My Year of Dirt and Water

by Tracy Franz

  Sunday, May 23

  There’s a sports event at the Budokan this weekend, and I have to wait in a line to park so long that I’m thirty minutes late for karate practice. Still, Mimaki-san and Tsuda-san don’t show up for another half hour, so I practice kata alone in one corner of the dojo while a tiny woman and her tinier student do the same nearby. The girl belts out fierce kiai that put my shy shouts to shame. She’s obviously being coached for a competition—her kata are heartbreakingly beautiful: powerful, bird-like moves.

  I, on the other hand, have not been practicing my kata much these past couple of months, and it shows. I tried going over each set form in my kitchen when it became obvious that I was not going to drive out each weekend to train properly, but the dimensions of the room cut into each routine to the point that I could feel my muscles learning a new habit: a kind of hopping back (from a wall or cupboard), stunting the flow. Better to save it for the proper place and time, I thought (yes, an excuse), and instead embraced my yoga practice—one kinesthetic memory replacing another. Today, my body is screaming “downward-facing dog” with each punch and kick.

  When the boys finally join me, we take turns leading the kata and exercises, and when it’s my turn Tsuda-san says, “Yoka?”

  “Eh, Yoga?? Yoga shimashoka?” (Shall we do yoga?) It’s almost as if he’s reading my mind.

  He laughs for a long time at my bizarre misunderstanding and explains that yoka means “yes/no/ready” in Kumamoto dialect. How is it that I never noticed this before? I am a complete linguistic failure.

  Monday, May 24

  As I’m walking through the dorm courtyard, a movement behind the window of one of the guest houses flashes in the corner of my eye. A tiny brown bird is throwing itself at the glass again and again, trying to escape the dark interior. Without thinking, I open the door to a place that I have no right to enter, and the bird tumbles up into blue sky and disappears—as if it were never there at all.

  ~

  At Tatsuda Center this evening, we say our farewells to the elegant Kyoko, who will be transferred to another office for three years. She hopes that she’ll be able to return to Kumamoto in the next transfer, or the next. As a going-away present, I give her a small bundle wrapped up in a furoshiki cloth—some incense from Kyoto and an incense holder in the shape of a lucky owl. Fuku—the Japanese homonym for “owl” and “luck.” I made the piece with the help of Nishida-sensei before being relegated to only simple cups and bowls.

  “I hope to find you all sitting here when I return,” she tells us. I do not want to let her go.

  Tuesday, May 25

  In pottery class, it is becoming clear that whatever boundaries existed between the Tuesday and Wednesday cohorts are blurring, perhaps because of my presence, perhaps not. Some of the ladies occasionally appear in both classes, some switch days. There are always just enough seats to go around.

  This time, Yuko-san joins us with her bubbly, youthful energy and constant laughter. I’m deep into trimming my third cup—really one of Sensei’s creations, as I destroyed all of mine during last class—when Yuko-san screams, breaking our collective concentration: her bowl had come unbound, flying off the wheel entirely. She lifts it from the floor and begins talking to it and stroking the surface tenderly, as if it were alive: “Daijobu? Daijobu?” (Are you okay? Are you okay?)

  Her scream is not unlike the kiai that one produces in karate, so I try a joke in Japanese: “Ano, sore wa yakimono no kiai desu ka?” (Was that a pottery kiai?)

  Everyone giggles while Sensei stands behind my shoulder, eyeing my work with a frown. She reaches over to the table and lifts a pot.

  “Omoi” (Heavy), she scolds. “Mo chotto. Kihon, kihon.”

  Kihon is a word I also know well from karate: “basics.”

  I carve the next cup with great care. “Too slow and careful.” Sensei scolds me again, then steps in and finishes my work in about one minute flat as the other potters watch and gasp “Sugoi!” (Wow!) in unison. When she returns the cup to me, it is as light as a sparrow.

  Friday, May 28

  I’ve been avoiding visiting the new mall that’s on the other side of Kikuyo town. Over the past year or so, we’ve all watched it rise out of dirt: a giant, gleaming two-part monstrosity that—according to the signage—houses all the usual chain stores, Toho cinemas, and at least two American coffee chains. My students can’t stop talking about it.

