At a couple friends’ apartment a few years back, I noticed their full-length mirror that was situated as the last look before leaving the apartment. Written in paint pen on the glass, somewhat as a border-like decoration, was the phrase, “You’re never fully dressed without a smile.”
I so loved this idea that, from the onward, whoever I have a full-length mirror, I decoratively write the phrase myself. I have even taken to writing other notes on other mirrors, as well. “Hello, Beautiful,” is prettily displayed on the head-sized mirror that is the last look I have before leaving my current apartment. In my last apartment, I have words of love decorating the upper bits of my bathroom mirror (mostly “Sat Naam”). And, I suspect, my next apartment will have some sort of beautiful message awaiting my eyes and mind on yet another mirror. It really just feels amazing. It is better than someone else just saying it, because the message, though from an outside source, is innerly read and therefore said by me – so, while an outside source is wishing me well and love and is admiring my beauty, the same intentions are coming from within myself, and, what’s more, I therefore know that they are genuine, thereby making them even more powerful than when only said by another.
These next three weeks will be huge in determining my satisfaction and fulfillment with my job for my remaining time here in Japan, however, based on how things look with the new setups and the new teachers at each of my schools, I have a feeling things will continue to improve for me at work. That being said, it is therefore almost safe to say that I have entered that happy phase that always seems to accompany a rough situation.
Just as Jane Austen expresses in Pride and Prejudice, as Jane and Elizabeth are ending their stay at Netherfield, how everyone was so delighted at their departure, that their civilities returned so much so that Miss Bingley was actually pleasant toward Elizabeth, and even shook hands with her – I feel that bothersome situations allow us to experience a sense of gratitude and delight in them when, at long last, they are finally coming to a close. It is as though we are finally able to appreciate the situation, once we know that we are almost through with it. I do not mean simply that we are excited for whatever it is to be over. Not at all. I mean that, because whatever it is is about to be over, it is as though we see it for the first time through new eyes, and we see all the positives of the situation, so much so at times that we start to wish that it wouldn’t end.
In most any job I have held and found bothersome to some degree or another, all of the annoying bits seemed to be suddenly tolerable in my final chunk of time at the job. Once I knew that the end was near, that all of this would be gone and finished soon, it was somehow okay that people did things that pissed me off or totally didn’t work… I even would have thoughts of my departure not being a good idea anymore – that perhaps it was worth it after all to stay in the job. Fortunately, my senses and logic took care of me, and held me to my original intention to depart each time.
Now, I am not quite at that point, as I am aware of this situation and its regular occurrences in my life. However, I certainly notice this change of mentality for myself. Yes, I still find an absurd amount of things that I dislike about living here, but they are losing their hold on me. As I notice that I have so little time remaining, I am suddenly excited by all the things to do before time runs out, and I even have desires to look for another job, so that I could remain living here. I even found myself fascinating the other day about finding a job in a year or few, and moving back to Japan. I know that another situation like my current one would be dreadful for me, but I have thought through many of the details, and found ways that I could enjoy living and working in Japan from the start. The question that continues to rise, then, is whether I actually want to pursue such an idea. Though my brain does what it will, I think I will leave it ’til December, when I have had a good amount of time back in my own culture and language, and the initial adjustment period is over, before I make any choices regarding returning to work in Japan.
For now, I will continue in my pursuit of awesome Japanese things to do and see. I notice for myself how much I want a break, but that I am not ready altogether to leave yet. I would love to have a couple or few weeks back home in the US this month or next, and then to come back to Japan for my final few months. For I long for the comforts of home, but I am not ready to give up Japan entirely – to pack up and ship out, with no intended return. But, this is what I have, so I’ll do my best to enjoy everything here, and to appreciate this part of the world now. And, in less than four months, I’ll be finished with my job, and will be able to do those final travel bits around Japan, before saying what I expect to be a heartfelt, resistant, yet grateful goodbye to the place.
As an almost tangent: I wonder if this is part of a mental health care action from within the body, in order to allow us to appreciate our past experiences, and therefore remain feeling useful and successful in our endeavors and whatnot. Something like that, anyway. Hmm… whatever.
