Home
This was supposed to be a trip for the kids, to assure them that the life we left behind last year is still here, waiting for us all to return and resume living it. I wasn`t quite prepared to arrive in Tokyo and feel that vise-like feeling of nostalgia constrict my every breath (or maybe it`s just the air pollution -- one of the few things I didn`t miss about this city).
I know my kids think of Tokyo as home, but I wasn`t fully aware of the extent to which I do, too, until I left for a while and came back here.
We`re staying with an old college friend of mine, in a big expat house in the posh 'burb of Yoyogi-Uehara, but almost every day, we troop off to the jidokan, the public kids' recreation center in our old, shabbier neighborhood of Higashi-Azabu (not to be confused with Nishi-Azabu, Moto-Azabu, Minami-Azabu or Azabu-Jyuban ---- Higashi-Azabu sounds as if it should be one of the trendy, high-class enclaves but it`s definitely the working-class cousin of the Azabu neighborhoods). We rented a tiny apartment there for six years, and then bought a place nearby, shortly before we moved to San Francisco.
For the first five years of our stint in Tokyo, I was a financial wire reporter. I wasn`t particularly good at my job -- my Japanese was too slow to handle the high profile press conferences, which entailed sending headlines almost simultaneously. So I did mostly economic indicators, earnings reports and market coverage.
During those years, the economic news was mostly grim, and my life was mostly grim, too. I probably wasn`t as bad at my job as I thought I was, but I had myself convinced I was always on the verge of getting fired. I was afraid to spend large sums of money, because I expected to be out of a job at any moment. I lived in such a perpetual state of anxiety that it became the norm: batten down the hatches and brace myself for the impending cloud of doom.
Our old neighborhood cannot be called attractive. It has a few pretty parks, but the whole area was bombed flat in World War II, and many of the smaller buildings date from soon after that, when Japan was a war-devastated nation struggling to get back on its feet. There is a small shotengai, or shopping street, that has been dying a slow death since its movie theatres and public bath closed a few decades ago. A few of the oldest shopkeepers even remember the bombing raids, though many of the elementary school-aged children at the time were sent to the countryside to escape them.
I remember how cold the winters seemed in that neighborhood. The sky was always grey -- it always seemed to be cloudy and drizzling freezing rain. We lived there consecutively, so I should have equally vivid memories of summers, too, and some sunny days, but oddly, when I recall those years, it`s the winters I will never forget.
Because my job was stressful and my surroundings dismal, my daily moments of pure happiness stood out like bursts of brilliant light and color. Everyday, I came home from my job to my two preschool children. I took baths with them, and then read them English books as we all huddled under the quilts in our futons. On the weekends, all of us would go out for noodles at our favorite local restaurant. The kindly old shopkeepers would give my children treats, and include us in all the neighborhood festivals. Then Little Son was born, and I carried him everywhere when we went out.
It has been great for the kids to see these places and people again, but it`s me who has the tears welling up in my eyes whenever Big Son and Daughter pull me into their favorite used bookstore, or greet the old shoemaker and vegetable stand lady. I realize that unlike me, my kids took it for granted that our old life was still here, whereas I know how quickly things can change. Old shopkeepers die, old buildings are torn down and gleaming towers are erected in their place, and cuddly preschoolers soon grow into big kids who would rather play with their Gameboys than read books in bed with their mother.
I watch them playing with their friends at the jidokan, as if they`d never left, and I know that these years, too, will be over soon. When we return here to live again someday, Big Son will be ready to start high school -- his childhood will be all but gone. He doesn`t quite comprehend this.
And I, for one, am not going to try to explain it to him. He`ll find out soon enough.
I know my kids think of Tokyo as home, but I wasn`t fully aware of the extent to which I do, too, until I left for a while and came back here.
