Convo this morning

11/11/09

8:55am

(Mostly in Japanese)

Me: (huffing and puffing appropriately) I’m so sorry I’m late!

Kumi: Are you ok? I was worried.

Me: I’m sorry. I was looking for a locker in Yokohama station for my suitcase.

Kumi: That’s right, you’re going away after work…

Me: It was very difficult. My bag is big and most of the lockers are small.

Kumi: Did you find one?

Me: Yes, after all, I found one next to that department store in Yokohama station.

Kumi: Takashimaya?

Me: No the one near the other exit…you know the west exit?

Kumi: You must mean More’s?

Me: Not Moores…More’s is the one with the Starbucks on  the second floor, right?

Kumi: That’s right! But Cial has a Starbucks on the second floor, too…Do you mean near Cial?

Me: No, no, no, it’s closer to the other exit, maybe the East exit…I always confuse the East and West exits.

Kumi: Ohhhh! You mean Sogo…that’s the big one by the East…

Me: No not…

Kumi: Or Bay Quarters…

Me: Not Sogo, not Bay Quarters either…For both of them you have to leave the station, right? The one I’m talking about can be entered from inside the station

Kumi: Oh, I got it.  Is it near the Sotetsu line? It must be Joinus…

Me: It’s not far from Joinus but it’s much closer to the JR line.

Kumi: Ah. Then it must be Lumine!

Me: Yes! That’s the one! Lumine. There is a locker room right next to Lumine

Kumi: Oh yeah I know it. They do have large lockers don’t they.

Me: Yes, but I had to search all over to find them so I’m late…sorry again.

Kumi: (looking pensive) That’s a lot of  shops for one train station

Me: How many are there?

Kumi: I don’t know…a lot.

Loco

I remember the first time I read Toni Morrison’s masterpiece, “Beloved.” (I say ‘first time’ because it took me three reads to fully absorb it.) She changed all my ideas about what writing was all about. She went ahead and set the bar so high I couldn’t even see it. Not to suggest that before there were no writers of her caliber. Of course there were. Take James Baldwin, for instance. If you’ve read “The Fire Next Time,” or “Go tell it on the mountain,” then you have read two of the books that informed me that a writer was something to aspire to be. James is my role model. I was young when I first read Baldwin and though he too had set the bar really high, I just knew if I kept at it I could put together an idea as well as he someday. Same with the writer of my favorite book, “Their eyes were watching God”. a writer by the name of Zora Neale Hurston. I just knew I could do what she did.

I still do. Only not in any way, shape or form similar to the way they did it. I have my own voice…still finding it but I think I know where it is now.

But, again I was young when I was introduced to Zora.

I was already an adult the first time I read Morrison, and the first book I read of hers was “Beloved.”  Needless to say, by the time she’d written Beloved she was at the top of her game, so to speak, and would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the Nobel Prize for Literature. I should have read The Bluest Eye or Song of Solomon before hand. Then I would have had some inkling of what I was in for with Beloved.

I’ve only been jarred a few times by fiction. Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” put the fear of God in me. And Bret Easton Ellis really shook me up with American Psycho. In fact, I have yet to finish reading it after several attempts… just too damn disturbing, too close to home, so to speak. it wasn’t the killing that got me though. It was the mundane and doldrums he’d lose himself in. In these  present tense stream of conscious narratives about renting a video or picking up the dry cleaning, or he’d turn that voice on the reader, like a scalpel, and ramble on and on criticizing  Genesis- with and without Phil Collins- and Whitney Houston, whole chapters of this shit…and it reminded me so much of how I must sound when I talk to my friends about Prince-  before and after The Revolution- or Stevie Wonder – before and after Songs in the Key of Life.

But, Toni…

Toni’s prose is disturbing, too. Her prose is so poetic and layered, like mountain lakes formed of melting ice and snow emptying into streams that have  been violently grooved into the mountain side leading down to a raging river that pushes through, blazing a watery path to the sea. This sea is the accumulation of human experiences, of joy and tragedy. Somehow she understands it all and yet she is one of us, one of the spectators, one of the assailants, one of the victims, telling us the stories we already know, because we’ve lived them or we’ve lived them vicariously, but in a way we’ve never heard them so that the story takes on a life-force of its own. When I read her Beloved I forgot who I was, and for a sweet moment of  sky-blue clarity I ceased to exist within the constraints I’ve constructed. I was liberated of the burden of self-dom, sojourning in her realm of truth, following a majestic voice through a pathless forest with the assurance that though the wilderness is writhing with peril, and I was indeed lost as I’d never been lost before, I would emerge on the other side scathed but more alive than when I”d entered it.

Why Toni?

Well, I’m currently reading Toni Morrison’s latest novel, “A Mercy” and I am being Toni’d again. That’s what I call it. It’s the Toni effect. Like a panacea, or a venom, made of the music of living things and things long dead; of revived things and things that will never be retrieved. Of nameless things and things with names that have been forgotten. Of love, of  fear and pain, and of nothing, the indifference of the space between stars. The title is ironic. Toni is merciless. She can turn a cockroach into the most beautiful of the Creator’s creations and find the pure undiluted evil in a butterfly. And sell it. I mean, you will never see cockroaches or butterflies the same way again. Never. She understands things on a level that ought to be reserved for demigods. She can see the connectivity of everything and isn’t afraid like most people, like me, to make the connections.

