komai mono *
we must cross deserts alone and often perish along the way, we must move to where we can start our lives over, and when we get there, we must keep on knocking at the gate, shouting and pounding with our fists, until those who happen to be keepers of the gate are also moved to admiration and open the gate. we are the planet, fully as much as its water, earth, fire and air are the planet, and if the planet survives, it will only be through heroism. not occasional heroism, a remarkable instance of it here and there, but constant heroism, systematic heroism, heroism as governing principle. – russell banks
you know how when one of the most historically intriguing, musically vibrant, architecturally pretty, and culturally unique cities in the US gets slammed by a hurricane and sits underwater and its people abandoned for days by its own government, and you think HOW could this happen in one of the richest countries in the world in 2005? me too.
i've been spending most of my waking hours working (though some days are measurably less productive than others). and working on two concurrent and somewhat overlapping spy assignments means: i got no life.
however, the last week or so has had me reassessing what having 'no life' means, and what i've got certainly fits the conventional definition of 'life.' so i took a day off of roaming the streets and slow-roasting my brains in the hot, hot heat, and instead stayed in, pondered and mulled, and got some writing done.
it rained in the afternoon, that warm summer rain that dumps out of the sky here like someone slapped a huge cloud so hard that it burst into liquid. in the late afternoon i went across town to look for a natural foods restaurant. which experience revealed to me again how lucky i am to be alive, and in tokyo, and having someone pay me (peanuts) to go eat traditional japanese food i want to eat anyway, and zigzag down back alleys with narrow café shopfronts framed with noren (doorway curtains) and potted plants, and stumble upon a sale at a contemporary art museum's shop where i can pick up a 1989 anthology of essays on post-pop art and also a hand-printed handkerchief.
restaurants that represent themselves as 'healthy' around tokyo – even though most traditional japanese restaurants are pretty inherently healthy, what with all the seaweeds and the thousands of soybean products and the fermented foods for promoting good bacteria in your guts – aren't necessarily vegetarian. they might serve vegan dishes as well as macrobiotic meals and free-range, organically-fed chickens or cows. i arrived at this place just as it opened and was the only customer in the house. after ordering one of their set dinners, i cracked my new-old post-pop book, and then, like a cartoon, all the staff in the restaurant piled out the door.
they'd gathered outside to ooh and ahh at the sky changing colors through the summer haze as the sun set. my sweet elfin waitress came back inside to wave me towards the window so i could look, too. isn't it pretty? she breathed, her eyes wide in a smile. then she told me how the floor-to-ceiling windows faced west, so every evening they could see the sky sometimes turning pink, and purple. to be honest, at first i found the view a little depressing because it was an orangey smoggy backdrop behind concrete buildings and a bland urban skyline. but as we watched, the sun started shooting its light out in that way it does as it sets, making the clouds and haze look metallic, almost, and magical and mysterious and more than just water droplets and pollution in the atmosphere as the earth made another turn.
then dinner came, on a square white porcelain platter bisected with some stalks of straw. bowls and dishes arranged on the platter held steaming brown rice, miso soup in a lacquer bowl, natto (fermented soybeans), mustard and chopped green onion, sweet green beans in black sesame paste, tofu mixed with root vegetables. a shot glass filled with slightly sweet, cloudy white sake. later, one of the chefs came out to talk with me; he spoke english, had lived in seattle to study but mostly snowboarded. everyone who worked there was so gentle, and open and unpretentious – exactly what i needed just that evening.
funny how one smoke-free, solitary meal can be so restorative. today, feeling grateful to simply be alive.
* little things
you know how when one of the most historically intriguing, musically vibrant, architecturally pretty, and culturally unique cities in the US gets slammed by a hurricane and sits underwater and its people abandoned for days by its own government, and you think HOW could this happen in one of the richest countries in the world in 2005? me too.
i've been spending most of my waking hours working (though some days are measurably less productive than others). and working on two concurrent and somewhat overlapping spy assignments means: i got no life.
however, the last week or so has had me reassessing what having 'no life' means, and what i've got certainly fits the conventional definition of 'life.' so i took a day off of roaming the streets and slow-roasting my brains in the hot, hot heat, and instead stayed in, pondered and mulled, and got some writing done.
it rained in the afternoon, that warm summer rain that dumps out of the sky here like someone slapped a huge cloud so hard that it burst into liquid. in the late afternoon i went across town to look for a natural foods restaurant. which experience revealed to me again how lucky i am to be alive, and in tokyo, and having someone pay me (peanuts) to go eat traditional japanese food i want to eat anyway, and zigzag down back alleys with narrow café shopfronts framed with noren (doorway curtains) and potted plants, and stumble upon a sale at a contemporary art museum's shop where i can pick up a 1989 anthology of essays on post-pop art and also a hand-printed handkerchief.
restaurants that represent themselves as 'healthy' around tokyo – even though most traditional japanese restaurants are pretty inherently healthy, what with all the seaweeds and the thousands of soybean products and the fermented foods for promoting good bacteria in your guts – aren't necessarily vegetarian. they might serve vegan dishes as well as macrobiotic meals and free-range, organically-fed chickens or cows. i arrived at this place just as it opened and was the only customer in the house. after ordering one of their set dinners, i cracked my new-old post-pop book, and then, like a cartoon, all the staff in the restaurant piled out the door.
they'd gathered outside to ooh and ahh at the sky changing colors through the summer haze as the sun set. my sweet elfin waitress came back inside to wave me towards the window so i could look, too. isn't it pretty? she breathed, her eyes wide in a smile. then she told me how the floor-to-ceiling windows faced west, so every evening they could see the sky sometimes turning pink, and purple. to be honest, at first i found the view a little depressing because it was an orangey smoggy backdrop behind concrete buildings and a bland urban skyline. but as we watched, the sun started shooting its light out in that way it does as it sets, making the clouds and haze look metallic, almost, and magical and mysterious and more than just water droplets and pollution in the atmosphere as the earth made another turn.
then dinner came, on a square white porcelain platter bisected with some stalks of straw. bowls and dishes arranged on the platter held steaming brown rice, miso soup in a lacquer bowl, natto (fermented soybeans), mustard and chopped green onion, sweet green beans in black sesame paste, tofu mixed with root vegetables. a shot glass filled with slightly sweet, cloudy white sake. later, one of the chefs came out to talk with me; he spoke english, had lived in seattle to study but mostly snowboarded. everyone who worked there was so gentle, and open and unpretentious – exactly what i needed just that evening.
funny how one smoke-free, solitary meal can be so restorative. today, feeling grateful to simply be alive.
* little things
posted by a wandering eye at 11:03 AM
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