This morning Raquel and I donated and dashed. We’re
preparing to backpack through Europe and needed to do something more productive
with our clothes than burn them. We knew we couldn’t just sell them to the
Santa shop that passes for a thrift store in Takayama. We’d tried that last
week only to have them give us back half of our sweat stained shirts and
threadbare sweaters. They wouldn’t even take them for free! So we hatched us a
plan.
“Sumimasen!” I roared as I dropped two bags bulging with
clothes on their countertop. The clerk twittered away in Japanese while Raquel
dumped another couple bags on the table.
“Ichiban,” he said, gave me a laminated number 1, and
pointed to the ceiling.
Of course I’ll wait for you to refuse most of our moderately
worn out clothes my good sir. Why yes you can keep the beat up suitcase too!
Raquel did a quick lap through the lady’s clothes as to not
arouse suspicion then made for the exit, pausing only to mumble loudly and
point at the roof.
Why yes dear I do believe I will meet you upstairs for some
light souvenir shopping!
But I did no such thing. Instead I nodded to the man
appraising the resale value of the sweater my wife had bought at the very
store, turned left as if to go upstairs, but instead tossed their damn laminated
number on top of a used washing machine and sprinted for the already idling
car.
Drive! DRIVE! They probably think I robbed them!
“Why are you running?” Raquel asked.
Because it’s more fun now drive damnit!
So marks the beginning of the end of living in Takayama, a
place I’ll miss little, filled with people I’ll miss a lot.
People like Cody, whose brewery I neglected to visit despite
having brewed the best sake I’ve ever tasted. If there’s one thing I’ll lament
about leaving Takayama, it’s not going to Cody’s brewery. But we’ve had our
fun. Cody had us over for dinner (we cooked it for him), and after he’d already
gotten me pleasantly inebriated, he dragged me to the house of my boss, his
father-in-law. I shuffled in with a bowl of hot chili and presented it to who I
believe is the most fearsome man in Japan. This man is so frightening, that he
almost reduced me to tears when I tried to enquire about his son.
How’s Cody?
“Kore?” he said pointing to a clump of carrots. Cody?
“Kore!” he shook the carrots more violently.
Cody! Your son-in-law, Cody! Please, I’m sorry, he brews
sake!
“Ah… he’s fine. “
This man from my nightmares accepted my bowl of chili from
underneath his coffee table, and divvied it up so his family could try it. They
all agreed (or at least pretended to) that it was delicious, but Cody’s nephew
was so smitten with my generous dollop of spicy meat-soup that he insisted I
take home a 12 pack of ramen noodles. I tried to decline but before I could
some other relative shoved a piece of fruit in my hand. I got out of there
before they filled my pockets with the contents of their refrigerator.
Kuniko! |
People like Kuniko, my guardian angel. Kuniko is so sweet
that she has asked about my hangover and denied its existence in the same
sentence. I’ve sung “A Whole New World” with Kuniko, stolen Jasmin’s part and
been too drunk to notice, but did Kuniko mind? Not a bit, she just sang louder.
Kuniko was the only person besides my wife to make it through hospital security
to visit me. She has made dinner reservations for us, talked to the man whose
car I smashed on her day off, and taken us to town for not being able to dance
the ABC song up to her impeccable standards. We tried to give her a present
when we last met, a nice card we’d gotten from a museum she liked in Kanazawa,
but she trumped us with a bag full of snacks, fancy folders and handkerchiefs.
She is an angel. Fear her.
Then there’s the regulars, what Master Kensei likes to call
the same old faces. Kensei, a man so cool he has his own post.
The closest thing Steve has to a frown |
Steve with his yappy grin, unshakable optimism, and never
ending stories. I couldn’t have survived snowboarding or my surgery without
Steve there for me. He continually reminds me I should be lucky I have all
these foreigners around, because when he got here, he had to learn it all
himself. Steve was the first person I ever heard say Takayama is the greatest
town on earth, but he and all these people seem to feel the same way.
