warmers and a green scarf. It's an aesthetic free for all, here, and I now judge things by how kawaaaiiiii (cute) they are, instead of how edgy or cool. I'm even much, much quieter: I speak more softly, I'm more reserved, and I no longer feel the need to dance on tables or get so drunk I vomit on myself (although this may just be a result of increased age, rather than cultural expectations).
Even more strangely, the sounds I make have changed. Japanese has actually become a part of my instinctive, unconscious noises: when I'm jealous I'll say "eeenaa," (casually, I envy you) when I'm surprised I'll say "eeeeehhhhh?", when I'm agreeing or listening I'll make an "ur-ur-ur" sound instead of "mmm, mmm" and when I'm holding a hot cup of tea, instead of saying "ow ow ow ow" or "ch ch ch ch" which are variations of English expressions of pain, I'll say "t-t-t-t-t-t" which is an abbreviation of the Japanese word for 'it hurts': "itai". The food I crave is different: a bowl of rice on its own seems totally sensible. I get angry if I haven't had a cup of green tea all day, and the taste of sesame - unknown in Welwyn Garden City, unless you eat Sesame Snaps (and nobody does) - is daily and as familiar as cheese used to be to me. Buying stewed tofu and fish sausage and yam and noodles that have been sitting in hot flavoured water in the middle of a convenience store for a couple of days, being prodded at by old men, is a delicious treat. When I get a bowl of Japanese vegetables that 18 months ago I had never seen before, I get busy with my chopsticks as if I was born in the back of a truck in the middle of a field somewhere. Knives and forks are unusual and unnecessary, for the most part, and while I still don't like Japanese music (at all) I don't laugh or cringe when I hear it anymore, which I think is all Japan is going to ever get out of me.
It was only this evening, however, when I was on my knees, pimping up my own toilet, that I realised exactly how bad it had got.
Pimping up my own toilet.
Not decorating the bathroom. Not giving the powder room a makeover. No, I was fancying up the actual loo itself: giving it a fluffy purple seat cover, two long, pink fluffy stickers on the seat (to make it snuggly because, as the packet said, I deserve good sitting!), and arranging a nice stripy mat underneath it. I stuck a plastic detergent filled flower to the little tap that comes out of the cistern, and a sticker of a cartoon rabbit on the inside of the loo seat, so it looks nice when left up. None of this stuff, incidentally, I sourced for myself: there's an entire toilet pimping section in the local 100 yen store. And, on my way to finally buy toilet rolls, I thought: now, why does my toilet not have a fluffy seat like the ones at school? Is my toilet not as worthy as those toilets? Is that part of my house not worth 500 yen (3 quid) to make it cute? And I realised that my whole mindset had changed: where in England the loo was to be paid as little attention as possible - to be ostricised from general makeovers and ignored unless in use - the Japanese idea of making it the heart of the home (a place with its own soundtrack, and buttons to press, and heated seat, and own electricity supply) was suddenly far more logical. Frankly, I only resisted the fluffy toilet roll holder because I realised I had accidentally bought kitchen towels and they wouldn't fit.
It could bother me, of course, that I started off as one shape of plasticine and I'm gradually being forced into another. It could bother me that it was so easy to change me: could bother me that my identity - or whatever it is you call the parts of us that are set - is still so soft. But it's actually a beautiful thing: realising that who you think you are is all in your head. That the way you think and behave - even the noises you make - are all simply because of the shape you got pushed through when you were little, and you can change them so easily. Because it means that you can be anyone. And it means that you can move through the world and change with it, instead of forcing through it like a bullet. And it means that you can be whatever shape you want to be.
I doubt it will last when I leave Japan - I can't imagine pimping a toilet anywhere else in the world - but here? It's my home, and it's my toilet.
And they're both now entirely Japanese.
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
29
"29," Harai said this morning. Not good morning, not how are you, not you look nice today. "29." And then: "Why are you smiling?"
"Because it's my 29th birthday."
"You should not be smiling."
"But I love birthdays."
"At your age, you're not supposed to be happy about them."
"Why not?"
"Because every year you are getting older."
"But, Harai," I pointed out, handing him a birthday doughnut, "I am also getting cleverer, happier and richer. And that totally cancels out the old part."
He scowled at me.
"You're just like Princess Diana," he told me: "she said that too." Which temporarily wiped the smile off my face.
