Moving, 2011 version

It's just stuff, I say.
I'm lying. like I so often do.
There is my old cell phone with the radio, lying in the trash. There
are the hopes that I would listen to the radio like I did in high
school here, feeling part of the pop culture, singing the same songs
everyone knows, feeling full of hope that this could be my life too,
feeling like I wasn't just an outsider posing in a uniform like
everyone else (but on the weekends running to the park and listening
to Sheryl Crow over and over and dancing all alone)
Box and all, goes in the burnable? no, I should separate out the
instructions... which I've work so hard to read, though repetition
drills and sitting with a coworker reading out loud between classes,
with hundreds of dollars invested in books and dictionaries. It's not
my language anymore.

And the phone should go in unburnable, right? Or can I maybe recycle
it? Does it still have my old pictures of biking through the Nikko
mountains and feeling so unstoppable and free? Is the browser history
long dead after long train journeys skimming through craigslist ads,
wondering how I can find more people and fluff up my life and settle
down here?

And those comics on the wall? I might as well throw them out. I
mean, sure they are my brother's but they are printed off the online
versions. Sure they are this link to what we both felt in the jungle.
Sure they are a link that pulls us closer in a common subtext that no
one else really gets.

Burnable.

And the maps. Sure they are just from a hundred yen store. One I
made a point to go out of my way and visit because most dont have
these maps. Maps that I stare at and find inspiration over and over.
But where will that inspiration lead me now? I have different hill to
train on and different roads to ride. These mountains will soon be
too far away to hear their seductive calls weekend after weekend. But
no. I'll pack these anyways.

My mother's art and a beautiful handwritten birthday letter, packed
safely away. But what about all these drugstore cards? My experience
tells me that you never know when that stupid and simple card will be,
suddenly, the last letter that loved one has sent. And what then?
Does that make everything memorabilia for the possible sudden death of
everyone I know.

Sometimes.

Burnable, nonetheless. I know how they say the words, 'I love you'
and I know how they sign it on the bottom of cards. I know that in my
heart. I will always be able to picture my mother's hand writing.
That is enough.

People tell me of all the things I should keep. People tell me that
surely, I'll have room in my bag for this or that... maybe I do. but
really I don't

I can still feel the cold of sitting on the cement in the storage room
with all my moms stuff. One year after her death, my brother and I
finally doing something about it all. Her old clothes with the same
smell. The childhood chair that was the best fort turned upside down.
The flour grinder that she used before baking her own bread, the
house smelling of yeast and a warm oven for days.

I will never find cinnamon rolls as good as those, filled with walnuts
and brown sugar and hours of her strong hands kneeling the dough.

But what could I do with a 100 pound flour grinder when I live my life
out of a backpack more than an ocean away?

And away it goes.

The pots and pans I don't mind. Most are stolen anyways. When I
moved back I swore I was going to invest in a good set of kitchen
knives and that, alone, would make a symbol of home.

Backpacking through Argentina, my temporary romance blooming with a
man who loved to cook and got so tired of hostel knives he bought his
own. Carried it around in his backpack as we traipsed through dusty
wine country towns. Because to cook is to make a home. Even if it's
for a single night. Garlic and onion stained hands, the rhythmic
attack of vegetables preparing to make a lovely piece of a story that
seems to always be so filled with laughter.

But in the end I never got good knives. In the end I picked up some
cheap but sharp ones off of craigslist. Slicing open my finger early
in the year, desperate to make dwindling savings account stretch to my first
paycheck, sacrificing sleep to cook for myself and save a few yen.

Those knives can go. Any home is fine for them.

And the mirrors, glued to the shelves that had to be moved closer to
the floor as aftershock after aftershock hit my life. The mirrors
that I stared at my naked body, sometimes with a proud smile and far
too often with eyes trained on imperfections. But that is too normal
to mention really. What I will miss about those mirrors, much more,
is how my lovers would catch secret glances of themselves. In that
quiet relief of, ok, I guess I'm good enough after all. Or in that
hidden grin. Or in that understated flex. In that raised eyebrow and
that completely personal moment when we regard ourselves so truely
naked. I will miss being that witness. The mirrors will go where ever the shelves do. Burnable?