We`re staying with an old college friend of mine, in a big expat house in the posh 'burb of Yoyogi-Uehara, but almost every day, we troop off to the jidokan, the public kids' recreation center in our old, shabbier neighborhood of Higashi-Azabu (not to be confused with Nishi-Azabu, Moto-Azabu, Minami-Azabu or Azabu-Jyuban ---- Higashi-Azabu sounds as if it should be one of the trendy, high-class enclaves but it`s definitely the working-class cousin of the Azabu neighborhoods). We rented a tiny apartment there for six years, and then bought a place nearby, shortly before we moved to San Francisco.
For the first five years of our stint in Tokyo, I was a financial wire reporter. I wasn`t particularly good at my job -- my Japanese was too slow to handle the high profile press conferences, which entailed sending headlines almost simultaneously. So I did mostly economic indicators, earnings reports and market coverage.
During those years, the economic news was mostly grim, and my life was mostly grim, too. I probably wasn`t as bad at my job as I thought I was, but I had myself convinced I was always on the verge of getting fired. I was afraid to spend large sums of money, because I expected to be out of a job at any moment. I lived in such a perpetual state of anxiety that it became the norm: batten down the hatches and brace myself for the impending cloud of doom.
Our old neighborhood cannot be called attractive. It has a few pretty parks, but the whole area was bombed flat in World War II, and many of the smaller buildings date from soon after that, when Japan was a war-devastated nation struggling to get back on its feet. There is a small shotengai, or shopping street, that has been dying a slow death since its movie theatres and public bath closed a few decades ago. A few of the oldest shopkeepers even remember the bombing raids, though many of the elementary school-aged children at the time were sent to the countryside to escape them.
I remember how cold the winters seemed in that neighborhood. The sky was always grey -- it always seemed to be cloudy and drizzling freezing rain. We lived there consecutively, so I should have equally vivid memories of summers, too, and some sunny days, but oddly, when I recall those years, it`s the winters I will never forget.
Because my job was stressful and my surroundings dismal, my daily moments of pure happiness stood out like bursts of brilliant light and color. Everyday, I came home from my job to my two preschool children. I took baths with them, and then read them English books as we all huddled under the quilts in our futons. On the weekends, all of us would go out for noodles at our favorite local restaurant. The kindly old shopkeepers would give my children treats, and include us in all the neighborhood festivals. Then Little Son was born, and I carried him everywhere when we went out.
It has been great for the kids to see these places and people again, but it`s me who has the tears welling up in my eyes whenever Big Son and Daughter pull me into their favorite used bookstore, or greet the old shoemaker and vegetable stand lady. I realize that unlike me, my kids took it for granted that our old life was still here, whereas I know how quickly things can change. Old shopkeepers die, old buildings are torn down and gleaming towers are erected in their place, and cuddly preschoolers soon grow into big kids who would rather play with their Gameboys than read books in bed with their mother.
I watch them playing with their friends at the jidokan, as if they`d never left, and I know that these years, too, will be over soon. When we return here to live again someday, Big Son will be ready to start high school -- his childhood will be all but gone. He doesn`t quite comprehend this.
And I, for one, am not going to try to explain it to him. He`ll find out soon enough.
posted by L. at 6:25 PM
5 Comments:
That's really beautiful and so heartbreaking. Thanks for sharing it.
It's good to hear from you even when you're a little sad.
I was in San Francisco yesterday and thinking about you.
Are you trying to make me cry? Ahhhhh.... this is heartbreaking. Touching. Again, I think about my own versions of home.
What a sad and beautiful post. I could picture that neighborhood in my head.
i'm impressed that you miss tokyo. (i don't like it much, but that's not meant to be inflammatory ;) when i leave fukuoka, i do miss it, but not so much because i think it's home. though, when we lived in shimane, it felt like we were on vacation, playing house and hanging out with friends.
someone once told me that things change when you have kids, that this is their home. maybe i'm in denial. not that i necessarily want to go back to the US. i was a navy brat and don't really consider any one place 'home', either. argh, how confusing!
thank you for the beautiful post. i hope your kids enjoy being home for the summer, and that big kid doesn't realize what he may be missing...
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