March 11th, 2017: The Graceful Wastes

The end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017 have been outstandingly tumultuous, but in saying so I mean it with only secondary respect to the myriad global political, economic, and social issues that have presented themselves to us of late. Here, I predominantly speak of that tumultuousness in a personal sense, but one that’s not unexpected and of my own doing: I quit my job in Japan, flew to back America, and moved in with my parents to pursue a dream.

As much as that admission strains my desire to maintain an image of “strength” (and believe me, I dry heave about it almost daily), it is an important one as there is actually significant weight behind it that, on this, the 6th anniversary of the March 11th, 2011 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, bears teasing out. Get your popcorn, folks, cause this’ll be a long one.

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Many moons ago, I lived in a city called Miyako, a dusty diamond of a city shining out of existential necessity in Iwate prefecture on the northeastern coast of Japan’s main island of Honshu.

Some background: Iwate, one of Honshu’s two penultimately northern prefectures (with Akita to the West, and Aomori to the North) has an area of approximately 5,899.02 square miles and a population of 1,330,530, giving it an average population density of about 226 people per square mile. Its infrastructure consists of a labyrinthine network of poorly maintained roads and single-train, thrice-daily trolleys twisting up and down mountains, traversing dense forests, and which skirt gushing rivers. It has a proper capital city (Morioka), a number of towns, and many villages with sub-5,000 populations, some of which, if I’m not mistaken, have forgotten their own names. It is frequently made the butt of jokes for its numerous but equally unintelligible dialects, and bears are a serious threat, though it is rumored that they make a great stew. Iwate is, in a word, rural.

And on the Eastern-most reaches of not just Iwate’s rural wonderland but also Japan as a nation lies Miyako, a city, if you can call it that, which spreads itself even thinner than the prefectural average: with an area of 486.16 square miles, Miyako takes the prize for Unconfirmed but Purportedly Largest Municipal Area In Japan (accompanied by a very conspicuous wink), but with a population of 55,041, its average population density only approaches 113 people per square mile, that is, precisely half of the prefecture in which it resides. So it’s not at all uncommon to have to look around in order to actually find people.

Miyako’s industries are generally focused around construction, fishing, and canning and is decidedly blue-collar. Just as with the rest of the non-Urban regions of Japan, business has been dwindling due to the on-going exodus of its youth to the Southerly Cities (Morioka, Sendai, and, obviously, Tokyo seem to be favorites). Similarly, schools are also on the decline, what with a diminishing school-age population, though the junior college still remains. Miyako is, for all intents and purposes, an outpost, twilight city. But not without charm!

In the Spring and Summer, Miyako has beautiful beaches to lounge about on, hundreds of miles of woods to hike or (more appealingly) build spy fortresses in, a superb selection of seafood you simply can’t get anywhere else, and late night barbecues atop low-rise buildings all lit up with red chochin lanterns overlooking the bay. The breeze alone, not something to be found anywhere even remotely close to the hustle & bustle of The City, is worth the trip.

In the late Autumn and Winter, it gets very dark and very cold, and while the good times do continue to roll, it’s that much harder to keep rolling with them, if only for the frigid temperatures. But there’s skiing nearby and parties to go to and hot springs situated atop such steep cliffs which look down on the now-snow-shrouded beaches to relax and be merry in with a close-knit group of friends. Even in the deepest cold, Miyako exudes a communal warmth that keeps the chill out. It is a city at ease with itself.

Now that you are somewhat familiar with Miyako, I myself arrived there on November 14th, 2009, and this was something of a fluke. As a recent college graduate, with nothing to my name but a degree in the wonderfully nebulous “Asian Languages & Cultures,” History, and Philosophy, I had made the jump to teaching English in Asia frequently made by 20-somethings regretting their choice to pursue a Liberal Arts degree. What made this a bit out of the ordinary was that, for the first 2 months of this career move, I found myself in the enviable position of being compensated for a job that wasn’t there: I had no school.

Of course, from a business perspective, this is the definition of unacceptable, so, after a few months of the easiest job in the world living in Kashiwa, a suburb of Chiba on the outskirts of Tokyo, the company I worked for finally found an opening for me, and I was dispatched to the cold North.

At the time, I was somewhat dumbfounded by the placement, and, in fact, had a strange, misplaced hope that, despite what Wikipedia told me, I was headed to the ancient Capital City of Kyoto (Kyo: Capital, to: City) due to a naive extrapolation I made: “Miyako” is another way to pronounce Kyoto’s to and is, in fact, an old name for Kyoto. Because this had come up a number of times in my undergraduate readings, I thought I was being smart by reading between the lines. Lol.