  Today I decide to see what I’ve been missing. As I walk, the urbanization of this sleepy suburb of Kumamoto City overwhelms the senses. When Koun and I arrived at the end of March last year, everything between Highway 57 and the outskirts of this town was primarily rice fields and lush overgrowth. Now, all of that has been erased with block-like houses, tall apartment buildings, convenience stores, parking lots, clothing outlets, resale shops, a huge new central post office, chain restaurants, cell phone outlets, fast food (some American chains), and at the center, the massive new mall. The rural, open feel is a fast-fading memory. The only thing missing is a new highway to sustain all the traffic these new attractions bring in. The roads in this area have become choked with cars during rush hours, on weekends—all the time, really. Will this touch the not-so-far-away countryside of Aso, I wonder? And would it be appreciated there? Probably, I think. In Japan, convenience and modernity seem to win out over natural views. A seeming paradox in this culture steeped in heritage and tradition.

  The parking for the mall starts a half mile away. I gawk at how full the lot is and also at the many big red “Youme Town” signs—the words a pun on the Japanese word yume for “dream” and the English “you” and “me.”

  The outside of the mall is beautiful and gaudy at the same time—brightly lit signs are affixed to the upper levels. Identical landscaped little trees and flowers line the walkways. And the blue-gray mountains of Aso in the distance make for a gorgeous, almost serene backdrop to the whole complex. But when I step inside, I am swallowed by pandemonium. A crush of well-dressed shoppers. Shrill-voiced women in blue uniforms and little hats rushing up to offer floor guides and gift packs. Men in red tracksuits pressing sale leaflets into my hands. Everything is so shiny—the tile floors, the walls, the fixtures—nothing has yet been marred by the passage of time, and so the light reflects perfectly; I am blinded by brilliance. The sounds, too, overwhelming because unlike American malls, different stores are not always separated into distinct, walled compartments, and every retailer blasts its own theme song.

  I loop through the hallways in the first building, getting lost. And then at the Swiss Kanditori stall, I spot one of my students, Aya, grinning sweetly and waving at me. She’s wearing an adorable (and fetishy) black-and-white French maid’s uniform, as are the other four girls standing alongside her in a rigid line behind the counter. They look vaguely embarrassed, but shout, “Irasshaimasse!” (Welcome!) in high-pitched voices on cue. A young man stands with them, but off to the side (no French maid outfit for him—a dignified white chef’s uniform instead). He steps forward and offers me a piece of madeleine on a toothpick. I accept it, take a nibble, and nod at Aya.

  “Is it good, Tracy-sensei?”

  “Oh yes, very good. Oishii.”

  “You like Youme Town?”

  “It is a big place,” I say.

  “Yes, yes, very wide! Many stores! So great!”

  “Well, ganbatte ne.”

  “Yes, do my best!”

  I don’t want to linger too long and get her in trouble.

  As I cross the glass-encased walkway on the way back out, I stop to watch the sunset. Purple-blue clouds hang in the vast sky and the dark mountains of distant Aso slip into night. A woman and her toddler pause briefly and watch with me before moving on. Below, I see crowds of people disappearing into the dark maws of cars with armloads of shopping bags. All those fleeting desires. Standing here, at the edge of a river of people, drinking my Starbucks latte while the sun goes down on us all, thinking, This is true loneliness.

  Saturd
ay, May 29

  There’s a letter from Koun today when I return from my Japanese lesson in the city. He writes, Everyone seems to think it would be great for us to take up residence in one of the temples in Hawaii. How wonderful it would be to live on, say, Maui, at the temple where we were married—that fusion of exotic tropical beaches and Japanese structures. The temple grounds were so Japan-like, in fact, that we pulled out onto the wrong side of the (luckily) empty road as soon as we left the parking lot on the day before our wedding, the two of us thinking nothing of it while Bryan, Koun’s brother, shouted, “Hey! Hey! What are you doing?!”