In 29 years, I have never had a better birthday. I woke up to my family, which I haven't done since I was a child: spoke to my sister and her brand new puppy and my dad on webcam, and my mum via dad's mobile phone held up to the microphone, all while lying in bed under the duvet. I ate chocolate for breakfast. I opened presents and chucked the wrapping all over my bed. I thanked my dad for my imaginary Olympus camera, which has yet to turn up. And then I took myself to school, gatecrashed the Kindergarten with a bag of candy and got more love and cuteness than any 29 year old can possibly handle: 36 five year olds, standing neatly with their hands together (and sometimes smacking each other, which added to the performance) and singing/shouting "Happy Birthday" in broken English. They then threw themselves at me and covered me in "I love you"s and "Happy birthday"s and "I want a cuddle"s and "Holly Sensei, I saw an elephant on the television and it was grey and pooing"s until I couldn't move or breathe without a kiss being enthusiastically planted on an area of my face or hands.
My favourite 13 year old student made me a card, perfectly written in English, telling me that "you make me so happy when you speak to me," and gave me a little heart keyring. A gaggle of ten year olds all drew identical pictures of me as a yellow haired manga standing next to huge amounts of cake and then clustered around the staff room because they were too embarrassed to give me them. A member of staff I have never spoken to found out it was my birthday and went to the shops at lunch to buy me a cake. And all day long, my friends from all over the world sent me messages.
This evening, I met with ten of my closest friends for dinner, and didn't stop laughing: was showered with the most thoughtful, beautiful, amazing gifts. Harai bought me a little music box that plays the one Japanese song I can sing; Shin and Miyuki bought me a little gothic doll and a tripod for my imaginary camera; Naho and Julian bought me an incredible handbag to replace the piece of crap I carry around at the moment. Yuki baked me a cake without egg in it, because I hate cake. Yoshiko bought me a box of cheese, because I love cheese. And they all gave them with so many cheers, and so much enthusiasm, that my cheeks hurt. And then they paid for my dinner.
I'm 29 today, and yes: I'm older. I have one year left until I'm thirty, and in the race of life I'm many, many laps behind where I probably should be. But I don't care. It was the best birthday I've ever had, and I was just where I wanted to be: albeit, without the family I wish could have shared it with me.
Cleverer, happier and richer. As far as cards go, they trump older any day. And if my 29th year continues the way it started, it's going to be a very good one.
And I cannot wait.
"Because it's my 29th birthday."
"You should not be smiling."
"But I love birthdays."
"At your age, you're not supposed to be happy about them."
"Why not?"
"Because every year you are getting older."
"But, Harai," I pointed out, handing him a birthday doughnut, "I am also getting cleverer, happier and richer. And that totally cancels out the old part."
He scowled at me.
"You're just like Princess Diana," he told me: "she said that too." Which temporarily wiped the smile off my face.
In 29 years, I have never had a better birthday. I woke up to my family, which I haven't done since I was a child: spoke to my sister and her brand new puppy and my dad on webcam, and my mum via dad's mobile phone held up to the microphone, all while lying in bed under the duvet. I ate chocolate for breakfast. I opened presents and chucked the wrapping all over my bed. I thanked my dad for my imaginary Olympus camera, which has yet to turn up. And then I took myself to school, gatecrashed the Kindergarten with a bag of candy and got more love and cuteness than any 29 year old can possibly handle: 36 five year olds, standing neatly with their hands together (and sometimes smacking each other, which added to the performance) and singing/shouting "Happy Birthday" in broken English. They then threw themselves at me and covered me in "I love you"s and "Happy birthday"s and "I want a cuddle"s and "Holly Sensei, I saw an elephant on the television and it was grey and pooing"s until I couldn't move or breathe without a kiss being enthusiastically planted on an area of my face or hands.
My favourite 13 year old student made me a card, perfectly written in English, telling me that "you make me so happy when you speak to me," and gave me a little heart keyring. A gaggle of ten year olds all drew identical pictures of me as a yellow haired manga standing next to huge amounts of cake and then clustered around the staff room because they were too embarrassed to give me them. A member of staff I have never spoken to found out it was my birthday and went to the shops at lunch to buy me a cake. And all day long, my friends from all over the world sent me messages.
This evening, I met with ten of my closest friends for dinner, and didn't stop laughing: was showered with the most thoughtful, beautiful, amazing gifts. Harai bought me a little music box that plays the one Japanese song I can sing; Shin and Miyuki bought me a little gothic doll and a tripod for my imaginary camera; Naho and Julian bought me an incredible handbag to replace the piece of crap I carry around at the moment. Yuki baked me a cake without egg in it, because I hate cake. Yoshiko bought me a box of cheese, because I love cheese. And they all gave them with so many cheers, and so much enthusiasm, that my cheeks hurt. And then they paid for my dinner.
I'm 29 today, and yes: I'm older. I have one year left until I'm thirty, and in the race of life I'm many, many laps behind where I probably should be. But I don't care. It was the best birthday I've ever had, and I was just where I wanted to be: albeit, without the family I wish could have shared it with me.
Cleverer, happier and richer. As far as cards go, they trump older any day. And if my 29th year continues the way it started, it's going to be a very good one.