But wish in one hand and shit in the other is, at least now, one of my favorite proverbs, so while I don’t remember being entirely surprised when the city that was presented to me as I pulled into the terminal stop on the boringly named Yamada Line (sorry, Ryo) from Morioka matched up with Wikipedia and not my wishes, I do remember there being an echo of crushed hope in the back of my head.

Now, I don’t consider myself overly introverted, and I think a lot of people would consider me rather extroverted, but I have that feeling that no matter who you are, moving to an outstandingly rural city in a foreign country on an employer’s whim is a transplant that, presumably, isn’t always met with success. But I’m a bit stubborn, I guess — It was, after all, my choice to relocate halfway around the world, and I wasn’t about to let it get the best of me. Even so, the Struggle, as I like to call it, is never comfortable. Keep that in mind.

Upon arriving, I was happy to hear that I had an apartment waiting for me. I was not happy to find that it was a barren, characterless, uninsulated (something that I would eventually learn is, miraculously, the norm) box on the 2nd floor of an apartment complex colored the most hideous shade of Dentist Office Green I’ve yet encountered. On the bright side, it was conveniently situated about a 10 minute walk from the train station, and a drugstore and, supposedly, President Reagan’s preferred sushi chef were both a stone’s throw away.

2 of my co-workers also lived in the same building: 1 was a very kind, laid back individual and manager of the 5 or so teachers in Miyako’s 486.16 square miles, and the other threw spaghetti at me during a group lunch at the rural Japanese equivalent of Denny’s months later in what I would call a hissy fit. Funny how certain things stick in your mind.

The rest of the Miyako teachers were all wonderful people, too, and there was something resembling a support pact between everyone: most spoke some semblance of Japanese, but in such an alien environment the general vibe that I got was that we’d all need someone to fall back on if and when the emotional exhaustion of acclimation, aka Culture Shock (which comes and goes like the Seasons), set in. Thus, my first clique, as it were, was amongst a bunch of people more or less like me coping with the uncertainty and unfamiliarity of their surroundings together. Certainly this was a nice sentiment, but me being me, this didn’t sit quite right — “Get in with the local community, don’t other yourself,” I said — and so I probably never made a proper effort to mesh with them, despite their efforts, and set out to infiltrate the local social ecosystem on my own. This may or may not have been the first time I let my imagination run wild, giggling to myself at the absurdist notion that I was some kind of goofy spy. For those of you that know me, you’ll know that it certainly wasn’t the last I’ve done that.

But a spy must engage with their target! So I forced myself out of that barren, characterless, and uninsulated apartment with an alright grasp of the language and a twinkle in my eye, but without much understanding of local nuances, in a Hail Mary to find social fit, or belonging, or whatever. I trudged through blistering winds and in a foul & depressive kind of mood, vulnerable, really, to whatever I could find: Breakdancing club? Yes, please! Octogenarial cultural exchanges? Count me in! Traditional theater study sessions? You betcha! Operation Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself was underway.

The number of gatherings or groups which I had, at best, a passing interest in (though, truth be told, I spent a bit of time studying Japanese theater in college — very cool stuff) but nevertheless participated in was and still is kind of astounding to me, and I’ll give myself a gold star for effort thank you very much. In truth, I was taking as many shots in the dark as I could in the hopes of finding what I’d later define as the universal leveler, community, but I was constantly coming up against a perceived inorganic experience. These things helped me pass the time, sure, but none really provided me with that feeling of camaraderie that I, and humans generally, so desire; These were brokered exchanges, set up like any event is, but with what felt to me like a heavy-handed and forced let’s be friends. For those first few months, and with very few exceptions, the days were quite dark, quite cold, and spent in solitude, sometimes physically but almost always mentally.

But spies like us get tired too, and sometimes you need to stop trying to find what you’re looking for to find what you’re looking for. Sure enough, after many nights desperately hiding my internalized isolation, I stumbled across myself in another… or, more accurately, drunkenly struck up a conversation at a wine bar with a boisterous and massively overweight jackass and his crude companion who cackled like a hyena. If you’ve read previous tales I’ve told about this, you might recognize the first description as that of Taro (real name withheld), and you’d be right. The second is of Jun (real name withheld), but if I started naming everyone then we’d be in for a much longer story than this already is set to be. Suffice it to say, things got awesome after that chance meeting.

To this day, I still can’t put my finger on it, but for whatever reason Taro & his crew took a liking to me, and I to them, and man did we hang out, and awesomely. And the more we got to know each other, the more I realized how alike we all were. So there I was, enjoying the hell out of mountain top barbecues, road trips, concerts, and other misadventures, ensconced in a crew of miscreants which, despite its outward appearance of impertinence and brashness, was astoundingly well connected and respected, and considered me among their numbers. I had, accidentally, found my home away from home.