The last time I moved myself across the ocean, preparing to adventure
with only a backpack full of sundries to my name, I culled my life
with the glib motto of 'burn it all down.' The glib is gone this
time. Perhaps because I tried harder. Had stronger intentions. Sunk
my teeth in more. This time wasn't a lark. And nor is what I'm jumping into.

So with every piece of stuff, out goes a good intention, a fantastic
idea that might make everything ok, straw after straw after straw that
were never enough to break down my resistance to settling for this.
And with every clunk into the trash I send a small prayer upwards that
my life is not just doing the same thing over and over and expecting
different results.

That despite my constant movement and slipping from one place to
another. Despite never owning a goddamn plate all 5 years in Tokyo.
Despite all the trouble I have having a real conversation with
anyone... That I still made some mark here.

Being on the road I came up with something. And when I told it to
people they tended to repeat it. So maybe it was something worth
saying.

Home is where you can find your way to the bathroom in the dark. Where you know your trails.
Home is where you plant something and it grows, whether it be a friendship or an idea or a fix to some problem.
Home is where you'll be missed when you are gone.

And so even with the culling of things. Even with the murdering of
all those lost good intentions that never bloomed. Even with the
eagerness and hope I find in thinking about dancing in Oregon and
being able to kiss someone goodnight.

I hope that this was still home. I would rather grieve for losing it
than for failing to make it. Better to have loved.

And with that.

The adventures continue.

I'm so young II

I'm so young in the Buenos Aires summer. Is that not something we seek in a place? A city, a town, a night sky that makes us feel young and alive and thriving in our bodies and selves?

When I first joined a biochemistry lab and everything was an exciting magic puzzle to sort out and I was the hot fresh talent, I felt young. Years later when I gave up those 80 hour work weeks and threw it all to the wind, heading back to Japan, I felt young. As I turned 25 in Japan, language slowly finding it's way back into my brain, days filled with challenges and nights filled with too much cheap beer and karaoke, I felt young. As I met people cycling up the Japanese coast in August, they'd say, oh, sure you can do a trip like that, you are young. But responsibility and routine combined with Japan's conservative ideas about what a woman's life should be at 30 and the years leading up slowly sucked up much of that youthful feeling.

And now here I am in Argentina and today I again feel so young.
tango dancing almost every night sometimes until 4 am.
sleeping till noon, and then napping, just so that I can dance all night again.
drinking frenet&coke with an international mix of friends
sleeping through breakfast served till 11... again and again
waking up to girls snickering in a hostel not mine
strings of cat calls and compliments (yeah yeah, I suppose I shouldn't be happy but honestly I feel complimented and it makes me smile and feel hot)
perfect city summer weather
hiding money in my bra when dancing
beautiful people everywhere in this city making out on street corners
riding the bus passing beautiful buildings
colorful graffiti everywhere, music pouring out of buildings

It's not everyday that I feel so young. and I'm happy about that too. 28 is easier than 24 was.

I have the confidence to not bother with people I don't enjoy and turn down drinks I don't want.
I have the money to rent a cute studio in a perfect location. (near a nice night life plaza, fantastic tango clubs and close to my school)
I have 10 years of dancing experience under my belt.
I can buy a second pair of dance shoes if I want to (and, yeah, I did...)
I know what I'm doing (or have gotten pretty good at faking it when I don't).
I can read a map and have more street smarts than the "kids" I meet.
I know how to learn a language and be ok with sounding awkward most of the time.
I have a better sense of when to procrastinate and when to buckle down.

I'm excited to start my teaching course on Monday and move into my apartment on Tuesday. I'm sad that I have to be at school 9 to 5 and therefore will not be able to go out as much or as late. But such is life. It's easy to fall in love with a city when your are filled with nothing but dancing and yoga (!) and friends and walking through beautiful streets and having drinks and dinner at midnight.

It's been a good week.

On Tuesday, I went dancing by myself for the first time here. I'd been the last couple of days as well, but always had people from the hostels tagging along and wanting to see what "real" tango was. But on Tuesday I was headed to "Practica X" which has only a intermediate/advance level. Supposedly more experimental, younger, hipper... basically where the beautiful, young, kick ass dancers of Buenos Aires come.

naturally, I was super intimidated.

