Finding Home

I'm not going to bore you with a paragraph about how great Thanksgiving is. I'm totally not going to spout off about my years of experience mainlining gravy and mulled wine, or spoiling my appetite on fudge, or adding 2 sticks of butter to my mashed potatoes like my mom taught me, or making a taco shell with turkey skin and stuffing it with stuffing because calories don't count in November. Nope, this paragraph didn't happen. It didn't have to, because everyone knows how wonderful Thanksgiving is even when your family is nuts and the bread dough doesn't rise or the turkey is overdone or someone didn't bring the pie like they said they would (THANKS A LOT, DEBRA). Thanksgiving is like a little kid, or a kitten – it gets a free pass to be a shit-show and still be universally loved by everyone even when it knocks over the wine and doesn't pick up after itself.

On my 31^st Thanksgiving, I woke up in my new home in Japan. With no family within several thousand miles to meet up with or cook for, I slept in. When I awoke, there was an oddly calm and slightly hollow feeling in stark contrast to the chaos of every other Thanksgiving I've experienced. I opened the blinds to let in some light, and saw a blanket of snow. It was the first time it has snowed in November in Tokyo in 54 years, because the universe decided to double-down on flipping everything on its end to the point of altering climate patterns.

I put on my boots and Jan strapped on his Converse and we trudged through the most obnoxious type of snow – the type that is wet enough to permeate everything but dry enough to stick to your eyelashes and ruin your makeup. Instead of heading to a family brawl to eat turkey and all the fixin's, we decided to head to Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo.

 

Alright, let me break it down for you. Roughly $6 BILLION worth of seafood filters through Tsukiji market in a given year. Y'all, the United States could nigiri its way out of the national debt, hold the wasabi. There is SO MUCH FISH, and the whole place smells like your clothes do after you've spent all day at the beach. There are giant fish heads the size of my Honda Fit strewn about everywhere, there's a display of delicious-looking, deep-red meat that upon further inspection is not in fact beef but whale, and, most elusive of all – there are WESTERNERS. There are tens of us!!


Full disclosure, we messed up. It might have been the chaos of the snow or the constant onslaught of delicious sushi and deep fried treats, but we got so enmeshed in the outer market that by the time we finally figured out where the inner market was – where the magic truly happens – they were packing up shop. It was deserted save for a few workers catching a quick break to eat lunch as cleanup began. We headed home, frozen to the core but with bellies full of amazing sushi. It's pretty crazy to think that I've likely eaten sushi back home in the States that traveled through Tsukiji Market.

We woke up on Friday morning and Skyped with our family, who had just finished eating Thanksgiving dinner. We drank our coffee as the sun rose while we watched them drink wine as the sun set. The contrast was very befitting of our new life in Japan. We've been here six weeks, and for the first time it truly sank in – this isn't a vacation. This isn't a drill. This is home, and life as we knew it is still happening on the other side of the world. What the hell, nothing crumbled into dust when we left?! Are we that inconsequential?? I expected to tune into Thanksgiving dinner to see a dystopian landscape descended into chaos. My family's ability to exist without me is highly offensive.


To assuage our awkward and bumbling adjustment to life in a foreign country which still doesn't quite feel like home, we hopped on the train towards Machida and accidentally ended up buying a 200,000 yen Bengal kitten.


Meet Gibson.

Okay, let's just put out in the open what I know you're all thinking. You don't have to say it – we are fully aware that we purchased the most adorable cat in the Far East. After a brief train ride in a cardboard box that he shit all over while meowing like his claws were being ripped out, we got him home. And ever since then we've been watching a microcosm of our current lives.

Every inch of his world is new and different. He's curious and inquisitive but I know his secret, because I feel the same way. He purrs and explores like he knows he's safe and he puts on a good front, but he looks around with wide eyes and tiny pupils that just scream “WHAT THE F*$% IS GOING ON”. I feel you, Little Man. It's scary being in a new place where everything is different and the food is funny and people sound weird and you don't know where to poop (no seriously, the toilets are really confusing here). But Gibson taught me something about adaptation that I wish I'd learned 6 weeks ago.


He found a blanket, he buried himself in it, and he has been sleeping for the last 18 hours while purring so loud I can hear him from across the room. He knows there is all kinds of cool stuff to check out and he's really excited about it, but he is taking a goddamn nap.

Since we've gotten here, it has been non-stop activity. Getting adjusted to my new job, moving from temporary housing to permanent housing, attempting to learn a language which is mercilessly different and generally indecipherable even with Google Translate, and spending every spare moment exploring something new. We are fully determined to soak up everything our new home in Japan has to offer – so much so that we forgot about something very important because we've been experiencing the human equivalence of shitting in a box on a high-speed train like Gibson.


Take a nap. Rest. Let life simultaneously sink in and disappear.


It's the middle of the night here and I'm writing this blog entry because I am not yet able to take that advice. My household goods shipment finally arrives in the morning, and I'm steeped in anticipation of being surrounded by things that feel like home. The first thing I'm going to do when the movers are finished is grab my favorite blanket, which will have traveled here all the way from Oregon, wrap myself in it like a burrito and just... sleep. I haven't given myself permission yet to just take a moment to relax and adjust.