No, no, no, no, no. I haven’t the mind to bother this time.
I am tired and dirty, and I just want to clean and be to sleep.
Yes, yes, yes, indeed… be to sleep, is what I want and need.
And water, of course, to drink and to drink.
And then – the ends for the means – to sleeeeeeeeeeep……
**Beware: There is a good amount of reference to genitalia in this one.**
Today, with a Canadian and a Japanese friend, I went to the Kanamara Matsuri. It is a festival to celebrate fertility, only found at the Kanayama Shrine, in the area just south of Tokyo in Japan. From what I understand, the story/legend goes to a young, beautiful woman whom a demon fancied. She denied the demon, and so, he decided to hide inside her vagina, in order to prevent her from having any man. On her wedding night, the demon bit off the penis of her now-husband, preventing them from consummating their marriage. On her second attempt at marriage and consummation, the same event occurred. So, for her third marriage, the woman worked with a blacksmith to fashion a metal penis. Upon insertion, the demon bit the metal phallus, broke all of his teeth, and left the woman. Said phallus is now enshrined at the Kanayama Shrine. People go to this shrine to pray for fertility, protection from STDs and the likes, family, safe pregnancy and delivery, and blacksmiths.
So, every year, on the first Sunday of April, right at the usual time for the Cherry Blossom Season (though it is a bit early for the blossoms this year), the Kanamara Matsuri (Kanamara Festival) takes place at the Kanayama Shrine in Kanagawa, Japan.
Originally, when it started back in 1969, it was Japanese people. However, after a foreigner university professor attended the festival, that professor shared about the festival enough to bring it greater attention – so much so, that the festival is mostly foreigners now. It actually felt like a sort of adventure outside of Japan for a day – Japanese scenery, customs, and decorations, but very little spoken Japanese, and very few Japanese people.
The festival is very popular for the trans-gender, homosexual, etc. community, and so many of the attendees today were visually part of that community. Kimonos were offered to borrow free of charge to visitors to the festival, and so my Japanese friend and I went and allowed the ladies at the kimono place to dress us up. When I asked for a men’s kimono, the lady gave a slight chuckle, and then rushed back to the fabrics and picked out one for me, clearly comfortable with the request. It was the same with my Japanese friend and her dresser, so this clearly was not simply because I’m a gaijin (foreigner) and am, therefore, weird – I imagine it is because of the Kanamara Matsuri that the ladies were so comfortable with the requests. I noticed several Japanese men wearing women’s kimonos, and everyone was fine with it. And so, we got to be dressed as Okappiki, old-timey Japanese police men. It was great.
For the parade, the gods from the shrine, as usual, are summoned to the mikoshi, the portable altars, so to speak, in a little ceremony with bells and music and other traditional details, just before the parade begins. Usually the mikoshi are not phalli, but this festival is all about the metal phallus made by that blacksmith way back when, so… there are three large penises that are carried around the neighborhood. The first is a smallish wooden one, with the metal phallus on the front of it. The second is a large black one, possibly made of stone (I couldn’t quite tell). And the third is a huge, Pepto-Bismol pink one, carried each year by men in drag. The three altars seem like floats in US parades, but, instead of being on top of cars to have them move, they are carried by groups of people, typically men, though also women. So, as the parade moves along, you have a chant of “Ka-na-ma-ra!” going, while three incredibly different and large floating penises bounce along the crowded streets.
One of the hits of the festival is the penis pops. While there are chocolate-covered bananas,
and meat-wrapped sticks of rice,
carved wooden penis whistles (which actually had a rather high, unappealing pitch),
and t-shirts galore with cartoon penises and the name Dankon, a term for penis (literally “man-root”),
the reason people will stand hours in line is for the one-day-only penis lollipops.
There were even some vagina ones, too, but the main thing was the penis pops. I had read up on the festival a bit ahead of time, and so I knew to arrive at 9am, and to go straight for the lollipops.
A really fun bit for me was actually the penis candles and the daikon carving. Just after saying our prayers at the shrine, we found the daikon radishes, but the carving was finished. However, the old ladies who seemed to be in charge of it were quick to hand us already-carved daikon and ask for our cameras. They even helped us with the correct way to pose with the daikon penises (I was a bit unsure initially, but they made it quite clear what was “the way” to do it.).
