Loving, moving, smuthing, soothing - get it out, round it out, run away, find a way - let's make tomorrow another day - I wish you well, I wish you on, fourteen years, gone.

Westward. Onward. Westward-ho. I see another, so make it so. Let's see beauty, let's see pain, sometimes they're one and the same. I'll read about it, I'll tell you so, then throw back the covers and let is show - we're moving forward, moving on, and I'll break for the morning if our night is gone.

Rising, breathing, taising, seething - mad is for the hapless, sad will take the rain, holy father what's the game? I've thought about it, I got a lot, and where my hand breaks - I'm letting go.......................g...o...n...e.

Taking a Poop

And by the way, why do we use the verb "take?" Usually when you take, you gain something. But here...well, you know.

I felt the urge sitting at my desk (shitting at my desk, as the Japanese would say - they pronounce "si" as "shi" - it's quite funny when you come across "City Apartments." In my town's case, they really are...) so I wasn't shitting yet but needed too, so I headed off to my regular stall, the one with a western style toilet seat. I took one step into the bathroom and saw that the janitor was cleaning at that moment. It was really quite unlucky because usually the kids have to do all the cleaning around the school and they only do that after 6th hour or before school if they get in trouble for something. (And here "trouble" means they shaved their eyebrows or touched a motorcycle or something like that.) So our bathroom was getting its semesterly cleaning. Great. I'll have to find another western seat.

Now, I don't mind the squatters. They're actually quite conducive for the intended activity; however, I wanted to take a bit of a rest, maybe a nap, so I headed off. I went to the guests' bathroom on the other side of the building, a place that I thought was a duplicate of the teacher's bathroom upstairs. And I think it is except for the space between the front of the western toilet bowl and the divider to the next stall. I didn't quite know what to make of the situation upon opening the door. I had to like, pull my pants down while at the same time start to sit, then slide the whole get-up over the seat, timing everything to come down at the same time so that I fit with pants around my ankles. Having squeezed into this position I now found my legs spread to the point of straining and my nose literally 3 inches from the divider. And I couldn't scoot back any further otherwise I'd miss over the backside.

I started jogging about 3 weeks ago and with it, started stretching too and now I'm really glad. I don't think I could have done it without my recent gains in flexibility. Coming up after business hours was quite the time as well - I celebrated my success by laboriously tucking my dress shirt into my skin tight uniqlo pants. The Japanese didn't account for my Scandinavian muscles when they designed their clothes, and they certainly didn't design that toilet stall for a Western-style toilet. Go inaka.


(PS - That's "countryside" for all you living outside Japan. Which really means, that's for my mom and my great-grandma, the only people who read my blog...lol)


Goodnight. So much for that 10 o'clock thing.

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An Update

Listening to: "Is There a Ghost" by Band of Horses

I could sleep...I could sleep...When I lived alone...Is there a ghost in my house...

I moved my bed to the other room. I'm now across a closet and a room from the wall closest to the highway that practically runs over my apartment. It's made a world of difference. It's quiet now; I finally feel like I can relax and let go of my thoughts for the night.

I continue to search for perspective to this whole Japan thing.

There are two things that have been on my mind the past couple of days, and I wanted to hold onto them for a little while to see if they still held true. They're both open to reform, but for now I'm going to lay it out.

My situation at my school isn't the best. It's not the worst - no one's antagonistic. But people are hardly ever friendly, and certainly never inviting. I'm left to wonder if it's something I've done or not doing, or just general resentment, or maybe not even that, could be just simple apathy. I didn't take advantage of getting to know foreign exchange students when I was at college. I'm ashamed. I'm kicking myself now. What an opportunity I passed by. And what an opportunity people have here to get to know an American. A Luther.

I had a discussion with my parents about this last night, and my dad had some good suggestions about inviting a teacher of two over for dinner at my place. I have an inclination towards not inviting people to do things myself, and I feel a bit scared as the foreigner. I feel like it's not my place to be inviting Japanese people to do things, that they should be inviting and welcoming since this is their land. They know where things are and what there is to do and how to get there and how to speak the language...

But maybe this is just victim speak. I have been living here 14 months now afterall. Maybe it's time to grow up and take some ownership.