And I cannot wait.
Sunday, 5 December 2010
Red cheeks
I'm all better again, by which I mean: I'm back to being totally crap.
For nearly two years, only one man has existed for me. From the first minute (I was in love almost straight away) to long, long after I should have stopped, he was the only man I romantically cared about. Celebrities were of no interest. Male models were of no interest. When friends waxed lyrical about the various attractions of men on the street, it was as if they were invisible to me: I barely registered them as male, let alone desirable. When I read books, each romantic lead - no matter what the author told me they looked like - morphed into Him. When I watched films, I despaired at how dissimilar the heroes were, and how much of a mistake the director had made in not casting The Boy, or at least someone who looked vaguely like him. I congratulated myself daily on the fact that the most beautiful man in the world said he loved me, and showed pictures of the most beautiful man in the world to my friends and family on a minutely basis, so that they could confirm how lucky I was (they did: he was and is extraordinarily, almost surreally, handsome). No other man existed, as far as I was concerned: I was the cat with the cream, and I wasn't interested in milk anymore. So I was unbelievably hurt when he noticed other girls: not least because I didn't understand how the romantic and sexual world hadn't shrunk for him as it had for me.
Now that I'm healed - his looks haven't faded in my memory, but his goodness and kindness have and so his beauty is less - the world has suddenly opened up again. And I'm back to being absolutely ill equipped to deal with it, because I just spent fifteen minutes catapulting myself around a huge pharmacy, playing accidental hide and seek with a very good looking man.
Japanese men are gorgeous. Not all Japanese men, obviously: there are varieties of attractiveness as there are with any race, in any country, in any part of the world. Further, many of them are shorter than me, and a lot of Japanese men actively make themselves less attractive (in my westernized eyes) by chasing the Japanese ideal of male beauty: a feminine, soft skinned, waxed, whitened, made-up, pampered type of beauty that most Japanese women adore (all of the boy bands wear lipstick, for instance, pluck their eyebrows and spend longer on their hair than any woman I've ever seen). Those who do not, however - those who are happy to look like men, and sometimes grow facial hair, and let their hair and eyebrows roam freely, and perhaps go swimming even though it makes them browner - are often incredibly, stomach flippingly beautiful.
And when they are stomach flippingly beautiful, frankly, they should not be allowed to walk around large pharmacies, forcing unprepared and very shy girls to duck behind shelves of moisturisers and perform all sorts of embarrassing stunts so that they can hide.
It was ridiculous. In two days I'm 29, and yet I found myself focusing on the back of a packet of conditioner as he walked past, and then glancing at his retreating back only for him to turn around and look at me, causing the conditioner to become the most interesting thing I had ever read. I then ran to another aisle so he couldn't see me, and he inexplicably decided that he, too, wanted a moisturising face mask and stood next to me. I then scampered off as quickly as I could to the green tea section, and he decided that he was going to take a stroll along the aisle behind me, with his hands in his pockets. He didn't even have the kindness to openly gawp (this happens sometimes: less because I'm female, and more because I'm a different colour to everyone else), but simply glanced up now and then and continued very, very casually stalking me around the shop, like a real, proper man interested in a girl, instead of a Japanese boy intrigued by a foreigner.
Fifteen minutes, I ran away for. I couldn't even buy what I went in for, because I couldn't bring myself to buy a multipack of toilet roll in front of him. I considered making really snuffly noises so that he would assume I had a really, really bad cold, but there really is no way of buying toilet roll without conjuring up the inevitable image that you are going to be using them on the toilet, and I didn't want him to picture me anywhere near a toilet. So I simply focused very hard on innocuous, innocent things - moisturiser, tea, tofu - until he left me alone and went to the check-out. Even then, when I finally thought I was safe to enjoy looking at him and his scruffy handsomeness, when I glanced up he was still glancing at me from 50 metres away. I had to squat down under cover of needing a lip salve that was on the very bottom shelf, and stay there until he had gone.
I'm crap with the opposite sex. I always have been, and I can't see that changing, even as I head into my 30s. I'm too shy, and when I see somebody I genuinely like my immediate impulse is - and has always been, even as a little girl - to leg it, and run away as fast as I can. Combined with the fact that I'm not ready for romance yet, that I really, really don't want to be hurt again, and that I don't speak Japanese well enough to conduct any kind of relationship, and the beautiful boy was quite lucky that I didn't lock myself in the pharmacy store cupboard and refuse to come back out until the shop was closed.
I can't spend my life running away from handsome men (although in a few years I will no longer have to: they simply won't be chasing me). But, even as I was ducking behind the moisturising shelves, it felt good: to be able to see somebody else, after two years. To be embarrassed by and for somebody else. Even when it doesn't go any further than that. Just to have my world open up a little bit more. Crack by crack, and inch by inch.