She is part of the reason I don’t like to write but I feel I must. She instructs me that writing is part storytelling , part self-immolation and part torture. I read once that art is like two cannibals on a deserted island– it’s eat or be eaten. I can see the truth of it. I feel that writing, and all art, is releasing from restraint many feelings and thoughts harbored or held captive, at the writer’s and reader’s expense.

I love Toni because she  reminds me why I write and why I wanted to become a writer in the first place.

She makes me want to write something beautiful.

Loco

continued from On the couch #1:

Me: I mean, I like Japanese girls, but then again I like all kinds of girls….

Doc: I thought we were going to be honest.

Me: Ain’t I?

Doc: I’ve read your blog, Mister…I mean, Loco…I read ALL of it! Every post! Remember you sent me the link? You suggested I could gain some insight or at least see how your imagination works.

Me: I remember.

Doc: It was your idea.

Me: I know.

Doc: So, either you lied on your blog or you’re lying now.

Me: Me and my bright ideas.

Doc: Actually, it was. It was a great idea! Your writing has been more helpful than any ink-blot or psych-evaluation I could give you. I can almost diagnose you right now. That is, if it’s true…

Me: I always tell the truth…even when I lie. Haha. I mean, there are some areas where I took a little poetic license, but for the most part it’s spot on.

Doc: One thing I’ve noticed about your blog, which I find rather curious, is that you don’t talk about girls too often. Is there any particular reason why you avoid them as a topic of your writing?

Me: I hadn’t noticed that. I feel like I have written about them, though not extensively. I just have other things on my mind I guess.

Doc: But you came here initially for the girls, didn’t you?

Me: I don’t think so…

Doc: You don’t think so…

Me: Don’t get me wrong, doc. I think Japanese girls are awfully cute, and they do have a certain something that I find sexually appealing, but they are not the end all be all. They’re just women, nothing more, nothing less.

Doc: Did you feel that way before you came here or was that a realization you’ve come to since coming here?

Me: You got me, Doc. I figured that out here.

Doc: We’re just getting started, Loco. I Haven’t gotten you…not yet.

Me: Ambitious, aren’t we? Got me pegged, do you? Good. I need all the help I can get…

Doc: You wrote in your blog that when you went home you didn’t find any women attractive.

Me: I did, but I think that’s because I’ve gotten accustomed to a certain, I don’t know, form? I mean, the thing about Japanese girls is that, overall, their upkeep is far superior so I’ve probably gotten a little spoiled. But, I’m sure I could adjust back if that was all that was available. At least I hope I can. I intend to go home someday.

Doc: You seem to place a lot of emphasis on looks.

Me: So? Looks rule here. I’ve just adjusted to the climate.

Doc: Ok, listen, Loco, let’s not get into that just yet…it’s a doozy! Let’s start with something a little lighter, why don’t we?

Me: Anything you say.

Doc: Are you angry?

Me: Now, or in general?

Doc: In general…

Me: You’ve read my blog. What do you think?

Doc: I’m a professional diagnostician of mental illnesses. But if I based my diagnosis purely on your blog I’d have to conclude you were either Schizophrenic, bi-polar or suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder. Or all of the above.

Me:  And what a surprise! They are all treatable with pharmaceuticals. Lucky me. And those lucky pharmaceutical companies…they must love you.

Doc: Don’t deflect. This isn’t about me or the drug companies. 

Me: if you say so…

Doc: But, I would never base my diagnosis on your blog. Besides, certain entries in your blog have led me to believe that this “Loco” persona is merely an alter ego, a fictional shell you hide inside.

Me: Fictional?

Doc: I believe the events that you describe occurred but that these events are being depicted by this Loco persona. Loco is telling your story.

Me: That’s deep, Doc.

Doc: You think so? It gets deeper than that I’m afraid…

Me: Do tell.

Doc: Loco, I suspect, is a rather complex coping mechanism born of your need to entertain and your desire for approval. Also…

Me: Whoa, slow down, doc. Don’t you have any lubricants around here? Cuz I gotta feeling this is going to get unpleasant…

Doc: Sorry, Loco, am I coming on too strong?

Me: Keep talking like that doc and I’m gonna have to write you off as a quack.

Doc: Listen, Loco, I know what I’m talking about. I’m in the business of knowing. But I wonder if you do. You understanding your issues is just as, if not, more important than my understanding your issues.

Me: If you say so Doc. I’ve never done this before so I have to trust you, to an extent. And I have serious trust issues I’m told.

Doc: Uh huh.

Me: I mean, if I went to a hospital with a serious injury I would hope the doctors wouldn’t expect me to know as much about fixing me as they do.

Doc: Why do you say you have serious trust issues?

Me: It’s a recurring theme in my life.

Doc: I see.

Me: What do you see?

Doc: I see a lot, Loco. For instance, I see inconsistencies between your writing persona and the persona you’ve brought to my office.

Me: Hence the use of a pen name, Doc.

Doc: Considerable inconsistencies.

Me: I should hope so. I’m not here cuz nothing’s wrong.

Doc: Are you sure about that?

Me: I know nobody’s perfect. Perfection is not my goal. I just want to be able to get through the day without refraining from physically doing harm to someone.

Doc: Uh huh…

Me: It’s starting to hurt…the effort, I mean.