This leads into the first thing I wanted to mull over. I want to stay in Japan longer than these 2 years, but if I do I want to be doing something different. I want to either stay with the JET Program and teach at elementary schools or junior highs, or I want to get out of the JET Program and do something other than teach English. I don't know what my prospects for that are. I can't speak Japanese, so I'm severely limited in my options. I'll have to start looking now.

Or

I come back home after two years in Japan, get some kind of a career job, and study for the Foreign Service Officer Test.

Or I come back home, regroup, and look for another opportunity to get out of the country for awhile to a culture entirely different from Japan. Honestly, I don't know if I'm digging this too much. It's a very severe and uptight culture. It stresses me out a lot of the time.

If it's true that this is my last year in Japan, then that means I only have 10 months left now. I've already seen my very last September. I've seen my last summer. I don't have any time to waste, and I can't take any moments for granted.

The second thing is this idea of marriage that has seemed to be pestering me more than an empty stomach.

On a kind of related note, I was at church this morning and it was really great to just pray and sing the songs. I was praying to Jesus for my physical needs and just asked for a hug, and that got me thinking about when was the last time I'd been hugged by someone and I can't remember, maybe it's been a month, and really, how many times have I hugged someone in the last 6 months? I'm sure it's less than 10. That's like, once every 3 weeks maybe. And that's only on average.

It pretty much sucks to live alone.

Well, this is what I was thinking and that is, if finding a woman to marry is always in the back of my mind (ok, the front) then maybe I should do something about it. I mean, actively look. It makes sense, right? I don't have any Godly counsel in this and I haven't done a Bible study on it yet, so I have some thinking to do. Then when this idea had solidified in my brain, I immediately noticed myself. Am I the right person yet?

"Marriage is about being the right person." I've discussed this statement before, but for the first time, just now, I'm seeing this statement's truth. I've always thought about finding someone as if it were an entitlement. That I was entitled to a wife, and well, where the hell was she? But looking at myself, what if I did meet somebody? Would I be able to introduce her to my life? Would I be able to subject her to the life I live? Am I the right person?

"If you're not ok with being single, you're not going to be ok with somebody."

"The answer isn't found with the woman."

Hmm. I know that. More than just the words now. Good thing I didn't have to go through a failed relationship to learn a lesson this time. Thanks God.

What does it look like to be the right person? It means responsibility. And I mean that in every cliche definition and beyond. It means drinking less beer. It means cleaning the dishes more often than once a week. It means organizing the mail. It means ditching a victim mentality. It means eating fruit and getting exercise. It means shaving and getting a haircut. It means being in the Word on a daily basis. It means keeping interests and hobbies. It means maintaining integrity and accountability at work. It means learning to let go of the little things. It means looking to the Light for direction in the big things. It means being kinder than necessary. It means keeping a budget. It means saving money. It means seeking fun and staying light-hearted and always reaching out. It means counting to 10 when upset.

God, not only break me, but test me with fire. Will what I've built last? Will it stand up to the flames? Am I motivated by the right Wind? Are my idols placed at your feet? Have I let go? Does my strength come from the inexhaustible source? Are you with me in the morning? Do I have your counsel at night? Do you lead me by the hand over the rocky way, down the path too narrow?

Lord, I'm an unworthy man, and I'm humbled when I realize I'm in your presence.

Missing Home

I'm just sad. I don't have the motivation to do a whole lot. I want to come home. I think I lack a cohesive set of goals right now. I have many esoteric things that I want to do / think I should be doing / would be good to do, but no ranking of priorities. Let me make one. This is a working priority list.

P.S. I'm listening to Phil Wickham's "I will wait for you there" on repeat. I took my guitar out, fixed the broken A string and played it for the first time since I don't know, the middle of July? It was so, so good to play. I played a few of my songs and then just jammed and wrote to some chords for awhile. I put the guitar down, saying I really needed that.

1. God.
2. Sleep. Weeknights, 10:00pm, no ands ifs or buts.
3. Move.
4. Exercise.
5. Take care of my job stuff - School, NAJET and AJET.
6. Study for Japanese Test.
7. Put things back where you found them.
8. Being with people.
9. Reading.
10. Guitar, hiking, exploring, writing, taking pictures, laughing at myself, taking vacations, dancing in the rain, going to Joy Fellowship, calling my family and friends back home, grocery shopping, watching movies, playing baseball with the kids in my neighborhood, and hopefully most of these happen weekly.