So far, I'd been having some good nights dancing and doing really well in intermediate lessons and had taught a really good impomptu beggining lesson in my hostel a few nights ago --so I spent the bus ride to that part of town talking myself up. I arrived at the place to find its two huge black intimidating doors still locked and beautiful talented people milling about speaking in their beautiful Argentine Spanish to their beautiful friends.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
(tara, if you're reading, I was thinking of you)

but then I notice another slightly awkward looking person and smile. introductions are made and not only does this JAPANESE guy not speak any Spanish but is going to hit this place with only 5 months dancing experience. (I make friends with my own types over and over again. Give me a room full of people and I'll gravitate to the NWers and Japanese every time it seems....)

so.

Recently, I've been claiming my personal philosophy is that moxie can make up for lack of real skill, talent, or experience almost any day of the week. So I figured, to hell with it, you know what, instead of being intimidated, I'm just going to say: you know what, I'm pretty hot shit myself. Buenos Aires bring it on. Show me what you've got. Give me your best shot.

I went into the lesson (successfully ditching the Japanese guy for a partner more up for the level of the lesson) and when he was wrong and I was right, stood up for myself and my dancing skills. This is something I have not done FOR YEARS, possibly EVER. I have assumed that it's my mistake or that I'm not good enough to give advice and I never criticize.

But there I was, with some else who also thought HE was hot shit, standing up for myself on the dance floor. It was amazing and I've been running on a high from my new found attitude all week.

Bring it on Buenos Aires.

and for Lent I'm give up apologizing so fucking much. so there. I'm not giving up cursing, in fact, I'd rather expand my vocabulary in such. ha.

it's been a good week. the adventures continue....

I'm not in Tokyo anymore

leap.

it's the word I think of when the next big step comes. and tomorrow it comes again. a time line I'm theoretically completely in control over yet, I'm never ready to leave and I always do. something keeps pushing me forward. or something. tonight I'm tired and not really ready to be heading away from so many friends who always try to convince me to stay. I smile. I nod. a lump often forms in my throat but there's something I can't explain telling me the time is not yet right to stay.

It's been a good month homeless. It's been a good 36 days.

I'm starting the count on Dec 6th, the last day in my apartment, the second to the last day at my job, five days before I left Japan. I'm starting the count when all my stuff had to be sorted and sent and packed (... though sure, there's always more sorting and repacking at every stage)

But before that, there was saying goodbye to the kids who have forever changed my life and who I dearly miss.

Then, on day 1 of the beginning of this journey, I took a Japanese test and put studying Japanese behind me. On day 5, I sat in the Tokyo airport tired and too full of emotion to think straight and started studying Spanish. Everyday now, one replaces part of the other in my mind. Most days I feel I will never be bi or tri lingual but just stuck in my head with a mixed pidgin language that few others understand. But the Spanish grows, as the English recovers. The journey within continues much like the journey without.

But before the plane ride, there was a day walking around Tokyo for the last night (of this leg of my life) and admiring the beauty of a city that took me a long time to love. I walked with a friend also on his way out of Tokyo despite wanting to stay. I found this city exciting my first year, dreadfully lonely and cold my second, and by my third I'd made it home.


There's so much to love when you learn how, as many of us do. Some days it's easy to imagine staying forever and others there are plenty of reasons to leave. Everyone misses Tokyo, it seems. Though it's time to leave, saying goodbye with the clear knowledge that what I have right now will never be the same again always breaks my heart a little. Tomorrow morning I do it again. Somehow it's become a way of life.

Then, there is one of the travel conversations with a complete stranger, with honesty we too rarely use, about the meaning of life and love and kindness that with the right timing can change your life. A straight looking self identified Republican, an expert on photons and solar panels, he explains to me about other dimensions he feels he's witnessed evidence for and about a huge benevolent energy that some call god. He explains about how we are all parts of this energy. We are all part of the same soup he says. We must be good to each other because, really, we are all the same.

At some point there was a discussion of how freewill and destiny are not mutually exclusive and the moment felt heavy with the profundity that comes from transitions and lack of sleep. Perhaps we'd met before and perhaps we'll meet again, in that way that only makes sense in the moments you believe it and no others.

And I arrived in Portland, found myself fascinated by the size of the coffee and vegetarian gravy and then slept like the world was going to end for nearly 24 hours.