The candles were quick and simple – a table covered in small and large penis-shaped candles in various colors. I wanted a pretty purple one for myself, but the guy next to me snatched up all the purple ones for some reason – guess he just really wanted them. So, I found myself happy with a blue-ish purple one instead, which seemed to be the only one of its specific hue. (Naturally, I loved that.)
Now, I really expected this festival to be completely against the Japanese style of things, however it was really beautiful seeing how many Japanese people were there, not only participating in it for themselves, but embracing it as part of humanity’s culture. Though it is essentially a fundraiser for HIV research, and thereby a grounds for self-expression in the LGBTetc. community, there were many people, families even, who seemed to be 100% heterosexual, white rice, Japanese folks. And yes, there were plenty of families, which includes small children. One of the best moments was coming across a group of four little girls all sitting on a curb, casually and delightedly enjoying their penis pops, while their parents stood nearby. And the parents were completely okay with people photographing their kids, a concept often somewhat foreign to Japanese people. Today was just filled with openness and acceptance and joy on the part of everyone, and it was fabulous.
When we were heading out from the festivities, we discovered even more food stalls and other standard matsuri stalls in an area with another shrine and temple. We said some more prayers, tossed some more coins, and poured water over a statue in thanks for the blessing of blooming flowers each Spring. On a final walk down a way-cool traditional street of shops, we found loads more penis pops (along with standard regional treats), gifts, and tokens.
There were even life-ish-sized crystal quartz, rose quartz, and aventurine statues of penises, which were about $120 a piece.
I got myself a small crystal quartz necklace, and it is quite beautiful, actually.
As a final fun note, while we were initially heading down that last street, a group of Japanese who were around our ages, were walking right near us (with no one else nearby), and so I found myself laughing as a few of them were goofing off, dancing to no music while one of them recorded the fun nonsense. When one of the guys stopped and posed with some statues, all three of us laughed. No one, however, had had a camera out, and the guy hadn’t expected a photo to be taken. But, when one of the girls joked with him about taking a photo, he asked if he should go back. His friends were a bit hesitant to answer, but my friend was quick to tell him to go back really quickly, because she wanted a photo, even if they didn’t. When he squat back down with the dogs(?), holding his pink lollipop, he told me to get in the photo with him. He tried sharing his lollipop with me, but one of the girls decided it was better for the photo if we each had our own, and so she lent me hers. And so, a random guy and I posed on the ground with dog statues and colored penis lollipops. EditNormal day in the neighborhood, right? 😛
Anyway, that’s about all I have to say about that right now…. Go check it out for yourself, if you’re ever in Japan in early April! It’s one-of-a-kind, and it’s delightfully wonderful! 🙂
At a beach in Okinawa one Sunday morning, I noticed a solo western culture guy arrive with a look of curiosity and interest in the various groups of people already at the beach.
A short while later, as I was playing down at the water’s edge with some of the guys (that is, some of the friends with whom I was at the beach), I noticed the same solo guy attempting to be casual quite near to us, though, in my eyes, totally trying to make contact with us somehow.
“You can talk to us,” I said, smiling.
“Huh?”
I repeated, we chuckled, and I asked his name. I gave him my own first name, and brought him to the guys, sharing with them the fact that he, too, was Canadian (which I am not, but most of the guys are).
At the end of the beach hangout, I mostly was the only one who talked much with this guy, but I knew he was vacationing solo for a month+, and it was clear that the communication and interaction were appreciated on his end. So, I learned a little bit about his educational background and aspirations, and told him how we were all in the JET Programme in the same prefecture as one another, and that I lived near Tokyo. Beyond that, I told him almost nothing of myself. Some impressions of living and working in Japan, yes, but no facts or figures about me and my life.
When we said our goodbyes, I wished him well on his travels and for his future. We exchanged no contact information.
A few hours later, when I diddled with my Facebook, I saw that I had a friend request from him.
Wowzer.
Kind of freaky, right? I checked with my group, and none of them had talked to him when I hadn’t been present, and none of them was friends with him on Facebook.