While I need to be on my own for a good while longer - to really enjoy the freedom I have found - I still want the world to be as big as it can be. I still want it to be a world that makes my cheeks turn red.
And, if my game of hide and seek today is anything to go by, it's now a world that can make my stomach flip again. And that is a very, very good thing.
For nearly two years, only one man has existed for me. From the first minute (I was in love almost straight away) to long, long after I should have stopped, he was the only man I romantically cared about. Celebrities were of no interest. Male models were of no interest. When friends waxed lyrical about the various attractions of men on the street, it was as if they were invisible to me: I barely registered them as male, let alone desirable. When I read books, each romantic lead - no matter what the author told me they looked like - morphed into Him. When I watched films, I despaired at how dissimilar the heroes were, and how much of a mistake the director had made in not casting The Boy, or at least someone who looked vaguely like him. I congratulated myself daily on the fact that the most beautiful man in the world said he loved me, and showed pictures of the most beautiful man in the world to my friends and family on a minutely basis, so that they could confirm how lucky I was (they did: he was and is extraordinarily, almost surreally, handsome). No other man existed, as far as I was concerned: I was the cat with the cream, and I wasn't interested in milk anymore. So I was unbelievably hurt when he noticed other girls: not least because I didn't understand how the romantic and sexual world hadn't shrunk for him as it had for me.
Now that I'm healed - his looks haven't faded in my memory, but his goodness and kindness have and so his beauty is less - the world has suddenly opened up again. And I'm back to being absolutely ill equipped to deal with it, because I just spent fifteen minutes catapulting myself around a huge pharmacy, playing accidental hide and seek with a very good looking man.
Japanese men are gorgeous. Not all Japanese men, obviously: there are varieties of attractiveness as there are with any race, in any country, in any part of the world. Further, many of them are shorter than me, and a lot of Japanese men actively make themselves less attractive (in my westernized eyes) by chasing the Japanese ideal of male beauty: a feminine, soft skinned, waxed, whitened, made-up, pampered type of beauty that most Japanese women adore (all of the boy bands wear lipstick, for instance, pluck their eyebrows and spend longer on their hair than any woman I've ever seen). Those who do not, however - those who are happy to look like men, and sometimes grow facial hair, and let their hair and eyebrows roam freely, and perhaps go swimming even though it makes them browner - are often incredibly, stomach flippingly beautiful.
And when they are stomach flippingly beautiful, frankly, they should not be allowed to walk around large pharmacies, forcing unprepared and very shy girls to duck behind shelves of moisturisers and perform all sorts of embarrassing stunts so that they can hide.
It was ridiculous. In two days I'm 29, and yet I found myself focusing on the back of a packet of conditioner as he walked past, and then glancing at his retreating back only for him to turn around and look at me, causing the conditioner to become the most interesting thing I had ever read. I then ran to another aisle so he couldn't see me, and he inexplicably decided that he, too, wanted a moisturising face mask and stood next to me. I then scampered off as quickly as I could to the green tea section, and he decided that he was going to take a stroll along the aisle behind me, with his hands in his pockets. He didn't even have the kindness to openly gawp (this happens sometimes: less because I'm female, and more because I'm a different colour to everyone else), but simply glanced up now and then and continued very, very casually stalking me around the shop, like a real, proper man interested in a girl, instead of a Japanese boy intrigued by a foreigner.
Fifteen minutes, I ran away for. I couldn't even buy what I went in for, because I couldn't bring myself to buy a multipack of toilet roll in front of him. I considered making really snuffly noises so that he would assume I had a really, really bad cold, but there really is no way of buying toilet roll without conjuring up the inevitable image that you are going to be using them on the toilet, and I didn't want him to picture me anywhere near a toilet. So I simply focused very hard on innocuous, innocent things - moisturiser, tea, tofu - until he left me alone and went to the check-out. Even then, when I finally thought I was safe to enjoy looking at him and his scruffy handsomeness, when I glanced up he was still glancing at me from 50 metres away. I had to squat down under cover of needing a lip salve that was on the very bottom shelf, and stay there until he had gone.
I'm crap with the opposite sex. I always have been, and I can't see that changing, even as I head into my 30s. I'm too shy, and when I see somebody I genuinely like my immediate impulse is - and has always been, even as a little girl - to leg it, and run away as fast as I can. Combined with the fact that I'm not ready for romance yet, that I really, really don't want to be hurt again, and that I don't speak Japanese well enough to conduct any kind of relationship, and the beautiful boy was quite lucky that I didn't lock myself in the pharmacy store cupboard and refuse to come back out until the shop was closed.