And then there was a house party with cakes and space that was created solely by the party goers, not by a club or a bouncer or a DJ who's real name we didn't know.

And once I was recovered, I headed down to Eugene between snow storms. I've taken almost no pictures of Eugene because it feels too much like home. The visuals of the town say nothing compared to the stories that wait on each street corner. Once, how thick the town was with history was a big reason to move away. There was too much subtext in every walk, casual conversation, and errand. No event stood on its own anymore and became a web of friends and lovers and many late nights. Now, I navigate the web with caution and new curiosity. It's changed a lot in the three and a half years I've been gone with many people leaving and others becoming key players in the social scene. Alliances change; unexpected friendships grow.

I try to spend my days here listening as much as possible but somehow it often it doesn't work and I tell my favorite stories again. I try to ask as many questions as I can, trying to understand what keeps people here and if I am the same as them. Some ways I'm not, I can't be, otherwise I'd move already. What makes me different and can I ever come back to stay? I love the size of this town and that a bike will take you anywhere. With every dance I fall in love with this town all over again. And yet, I hit the road again.

This Friday we rocked hard with a "Rock Star" themed party.



There's nothing like looking at your own history on the faces of your friends. or so a favorite song goes.
In my favorite dances (Argentine Tango and West Coast Swing) there is a grounding step or a way that partners reconnect between fancy flying moves. before take off there's a moment when you find the ground and your partner and your balance and only from there can you take that leap. For me, Eugene is that place, or at least one of them, that I don't feel I've been home until I come here. And here, more than any place, home is the history that is written on the faces of my friends. It's been good coming home and though I'm sad to leave, I could never be ready to take this leap before coming home first.

"god's will" or whatever

Yesterday, someone took my pants. I believe they were stolen from the washer in my friend's apartment building, or at least all the current evidence points to it. And yet, I'm not so angry. I'm not so upset. Though I'm not a subscriber to organized religion per se, what I feel in my life is as close as I can imagine to trusting it all up to "the will of god". Or joyfully resigning yourself to destiny or fate.

It took me days, months really, to decide what to keep to pack in my not so big backpack and what to throw out or what to send for safe keeping or to give away. The things I decided were going with me to South America were a small percentage of my wardrobe and then to have the things that I'd finally decided on stolen in Oregon... it's a kink I'm surprised by and not happy with. But then again, if it's "god's will" or whatever.

I'm not going to go holly roller on everyone but it's hard to find the vocabulary to describe this feeling. It's similar to when a stranger smiles at me from across the milonga and I smile back, agreeing to dance a series of tango songs together. We step on to the dance floor, usually not exchanging names or any small talk. My right hand takes his left. My left arm wraps around his shoulders and his right around my back or waste. We are cheek to cheek, chest to chest. He knows the smell of my hair and I can tell if he shaved recently. I close my eyes and together we conquer the dance floor.

We move as the music wills, avoiding dozens of other couples, strangers to each other but in a lovers embrace, racing among each other. In the dance, my eyes are closed to all other distractions. I do not think of the other beautiful dancers, who I might like to smile at later, who I might like to emulate in terms of style, of who is happy and who is not, if the lights have dimmed or who is moving toward the exit. My eyes are closed so my senses are tuned on the music, most that I have heard dozens of times and that enthralls me every time. My senses are tuned to my partner who is sending me everything I need to know though his body. I feel where his feet land and where to move. And a step and a sweep and a turn. the music spins us around. I am not distracted by the danger of running into the other couples. I keep my feet under me, making my movements small and beautiful. Careful and graceful. I move so as to respond quickly as to not endanger myself or others with my new two and a half inch heels.

I am balanced, holding my height and strength above my own feet. I am confident in my movements. I listen with all my senses to my partner before I move. I have trusted my sight to him and when I move I do so with out hesitation or doubt or distraction. I land on my own feet and am ready for the next step.

And so it is with nearly half the clothes I was planning to take stolen. It's a turn I wasn't expecting. But I'm on my feet and am ready to respond. I'm not distracted by their sentimentality or base unfairness of my pants being stolen (ok ok, maybe a tiny bit). I'm deciding what to replace and what I don't really need after all. Really, I many not need any of it after all. I think I'll just pack a little lighter.

and the adventures continue...

(theft not considered, it's been great being back)