Nature's Paradox

Three weeks ago the late winter sun splashed its brilliance across the Kanazawa sky. I walked home extra slow that day.

Two weeks ago I opened my curtains to let in the morning, and a white heron skirted past my window. It left me breathless.

One week ago a 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit the Tohoku region of Japan. Shortly afterwards, tsunami waves over 20 meters in height hurled themselves onto the land. Shock turned to fear. Fear turned to sadness. Sadness turned to compassion.

Yesterday morning a swallow followed me to work, dancing to the rhythm of its tweets. I gave myself permission to smile.

I’m confounded by the paradox of nature—simultaneously playful and dangerous, continually giving and taking life.

Today the air smells of melted snow and new earth. Spring has come. The weight of wool clothes and whipping winds has lifted. I'm liberated.

I'm also chained. 

Chained to the news. Every day the death toll rises. Every day more people are displaced.

For Japan, spring has ushered in new shoots and the promise of pink, but these gifts of nature cannot easily be received in customary celebration.

“I’m sending food to my family in Yokohama.”

“My friend in Chiba is trying to leave, but the trains are full. She’ll have to wait another week. She has a baby, so she’s worried about radiation.”

“I feel guilty hoarding canned food and bottled water, but I’m afraid.”

“I’m angry at the government.”

“The Japanese media is hiding the truth.”

“The situation isn’t getting any worse.”

“Do you want to go back to your country?”

“I’m thankful for the help of the US military.”

“Will people stop buying Japanese goods because they are worried about contamination?”

“I’m moved by the generosity and humanitarian efforts put forth by so many people to help Japan.”

“We will rebuild.”

*            *            *

Cherry blossom buds continue to stretch and grow.

Soil is turned inside out.

The cycle of the seasons.

An old woman hobbles past kids playing ball in the street.

The cycle of a generation.

I inhale everything and sweep my arms up to the sky. I exhale everything and bend forward. Elongate my spine. Hinge and fold. Step back into downward dog.

More than ever I use my yoga to cultivate peace and radiate compassion.

When I give to Japan, I’m also thanking Japan for its many gifts to me.

*            *            *

If you want to help Japan with relief efforts, please visit these links:

http://www.facebook.com/notes/greg-lekich/to-friends-in-japan-how-to-help-re-posted/10150167597271002

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/16/how-to-help-japan-earthquake-relief_n_834484.html

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's sakura!!

The pink has descended on Japan.

As the country prepares for sakura, or the infamous spring cherry blossoms, a pink commercial explosion introduces…

sweets:

backpacks:  

school uniforms:

I never thought I’d embrace a color most girls in America are pigeonholed into accepting. “It’s a girl” is code for, “Now I can buy that adorable pink pajama set.”

I used to run from pink like it was the devil.

“Oh, I don’t want it. It’s pink.”

“Do you by any chance have this in another color?”

“It’s too pink for my liking.”

“I’d take purple over pink any day.”

“It looks like a flamingo threw up in here!”

But in Japan, pink is a gender-neutral color.

It’s the color of spring.

The color that marks the end of snowy days and frigid nights.

The color that cracks a smile on everyone’s winter mask.

Most kids know how to say pink before they can say hello. It’s a friendly color that can warm timid children to a scary looking English teacher putting on her silly face in a desperate attempt to win their affection.

“Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes...”

“A, B, C, D, E, F, G…”

“One little, two little, three little elephants…four little five little six little elephants…”

Blank stares.

A tighter grip on Mommy’s leg.

Wrinkled faces.

The quiver of a tear.

Oh no, this isn’t going so well…

…time for pink…

And I whip out the old color flashcards. Like a magnet, the kids hurl forward toward pink. They start to smile. They start to high-five me back and detach from their parents. I look into their eyes, and I know I’ve won them over.

*            *            *

The sun sets a little later these days. 

Today I went for a walk without a jacket. I walked along my favorite river path thinking about my past seven months in Japan.

Thinking about the victims of the recent earthquake and all the kindness and generosity the world is showing toward them.

Suddenly, I hear a voice.

“SUGOI !!!!!!!”

You only need to spend one day in Japan to know what this means…

(“AMAZING!!!!!!!”)

I look up. A family of three is pointing at what looks like an ordinary tree. I wait for them to leave before I take a closer look.

There before my very eyes are the first rosy buds of a sakura tree.

Stretching toward the sun.

Lengthening against the last winds of winter.

My heart leaps at their lovely color pink.

The sakura are coming!! The sakura are coming!! I’m five again.