I was amazed at the feat. Though, I suppose I could have been weirded out, it was only flattering to me, really. How many times have I gone through what has sometimes been hours of researching, just to find someone (usually a guy) online? People regularly tell me that I am a fabulous stalker (and that I fortunately use it for good, rather than evil), I am so good at it. I meet a guy in a bar, having learned only his first name, and I can find him online, supposing he has some kind of Internet presence. But that is also part of why I am so careful about what I share about myself with people I don’t know – so they don’t easily find me online , if I don’t want them to find me.
However, my skills of stalking and research led me quite quickly to a way this guy could have found me. I won’t give away all my secrets, but it has to do with photos allowing you to tag locations on various social networks – I think he found me because of the photo I took at the beach, and then put online. Clever, clever boy. Or perhaps he was just lucky. I still haven’t asked. 😛
But, I must say, it was, albeit a bit weird and freaky, quite exciting having a taste of my own medicine used on me – the stalker is stalked! Sort of, anyway. 😛
Post-a-day 2017
Just as I was going to bed on Sunday night, I ended up on the phone with my mom. She was on her way to Cowboy Church, the Church services offered for all the cowboys who are in town to participate in the rodeo (though it is open to all, of course), and so, even though it was long past my bedtime, it being near midnight my time, I asked her to call me back once she had arrived and settled in at the service.
I rushed to finish my bedtime routine, reading and all, and had just finished everything when my phone was buzzing with the FaceTime call from Church. Therefore, I found myself attending Church for the first time from the comfort of my own bed. But it gets better.
The passage on which the pastor focused mainly was the one from Luke 10 where Jesus ends up at the home of Martha and Mary, and Mary sits and listens to and dotes on Jesus, while her sister, Martha, is preparing the meal. (Martha eventually comments to Jesus about the situation, and asks him to tell Mary that she needs to help Martha, and not just sit around, and then Jesus talks about how Mary has actually picked the better and more important of the two options, and all that jazz.)
You know how there’s always the discussion over Shakespeare’s works, whether they are too old-fashioned to be fully understood to people today, and would do best being re-done in a way that people can actually relate to the various situations and circumstances, as people had been able to do in Shakespeare’s time? Now, typically, we think of the biblical figures as following a certain type of diet, based on historical information on the region, as well as various notes within the Bible itself. However, seeing as this was Cowboy Church, the pastor definitely took it upon himself to speak to his audience, and to make the story more relatable for his listeners.
How, you ask, did he do that? Well, Martha wasn’t cooking seeds in the oil, making bread, or anything like that. She was in the kitchen chopping tomatoes for the salsa, cooking and slicing the meat, heating the tortillas… in short, she was making fajitas for Jesus.
After that image, all I could see was a Jesus eating fajitas next to a jar of Pace Picante, while wearing a tunic, a cowboy hat, and boots; and then riding off on a horse, while swinging a lasso in the air. Or perhaps I just kept flipping back and forth between a sort of Chuck Norris and a Jesus image. Not sure – it’s a difficult thing to imagine, Jesus eating tacos and fajitas.
All in all, I had a wonderful time at Cowboy Church, and for various reasons. i also had several firsts in that attendance. It was, of course, my first time at Cowboy Church, and I was thrilled to be in attendance. It was my first time to attend Church while in my bed and PJs. it was my first time imagining Jesus easting fajitas and salsa. And, perhaps the oddest of them all, it was my first time spending the entire service using my phone. It was a way cool sort of bedtime story slash activity. So glad to have such an awesome mom. Thanks, Mom!
I honestly don’t know how to describe today. It was good and bad and wonderful and horrible and surprising and loads of other stuff, too. I’m not sure there’re real words for it, even. And not in a bad way, of course. Just in an indescribable way. You know?
I guess the best way to describe it is by saying that today was filled with love.
I found out on Tuesday, that one of the teachers at my gym was leaving at the end of the month (i.e. this Friday). I was rather distraught upon learning the news. However, I wasn’t too surprised about it – she had always seemed like a superstar in our kind of gym. We are casual, everyday family, exercising together and having fun. She is one of the most fit, beautiful, sexy women I have ever known. And her enthusiasm and real-ness are both top notch.