Doc: Uh huh…

Me: I’m serious, Doc. If I could do that my life here would improve 100 fold. Can you help me or not?

Doc:  Perhaps…

Me: So, let’s get started. Let the healing begin!

Doc: What don’t you like about yourself?

Me: Come on doc! I don’t want to stay in the shallow water. Let’s go snorkeling. Hell, let’s go scuba diving.

Doc: By your metaphor, loco, I’m all geared up! But you don’t even have a snorkel, let alone a wet suit and an oxygen tank. So, what do you say we get our feet wet in the shallows a while? Come on, Indulge me.

Me: Sure, Doc. Whatever you say. Ok, I wouldn’t say I was angry so much as I’m indignant, slowly approaching wrathful.

Doc: Thin line between angry and indignant.

Me: I don’t like that word angry. Back home there’s this whole archetype built around the angry black man. It’s become something of a cliche used to diminish a group of complicated people to a single mode of expression. And it kind of sucks…I guess I’m supposed to be more of a righteous black hero…which is a more acceptable stereotype. You know, cause oppression naturally generates moral fiber and what not…or maybe something  like a Morgan Freeman or Barack Obama.  But, angry…not so much.

Doc: I get that.

Me: And, if I had to choose something, I guess the number one thing I don’t like about myself is…

to be continued…

(-:

Loco

Since, by my own definition, hate is fear squared, and I’m flirting with hate, it begs the question what am I afraid of.

Once again, please bear with me…

I touched on this subject in a previous post but allow me to expand upon it.

I remember when I first came to Japan and I got my first taste of Japanese-style racial insensitivity. I was working for NOVA at the time. I came into work that afternoon and, as was the practice, I checked the schedule on the wall to see what classes and levels I would be teaching that evening, made a note of them and prepared my lessons. One of the Japanese staff people came into the office a little before classes were to begin to change the schedule. This happened occasionally and was always accompanied by profuse apologies. I saw that one of my classes had been switched from a high level class which I liked to a low-level class which I could live without. I asked the staff why was the change made. It seemed arbitrary. The staff person blushed and confessed via a troubled look that it was for a reason that she didn’t exactly feel comfortable telling me. Not much of a poker face. But, in words she told me only that it was a student’s request. Her blush raised a red flag though and I smelled a rat so I didn’t let it drop. She informed a head teacher of my concerns. I watched them discussing it in Japanese which I could not comprehend at all at the time. Occasionally he would glance at me and also look uncomfortable. Finally, he came to me and said, “The student wanted a different teacher…it’s not a reflection on you. She wants to go to England someday so she wants to study with a teacher from England.” There were several British teachers, all white and all busy that period. The teacher that was  to replace me was Australian, also white (with decidedly a different accent than the British). I pointed this out. The Head teacher had screwed up, otherwise I’m sure he would have said the student wanted to go to Aussie not England, to his credit. I wasn’t sore at him. He was just doing his job. I wasn’t sore at the Japanese staff either. She too was just doing her job. I wasn’t even especially sore at the student. She was just expressing a preference based on whatever criteria she had in her head.

I was, however, in due course, sore at NOVA for creating a culture and work environment where this kind of thing was tolerated and/or condoned. I know they are a business (though clearly had other issues besides this one) and お客様神様　(The customer is God) is the rule here in Japan but still… Anyway, I told myself I wasn’t in America and let it go.

…But I hadn’t forgiven nor forgotten. I hadn’t truly let it go. Just stored it away.

It would take several more of these type incidents, and stories from other non-white co-workers of similar occurences, before it got through my benefit-of-the-doubt giving heart that something was amiss; something that was not aimed scatter-shot at “foreigners” but sniper deadly at non-white foreigners.

This actually surprised me. Why? Because, at the time, I half-expected Japanese people to feel we had something in common when I first came to Japan.

Don’t laugh.

I mean, here was a country that was actually nuked by people of European decent, the only country to hold that distinction. So, naturally, I thought that they would feel a certain connection with other people who have seen the dark side of so-called western civilization up-close and personal. After all, modern African-Americans are the survivors of essentially a 400+ year-long European-driven holocaust, and modern Africans are survivors of 400 plus years of European imperialism and genocide.  A couple of nukes are nothing in comparison to that, I know, but I thought Japanese might draw some comparisons and reach out. I was predisposed to think this way. It happened a number of times back in New York. For example, Latinos and Blacks often found themselves drawn together by our commonalities for a cause that affected minorities. Also, when I would make friends of Jewish descent (considered a race unto themselves by most whites), most of them had no problem comparing Jewish history and African-American history. And though I was stubborn and would often get into heated debates over whose history was worse, whose ancestors suffered more or longer, and which race continues to suffer the generational repercussions (stupid debate actually) we could all agree who the inquisitors were in the Inquisition and who was on the other side of those oven doors, who was on the deck of the slave ships and whose hands were on the whips.

But, I was wrong. The culture here appears to be infatuated with Euro-everything (but it could be a facade…). They appear to want to be associated with white. For example, if I had a ￥100 for every time I’ve heard a Japanese person compare Japan and England (we’re both island nations, we’re both polite, we both have a parliament and a royal family, etc…) I’d be a millionaire (yen wise at least.) I can’t really blame them, though. White people (for the most part) hold a great deal of the wealth, power and privilege in the world so it’s quite reasonable (maybe not the best word) to want to be like them. Does it matter that they were the ones that unleashed hell on your country and got medieval on civilians not so long ago? That can be rationalized, too, and I’ve heard many Japanese do it. They tell me that the blame for that was the Japanese imperialist, the unyielding emperor and the blind obedience of his legions going about Asia committing all sorts of atrocities. That Japan deserved to be nuked is the implication.