Chaba, who I hope I will get to see again, otherwise my last memory will be of him arriving at a restaurant the moment I finished eating, ordering a beer and showering me in candy. Not a bad memory except that he had to wear gloves and a jumpsuit while he ate because his hands and who knows how much else was stained with blood red paint. I asked him why he was such a mess to which he replied simply, “I was painting.”
Chaba, who I hope I will get to see again, otherwise my last memory will be of him arriving at a restaurant the moment I finished eating, ordering a beer and showering me in candy. Not a bad memory except that he had to wear gloves and a jumpsuit while he ate because his hands and who knows how much else was stained with blood red paint. I asked him why he was such a mess to which he replied simply, “I was painting.”
Eric, the other artist in town and a shit-talking poet, who after a few months of
proclaiming that he was God and art was his universe finally confessed that
it’s really just therapy. Well, that’s not quite true. He only told me it was
therapy because I had confessed that I think about a target audience when I
write because I want to sell my novels, something Eric found hilarious and
unartistic. Eric invites me to McDonalds because, “the coffee’s OK,” then
insults me for meeting him at McDonalds for the next thirty minutes. He’s spent
the last two weeks predicting when the cherry blossoms will bloom, “Yeah
they’re very close, I think maybe, hmm… when are you leaving? Five days? Yes, they
look like they’ll be ready in about six or seven.” I still don’t know how his
lovely wife puts up with him.
Nolico, who showed us, after being here for nearly a year, a
side of Takayama I’d never seen. She insisted on a shortcut, our heads
swimming, who were we to disagree, and we found ourselves in the old quarter of
Takayama—a place I’ve been to dozens of times—but never like this. It was
deserted save for us. Paper lanterns cast a warm glow on the towering torii gates
and ancient wooden homes. Except for a single car poking out from a side alley,
I was transported centuries into the past.
“Except for the fucking hotel under the Torii gate!” Ah, Alex the Ukrainian Israeli, who can be so hard to impress that his smile’s worth a thousand shekels. We
planned on having a going away party last Saturday, but Alex threw a quiet
birthday party on Friday that boiled into a wild night we were all too drunk to
stop. Alex always makes the party happen. I had set him up by playing his
favorites, the Beatles and Elvis, to which he proclaimed to Kensei that he only
needed one more album for it to be the perfect night. Kensei dug up some
blistering fast bluegrass and Alex and I showed off her patented hillbilly
boogie. I can’t wait for him to come visit us in Austin and tear it up Texas
style.
On Saturday we chatted and sipped our Heartland, happy to
all be together, but exhausted from the night before “Looks like last night was
your going away party,” Alex said between sips of Jim Buck. And dammit he was
right.
But that’s life, aint it? We can plan our vacations and our
parties, but we can’t tell when that moment you’ll never forget will come. So
many of us wait for that perfect moment at that perfect time: for a festival
that gets rained out (100% chance of rain tomorrow) or a flower to bloom in a
town that’s just too cold. So many of us wait for these moments—for the dance
party or the scenic view—that we forget to appreciate all the little things:
The spur of the moment vacations that turn out better than grand plans, the
idle bits of conversation we’ll never forget.
If there’s one thing I learned from living in Japan a year,
it’s to appreciate the little things you got around you, don’t take any of them
for granted, because you never know when you’re gonna lose a nut, and you don’t
wanna waste your night worrying, when you can be bullshittin’ with people that
you love.
So seize the day, move abroad, take that trip! Just remember
that Takayama’s got more soul than Tokyo, you just got be willing to dance for
it.
J. Darris Mitchell lived in Takayama Japan for ten months, and wrote about what he did ever single week on this blog! Go ahead and explore, or start with Day 1...
J. Darris Mitchell lived in Takayama Japan for ten months, and wrote about what he did ever single week on this blog! Go ahead and explore, or start with Day 1...