  Koun also writes that he has come upon a clue as to why he got so sick last year when he stayed at Shogoji for the annual international ango. It seems the Japanese monks never drink anything from the taps unless it’s boiled into tea first, as the water comes directly from the river. The other foreign monks at that time drank the tap water but didn’t get sick—many of them happened to have traveled to Japan from developing countries, and they may have been less affected by common pathogens. Perhaps the amount of salt was an issue as well. It’s used heavily in the monks’ food as a preservative, because there is no electricity for a refrigerator. The consumption of salt, in turn, only encourages the drinking of more water. Last year Koun lost forty pounds in six weeks.

  Sunday, May 30

  It’s a cloudless and warm sunny day—perfect for drying futons, and the students are doing just that in the dorm this morning. The thin, brightly colored mattresses hang from long poles along the length of the roof, on top of the main building across from my townhouse. The young women move among the bedding, smacking each hard with pieces of bamboo, the thwack thwack thwack echoing throughout the neighborhood. A rhythm passed down through generations.

  In the afternoon I go out to buy a convenience-store bento and pass by the house where the old lady always sits in her chair by the window. But today she is absent, and her driveway is filled with newly cleaned cars and men and women in black suits moving around the poorly tended courtyard. A lump rises in my throat—surely this is a funeral.

  On the way back, I note that the cars remain while the people must have disappeared into the sprawling old house. Then I see her at the window: Standing naked, shoulders sloped, breasts bared to the neighborhood that will not see while two women in black pull a thin white under-kimono around her body. Long gray hair bound up in a knot. I imagine a third woman—she must be there—carefully lifting the black silk kimono from its protective paper. This one last beautiful thing for her husband.

  Monday, May 31

  In the evening, finally the endless rain of a too-long day stops. While I’m boiling water for tea, Koun calls from the Shogoji cell phone—I know it is him—but the connection is lost before he can finish saying my name. When I return the call, it is busy—no doubt due to the whims of clouds passing over mountains.

  There is a gathering at the neighbor’s tonight. Laughter, the smell of Italian food carried through open windows while I sit at the kitchen table with a warm cup in my hands, waiting for my ride to Tatsuda Center for evening zazen.

  I am thinking about Kyoto, about the meaning of authenticity, about whatever it is that I hope to find during this year. I am thinking about Satomi’s words, too: I travel to escape my boring life. When I go home, I always find myself there—just as I left me.

  Summer

  JUNE

  Being Here

  Tuesday, June 1

  During the solitude of a rice-and-miso-soup breakfast taken in my kitchen, I am thinking about my first year in Japan, how Koun—then Garrett—and I spent weekends together and, because of distance, how we led completely separate lives on the weekdays, me in Kumamoto City and he in the Aso countryside. But still we were partners and best friends; we were boyfriend-and-girlfriend; and for a long time—much longer than normal, perhaps—we never once admitted it to others, or to ourselves.

  It was some time later, then, when we had settled into this new country, that we fully arrived to each other. Garrett and I had been driving through the narrow, winding side roads of the Aso countryside, when we burst out of a bamboo grove into an expansive view: rice fields sown with new seedlings, brimming with water and fanning out and down the mountain, like a mirror shattered on a staircase. We pulled over and got out, stood there together for a while in that vast and fragmented reflection. This all feels significant somehow, doesn’t it? I’d said.

  That night, stretched out on futon, in the semi-darkness of moonlight filtering through paper shoji, we were listening to the murmur of insects and frogs percolating through the thin walls of the house around us when he said, I love you. The words rang out startling and clear—a bell strike—in the room.

  ~

  Outside, it begins to rain—violently. Perhaps tsuyu, the monsoon, has begun. That fifth, secret season to wash away the sweet memory of spring before the harsh heat of summer.

  I rise from the table to rinse my bowl.

