Month Eight Thoughts

Eight months living in Tokyo.

It's easier than I thought. A polite demeanor, a few words of Japanese, and careful pointing and hand gestures get you quite far. Where that does not suffice, Google translate carries the rest. Once the difficulties with getting government documents and an apartment were out of the way, things went quite smoothly. We have a few good friends and a few good acquaintances.

It's harder than I thought. I miss my parents. My sisters. I miss Sergey's Mom. My friends back home. My emotional eating and drinking (milk-based cafe drinks, not alcohol) has gotten worse. These strange hours-long anxiety fits that sometimes happen after heavy evening meals have begun happening frequently enough that I've put a hard stop on eating any indulgent type foods (or alcohol) after 4pm.

I don't think I've ever studied so much in my life. I don't know how to balance it with breaks, so I am either studying for a block of six hours or I am doing nothing. More often than not I'm studying, but some days I find it difficult to get myself to start.

I miss writing. There isn't space in me for both writing and studying like this. I accepted that when I came here, but I still grieve it.

Many days I don't know what I'm doing here. I may lift my eyes in the subway and read on the wall 電車にきます (train is coming) and know what it means without relying on the English translation, then unironically kick myself because I can't read everything else surrounding it. The words "a long obedience in the same direction" come to mind, and I vaguely feel the urge to look up a book by that name I saw, ages ago, when I worked at a tiny Christian bookstore.

There's a lady who works at the nearby 7/11. She speaks fluent English and she lights up every time she sees me or my husband, greeting us with joy.

There's a server at a favorite coffeeshop/bar who occasionally comes over--when I have all my language books spread out--and asks me a question in Japanese. There's another server at that same place who, during the evening bar hours, points at me with a grin and proclaims, "I know your order!" He won't be able to say that anymore, since I can't keep having my favorite cocktail that late.

There are several servers at another nearby cafe who know me. From time to time I try a sentence or two in Japanese with them, but mostly I am too shy. Still, they recognize me and light up a little whenever I come back.

I sit down. I open up my flashcard program. I drill for two or three hours. I open up my books. If I have the energy, I learn the new grammar for the day and dive into homework. Each page of homework may take me thirty or forty minutes to complete.

It's fulfilling. It's draining. It's a fantastic focus. It's hard and lonely. I've never had so much coffee shop time. I miss everyone and writing.

I picked up 7 postcards recently and sent out 4. I've begun to fill out the rest today. It seems like a postcard is about the writing capacity I have, lately.

We can't find a church. We are having trouble hearing God's voice. Everything feels dry and parched and longing in my soul. In a kind of dull desperation--or obedience? I don't know--I've begun to try and read the Bible again in the mornings. I have struggled with this since I was a teenager, since I felt like I stopped being able to understand what I was reading. It hurt to show up and read it and feel like there was a feast on the other side of a thick glass wall, and no amount of clawing would get me to the other side.

It isn't all like that, now. I understand some things. But as I read, I am constantly plagued by wondering if I'm doing this right. My thoughts wander off. I stare blankly at the page, my mind a million miles away, for several minutes before I startle back into my own skin.

But walking away from it never worked, either.

Sleep is a nightly struggle. I began taking lavender again, hoping it will help me either slip into sleep sooner or stay there, uninterrupted.

I come up with several ideas for blogs, and strike them down the moment they surface. That moral isn't earned. That one has no closure. That one's too personal/might cause harm. You don't know nearly enough to be talking about that the way you're thinking of. That one's just whining. That one makes you sound pretentious. I end up logging little paragraphs on what media I've recently consumed and letting the real blog topics fade. Too tired, anyway. Maybe tomorrow...

I'm tired. I'm limited. I feel like I have to take every day one day at a time, or I'll capsize. It feels like there's a million directions I could focus my energy on and I have to pick three. Maybe two.

There's a candle burning on my desk. Plentiful yarn is in easy reach. My notebook full of madwoman-like kanji scribbles waits for me to resume drilling. The scent of my last drink--a houjicha latte with a chicory twist--hangs in the air, inviting me to brew up another round.

There is no closure. There is no resolution. Only another step on a long road where I feel a bit battered, but haven't given up.

Time to go drill my kanji cards.