And I skip into spring.

NOTE:

To learn more about the cultural significance of the cherry blossom in Japan, visit the link below to begin your research, or just read any book about sakura. Happy discovering!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_blossom

The World is my Textbook

Question:

How many foreigners does it take to order a pizza in Japan?

Answer:

Three.

One uninhibited beginner eager to practice her Japanese places the order.

One patient and willing foreigner with advanced language skills helps the beginner translate what the pizza lady says.

One enthusiastic foreigner gives moral support and reminds the beginner what her address is.

*            *            *

Every other day I get a new ad for pizza delivery. It’s all in Japanese, of course, but when it comes to pizza deliciousness is universal. I’ve been looking at these ads pile up on my fridge door for weeks. The magnet can’t contain them anymore.

Macro images of eggplants, mushrooms, and onions with cheese browned to perfection. Japanese pizza ads have a way of making one miniscule piece of pizza look like a huge mouthwatering pie.

I’ve been craving pizza. I’ve been wanting pizza more than I’ve ever wanted pizza before. It’s crept into my dreams. It’s wormed its way into my lessons.

“Okay, let’s review the food unit…uh…again…”

No need for review. Even three-year-olds know the word for pizza.

“So what’s your favorite type of pizza?” I ask as part of a warm-up Q & A. And we go around naming all the varieties. Then I come home, look at the ads on my fridge and start drooling.

I spent my Japanese lesson last week constructing a dialog for ordering pizza over the phone. I can barely say how are you in Japanese, but my gustatory impulses bludgeoned me through all the complicated grammatical constructions one needs a grasp of for ordering pizza over the phone in Japanese.

Armed with my dialog and a few other pizza-craving foreigners, I call.

“Ring, Ring.”

Right off the bat, the pizza lady doesn’t say what I want her to say. According to my dialog, she asks all the wrong questions in precisely the wrong order. I have to ask her to speak more slowly please, to say that once more. I apologize profusely all the while asking myself: Does she understand me? Did she get my name and phone number right?

Silence…and then…

An unintelligible question…

“Crispy,” I answer.

Silence again…

I think she understood?

As the conversation continues I press my ear more firmly to the phone, as if this action will somehow make it easier for me to decode the voice at the other end of the line. More than once when the Japanese equivalent of “can you repeat that please?” doesn’t cut it, I have my nearly fluent friend translate, but I never hand her the phone. Determined, I stick with the ordering until the end. I grip that phone like it’s my survival weapon.

Then suddenly…“Arigato gozaimasu.”

Click.

It’s over.

I have no idea if we’ll ever see that basil spice pizza or the seafood delight. It was a good try, I tell myself. And my friends pat me on the back.

Even if the pizza never comes, I’m in good spirits. How cool is it that my Japanese lesson consisted of ordering pizza?? No dry memorization from the books because the world is my textbook.

We settle into a movie and wait for the pizza to come… or not to come…

*            *            *

The clock tick-tocks. It’s round like a pizza. I feel like I’m waiting for the results of a very important examination. Silence. The anticipation escalates.

Suddenly our movie is punctured with a…

“Ding-dong!”

I excitedly answer the door. To my utter amazement, there he stands, three little pizzas in hand, warm and crispy. I receive them with a smile, pay, and pop off the cardboard covers before the door clicks shut.

We proceed to indulge in the tastiest homework ever!

After the first scrumptious bite, I sit back and let my salivary glands take over.

With this lesson under my belt, I think I’m all set for winter.

Growing Up: How a skeptic softened to Tokyo Disneyland

Like most kids, I loved Disney. I had a stuffed animal Cheshire cat and fantasized about being a mermaid. I knew all the lyrics to “A Whole New World” and wished for my own pair of glass slippers.

Then I grew up and went to film school.

“Animation is for babies. Give me Hitchcock. Give me Truffaut. Give me Deren. Down with the bourgeoisie! Down with homogenizing American culture! Down with Disney!”

I’d strut around the university library chanting my countercultural mantras.

Then I grew up and went to Japan.

Here adults use Hello Kitty erasers and watch Sponge Bob on their iphones. There’s a cute creature on every package that personifies the product inside. Even beer cans and vacuum cleaners have smiley faces.

*            *            *

“Do you want to go to Tokyo Disneyland?” she asks.

Pause.

I dig into the recesses of my recollections. Disney. The name sounds sour to my skeptical ears.

I muffle out a yes, followed by a louder note to self:

Keep an open mind. Keep an open mind.