I can't spend my life running away from handsome men (although in a few years I will no longer have to: they simply won't be chasing me). But, even as I was ducking behind the moisturising shelves, it felt good: to be able to see somebody else, after two years. To be embarrassed by and for somebody else. Even when it doesn't go any further than that. Just to have my world open up a little bit more. Crack by crack, and inch by inch.
While I need to be on my own for a good while longer - to really enjoy the freedom I have found - I still want the world to be as big as it can be. I still want it to be a world that makes my cheeks turn red.
And, if my game of hide and seek today is anything to go by, it's now a world that can make my stomach flip again. And that is a very, very good thing.
Friday, 3 December 2010
Illuminations
Romance truly comes in all shapes and sizes.
Harai has a girlfriend. He's had a girlfriend for some time, apparently. When I reprimanded him for not telling me sooner, he shrugged and said he forgot. Forgot. As if this new girlfriend was taking the rubbish out, or paying a gas bill. I told him that if he wanted to sit next to me for 40 hours a week going forwards he'd better not forget again, and he said he'd try but he couldn't promise anything because he has lots of other things to think about.
In truth, I've got friends who date so frequently, and with so little fussiness, that I have little to no real interest in who they had dinner with on Saturday: it's just another name I'll stumble over at some stage and get in trouble for not remembering. Harai is not one of these people. Each and every girl is an event and a curiosity, and I wanted to know more.
He was not forthcoming.
"What is she like?" I asked. I pulled my seat closer and blocked our part of the office, so he couldn't go anywhere.
"What?" he said uncomfortably. It's not culturally acceptable to be openly interested in the details of somebody else's life, but I'm still crashing my blazing Western path through the school.
"It's not a trick question, Harai. What is she like?"
"I don't know. Quiet."
"Don't be daft. What is she interested in? What does she like doing?"
"Nothing."
I laughed.
"She likes doing nothing?"
"Yes."
"Does she have any hobbies?"
"Yes. Her hobby is sleeping," he said solemnly.
"I don't think that body functions really count as hobbies, Harai. Especially not when you're unconscious for them."
"Also, knives and plates and forks."
"Her hobby is knives and plates and forks?"
"Yes."
"Give me something to work with here, for the love of God. Buying them? Collecting them?"
"No, looking at them. She likes looking at them."
"In museums?"
"No. In shops. Not buying. Just looking."
"Gosh. Looking at plates. And what else?"
"She likes looking at soft toys."
"How old is she, Harai?" I asked suspiciously. "Do I have to report you to the school board?"
"Twenty seven."
"Okay. That's alright then. Hobbies are looking at kitchenware and toys. And what does she look like?"
"I don't know."
"You have met her?"
"Yes."
"But you don't know? Are you dating with your eyes shut?"
"No. Normal. She's normal. Normal stature. Normal face."
"Height?"
"Normal. A little smaller than me." (Harai is five foot zero, but I let the word 'normal' slide.)
"And hair colour?"
"Black. Brown. Black. Red." Harai paused. "I don't know."
"Try and notice when you're at the restaurant tomorrow, for God's sake. And what do you talk about, you and this minx? While you're not talking about her sleeping?"
"We talk about the future."
"Ah. Hopes, dreams, ambitions?"
"No. We talk about our next date."
I laughed again.
"You spend your current date talking about what you will do on the next one?"
"Yes."
"And what else?"
"I think of three, maybe four topics, and then I explain them and she tells me her opinion."
"Like what topics?"
"For instance, the Illuminations in Miyazaki. I told her about them."
"And what was her opinion?"
"She likes Illuminations."
"Of course she does."
"Why are you laughing?"
"It just seems very... Sensible. All of it. She sounds very sweet, honestly, and I'm so sorry for laughing, but do you really like this girl, Harai? Will you get married?"
He shrugged again.
"Maybe. I like her very much. But I am a Japanese man," he explained. "This is normal. She would make a good wife."
"No doubt: she spends most of her time unconscious. I'd make a good wife if I was unconscious too. But, Harai.... What would your dream woman be like? What would she love? What would she be passionate about?"
He thought about it for a few minutes.
"Computer games," he said earnestly. "Dead Rising. Mortal Combat."
"And does your new girlfriend like computer games?"
"No," he said with incredible sadness. "Only when she is very drunk."
I laughed again and rolled my chair back so he could escape.
"Then I think you've just found your girlfriend two brand new hobbies."
Love comes in all shapes and sizes, and far be it from any of us to understand what makes each other tick: I'm sure there is much that Harai is not telling me, and a depth of emotion he is simply refusing to show. But thank God for different tastes, because if we all wanted the same thing from love, and the same thing from romance, and the same thing from each other, few of us would get it. And with all the love I see, daily, and all the love I hear of, that's clearly not the case. It seems there's plenty to go around, and more than enough for all of us.
We just need to make sure it's allocated properly.