Crazy, right?

But, somehow Europeans manage to retain a relative positive image here while the image of black people…not so much. And, I’ve intuited the following to be the  Japanese beliefs based on their remarks and behavior: on the upside: Success is white but cool is black, intelligent is white but creative is black, cultural superiority is white but physical superiority is black, mental aptitude is white but spiritual aptitude is black, etc… On the downside: arrogance is white and danger is black, heritage is white and homelessness is black, hatred is white and savagery is black, Globalization spreading is white and disease spreading is black, war-mongering is white and whore-mongering is black, etc… Little by little, I could feel something inside me growing like a malignant resentment towards this thinking.  All of this has combined into an almost oppressive denial of the diversity of me and people who share my racial distinction and the various views we represent. And the humiliation of it grew and grew, while, in my efforts to endure- in the spirit of whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger- my tolerance has steadily approached critical mass.

And that’s what I was afraid of. That enduring life here wasn’t making me stronger.  It was just changing me.

I think the most peculiar side effect of my rationalizing the irrational is that I’ve been developing an argument against any future rationalizations. An argument that I believe will resolve much of what I’ve been discussing here. No more ascribing superficially to causes for Japanese obscenities unrelated to the truth because they seem valid and reasonable. No more inventing plausible explanations for Japanese indiscretions.

A couple of weeks ago I suddenly thought about one of my favorite Kung Fu flicks. A film called Iron Monkey. In it a doctor is poisoned by the deadly Buddha Palm strike of an evil monk and as he is dying he writes a prescription for himself for another doctor to procure in order to save his life. The other doctor reads the prescription. The prescription is a concoction made up of the venom of several poisonous creatures. Poison to remedy poison. Brilliant. Way to think outside the box, doc! Yes, even chemotherapy, basically a poison, can stop the metastasis, send into remission, or even kill cancer cells sometimes.

Then I started thinking about how I could apply that to my life here in Japan.

We are taught in the west that good overcomes evil. That love is the antidote for hate. That it’s always darkest before the dawn…

But I don’t believe in pure evil no more than I believe in pure good. And I’ve seen the most horrendous shit done in the name of love.

And it’s awfully dark.

Life in Japan has tampered with feelings I haven’t tampered with in a long time; my fears about my own self-worth, and my fears about my future. But, this all may yet be for the best.

I’m playing for keeps here…and the stakes are very high.

Loco

PS: Should I resume the “On the couch…:” series?

Just wanted to take a moment to relive the moment that brought me so much joy a year ago today.

Man, what a time that was…

Loco

I used to think that white people were evil.

Silly, right?

I’ve told you about the school I attended as a child. In addition to being a fine place to learn about and develop pride in African and African-American history and culture,  it was also a good breeding place for the “watu weusi” (black people) versus “adui” (the enemy) mentality I held for all of my youth and the early portion of my adulthood. The bad of the world, as it was explained to me and as I came to understand it, often had a white face. Sure there were  drugs in the community, but the cops that allowed these drugs to run rampart, and the government that allow them to get into the country, and into the ‘hood, and into my Uncle Raheem’s veins, killing him, was controlled by white people. A similar tale can be told of the guns that have injured and killed several of my friends growing up. Public education in black communities is the worst in the nation, Health care is a disaster, disease is pandemic, mental illness is off the charts, homelessness is a common sight, domestic and street violence goes virtually unchecked, sanitation is horrendous…you better believe somehow almost all the ghetto ills got attributed to racist policies…a white conspiracy to destroy black people or create an environment that fostered self-destruction.

You think president Obama’s former pastor Reverend Wright was an aberration? He wasn’t. He’s actually pretty typical, and compared to what could be heard any day (in and out of church) back in Brooklyn, a little watered down.

It was easy to make out white people as the Creator’s way of challenging the righteous determination, tenacity, and perseverance of black people; to keep us on our spiritual toes, to hone us into the instrument of change that the world sorely needs. It was easy for blacks to see ourselves as the Meek, and thus would, in due course, inherit the Earth. A worthy nemesis was required to rouse a downtrodden people into a black rabble and this idea, this image, this delusion of the evil white race had proven time after time to be more than adequate to the task. There was enough truth in the falsehood to make it feasible and palatable. It could be rationalized. Many black leaders drew from this well of tragedy and despair and used it to galvanize and manipulate. Many black people drew motivation to succeed in the “white world” from it. Many black souls  drowned within it.

I was nearly one of them. There, but for the gift of some semblance of a self-esteem I received from my primary school, go I.

It took a long time and a lot of outside-the-box thinking for my mentality to move from the “isn’t it obvious they’re evil?” category to the “even if there is a conspiracy, that doesn’t mean all white people should be condemned as evil” to “people are people, some are good and some aint,” to where my racial politics currently reside (for the time being): “All humans regardless of color, race or creed, have the capacity for good and evil in them, and no race is more inclined than another to do either.” It took a great deal of soul searching to reach this conclusion, to clean out my mind and heart and make room for more positive and constructive thoughts and feelings. I had to turn against all I was raised to believe, all I was instructed to take to heart by well-meaning people who had crawled through hell on earth to bring me the instructions, who had kept what they thought to be a gold watch of wisdom hidden in their asses while the Vietnamese tortured them (sorry, Pulp Fiction reference…gotta love Tarantino).