We decide to save a little money and a little sanity with the after-6PM pass. Swapping positions with the kid-packed day crowd, we enter Disneyland at dark.

With my limited field of vision, sounds and smells grow stronger. Chocolate popcorn. Bright-light laughter. Songs that sparkle. Carousels. Jingle bells.

The crowd is waltzing and whirling and taking me by the hand. It’s corny and cheerful and kitschy and cuddly. I snuggle deeper into my down. The cold night air blows my fuzzy hood over my ears. I toss it back, welcoming whatever the wind brings. Saying goodbye to my seriousness.

Fun. What a concept!

From haunted houses to hot chocolate, we wander. Giggling girlishly. Dancing the Disney dance. I’m smiling so much my cheeks hurt. Cinderella’s castle twinkles in the distance. We make the merry-go-round of rides.

Sure, Minnie-mouse earmuffs cost $30. At the end of the day, the entertainment industry collects its currency, and I succumb to capitalist consumerism.

Blah blah blah blah….

It’s okay to escape sometimes. It’s okay to embrace the artificial. Thank you Tokyo Disneyland for your mainstream magic. Thank you for teaching me how to unlearn.

At the sound of the closing chimes, we head back to the train with our imaginations ignited.

That night, I grew up and tap-danced my way home.

How to stay warm in winter

Eat noodle soup. Chuck your spoon. Slurp the broth directly from the bowl, and let the steam warm your face.

Sip hot spiced wine. Eat dark chocolate with chillis.

Get up and dance in the living room. If you slide across the floor enough, you won’t even have to vacuum!

Laugh with friends. Laugh until your belly aches and your face muscles tire. Then laugh some more.

Wrap yourself in polarfleece pajamas. Grab a cat for your lap and a book for your brain.

Inhale hot tea.

Exhale on the window and draw smiley faces in the condensation your breath makes.

Sit by the fire. Sit by the radiator. Sit by the space heater. Stand over the oven while it’s on, and let the hot air puff your shirt like a balloon. Snuggle into a kotatsu:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotatsu

Sing to the sounds your boots make in the snow.

Soak your body in warm water and your soul in warmth.

Give.

Receive gifts.

…from the sky…

…from the earth…

…from people…

I’d love to hear how YOU stay warm in winter…

A Winter Tale: Knowing how to not know

“Allow yourself to not-know so you can be taught.”

—Erich Shiffmann, from The Spirit and Practice of Moving Into Stillness

*            *            *

In Japan, I don’t know many things.

I don’t know precisely how deep to bend my upper body in a “greeting bow” versus a “thank you bow” versus an “I understand bow.”

I don’t know what type of sauce goes with what type of noodle.

I don’t know what all the buttons on my toilet do.

I look again at the ordinarily overlooked.

In the list of ingredients on my flu medicine, I see ornate calligraphy.

The hand-made paper wrapping on my box of sweets is worthy of a frame.

My gooey food spirals playfully around chopsticks and sometimes falls in the space between my bowl and my mouth.

I think I said “your welcome” instead of “thank you.”

I think I asked her where her nose is.

I think I burped instead of slurped.

I don’t know many things. But sometimes I think I know. And that’s where I get stuck, closed off to the unknown, blind to possibility.

*            *            *

Yes, I remember winter. I know cold. I know rain and its snowy incarnations.

Sniffle. Ug. Grunt.

Kanazawa has thunderstorms in winter. This I didn’t know. This I wasn’t exactly happy to know. Typhoons sweep across the valley, breaking branches, tossing hair, stealing umbrellas. An incessant rain pelts the pavement. My breath shortens. My body tightens. The thunder sounds like an angry animal. My heart pumps harder in its presence. I pull my covers tighter around my neck.

To end class one day, some chitchat about the weather:

“Bad weather this week, eh? So much rain! So many violent storms! Winter’s coming.” My voice lowers in disappointment.

“I like thunder,” he says.

The class laughs.

I shoot him a quizzical glance.

“You know buri?”

“Buri…??” My voice rises in bewilderment.

“Yellowtail fish.”

“Yes, I know yellowtail.”

“You can eat best buri in winter season.”

The class knows this. They nod in agreement. I stare blankly.

“Thunder makes fish move to shallow waters. Easy to catch. So I like thunder. Fish is most plentiful in winter. Very fresh. Very delicious! Kanazawa most famous for winter buri.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.”

He smiles.

I pause, taking a moment to soak up his explanation.