She has this one class that is insanely difficult, though totally simple, and today was the last time that she she would be teaching it. Afterward, she kind got a little red-eyed after one lady hugged her after our high fives (she always starts and ends that particular class with enthusiastic hang tens). When she was saying a thank-you to everyone, I started to redden around the eyes, too. And, when she started to talk to me while I was finishing putting away my weights and bands, I just went full-out crying, and we hugged multiple times, both crying and saying thank you (in Japanese, of course) to each other.
The gym won’t and can’t be the same without her, though I know it will still be good. In the midst of my depression, this gym, and especially this teacher’s classes, were the main thing that started me on my road to becoming myself again, and they now have been a fixture in my life. I have never before scheduled activities around a gym schedule, nor preferred to spend hours at the gym on my own instead of, well, doing anything else. The gym was my life for a while, and it was what helped me to be healthy enough to find more to be part of my life. And, now that this teacher and her classes are going to be gone, I can now spend more time doing those other things that I want to be part of my life (because, up to now, I have tended to cancel other activities when they coincided with her classes, because I so loved her classes).
Plus, at some point, I am going to be leaving myself, so I needn’t be too upset at her leaving first. But that isn’t exactly the point. Tangent-ish. Anyway…
The group gave her flowers, and we took a group photo with her, and various folks were crying (or perhaps it was just she and I), and it was super sweet.
When I asked for the group photo, I got to find out that she is going to be studying instead now – she wants to study physical training and English, and working here keeps her from having the time to do that. So she’s giving up one love for a greater one. And, when she asked about when I’m leaving Japan, she was all surprised and distraught that it’s so soon (four-ish months), but was really excited for my own plans for what’s next in my life. She could relate to how I felt about wanting to pursue the things most important to me, even if they seem a bit abnormal or crazy.
Then we took a few selfies together, at her request, even finding better lighting to make sure they were good ones, and then we hugged some more before a final goodbye. She didn’t ask for solo pictures with anyone else – just the one big group picture.
All in all, it was awesome. And, possibly the best part, is how much love I felt. From me to her and from her to me, there was so much love. I don’t know lots of Japanese (though I understand a good amount), so I don’t typically start much chit-chat with people, simply because I don’t have the words. I always would find ways to talk with her – often using English, which often resulted in a fun befuddlement on both sides of the conversation. She was always hesitant to use English herself, but she usually understood me, and I usually could understand her, so it worked. However, her hesitation with English made me wonder if it were the English or the Hannah that had her be hesitant. I always suspected it to be the English, but it wasn’t until today that I really discovered that for sure. She loves me and I love her. And I believe I have never cried over any kind of teacher the way I cried over her today after our last class with her.
Post-a-day 2017
The thing about music is that it is incredibly powerful.
Siting around, waiting for my dance class to start, I was listening to music just now. A few songs came on from a musical our theatre did several years ago. As I listened to the female lead sing her song of love to the male lead, I was suddenly transported to a different time and place – I was right back in the preparations for the musical, way back when we were putting it on.
I could hear the director talking about casting the female lead, every word as clear as though he were sitting here with me, like all hose yeats ago, and chuckling at the end of it all. I remembered verbatim what he said. I do every time I hear this song, and whether I want to or not.
Just one small part of the power of music, you know?
Post-a-day 2017
It is often terrifying to be open with people regarding very intimate things. Usually, though, the result of the openness is absolutely wonderful, often beyond expectations.