I felt like I had betrayed their vision for a long time.

But, during all that time,believe it or not, somehow, genuine hate never crept into my heart. Fear, yes, but not hate. I was afraid of white people the same way I was afraid of snakes. But, I don’t hate snakes. I actually think they’re pretty cool. Some people see a snake for what it is. For example, a rattlesnake is poisonous and a garter snake isn’t. They’re both snakes. Some people see a garter snake and run for their lives. Some people see a rattlesnake and say, “I’d love to have one of those for a pet”   or have its poison producing organs removed and wear it around their necks like a living necklace. Some people understand snakes and the effect the snake has on people, its power, the primal fear it induces, and play on that fear, siphon that power, make the snake out to be a monster, and use it to manipulate people. My fear was more like a common sense. Snakes bite and a rattlesnake’s can kill so best to avoid them. Don’t be a fool like that frog in the Scorpion and the frog fable.

No, I’ve never known hate…at least not personally, not intimately. The dictionary defines hate as to dislike intensely or passionately or to feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward. Even that, I feel, doesn’t quite capture what I’ve built hate up in my mind to be. To me, hate is simply what fear evolves into when one allows it  to enter the realm of the irrational, when the mind is incapable of addressing the fear in a way so as to alleviate it and thus seeks to justify it in any way imaginable, even delusionally. Just as necessity is the mother of invention, I believe fear is the mother of hate. Often the hater is not even aware of what he/she is afraid of, but their fear is real and palpable. Like me and those cockroaches.

Where am I going with this?

Well…the Japanese have had me thinking about hate quite a bit.

I think I’ve been able to keep my heart free of hate because I’ve never been personally given any reason to hate anyone. Sure, America has a dark history and that history impacted my life a great deal, and for the most part negatively, but the vast majority of that impacting was indirect. I experienced racism vicariously. Never personally. Never been called a Nigger (except by my friends). Never been denied a job. Never been told to use the side or back door. Never been denied entry anywhere. Doors have opened for me throughout my life. I was the token (or one of them) in most the office places I’ve worked in. I am the beneficiary of the sacrifices my ancestors, ancient and not-so ancient, have made, the ones my primary school made sure I understood well, and so I have a full appreciation of them.

I grew up in a city that was for most part tolerant (compared to earlier times.) I grew up in a sophisticated society. Of course there was racism, but, it was a much more sophisticated version of racism, less conspicuous. Racism, due to the success of the Civil Rights Movement, for the most part, had mutated in order to survive. So I never had to face the humiliations and dehumanization my parents experienced. The racism I detected actually required detection. Racism didn’t wear a white pointy hood and spew epithets that would make my skin crawl. Now, it had a friendly face, an innocent smile, it hid behind innocuous questions and it verbally identified that Pre-Civil Rights Movement racism as a great evil. Sometimes it was ignorant, self-righteously so. It said things like “No offense, but you do like basketball don’t you?” or “I know I’m not supposed to say black people like watermelon but where I grew up  that’s all we eat in the summer, blacks and whites, so I don’t see the problem with saying black people like Watermelon…shit, i like it too,” or ”Sometimes when I hang out with the brothers I have more fun than when I hang out with my white homies. Brothers know how to party, youknowwhatumsaying?” An occasional white woman might  clutch her purse a little tighter on an elevator, but that was rare. This kind of thing was the worse of what I encountered personally in my life.

Then I come to Japan.

Here, in Japan, I’ve had my first taste of the humiliations my parents endured, only politely and dare I say pure? The Japanese version has an innocence. Like a baby racist’s first steps. Like being spat in the face…by children, or old people. You can forgive children for doing so because you tell yourself there’s no way this child has the life experience required to hate someone enough to spit on so either they’re mentally challenged or their parents have told them that this was how they should show their feelings. In the case of old people, you can forgive  them too but it’s a much more difficult task. They ought to know better but maybe they’ve settled into and are now trapped in a mentality that allows for spitting in the face of people that don’t look the same as they do. In the  case of Japanese people,  it’s much more difficult to think of them like children incapable of thinking for themselves, or even as old people, too feeble to see the problem, too Alzheimer’d to know their asses from their elbows, or too obstinate to change. I can’t bring myself to do it. I don’t want to bring myself to do it.

Nor do I want to think they are taking their cue from the world at large, or should I say from racist white people from the past. Part of the reason black people started calling other black people nigger was because the person doing so wanted to be associated with power- whether that power was derived from wealth or intelligence- and it was usually directed at someone who you thought to be of less value than yourself, lower than yourself. If Japanese are taking their cue from racists whites then basically the same thing is occurring.  Sometimes, I find myself observing some Japanese and their pseudo-polite vileness and pseudo-passive obscenities and I can see what my grandmother saw back in Savannah Georgia, and feel what my grandfather felt, albeit to a much lesser degree, and I can feel those instructions their generation has passed on to mine trying to claw their way back to the surface…instructions as to how to think of and feel about such people.