Hmmm…thunder and buri…I like that.

The time is up, and we exit the classroom. Filing hesitantly out into the cold. There’s a faint hum of thunder today and a grey, expansive sky cut dramatically by snow-capped mountains. Winter brought a change in air pressure that lifted the heavy fog of summer and fall, revealing these massive rocky landscapes.

Elegant.

Mysterious.

Stunning.

I take a deeper breath when I see them in the distance. I can see my breath. It joins the wind that blows to the mountains. On the other side of those mountains is the sea. In the sea, thousands of buri are thrashing around to the rhythm of thunder.

Somewhere a fisherman smiles.

In all my experience of thunder, I never considered its positive effects. My shivers and shutters at its boom-bang-cackle made me think I knew all there is to know about thunder. Truly, there’s something to appreciate about everything. Sometimes in order to find it, we have to let go of what we know.

I’m not sure I know what bad weather is anymore, and I’m glad.

*            *            *

Back at home I continue to ponder the relationship between thunder and buri. Investigating further, I discovered that “buri (Adult Yellowtail) in Japan is a symbolic taste of winter that has even come to be described by the common phrase ‘Cold Season Buri.’” —from the iphone app, Sushipedia

I never knew I’d one day say thank you to thunder.

Go with the Flow

“One thing flows into another… Before the rain stops, we hear a bird. Even under the heavy snow we see snowdrops and some new growth.”

—Shunryu Suzuki, from Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

*            *            *

I’m watching clouds. Folding over the sun. Changing the mood of the day.

I see Mt. Fuji.

I see the wings of a dragon.

I see mist lifting off the mountaintops.

I’m watching raindrops slide down my window. Hurling at the glass. Blurring the clouds.

I see snakes.

I see crystal balls.

I see drooping flowers.

I’m watching trees shiver in the wind. Warping in waves. Howling when the current passes through bare branches.

I see a wakened wolf.

I see autumn sway to the breath of winter.

I see the last leaves of gold turn bronze.

I watch from inside. Wrapped in my fleece cloak. Sipping tea. Soaking in the steam from my bowl of noodles.

I look up. A friend smiles at me from across the table.

I can’t imagine the change of seasons any other way.

*             *            *

Go with the flow I tell myself. The clock ticks. The tick-tocks echo. A blank stare.

I take a breath. My breath is more like a sigh. I’m tired. I don’t think he understands me. I erase the board, a colorful diagram of future verb tenses smeared to oblivion.

Simplify.

The plan gets tossed. I look up from my thick pile of notes on English grammar.

“So, what are you going to do this weekend?”

Hesitantly, “This weekend I watch movie.”

“Oh,” I smile, “This weekend you are going to watch a movie!”

“Yes.” His face relaxes. He sits a little less formally in his chair.

I step away from the whiteboard. I close the textbook. A flashcard falls on the floor. Just person to person.

“What movie are you going to watch?”

“I watch Iamman.”

I wish he’d say I AM GOING to watch…Let it go…go with the flow…

“Iamman? Hmmm…I’ve never heard of it before. Is it a Japanese movie?”

“No, Iamman, you know it…Engrish movie…Amelican. He flexes his arm, gesturing strength.

“Iamman. Let me see. Do you mean I * am * man?”

“No, no…Iamman.” He loosens up. Smiles, flexes his arm again. “Iamman,” he repeats with confidence.

Pause. I think. I slump in my seat, comfortably settling into this guessing game.

“Iamman. Iamman. I * am* man?” again.

“No, no,” another flex. Now his lips curl upward at the corners.

That makes me happy.

“Hmmm…Iamman…You are going to see Iamman…Iamman…I am man…Iyomman…Iyonman…Iernman…Ironman…Iron Man!! Iron Man!! You are going to see Iron Man! Robert Downey Junior. Iron Man! Iron Man!” I can’t contain my excitement.

“Yes,” he says. “I am going to see Iylon Man this weekend.” A beautiful, grammatically correct English sentence in the future tense! Better yet, said with a smile and a chuckle.

He said Iylon Man, not Iron Man…wrong pronunciation…should I correct? Let it go. Go with the flow.

The clock tick tocks. The time is up. I flex my arm. I smile.

“Enjoy Iron Man.”

“Yes, I enjoy Iron Man.” He leaves the room with a bounce and saunters off into the evening.

My heart smiles. I walk into the winter-tinged autumn air, or is it the autumn-tinged winter air?

I inhale deeply.

Go with the flow.

We have a lot to learn from the seasons.