Harai has a girlfriend. He's had a girlfriend for some time, apparently. When I reprimanded him for not telling me sooner, he shrugged and said he forgot. Forgot. As if this new girlfriend was taking the rubbish out, or paying a gas bill. I told him that if he wanted to sit next to me for 40 hours a week going forwards he'd better not forget again, and he said he'd try but he couldn't promise anything because he has lots of other things to think about.
In truth, I've got friends who date so frequently, and with so little fussiness, that I have little to no real interest in who they had dinner with on Saturday: it's just another name I'll stumble over at some stage and get in trouble for not remembering. Harai is not one of these people. Each and every girl is an event and a curiosity, and I wanted to know more.
He was not forthcoming.
"What is she like?" I asked. I pulled my seat closer and blocked our part of the office, so he couldn't go anywhere.
"What?" he said uncomfortably. It's not culturally acceptable to be openly interested in the details of somebody else's life, but I'm still crashing my blazing Western path through the school.
"It's not a trick question, Harai. What is she like?"
"I don't know. Quiet."
"Don't be daft. What is she interested in? What does she like doing?"
"Nothing."
I laughed.
"She likes doing nothing?"
"Yes."
"Does she have any hobbies?"
"Yes. Her hobby is sleeping," he said solemnly.
"I don't think that body functions really count as hobbies, Harai. Especially not when you're unconscious for them."
"Also, knives and plates and forks."
"Her hobby is knives and plates and forks?"
"Yes."
"Give me something to work with here, for the love of God. Buying them? Collecting them?"
"No, looking at them. She likes looking at them."
"In museums?"
"No. In shops. Not buying. Just looking."
"Gosh. Looking at plates. And what else?"
"She likes looking at soft toys."
"How old is she, Harai?" I asked suspiciously. "Do I have to report you to the school board?"
"Twenty seven."
"Okay. That's alright then. Hobbies are looking at kitchenware and toys. And what does she look like?"
"I don't know."
"You have met her?"
"Yes."
"But you don't know? Are you dating with your eyes shut?"
"No. Normal. She's normal. Normal stature. Normal face."
"Height?"
"Normal. A little smaller than me." (Harai is five foot zero, but I let the word 'normal' slide.)
"And hair colour?"
"Black. Brown. Black. Red." Harai paused. "I don't know."
"Try and notice when you're at the restaurant tomorrow, for God's sake. And what do you talk about, you and this minx? While you're not talking about her sleeping?"
"We talk about the future."
"Ah. Hopes, dreams, ambitions?"
"No. We talk about our next date."
I laughed again.
"You spend your current date talking about what you will do on the next one?"
"Yes."
"And what else?"
"I think of three, maybe four topics, and then I explain them and she tells me her opinion."
"Like what topics?"
"For instance, the Illuminations in Miyazaki. I told her about them."
"And what was her opinion?"
"She likes Illuminations."
"Of course she does."
"Why are you laughing?"
"It just seems very... Sensible. All of it. She sounds very sweet, honestly, and I'm so sorry for laughing, but do you really like this girl, Harai? Will you get married?"
He shrugged again.
"Maybe. I like her very much. But I am a Japanese man," he explained. "This is normal. She would make a good wife."
"No doubt: she spends most of her time unconscious. I'd make a good wife if I was unconscious too. But, Harai.... What would your dream woman be like? What would she love? What would she be passionate about?"
He thought about it for a few minutes.
"Computer games," he said earnestly. "Dead Rising. Mortal Combat."
"And does your new girlfriend like computer games?"
"No," he said with incredible sadness. "Only when she is very drunk."
I laughed again and rolled my chair back so he could escape.
"Then I think you've just found your girlfriend two brand new hobbies."
Love comes in all shapes and sizes, and far be it from any of us to understand what makes each other tick: I'm sure there is much that Harai is not telling me, and a depth of emotion he is simply refusing to show. But thank God for different tastes, because if we all wanted the same thing from love, and the same thing from romance, and the same thing from each other, few of us would get it. And with all the love I see, daily, and all the love I hear of, that's clearly not the case. It seems there's plenty to go around, and more than enough for all of us.
We just need to make sure it's allocated properly.
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
Decking the halls
Christmas is coming, and the KFC chicken nuggets are getting fat, because they don`t eat turkey in Japan and my 25 year old Japanese friend has never seen a whole dead chicken before because they don`t sell them here.
For a country with no Christian background and only 0.5% Christian population, Japan certainly enjoys Christmas. While many Japanese people may not know what it is, or why they`re celebrating, or who Christ is or what he apparently did, they still enjoy a nice tree and some decorations and a few good presents. And why not? A lot of England is no longer practicing Christianity either, and yet we`re all still happy to claim a festival that gives us something to do in the darkest, coldest months of the year. Probably because it was a pagan festival long before it was ever Christmas, and Pope Julius I allocated Christ`s birthday to the date it currently is simply so that the transition would be easier for pagan Romans, who still wanted to eat and party at the end of December even if they were being forced to worship something else. Because, let`s face it: otherwise December would be absolutely sodding unbearable.