But I dare not follow those instructions…not here in Japan.

And, so I rationalize the spittle dripping from my face with something ultimately as ridiculous as:  ”The Japanese spit in each other’s faces all the time and almost everyone takes it without getting too bent out of shape.  That’s why in front of virtually every station someone is giving out tissues.  It’s just part of life here in Kawaiiland. Just wipe the flim off and keep moving. But, since you’re not Japanese, you shouldn’t do any spitting because the art of and timing involved in spitting is something only Japanese know well and if it’s done poorly you’ll only make the situation worse, and in the process make life more difficult for the other foreigners living here who are (presumably, but perhaps not) having great gobs of flim spat at them and handling it.”

Yes, when I find myself rationalizing the irrational, and by all appearances to my own disadvantage, I can taste the bile collecting in my mouth.

My heart is flirting with hate.

Loco

to be continued…

I must apologize. The On The Couch series has been postponed.

My intention was to give a blow by blow account of my sessions with my…well, with myself. I have not actually gone to a therapist in Japan…not yet. I didn’t write that post especially for entertainment purposes, though. It was an earnest attempt to self-analyze  through writing. My therapist persona is an amalgam of all the therapists I’ve ever seen, including the real therapist I went to for a brief period back in NY, as well as the ones in Woody Allen (IMHO the cleverest, funniest, most astute screenwriter alive today) movies, TV shows, books I’ve read, and  comments I’ve received from readers that I have found useful. Oh, and of course, a whole lot of me.

I was really getting into it, having a ball writing it, when I ran into a few snags. What happened was, as I was writing parts 2 and 3 (both are nearly complete) I realized something I thought ought to be addressed before I continue. So you can think of this post as a prelude or introduction to the On the couch series (should I resume it.).

At the risk of being redundant and over-stating what might be obvious, let me say this: When your life consists of hundreds of people a day looking at you as if prudence dictates that you should be watched carefully (not with curiosity-which would be annoying but, here in Japan, well within reason- but, with suspicion and fear-unreasonable and unacceptable under normal conditions, which these are not), when virtually no one (Japanese, that is) can relax in your vicinity nor can ignore you whatsoever, and engage in the most bizarre behavior as a result of this inability, or, though you haven’t caused them nor intend to cause them any harm, they behave as if you have indeed previously caused them harm and intend to do so again, or move away and/or evade coming near you in a manner that suggests they believe you carry a contagion that would render them dead or dying if direct or even indirect contact was made, and this fictional infection has been known to even take to the air, so it’s best to not even breathe the miasma you release when you exhale…when some variation of the above responses to your presence occur on a daily basis, it’s bound to have some effect.

What do you imagine that effect could be?

Before I go there, let me go here. And  please bear with me…

For me, rationalization of Japanese behavior has been a priority, a daily requirement. In order to do it effectively it requires a certain amount of desensitization. I have to close my mind and heart to the world around me and lock them away soundly several times a day or risk serious damage.

For example, when I see that empty seat beside me or the Japanese-free bubble around me on the crowded train I must rationalize it. I must tell myself convincingly something that doesn’t cast my Japanese hosts in a dark light. I must tell myself, “That’s just the way they are…it has nothing to do with me personally or racially. They’re completely unaware of any offense I might feel. They don’t mean anything by it. I just look strange to them, like a circus freak. Hell, I wouldn’t want to be near a man with 3 heads, either.” And I read my book, or play Tetris, and try to luxuriate in the bonanza of leg or breathing room on a Japanese rush hour train. Or, I tell myself, “Every society has its good points and bad points, highs and lows. Here I have some very high highs and some very low lows…and that’s balance, therefore my life here is for the most part pretty good.” Or, I tell myself, “this behavior of theirs is like a social tax, a levy on the quality of  life, and like they say nothing is certain but death and taxes!”

I rarely rationalize the  way most Japanese I know (and surprisingly a good number of foreigners as well ) persistently suggest I do. That is, to tell myself that they are a homogeneous people unaccustomed to foreigners, or that they can’t speak English thus they freak out when they see someone who they presume cannot speak Japanese…these types of rationalizations always leave me wanting.

Depending on my mood, I might tread on dangerous ground and ask myself if what I’m seeing is real or imagined. Am I paranoid? Am I delusional? Have I created a nemesis that does not really exist because interesting stories require genuine conflict? Is my perception of what I see distorted by my sensitivity?

Truly dangerous ground.

Sometimes I can’t help but enter the danger zone and tell myself, “they’re just ignorant.  It’s perfectly natural for them.” Or, “Grandma would be so disappointed at me for getting all worked up and bent outta shape over this foolishness. At least they’re not trying to throw a rope around my neck and string me up on a tree. Just ignore these…people…and live your life.”  When I catch a whiff of something foul in the air, something not so innocent, not so naive, something proudly ignorant, flagrantly insensitive, almost aggressively so. Something seemingly intended to offend. That’s when I get all bent and I may slip and stumble into the danger zone .  At these times I really have to batten down the hatches and steel my soul…These are the really perilous moments. The moments that make or break a person.

