Nasty Conjugation

Alright, I am going to start updating this here site with things I have written so far. I’ve written a lot, but very little of it is fit to post here. Actually, whatever I end up posting probably isn’t fit to post, either, but at least only a select few of you read this anyway! CHA-CHING.

This was one of the first things I wrote here, about a week after we arrived. I started writing it on the train home from work and ended up sitting on a bench about a block from our apartment finishing it under a streetlight. A cop watched me for a little while, but I guess I was eventually deemed harmless and he left.

Japan – I would like to test your thunderstorms.

I come from a place where, I’d like to think, the electric rage of nature is free and unabashed. Born from the slow thoughts of a swamp, a thousand swamps, our storms are wild and indecisive, frequent but never tired.

I say rage because, keeping in mind the nature of colonization, the emotion seemed appropriate.

Florida, as a landscape, has been horrible abused. We straightened the Kissimmee River (we were so proud), forced it to walk on hind legs despite the pain, chose new shores for it to love. An arranged marriage – rather, an arranged divorce followed by an arranged marriage, followed by suburbs, oh my god, suburbs and strip malls and just cold bones scattered across the asphalt. Celebration, born in the shadow of the Rat, is so wanton it would make Huxley blush like a boy caught masturbating. The Everglades just watch silently, cower, and pray that we forget them.

So rage! Our landscapes should share it, a mutual thing born of hatred for concrete. What kind of power must lie in your storms, Japan? Your land: an arranged divorce followed by an arranged marriage followed by ritual mutilation and the adoption of millions of lost, beautiful little children. You are so generous!

Your thunder should cleave mountains, fill valleys, echo with the primal fear of violent chaos.

Today I thought I heard you speaking. The clouds were ponderous, thoughtful as I walked to work. The wind was playful – like a cat with something weak. The air grew bolder as I ducked inside to hide myself, and I regretted having to miss my first storm here.

While in a lesson I heard it through the building, a rumble of thunder. I was confused at first! A Floridian, my pride tangled in skeins of lightning, I thought it must have been an earthquake. Where else but Orlando on a warm, heavy afternoon could the thunder shake reinforced steel? I wanted to step outside, to accept the challenge, but I had to start class. I would go outside after.

“So class, how is everyone? Anything interesting?”

“Bad weather outside,” from a middle-aged businessman. He was clicking his pen, neurotically, and would continue to do so for the entire lesson.

“So I heard!” I said, gesturing towards the wall as another low, tempting rumble sounded outside. Soon.

“Yes, very bad!” another student said. Younger, college-aged, enthusiastic, he looked like a video game character, though I’ve learned that this was a normal style. I couldn’t wait to go outside, dear sweetness, to wash their broken English from myself with wind and rain, thunder, home.

But –

“This morning, at train station,” she began, a middle-aged woman who had not yet spoken. “A little girl, with her friend. She had…confuse me with her mother.”

“Oh dear!” I said, theatrical and on autopilot. “How embarrassing.”

She nodded, but she had more to say.

“Yes. She held my hand,” she said, and everyone laughed some at this.

“Oh my, that’s funny. I bet that was weird!” What fun, this confusion, oh my. I imagined lightning tearing the building, so fast and clean that for a moment I would be able to see Yokohama from within the storm, seated like a bombardier or a god, before everything came crashing down.

But no, there was more.

“Yes, but…”

She paused for a moment. I could see in her eyes that I knew what she was going to say next. It was communicated somewhere between the web of fine lines at the corner of her eyes and the distant look she had, as if seeing something beautiful from far away. My heart beat a little faster. Her lips held the memory of a smile.

“Yes, embarrassing, but…her hand was so small, and soft, and warm. I did not…it was good.”

I wanted to hold her hand, or hug her, or give her a child to hold, or be her child and hold her. I imagined a life of quiet tragedy, of lost children or unfaithful men, or just a life of heavy responsibility that taught her the immense joy in small things. She was maybe fifty years old and so beautiful.

I had forgotten about the thunderstorm, but after the lesson I went downstairs and had to cover my eyes. Everything was shining, moist pavement glaring with the reflection of a perfectly blue sky. The pavement, cradling small puddles, looked apologetic.

At least now, Japan, I understand your storms.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 16th, 2006 at 6:58 am and is filed under Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.