Jesus, for the record - according to the Bible - was born in September. You think any wise men would have been in a field watching sheep in the middle of winter?
Thus because they therefore have as much right to it as we do, Christmas in Japan is well underway. Lights are up as only the Japanese can do it: covering every inch of space, in Hello Kitty shapes and Donald Duck shapes and AnPanMan shapes and - surreally - a five foot glow in the dark giraffe. Western Christmas music is playing in every convenience store, every supermarket, every restaurant. Violin versions of Jingle Bells are filtering gently through the local onsen (replacing violin versions of The Carpenters, which is nice, because one should not ever have to listen to Close to you while naked and surrounded by naked old ladies). And all of the merchandise in the shops is Christmas themed. And I mean all of it. In a country where everything is seasonal, and the changeover is so fast that you can`t afford to get attached to anything, every product currently embraces the Christmas spirit. Coffee has little wreaths on the wrapping; chocolate has holly all over it (in more than one way); icecream is decorated with snowflakes. For a month or two every year, you can`t eat or drink anything without knowing that Christmas is just around the corner (and then, on Christmas day, KFC has lines outside it, because it`s chicken and The Colonal has a white beard and a red outfit and looks a bit like the pervy younger brother of Santa).
Japanese children love Christmas, obviously, but they always seem a little wistful, because it`s not a family holiday here: it`s a couple`s holiday. Cards have couples kissing on them; Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse rub noses in public as often as possible, wearing red and white costumes (despite living in different houses, as I discovered at Tokyo Disneyland last Christmas, so it`s clearly all for show, or maybe they`re just like my parents). Loved up couples walk hand in hand down fairy-lit paths that have been fairy-lit especially for loved up couples to walk down, and restaurants are full of tables for two. So, while the children are obviously extremely keen on all the lights and presents, they don`t really get to be as much a part of the celebrations as they do in the West.
Unless they`re my children, that is. I went out last night and bought a little Christmas tree, and as much tinsel and glitter and holly as I could find and decorated my classroom. I bought sweets and filled a sack with them, and sprayed fake snow all over the windows. I put a Christmas cd on, and filled the air with the smell of... well, whatever the Christmas candle smells of. And every single child that walks past makes "oooh" and "aaaah" sounds, and presses their little face up against the window like a tiny oriental Oliver Twist. Which means that I`m going to keep decorating until it`s a grotto, because I want to give all of my kids a little, tiny feeling of the way I used to feel at Christmas time and still feel: a little bit sick with happiness and magic and excitement.
Harai is providing the necessary male reluctance and confusion by sitting in the corner and taking 25 minutes to string one bauble, before announcing that he`s tired and it`s difficult and then lying down on the floor.
For me, the trappings of Christmas still work. I don`t know if this is normal for an adult, but my heart still flips when I see a Christmas tree. When I hear Christmas songs, I`m immediately happy. Christmas lights get me excited (all year round, actually). It`s like in Brave New World where the babies are trained to respond to stimuli: just one fairy light, just one line of We Wish You A Merry Christmas, just one snowflake, and I`m filled with cosy wellbeing and a desire to tell people I love them and eat chocolate. Even more so than normal.
What is strange, though, is that with age I`ve discovered that Christmas no longer needs to be so literal. The excitement and happiness stored up from all the years of beautiful Christmases as a child (nobody can decorate a room like my mum) only need the slightest catalyst to be released. Cold air and wood smoke, for instance. I drive through it every morning, and every single morning it feels like Christmas. Oranges: I drive past an orange tree orchard twice a day, and twice a day I`m back in my bed, waiting for Santa (apprehensively: I didn`t like Santa. He scared me). Never mind the Christmas lights: if I`m driving late at night, all I have to do is lower my eyelashes and the white and red and green road lights all blur and look like decorations. And I don`t need a cd player: I can hum a Christmas song whenever I like, and I do. I`m making Harai extremely uncomfortable.
It doesn`t matter, really, whether Christmas means the birth of Christ, or whether it means presents, or whether it means lights and nice food. It doesn`t matter whether it`s family, or couples, or children, or adults. It doesn`t matter whether it`s a big turkey or a bucket of KFC nuggets. It just matters that at the darkest, coldest time of the year, we all find a way to make ourselves a little bit happier.
And, if possible, to make others a little happier too.