  Wednesday, June 2

  It is a warm and breezy day, a wonderful day. But unfortunately I am inside, standing in Shokei’s sweltering gymnasium with the entire population of the school. Both students and staff stretch rhythmically to a narrated calisthenics routine set to scratchy piano music squawking from ancient loudspeakers, the audio a nostalgic relic of the prewar era. It is the very same program that plays at 8 o’clock every morning on the radio stations of Japan—for the benefit of schoolchildren, housewives, company employees, and anyone else who chooses or is required to tune in and participate. From what I’m witnessing, everyone has long since memorized the moves. This is our warm-up for Shokei’s annual Sports Day. The activities generally include all manner of sports pomp played out on a track field, but our organizers have opted for a single day-long “soft volleyball” tournament instead.

  Now semi-limber, we fan out across the floor in search of our designated team members. I find mine, and we begin tossing an oversized volleyball across one of the six nets set up in the room. We on the all-staff team are a scruffy lot—especially compared to the spry young women in semi-matching exercise wear. The students must have been practicing for this event for weeks or months, the way they handle the ball with such ease. And I gain some clarity on an odd happening after school last week: when I returned to a classroom in search of a misplaced textbook, I walked in on a group of sophomores writing out in chalk what looked like football plays. The girls screamed, “Dame, dame, Sensei!” and covered the chalkboard with their bodies and waving, outstretched arms.

  “Hey, I’m just here for the book,” I said, dramatically shielding my eyes.

  After the initial warm-up, the tournament begins. It’s to be a full-day event, as it turns out, the speakers now pumping out too-loud J-Pop and—eerily—American music from my high school days (“We will we will ROCK YOU!”). We play until arms and hands are an angry red from being smacked so many times by the ball. At least two significant leg injuries take girls out for good. “It’s better than at elementary school,” explains one teacher semi-proudly. “A few kids die each year from heat exhaustion.”

  During the final matches, I lean against the wall next to Santoki-sensei, exhausted. Both of our teams are out. “I am so tired,” she says, “but they are all still genki—look at that energy.”

  She gestures toward the students, winces, and lets her arms flop to her sides. Then we discover that neither of us can make a fist. “It’s as if I’m made of solid rubber from my elbows to my hands,” I say.

  “Me, too. Must be old age,” she says with an air of sincerity. Santoki-sensei, the only teacher younger than me at the university, could easily pass for one of the students.

  We rub our arms and look out over the court. “You know,” I say, “these girls are amazing in so many ways. I was a mess when I was their age.”

  “Yes—they are very strong. Kumamoto strong.”

  “I do always wonder if it is hard for women here.”

  “Oh yes, very hard
. Very terrible.”

  “So it’s a bad place to raise girls?”

  “No, it is a wonderful place for that. It is wonderful for girls here.” A referee whistles and Santoki-sensei is called back to the game, to fill in for yet another injured student despite her own wounds, so I have no chance to ask about the apparent contradiction of her words. How, if I am honest, might I answer these questions about my home, Alaska? And are the ways in which we are haunted by the past, or suffer in the present, nothing more than a cultural habit? Is an experience good or bad, depending on how the question is asked? Can two realities be true at the same time?

  ~

  At home, I stumble into my bedroom and fall asleep flat on my face until I jolt awake, just before pottery class. Driving is painful; turning the wheel takes significant effort. I explain my freak injury to Sensei, telling her that perhaps it would be best if I just watched today. “Eh?” she grabs one of my arms, inspects it, and begins to knead it with her powerful hands. It hurts like hell, and I gasp—repeatedly. She holds her ear close to my arm, listening while she kneads, ignoring the pained expressions and whimpering. Then, she releases me and arrives at her verdict: “Pikapika, ne.”

  “Um—Pikapika?”

  “Eh. Pikapika pikapika pikapika.”

  Japanese is famous for its frequent use of onomatopoeia, but this new word I’ve never heard. Maybe it’s the terrible sound a body makes while being forcefully massaged.

  Taking some pity on me, Sensei rolls out a thin slab of clay and sets on the table a little statuette of Jizo—a character often recognized in Japan as the bodhisattva for women and children. The tiny figure clutches a bowl against its robed chest. “You can make one of these today. It’s good for putting outside, next to your front door. You fill the basket with salt to keep out bad spirits.”