Tonight, after months of nervous waiting and somewhat avoidance, I finally asked a friend about something that had been driving me absolutely crazy, – it even played a decent role in my depression – and the resulting conversation was beautiful. Rather than the worst happening, and losing the foundations on which our friendship stood, as I had somehow feared, it feels now as though we are closer than ever, and ready for most any terrain (as opposed to just being on steady ground, where any change in the land would send everything rocking to a tumble and crumble). And, at long last, I am free of that dragging, straining haul of thoughts that had hassled me for so long. I have a headache, and I feel like I might have a fever, and yet I am in an easy happiness as I am going to bed right now. Life is sometimes terrifying, and that’s okay. Sometimes it just makes the next bit even better for the struggle it took to arrive there. So is tonight. 🙂
Post-a-day 2017
I have no idea why, but today I was thinking about how I knew various wonderful things to do to have an exciting relationship/marriage with my future man. One thing in particular that I recalled, is the trick of buying a guy a shirt, and getting him to try it on when you give it to him. The situation can remain completely innocent, or can turn in a more sultry direction, if you get my drift. As this thought was going through my head, I began to wonder why on Earth I had this idea, that I knew this was a sort of trick, and that I even thought of it as a “trick”.
It suddenly occurred to me that I knew this from a movie. And this isn’t just any movie – this is a Lifetime movie. Suffice it to say that I was totally embarrassed at discovering this fact.
“Really?! You’re getting your relationship tips and tricks from a Lifetime movie?!”
I’m not sure it can get more messed up than that! 😛
Thinking it over, though, I came to realize how much I had enjoyed Lifetime movies growing up. It was a favorite pastime of ours: my two older sisters and I spending lazy days watching the Lifetime channel together. It remains today one of my favorite memories of growing up. (One of many, of course.)
I mentioned all of this to my eldest sister tonight while we were on the phone, and we couldn’t contain our laughter. At first, I couldn’t recall why I had even been thinking about the Lifetime movies. When I suddenly remembered that it was from the t-shirt gift trick, she was practically snorting with delight.
We proceeded to discuss a few of the movies that we remembered most clearly, which I think were also some of the last ones we had all watched together.
One of them, of course, was the one with this t-shirt trick, starring Erica from the soap opera All My Children (it was actually a button-up shirt, and the actress’s name is Susan Lucci). This young guy to whom she gave the shirt eventually bores her, and, when she tries to dump him, he goes kind of psycho on her, eventually meeting this slightly older guy who tries explaining to him that she doesn’t love him – it was just her thing, her most recent fling. “She gave you a shirt, right?” That was the key line from that film, where we realize that she likely had a whole line of poor young guys who had it all start with the shirt gift.
Another was about a writer who was renting out a house from these older people, and the older people got so excited knowing that they might be in her next book, because she always used people around her to inspire the characters of her stories. There was a hot 30-something neighbor next-door, who liked to use her basketball hoop. Beyond that, neither one of us could remember anything about the story, which led us to believe that we might’ve had to leave before we’d watched the whole movie.
The third movie we recalled, – and we recalled this one the best – was one that, at first, my sister did not recall at all. I mentioned that the main lady was someone I knew from maybe another movie or a TV show, and her name was something like Christie, possibly three names (to which my sister responded initially with Anna Nicole Smith), and she seemed a rather largely built woman, but she wasn’t usually very heavy. Although, she was somewhat heavy in this particular movie.
The general outline of the movie was something like that this woman was a foster mother, and she would force her foster daughter to steal things from the store when they went shopping. Early in the movie, when the girl got caught shoplifting, this lady, the foster mother, began yelling at her and throwing a fit and ripping out from her clothes all of the items the girl had stolen, and so the shop did not prosecute. When they get back to their house, we find out that the girl’s actual mother is being kept in the basement, and the girl has to steal stuff so that her mother can have things.
We could not for the life of us remember the name of this actress, though the movie rang a clear bell for my sister as I described it. We figured our best bet was looking up Lifetime movies and scrolling through to find one that sounded right, or that had a picture of this lady actress with it. However, seeing as I was sitting right next to my phone, I went ahead and tried a longshot search.
I typed the following:
lifetime movie girl steals things.for her mom in basement
Believe it or not, the very first search result from Google was the IMDb link to the movie. Neither one of us could quite believe the results of such a search – we were somewhat baffled, even. “Now that’s the Internet for you,” my sister declared.
So, in case you were wondering, the film is called Family Sins, apparently. It was a totally freaky movie, like any Lifetime movie, so totally watch it, but make sure you have your girlfriends or sisters or family with you when you do watch it.
Anyway, that’s all I care to say about all of that for now. Be blessed. 🙂
Post-a-day 2017
hannah ananas 