Cramped Against the Window

Cramped against the window of my tiny Japanese apartment, struggling to maintain an internet connection, I think to myself, Self. How did we get here?

Forgoing the complex spiritual, and equally complex, though stickier, biological question--I'm referring to the conditions that brought me to this Japanese apartment. Less specifically, what brought me to Japan. I remember a trip to Goodwill, the second-hand store, when I was about 12 years old. I found a tattered copy of James Clavell's Shogun and read it cover to cover. Not in the store, and not in a day; but over the course of a year or so I waded through that 1,212 page dramatization of Japanese history and loved it. Is that the answer to the question? Of course not.

Around that same time I tried to teach myself Japanese from a book I found at the library. Futile. However, this gave me a taste for languages. In high school I spent four years studying Spanish. That is, studying with the dedication of a typical high school student. While I didn't devote my life to it, I found delight in the way it tasted; the way new sounds trickle off the tongue.

This continued with my studies at the University of Cincinnati. I began studying the English language in more depth; learning the ways words can be shaped, like music, to change the feel of a piece. Before long, I found myself in a first year Japanese class and rediscovered an old passion. Is that the answer to the question? Is that what brought me here? Certainly not.

Later that year, I crossed paths with a Japanese exchange student, Ikeda Takahiro, and I formed a connection that I believe will last a lifetime; it has at least lasted across oceans. Taka and I became good friends with his eventual moving into my house and becoming "one of the guys." Now I'm studying Japanese at Taka's University just as he studied at mine. So is that what brought me here? I think not.

To quote Sir Elton John, or really Bernie Taupin at his most poignant, "Well, what I really mean" is that our experience here is shaped by every moment. By every experience. By every exchange with another human being. To look for that one moment, for that one time when fate came along, picked me up by shoulders and pointed me in a certain direction is foolish. This sense of self, this identity is formed by every action; by every decision we make, even by decisions we decide not to make.

Rain is falling and it doesn't look much different from the rain I've watched fall my whole life. Cars are driving by and they don't look much different from the cars I've watched drive by my whole life. There's something in this place. There's something in every place if you decide to look.