Drink it in, Luther. Breathe deeply and don't worry about your heart right now. Attitude. You create your existence, and things are as they are named. Forget that Shakespeare, a rose smells how I say it does.





Whew.

My Japan

Drinking low quality, blend coffee from a juice box purchased at the vending machine in my school’s hallway for a hundred yen suddenly fills me with the essence of Japan. All my feelings, all my memories, all my moods and swings, the sum of all my pictoviews gather together in full force just behind my forehead. It’s like brut cologne to junior high. One whiff of that aging bottle sitting in the top drawer of my dresser always brought me right back to 7^th grade gym class. They say smell is the sense most closely linked with memory, and if that’s the case I’m headed for early senility. However, I have my words and I have the crushing weight of my feelings, so I’ll have to rely on this subjective history to get me through my nursing home years.

Juice Box Coffee. This isn’t even Can Coffee quality.

Through the thick of a year’s worth of memories, a single moment emerges. I’m standing on the sea wall and a breeze tugs at my back. The sound of a semi hangs there too; there’s the ever sleeping Easter Island mountain, and a sky almost matching the sea. This is how I know my Japan: where the hills kiss the water, where people sit at low tables, drinking to the ages just as they have done for a thousand years, where old women ride scooters and bicycles and buy their vegetables at convenience stores, where children bow to a stranger, their bodies bending even as their eyes stare in wonder; a place where concrete and iron push their way through the eonic surface, rising to the sky, where these very buildings are reclaimed by the land they once covered, now entangled in green. Time is all of history here and now is made up of all of then.

I discovered today I've been in love with a thought.

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Breathing detail into the body

Sorry. I ain't got any of that today. You may have to give me a skype call to motivate some detailed Japan story. I'm just not feeling up to snuff to run it all through my fingers.

Today I miss home again. Watching the movie "Lars and the Real Girl" did it I think. I didn't want to watch a movie. But I didn't want to do anything else either. The movie was set in a place up north where people slide their cars on the ice, cook hotdish, and come over and sit in a tragedy - where new bath towels are an item of conversation and where spring starts with Easter, a place where people are terrible dancers and the fake flowers on the alter each Sunday morning are brought by a volunteer over to the local hospital. This is the north. This is my home. I really miss that familiarity. I'll always be comfortable there because I'll always know what to do and I'll always know what to expect.

My surplus money's gone. I spent it all. I'm going to try and live off of $300 in the next 3 weeks. Which is going to be tough given the schedule of parties and gatherings coming up on the list.

Hmm.

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A year. Have I said that already? Cuz if I haven't, I've sure been thinking it for the past 35 days. That's 55 weeks, after you take out the 2 I spent in the States over Christmas and New Year's. Fifty-five 7 day weeks. Insane. A year.

What have I done in the past year? Don't I still haunt these same places? I have come full circle with the earth, my position to the sun now aligning with old activities and spaces. A year.

Like I felt in college, life back home must be on hold. People can do too much in one year, they can't be different, otherwise, what am I going to know when I get back? My sister Hannah is turning 22 in less than 3 weeks - she's going to graduate college before I get back and I left her in the middle of it. The weight of that age is staggering and it just took the wind out of me. Twenty-two is an adult's age.

I guess if we want to talk numbers, I'm 33% through my life expectancy. I only get double of what I've seen, and maybe a lot less depending on how I go.

Or maybe more. I could live to see 3 centuries. I'd have to be 117 to do it. Wasn't there this guy who just died who claimed to be in his 130s?

I'm decided to drop difference jibing. It ain't funny no more. Nobody appreciates it. Nobody who's traveled anyway. Difference jibing is only funny to those who have never left their insulating nest of ethnocentrism, most often found married to those who never leave their hometowns. I'm not saying that all people who stay home are like this, just that it's easy to stay comfortable and laugh at what's different when home and the people who are just like you are all you ever know. I've realized that now after a year of response from pointing out differences. It don't make a bit of difference if you call it soda or pop, read or yomu, ketchup or kechyapu - I just don't care anymore. We're all talking about the same thing anyway.

And Canada doesn't suck.

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