days past

28Jun09

i woke up to the nasty realization that i had fallen asleep before the sky had barely darkened last night, and had dreamt my way solidly through 12 hours. 12 hours…! i am a sleep monster. what is wrong with my body?

tokyo had its first real summer day yesterday, with temperatures going as high as 35 degrees. in town, it was about 32 but felt like much more. i spent the day procrastinating and scrubbing and cleaning, did two loads of laundry, and felt extremely good about myself. going out for a short walk later to replenish my stock of detergents and cleaners and wipes, it took all of 5 minutes (perhaps less) before i became a jolly dripping sight. wet. oh, and red. that was all the hint i needed. for the rest of the afternoon, i luxuriated in air-conditioned comfort within the four walls of my closet with a tall jug of cold, iced tea. this stifling, stuffy heat! so reminiscent of many summers past.

the news were all about people dashing off to beaches, or, like myself, red and dripping in the city. (mj had a decent spot in the news, but doesn’t seem to have generated as much heat as i had expected. for all my knowledge of the insularity of the japanese media and society, i am rather surprised. but i am sure that if the circumstances surrounding his death had been rather more scandalous, he would have made the “specials,” with a gaggle of japanese people seated in a studio, nodding sagely over the tragedy that was his life and his death. as it is… it is all simply very sad. and i do hope he rests in peace.)  

anyway, the beaches. those images brought to mind summers back in beppu. there was an abandoned jetty there close to where i used to live, right by the bay, stretching rather far out to sea. near the jetty, on shore, was a little building of sorts, like a ticketing house, likewise abandoned, and filled with broken chairs and graffiti on the walls, like you would see in the movies. roomie and i used to come up with far-fetched conspiracy theories, but the truth - we had found out from a local – was that the luxury cruise liner that used to run from the jetty had stopped operations when the company running it folded, and no one, it appeared, had bothered to tear down the facilities.

that suited me fine. i loved to walk out to the jetty in summer, far, far out, right to the end of it. at the beginning, i used to watch my back carefully, always believing that someone would turn up unexpectedly and push me into the sea. but i never met anyone there. the homeless men much preferred the sheltered area beneath the jetty, closer to shore, so i had that entire stretch of emptiness all to myself. it was the perfect place to sing. standing there, looking out to sea, and singing, sounds a little melodramatic and too romanticist-wannabe, but you would have to live in japan to understand that unless you owned a house (not even an apartment, mind you) with walls of decent thickness, you would be hard-pressed to find a place to belt your soul out. i ran out to the jetty to warm up before performances, or when i simply wanted to sing. out loud. or, on rare occasions, when i wanted to enjoy a good cry, out loud.

i miss beppu, but i’m glad i got away. it was too much of paradise. i think there is some truth in the dictum that inspiration comes with suffering. not that i am suffering in tokyo, but seeing so much more ugliness and raw humanity spurs me to think. reflect. write. indulge in that postmodern activity of finding myself.

three years since i last saw the place. i wonder if they have finally torn down the jetty?

Filed under: japan, random, reflections   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: heat, japan, mj