Spirituality

I am 0 for 2 when it comes to spiritual enlightenment in Japan.

Last weekend on New Years Eve, we took a trip to Meijijingu which is a huge shrine nestled within Yoyogi Park in the middle of Tokyo.  My intention was to have a peaceful and spiritual experience to ring in the new year.  I instead was assaulted by equal parts beautiful scenery and selfie-sticks and more white people than I’ve seen since I’ve been here.  I told Jan that I wanted to redeem myself by visiting a shrine on an off day, when I could truly reflect and pay my respects to the universe. 

My first chosen place of worship for this weekend was Kappabashi, which is Tokyo’s Kitchen District.  It’s where you go to buy any and all kitchen supplies you could ever want – I was there less than five minutes and quickly acquired a fine mesh strainer, a bamboo spoon with a smiley face, and a bulk package of restaurant-style chopsticks.  Jan had to physically restrain me from buying an industrial-sized wok and a package of 6 taiyaki pans.  We will likely divorce because of this.

After leaving Kappabashi weeping for all of the rice cookers and pans and hand-made knives that I didn’t buy, we headed to Sensoji Temple.  Sensoji Temple is the oldest temple in Tokyo, which was established by two fishermen in the year 628.  That was 1386 years ago.  Let that sink in.  Entire dynasties and dozens of generations have come and gone since then.  Just think of how many people lived and died without cell phones or Miley Cyrus, and take a moment to mourn the hell that must have been their existence.

Sensoji Temple is beautiful.  It is also spiritually depressing.  

There were people with lit-up wands guiding us through a line like they were guiding planes on a tarmac, and zillions of flash bulbs going off.  I felt like I was walking a red carpet in Hollywood.  We got out of there, promptly purchased French fries, and left amidst a lingering cloud of sacrilege.

From our disappointing spiritual journey, we decided to head to the Sky Tree, which is literally the tallest tower in the WORLD.  We were quite excited to go to the top and take all the pictures, until we were informed it was a 90 minute wait in line.  We are entirely too impatient for that and we both like 50% had to pee, so by 90 minutes we’d be piddling in our pantsies.  One of the benefits of living here as opposed to visiting here is we reserve the right to say “fuck that” and try again later.

Another fail.

I don’t know if it was hormonal or what, but I had a craving for pizza that inspired a bloodlust which sent me on a war path of hunger and desperation.  Jan, while trying desperately to keep me from devolving into a howler monkey and doing summersaults on the ceiling, Googled pizza near our location.

NOTHING. 

While we were walking towards a train station to ANYWHERE THAT HAS PIZZA,  I saw a beacon of wonder.  An Italian restaurant.  A pizzeria!!

We settled in, picked out two pizzas on the menu and I sopped up my salivation with a napkin while the waitress took our order.  Then that nice Japanese girl ruined my entire godforsaken life.

“No pizza yet.  Pasta.”

Get the fuck out of here.

Through tears, I begrudgingly ordered quatro fomaggi gnocchi and resolved to hate it for inherently not being pizza.  When it arrived at our table, Jan and I quickly both decided we would need to engage in a polyamorous relationship with it.  Have you ever eaten clouds, tossed in a cheesy cream sauce that men have fought and died over?  I closed my eyes while I ate every bite.  I bowed my head in silence when the bowl was licked clean.  I’ve never eaten something that tasted so good in my entire life, except for possibly my mother-in-law’s kapustnica.  

I left my house on Saturday looking for a spiritual experience.  Having been raised a religious blank slate, I’ve found that I crave a sense of belonging and togetherness which I figured Japan would solve for me.  Turns out my holy experience was not spent in front of a shrine or a temple, but mowing down potato dumplings and swigging wine with the love of my life.  As I closed my eyes and enjoyed every bite, the running dialogue that has been playing in my head for the last three months throbbed in my temples.

“I live in Japan.  Japan is my home.”

I suppose what I learned this weekend is that when you seek a spiritual experience, it will elude you.   

When I was mad and disappointed, I was served a dish and I closed my eyes and I... felt completely at peace.  Much like the fishermen who established Sensoji Temple hundreds of years ago, there was no cell phone, no TV, no anything.  There was peace.  There was my husband.  There was a plate full of delicious food.

It might be different than what most of you would assume a moment of divinity looks like, but I found my spirituality in Japan.  All I had to do was stop looking for it.