(I wrote this a few days back, sorry for the delay in posting...cheers!)
As some of you who read this may have noticed, I am not the most terribly focused writer. Though it is something that I enjoy doing immensely, I have trouble finding one thing to write about and sticking to it. I have a hard time finding a style of writing that I stick to. The world is too big, I observe too much, too many things change and my mind is too busy and always wondering for me to settle on just one mood or topic or vein to write in. I know that I have gone from introspective to humorous to informative and back again on these pages. For this I apologize to you readers right now. Please accept this apology because this won’t happen again. I won’t think of it again now that I am writing it off my mind and onto the page. Its better to just accept that this blog will be full of mistakes and ramblings and misfit writings once in awhile…I do. But please know that I wont be offended if any of you choose to drop out in reading at any point; I don’t expect anyone to read all of this craziness…
Okay, that said I am going to take off in another direction today.
I have spent my morning in the loveliest of fashions. I woke up and took a cold shower, (what I do here. Its still hot in the morning even though I know its fall back home in the US for all you Americans and that leaves are changing and the weather is beauteous…not here. Still hot. I think fall is coming though, I think.) and then got a call on Skype from my best friend/soul sister back home in Portland. It’s been wayyy too long since we have connected and it just felt so good to be in her company again. We talked life and dreams, successes and failures. It was easy and smooth and reassuring, it was refreshing and has helped remind me of my goals and reasons for being on this island. She has such gusto for life and the greatest desire to not just fill the rhetorical glass of life to its fullest, but to have it spilling gleefully over the rim. This friend truly always leaves me feeling inspired and passes great energy for exploring life and dreams onto me.
Dreams are, after all, only ideas that have morphed into such in our minds over time because they hold strength of some kind for us or give us inspiration to change or live differently. Sometimes it feels like dreams in our lives serve only to act as a compass of sorts for us. They point us in the right direction and keep our hearts and minds seeking a common goal, but where they will lead us none of us really know. This dream of mine to live and work abroad has turned out bigger, brighter, more confusing, funny and wonderful than I ever could have imagined. I love the adventure that it gives me everyday and most of all I love that I get the opportunity to achieve my goal in new ways each day by learning about life through hands on experiences. Sure, I don’t know what the hell is going on A LOT of the time, but it only challenges me to really seek the answers out and to use the resources that I have in my hands, my head and my heart in finding them and this is where I really learn. Living my dream is becoming harder and harder though without considering others and letting them in on it…
And so today I am taking a moment to reflect on and return the positive energy and blessings that have been bestowed on me from friends, family and strangers in the last few months and years. Life is good and not what I imagined it would be right now, it is better. My main goal in coming here was to learn about life and to learn about the ways in which it can be lived that I have never had the imagination to consider before. If the quality of life here is better or worse is only matter of personal opinion, there is so much more to life than meets the eye in Japan, so many hidden dreams and desires that an outsider to this culture may never realize exist in the people here. The Japanese are moving and shaking and dreaming up a storm, it is simply a much quieter storm than I am used to hearing brew. The difference here may be in the interconnectedness of these dreams and the reading of minds that happens flawlessly, without fail each and every day. .
There are small things that happen here everyday that change my mind about life as I know it so far. For instance this morning after I arrived at school I was informed at our morning meeting that our principal’s mother died yesterday. While I felt empathy for her I soon learned that that was not to be enough, not in Japan. My supervisor told me, “maybe (I told you about ‘maybe’ right?, it never means maybe) you could follow Japanese tradition and give some money to Kocho sensei for the funeral”. “No problem” I said, (you don’t say no to a maybe) “how much?” And so everyone here will give the principal money so that she and her family can help to take care of funeral arrangements. I’m sure that we aren’t the only ones either. I am stopping in this moment to consider how many other people, family and friends, of hers and the rest of her family are contributing to help lessen the blow of this for the grieving? When is the last time that people back home took up this sort of community to aid and assist when a coworker or distant relative has passed? I know personally that I am surrounded by many generous people (in the US) and have heard of many of them coming to the financial aid of one another when times are hard and what not, but they I think are the exception. This is what happens EVERY time someone passes on in Japan, EVERY time.
There is just such a sense of community here and the overwhelming feeling that the simple fact that these people share space and air is enough to tie them together in many ways and to be aware and to care for one another. They do it subconsciously and I don’t hear them bitch or moan about it one bit. That is just the way that life is to be lived; you consider everyone else in every decision, every dream, every time. As an American myself it is pretty extreme to think of this sort of mentality working back home, but isn’t it kind of nice to imagine it as well? Maybe they really have something here, and I dare say that they did not just stumble upon it. It is well thought out and has been established as such over years and years of practice. It’s a lovely way to live and encourages people to do more than just exist. It encourages people to give what they can and to find their own best path of doing that which they do best. They are setting their compasses toward common goals and doing it with the same vigor that we as Americans commonly do with only personal achievement as our focus. I think the ways of living here really do encourage compass setting aligning with dreams. Even if Japanese people seem reserved and polite on the surface, when I have the time and space to get to know them on the inside they are warm and generous and overwhelmingly joyful people. It’s my great pleasure and surprise to be in their happy company. I am learning so much about community and what it really means to live with other people and to share life with them. Though I anticipated on this being a growing experience I never could have imagined that I would be thinking and growing in these ways now. People. That is kind of what it is boiling down to for me right now. They are essential in our lives and I am beginning to understand that no matter how badly I want to be independent in this life that I need people just as much as everyone else does. I am learning that it is okay to be a part of a community who depend on each other and that by being a part of that community it does not mean that one has to give up their identity or their freedom. Whoa. This is big stuff. I don’t know if I should be blogging on this anymore. I think I will retreat to my comfy little journal and give this all a spin around the old brain some more before I elaborate or confuse any of you any further…
I kind of ended up on a little tangent there didn’t I?
Jeez. The wheels are turning fast and furious in Naru this morning. More later, I’ll try and aim for lighthearted/non introspective, okay?
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