For a country with no Christian background and only 0.5% Christian population, Japan certainly enjoys Christmas. While many Japanese people may not know what it is, or why they`re celebrating, or who Christ is or what he apparently did, they still enjoy a nice tree and some decorations and a few good presents. And why not? A lot of England is no longer practicing Christianity either, and yet we`re all still happy to claim a festival that gives us something to do in the darkest, coldest months of the year. Probably because it was a pagan festival long before it was ever Christmas, and Pope Julius I allocated Christ`s birthday to the date it currently is simply so that the transition would be easier for pagan Romans, who still wanted to eat and party at the end of December even if they were being forced to worship something else. Because, let`s face it: otherwise December would be absolutely sodding unbearable.
Jesus, for the record - according to the Bible - was born in September. You think any wise men would have been in a field watching sheep in the middle of winter?
Thus because they therefore have as much right to it as we do, Christmas in Japan is well underway. Lights are up as only the Japanese can do it: covering every inch of space, in Hello Kitty shapes and Donald Duck shapes and AnPanMan shapes and - surreally - a five foot glow in the dark giraffe. Western Christmas music is playing in every convenience store, every supermarket, every restaurant. Violin versions of Jingle Bells are filtering gently through the local onsen (replacing violin versions of The Carpenters, which is nice, because one should not ever have to listen to Close to you while naked and surrounded by naked old ladies). And all of the merchandise in the shops is Christmas themed. And I mean all of it. In a country where everything is seasonal, and the changeover is so fast that you can`t afford to get attached to anything, every product currently embraces the Christmas spirit. Coffee has little wreaths on the wrapping; chocolate has holly all over it (in more than one way); icecream is decorated with snowflakes. For a month or two every year, you can`t eat or drink anything without knowing that Christmas is just around the corner (and then, on Christmas day, KFC has lines outside it, because it`s chicken and The Colonal has a white beard and a red outfit and looks a bit like the pervy younger brother of Santa).
Japanese children love Christmas, obviously, but they always seem a little wistful, because it`s not a family holiday here: it`s a couple`s holiday. Cards have couples kissing on them; Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse rub noses in public as often as possible, wearing red and white costumes (despite living in different houses, as I discovered at Tokyo Disneyland last Christmas, so it`s clearly all for show, or maybe they`re just like my parents). Loved up couples walk hand in hand down fairy-lit paths that have been fairy-lit especially for loved up couples to walk down, and restaurants are full of tables for two. So, while the children are obviously extremely keen on all the lights and presents, they don`t really get to be as much a part of the celebrations as they do in the West.
Unless they`re my children, that is. I went out last night and bought a little Christmas tree, and as much tinsel and glitter and holly as I could find and decorated my classroom. I bought sweets and filled a sack with them, and sprayed fake snow all over the windows. I put a Christmas cd on, and filled the air with the smell of... well, whatever the Christmas candle smells of. And every single child that walks past makes "oooh" and "aaaah" sounds, and presses their little face up against the window like a tiny oriental Oliver Twist. Which means that I`m going to keep decorating until it`s a grotto, because I want to give all of my kids a little, tiny feeling of the way I used to feel at Christmas time and still feel: a little bit sick with happiness and magic and excitement.
Harai is providing the necessary male reluctance and confusion by sitting in the corner and taking 25 minutes to string one bauble, before announcing that he`s tired and it`s difficult and then lying down on the floor.
For me, the trappings of Christmas still work. I don`t know if this is normal for an adult, but my heart still flips when I see a Christmas tree. When I hear Christmas songs, I`m immediately happy. Christmas lights get me excited (all year round, actually). It`s like in Brave New World where the babies are trained to respond to stimuli: just one fairy light, just one line of We Wish You A Merry Christmas, just one snowflake, and I`m filled with cosy wellbeing and a desire to tell people I love them and eat chocolate. Even more so than normal.
What is strange, though, is that with age I`ve discovered that Christmas no longer needs to be so literal. The excitement and happiness stored up from all the years of beautiful Christmases as a child (nobody can decorate a room like my mum) only need the slightest catalyst to be released. Cold air and wood smoke, for instance. I drive through it every morning, and every single morning it feels like Christmas. Oranges: I drive past an orange tree orchard twice a day, and twice a day I`m back in my bed, waiting for Santa (apprehensively: I didn`t like Santa. He scared me). Never mind the Christmas lights: if I`m driving late at night, all I have to do is lower my eyelashes and the white and red and green road lights all blur and look like decorations. And I don`t need a cd player: I can hum a Christmas song whenever I like, and I do. I`m making Harai extremely uncomfortable.
It doesn`t matter, really, whether Christmas means the birth of Christ, or whether it means presents, or whether it means lights and nice food. It doesn`t matter whether it`s family, or couples, or children, or adults. It doesn`t matter whether it`s a big turkey or a bucket of KFC nuggets. It just matters that at the darkest, coldest time of the year, we all find a way to make ourselves a little bit happier.
And, if possible, to make others a little happier too.
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