It’s funny. There was a time when I thought of my life here as ultimately inconsequential, at least  in the long run. Just a collection of memories and experiences…something to impress friends and thrill (or bore to tears) grandchildren with someday. I thought my essential self was safe from Japan because I truly don’t get to be me that often here anyway. I felt like my essential self  was back in NY waiting for my adventure abroad to come to its inevitable end and upon my return home I’d be back to my regularly scheduled programming. But, somewhere along the line…maybe on that third trip to NY for a visit, I realized that the essential me hadn’t wanted to be left behind. It would not endure neglect any longer. It would not be forgotten and abandoned. It realized that significant changes were occurring and it would be part of this change, for better or for worse. It wanted to be with me, so it had stowed away and made the trip back to Asia with me…

Not good.

So, whatever mental, emotional or spiritual damage I may incur as a result of my life here will be permanent, now, I realized while I was putting together that On the couch series. I realized with a certain amount of alarm that I’m playing for keeps and so I had better proceed with due caution and diligence.

My soul is truly on the line.

Those thoughts, like the ones I described on the train, aren’t perilous in and of themselves but because of what lurks  in and around and between the words. That’s where the peril resides. If I, for example, think of Japanese people as ignorant, then aren’t I, in effect, raising myself above them, condescending to them? And by thinking of them as a them, as an entity with little variation,wouldn’t I be guilty of the same thing I feel is being done to me unfairly? And, if I evaluate Japanese people’s behavior in comparison with the behavior of the racist whites my grandmother endured in Savannah Georgia in the 1940s and 1950s, wouldn’t that allow me to transfer some of the feelings I have held about those white people who abused and humiliated grandma to Japanese people, whether or not they deserve it?

VERY perilous territory, indeed.

And that was just the shallow shit! I hadn’t even gotten deep into the side effects of rationalizing the irrational, yet.

…to be continued.

Loco

Yesterday, suddenly, I remembered why I quit my job in NY and eventually came to live in Japan. And how I learned about my heart’s wayward behavior.

I remembered that one day I was at my desk in Midtown Manhattan, looking around at the people I spent day after day for 7 years looking at, and suddenly I realized I didn’t really know any of them.

It might have been a reaction from the sensimilla I’d smoked that morning while I was getting dressed, but I didn’t think so. Sometimes I took a few totes before work to take the edge off.

I do however remember that I felt like I existed but I wasn’t alive, just watching my life through my eyes, experiencing it vicariously through some stranger who was using me for some purpose, neither good nor evil, light nor dark…in fact, it seemed quite normal. Like this was the way it was supposed to be. And everyone around me was in on the fix or similarly had front row seats to their own lives, unwilling or unable to affect change.

It scared the shit outta me, it did.

I wanted to live again. I would put in my 2-weeks notice the next day.

That night, while I was typing my notice up, trying to find just the right way to kiss off a job while I was on top of my game (I was one of the top salesmen, definitely being groomed for management), I panicked. I had been procrastinating about making such a move for the past couple of years. A five-figure bonus for an outstanding year was due the following week. I’d saved up a nest egg in anticipation of finding the huevos to do it. And if that weren’t enough of an incentive, I’d even written a novel and found an agent of some notoriety with an outstanding track record. By all appearances I was not making a mistake, I was not about to undertake something I would spend years regretting. I was making a change the way wise people make changes: with forethought and preparation.

But, apparently, my heart hadn’t gotten the memo because it was racing like I’d just pulled a Tony Montana and hoovered up a mound of cocaine, reminding me of how stable I currently was, how comfortable I had become with a steady income, toys at my disposal, a circle of support filled with friends and family nearby, a girl or two poised to make a commitment to accompany me on my path to greatness. I snapped aloud, “What the fuck am I doing???” fell to my knees and prayed.

My christian roots tend to find their way to the surface when I have a crisis though I’ve rarely found my way to a church.

I knelled before my queen-sized cherry sleigh bed with the posture-pedic mattress, fingers clasped, head bowed, mind and soul open to answers from the powers that be, from the Creator I wholeheartedly believe was looking out for me, and waited.

He (or She) didn’t answer.

Someone once told me that coincidence is the The Creator’s way of remaining incognito. I waited for a coincidence.

There was silence in my bedroom. Nothing but the buzz of the fluorescent light above and groans of the century old Brownstone I lived in and my heart. I broke the silence:

“If I’m doing the right thing, Lord, don’t say anything. “

The Creator, in his consummate wisdom, said nothing. No coincidences occurred either. I didn’t suddenly receive an email. The phone didn’t ring with some caller bearing an ominous message vaguely connected to my plight. The door bell didn’t ring prompted by a visitor with a message of ye or nay, little to his or her knowledge. Not even a bird budged outside the window, or called out in that Avian language of theirs that I seem to understand at moments like these. It was the kind of silence that only the Creator could produce, I told myself as I rose, sat at my computer and completed the notice.

Flash forward to today.

I woke up this morning feeling lonely. Friends and family are far away, literally, emotionally, physically…I hardly know them anymore. Actually I’ve been waking feeling this way quite a bit lately.

It’s a phase, I know. I’ve been here before. It’s not homesickness. I hold no more illusions about where and what home is. The cliche is true. Home is where your heart is. The problem is, where’s my heart? It’s not in NY. It’s not in Yokohama. And, most surprisingly, it’s not inside of me where it ought to be. It’s on a walkabout perhaps. Left me to my own devices for a spell. It does this from time to time. A little heart appreciation period I presume. And during these periods I am quite inconsolable. Unreachable. I survive on heart memory. I go through the motions of having a heart, which is unfortunately enough for the people I know here in Japan. They don’t know me. maybe some of the more perceptive of them can see through the amiability and passivity I display during these heart-free periods, but most adore me nonetheless.