And then, at 2:45PM on March 11th, 2011, as I was lazily eating lunch and 27 minutes into watching the 1976 classic Network on a surprise day off, things got shaken up. And then they got really shaken up. And then so shaken up that I did the only sensible thing: I texted Taro, saying, “すご〜い♩”, which loosely translates to “I’m a fucking idiot.” His response channeled Obi-Wan’s telepathic plea to Luke on the Death Star after being struck down by Vader, and only then did I stop and consider the situation seriously. And then, things got infinitely more serious.

I’ve recounted the destruction in previous accounts, but the gist of it is this: I gathered with my landlord, his wife and dog, and ran up a hill behind the apartment we shared to a Buddhist Temple whose head monk they were friends with and watched as a 15–20 foot wave barreled into Miyako, paying no attention to the Tsunami walls surrounding the bay or the size of any and all buildings or the screams and shouts that were coming from those who had either already made it to assumed safety or were on their way trying to get there. Over the course of 5 weeks I pulled people crying for their dead family members out of churning water and muck, heard unimaginable stories of loss, grief, and despair, and was in a constant state of emotional and physical exhaustion as I and the crew that had taken me in labored day-in-day-out to do whatever it was we could in pursuit of some sort of normalcy. And through our and others’ efforts we managed to discern a dim light through the static of destruction which drove us ever onward.

And then I was relocated to Tokyo.

I was taken from the wave-wrecked coast and thrown into the wash of an unfamiliar metropolis, where, with the very significant exception of Taro’s connections there and their support, I was once again in a vastly unfamiliar environment, albeit on a much larger but also less devastated scale, and found myself back in that isolation that I first knew upon moving to Miyako but which I had defeated.

So again, I set out making myself uncomfortable. Of course, Tokyo has quite a bit more to offer in terms of social opportunities than Miyako, so this time the breakdancing and culture exchanges and study sessions were replaced with art galleries and concert venues and job interviews. Just as before, so again my resolve to awkwardly engage with discomfort lead me to finding myself in others. The friends I now have from around the world, the relationships I had, the communities I became part of, the bands I played in, the cities I visited, all confirmed for me what Miyako had shown me: fear not the world, and you will find what you seek.

Through all of this, I’ve found a calling in people, in communication, and in The Arts, and began a little over 2 years ago (good timing, right?) building systems and an outstanding team of musicians, bookers, photographers, journalists, engineers, etc. to support and grow what I see as the only thing that matters in progressing towards a brighter future: community. This is Kaala, and this is what I have brought back to the US, to Pittsburgh, and, yes, to my parent’s house.

Am I content with my circumstances right now? Hell no. I have lived independently for 8.5 of the 9 years since I graduated college. I’m 30 fucking years old and am very much of the idea that I should still be living on my own. I bet I have like 3 ulcers from a combination of extremely high daily doses of shame, stress, and not-absolute-but-definitely-palpable sense of isolation. Despite valuing that independence, I chose to rid myself of all its comforts and re-initiate combat with the uncertain and the uncomfortable.

To both better myself and build Kaala into what it ought to be, I need not be comfortable but rather uncomfortable to see the forest for the trees. So I went from being an active member of various communities, having a job, a reliable paycheck, bands I played in, etc. etc. in a familiar surrounding to burning through my savings and living with my parents in a WASPy neighborhood of a city I haven’t known my entire adult life, a city whose infrastructure consists of a labyrinthine network of poorly maintained roads and single-train trolleys twisting up and down mountains, traversing dense forests, and skirting the 3 Rivers. It is unfamiliar to me, the food is weird, I can’t understand half of what people here say, I can’t tell if I should be worried about bears, and I am surrounded by Mountain People…

…Wait a minute. I’ve been here before! This is the point. This is where 3/11 stops being a miraculous story of disaster survival trapped in a certain time and place, and becomes a mindset, an outlook that pushes me forward no matter the circumstance. Chaos will find you, and will consume you but for your efforts to thwart it. To not just know but to pursue discomfort, and to audaciously combat it, is to live well. There’s something spectacular waiting out there, what none of us can yet imagine, but the only way to find it is to be open to it’s numerous negations. To embrace Chaos, walk amongst it with the resolve that you will not only survive its wastes but prosper from them, is the Grace that I think I can glimpse from time to time and which I reference in the title of this year’s reflections on the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

It is because of the Grace of Miyako, which found itself in such dire circumstances 6 years ago but came together to thwart Chaos, that I now know exactly how to walk these wastes that we’re presented with in 2017, and forever more.

Ever onward, ever upward, baby. Rock and fuckin’ Roll ;)