I've been so eager to be surrounded by things that feel like home, that I've sort of lost sight of the fact that “home” is far less tangible than that. I felt at home in an Airbnb in Eugene on the day of my grandpa's memorial service, because I was surrounded by people I love. I felt at home in a hotel on an Army base in Japan because I was watching Rick & Morty with my husband and laughing to tears.  Tonight, even though my "stuff" won't be here for a few more hours, I feel at home listening to my kitten purr and my husband snore.

Home is a state of mind.  But a cozy blanket helps.

Let The Games Begin...

I told myself that I'd start a blog when the dust had settled.  I've come to realize that when you leave everything and everyone you've ever known behind and move to a foreign country 4800 miles away - there is no dust, and there is no settling.  There are boulders, and they are in a giant blender.

34 days ago, my husband and I cashed in one-way tickets to Tokyo and moved to Japan.  Specifically, we moved to Sagamihara in Kanagawa Prefecture which is on the southern edge of Tokyo.  We were logistically over-prepared for the move.  I have a packet full of things that vouch for our very existence - our official AND tourist passports, our marriage license, my husband's birth certificate with a notarized English translation, immunization records, social security cards laminated with gold leaf and blessed by a priest, and a certificate signed with the blood of a virgin asserting that we don't have rabies or flat feet.

I wish I could say that we've settled in and are comfortable in the country we'll call home for the next five years, but we haven't.  Everything is different, everything is crazy, everything is weird.

And everything is... awesome.

I grew up a middle-class white girl, in a middle-class white suburb.  I've lived a life of inclusion and normality.  Just to get away from the monotony, my husband and I vacationed in New York City every year and marveled at the diversity, the rush of city life, the enormity of a city whose pulse is spurred by the lives of millions of people who are different than us.  In New York City, I felt simultaneously accepted and anonymous.  I fit in with the crowd because the crowd was a rainbow.

Japan has a population of 127 million people, 98.5% of which are Japanese.  0.5% are Korean, 0.4% are Chinese, and the remaining 0.6% are "others".  We belong in the "others" category.  What a phenomenon, not being part of the club.  Being the one who stands out.  Catching people staring at you on the train.  I take no offense, but I do take note.  Being "different" is... well, different. 

Aside from a few apologetic phrases and the proper way to order a beer or a whisky or some chicken meatballs at an izakaya, we don't speak the language and the written characters are indecipherable.  This applies both to menus as well as freeway signs.  It's arguable which is more distressing - not being able to order at a restaurant or missing your exit and going 20km in the wrong direction on a toll road.

While I've detailed things that may come across as complaining, allow me to assuage that assumption.  This experience of living abroad, even in its infancy, has filled me with gratitude and understanding.  Gratitude to the people of Japan who are almost comically patient with our lack of language skills and mishandling of accepted social mores.  Understanding to anyone who doesn't "fit in", anyone who feels that they're swimming against the current.

This picture was taken at the Cup of Noodles Museum in Yokohama yesterday.  This little girl was scampering all over the place like a live wire, and finally stopped in her tracks to gaze upwards. 

I'm going to gloss over the fact that she's literally wearing a cape with a smiling sandwich stitched onto it, because I can't begin to express in words how inferior I am to her for that reason alone.  She's looking up in awe at a shadow of someone enjoying shelter from the rain, with an artist's palette.  Let your art be your shield and your shelter.

 

Have you ever been a broke college student?  Have you ever been a grown-ass adult with a real job who spent all their money on stupid shit and then had $10 with which to feed yourself until pay day?  Yeah, me too.  Jan and I had the opportunity to worship at the House of Ramen.  Thank you, Momofuku Ando, for your innovation and tenacity. 

Jan and I ventured into Yokohama yesterday which is the second largest city in Japan, boasting nearly 4 million residents.  It was a rainy day, so we took shelter inside a Ferris wheel gondola and drank wine because that's way better than an umbrella. 

This struck grief and horror into my very soul.  RIP, everything I've ever spilled on the floor while also having an empty pantry.

This is outside the museum.  A welcome bit of serenity, we were happy to escape and get some fresh air.  I'm lying, it was really  just an opportunity to see if my hair actually did smell like ramen.  Verdict: it did.

I feel you, Panda.

Language barriers disappear at bars in Japan.  All you have to do is say, "Whiskey, kori, onegai shimasu" (Whiskey on ice please).  Booze is the universal language. 

One of my favorite things about Japan are the alleyways.  Even in the hustle-and-bustle of a booming metropolis, if you swing a slight left or right, you're going to find yourself nestled in a corridor with wafting aromas of delicious food, izakayas slinging cheap booze, shops selling boots and candy, palm readers, insurance agents... Any road only traveled by foot or by motorcycle is a good road.

Speaking of motorcycles... technically a scooter, but in Japan it still counts.

The train stations are often filled with silent people, waiting in line and looking at their phones.  They are generally not bustling social arenas, but I spotted this group engaged in what appeared to be a really funny conversation.  I need to learn the language so that I can laugh along with them.  But mostly so I can tell that girl that I really like her hair.

On the other side of the platform, a quiet older couple waiting for their train.  You don't see the elder generation indulging in public displays of affection, but this couple seemed quite at ease with one another.  She turned and smiled at him, and he hadn't even said a word.

We ended our night just outside our house, at a rockabilly izakaya in Sagamihara.  We befriended an English teacher and her husband.  It's very refreshing to be able to actually converse with people at a bar - extra motivation to learn the language so we don't have to bank on running into English speakers every time we want a drink.

Thanks for hearing me out... please join me on this journey!  It's going to be a wild ride.