They don’t know me. Nobody knows me. But, it’s ok. Who really knows anybody anyway?

My heart has been MIA for a few weeks now. I really don’t mind him taking off like this. Only, when he does, the major drawback is: Writing becomes a chore because I write from my heart. When I can’t write I feel useless. It’s hard to forgive my heart (and myself) for putting me through this.

So, I spend my days alone going through the motions with my Japanese friends and colleagues; watching them. Everything appears to be on the surface. Hon’ne and Tatamae aside, there’s an artlessness about them that I’ve only experienced with real friends and yet these are people I don’t really even know. There’s an openness and a vulnerability that I feel totally undeserving of. I have never experienced such artlessness. I am always crafty, tricksy. I always feel the need to be careful, to secure my heart. But, when my heart is on one of its walkabouts I am worse. I have no heart to share with my friends. I only have platitudes and the verbal equivalent of flatulence.

It’s enough to make you afraid. Sometimes, if you let it, if you’re weak or vulnerable or predisposed, it’s enough to make you hate.

It was enough to make me think about those co-workers I deserted 6 years ago back in NY. And the feelings that prompted my flight to Asia.

Someone once told me, “You can’t run from yourself. Cuz, everywhere you go, there you are.”

They never told me my heart could run from me, though.

While my hearts away, I spend my time occupying my mind with mind-numbing stuff…reading novels, watching TV, overeating, overdrinking, over-smoking and over-analyzing everything to the point when the point of the analysis becomes moot or exaggerated beyond recognition. Colds feel like cancer. Hangovers feel like Leukemia. The city feels like a Jungle. Home feels like a cave or a sanctuary or a monastery. Nothing I think or feel is worthy of being recorded in any way, especially in writing.  Not while I’m going through the motions of being a real person.

But, I’ve been down this road before, and I know when my heart will be back. It’s waiting for my call. It comes when I really need it or rather when I demand it through action. Its obedience is absolute. Its allegiance is unquestionable. It only leaves because I want it to go. When I need time away from it; time to see the world without feeling the world. Time to collect myself, my thoughts, my energy. Time to appreciate time, to remind myself of the gift each day is…

And then, one morning, I’ll be walking down the street, and an idea will pop into my head…not a brilliant idea, just an idea, one with promise. And, I won’t lay it to the side to be addressed later, I’ll stop wherever I might be and whip out my handy pen & pad, or rush into the nearest cafe to grab a seat, a cup of Joe, and jot it down, or, like today, upon reaching my office, head directly to the computer and begin writing a text message (in the form of this post) to my heart telling him it’s time that he came home, with utter certainty that he would soon be here.

Welcome back. You are forgiven!

Loco

Slightly off topic, but this is incredible news!

He was the surprise winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize beating out French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The committee cited his work on nuclear disarmament.

Congratulations President Obama, Michelle and family.

(found the following short story I wrote last year…it made me smile which means more to me right now than it sounds)

Yet another

Lisa had dropped by. She’d do that sometimes, out of the blue, and we’d watch movies and have sex. We didn’t have much of a relationship aside from that. I liked the movies a lot more than the sex. She used to be a great movie partner, but now, well…she’d prefer to get right to the sex. She didn’t even watch movies with me anymore. She endured them. That’s why I stopped inviting her over. Any woman who can’t appreciate film, or appreciate my appreciation of film, was not a keeper. She never made the connection, the leap of imagination, that my film watching was fetish. That my enjoyment in the bed was directly connected to the foreplay of watching and enjoying a fine film together. And I never made it an issue, at least not verbally.

Nowadays, she just pops over on a whim. Not even the courtesy of a booty call, or booty text, no nothing. She just knows I won’t be entertaining and, nine times out of ten, she`s right. Disrespectful, but on point.

The other night we were watching “Beaches.” Barbara Hershey was learning about her terminal condition and Bette Midler’s version of “I think it’s gonna rain today,” was playing in the background. I was mouthing the lyrics, tears rolling down my cheeks. I didn’t bother wiping them. My T-shirt clung to my chest where the tears had landed. I could feel Lisa’s eyes on me.

“I bet you cry every time you watch this movie,” she said.

“So,” I sniffled. “It’s tragic and beautiful…true friendship.”

“You got issues!”

“And you’re issue-free,” I retorted. “Lucky you.”

She sucked her teeth. One of those seething, West Indian teeth sucks.

“Haven’t you ever lost a friend?” I cried. I didn’t even look at her.

Later on, we were doing the deed, her payoff for sitting through yet another tear-jerker with me. She was on top of me whooping and hollering and what not. Breaking my concentration. I was trying to recall the name of the disease that killed Barbara Hershey. Chronic something or other. I’d watched the movie at least 20 times… And then I blurted out, uncontrollably, “That’s it! I’m quitting smoking!”

She stopped her grunting to shout, “what!”

“Nothing.”

“No,” she demanded. “What did you say?”

“If I were to catch cancer, would you even care?”

“That’s not what you said!”

“Nevermind.”

Loco (-:

PS: Off topic, I know, but my mind wanders and I stalk it.