Ghosts in the Machine

Two years ago, I lived in Japan for a summer. It was an incredibly vivid experience; itt felt like living in technicolor. After I returned, memories of Japan surrounded me so constantly a psychic would probably not have seen my aura as a color, he or she would have seen it as the smell of cement on a humid day, the sound of n approaching train, a travelling companion's smile, and a thousand other things that stuck in my head. It took me two weeks after returning to the home I had grown up in before I felt like it wasn't just a vacation spot. Although I was happy to back in the U.S., and to eat the brownies I had missed so dearly, and to hug my parents and siblings, I kept feeling that I needed to go "home" to apartment 203 and my little room, furnished only with my futon and the contents of my two suitcases.

After two more semesters of school, I had the opportunity during last year's summer break to spend a week in Germany. There were many wonderful and uniquely German things that I saw and experienced, but, to be honest, I spent a great deal of time in Germany surrounded by thoughts of Japan and the previous summer. The small streets and humidity made me feel like if I just ducked down the right side street or took the right train long enough, I would be at my apartment in Tokyo. I would climb the stairs, open my door, and my old roommates and companions would be there. I could climb up to the roof and feel the Tokyo breeze and I knew I'd be back where I belonged. I walked through Germany surrounded quite often by ghosts of Japan.

Then, this spring, I nearly got a job that would have moved me to Japan for at least a year. Since I got back from Japan, I have thought a lot about how it would feel to return to Japan after two long years. I used believe that I just couldn't do it without my old travelling companion. After about a year, I figured I could go back by myself and enjoy it, but pictured myself nearly drowning in memories and nostalgia when visiting old favorite places.


Well, the day finally came. Strong-arming my suitcases up and down escalators as I left the airport didn't give me much time for reflection, but as I sat on the train and looked around, listening to the same woman's voice warn passengers that the doors were closing, there was a sense of coming home, of picking up where I had left off. Today I visited nearly several of my favorite parts of Tokyo in one day. I spent a lot of time staring through the leaves of my favorite Japanese maples in Meiji Jingu, I sifted through the clearance racks of at least a dozen stores in Harajuku, and I walked through Yoyogi park.



Finally, I took the train to my "home" station. As I left the station, I didn't need to look where I was going, I knew the way. There was the sushi restaurant, the King Kong Pachinko parlor, the store that sells a hundred little wrestling figurines. I ducked inside the grocery store we were once so proud of discovering (it was an extra ten minute walk from our aparments, but it was at least 10 yen cheaper for everything) and bought myself some of my favorite dessert. Nearer and nearer to the old apartments I came, stepping into stores I had once visited nearly daily.

Finally, I see it. Just past the recyle shop, down a side path, and then climb the stairs. They're steep. There's more dust than I remember. I stop outside the door to my old apartment long enough to whisper "I'm home." Except I didn't feel anything. No rush of nostalgia, no yearning for past experiences. I climbed up two more flights to the apartment where the rest of our party had lived and where I'd spent the majority of my time. This, for sure would take me back. But still, just simple curiousity that was quickly satisfied with a quick look at the red door was all I felt. One last flight up to the top of the stairs, and I was opening the door to the roof. It looked smaller than I remembered. I stepped to the railing and looked out over the street like I used to do nearly every morning. The breeze felt familiar, and all the shops were where I remembered them, and bicycles still sped past below me, but there was no tug at my heart strings, no desire to stay.

It was odd, because that roof had been my sanctuary, my retreat. I had spent hours upon hours up there. Talking, reading, thinking. But now it was empty. Not even a ghost rose to greet me.

I suppose that's the thing about ghosts: you can't predict them. I guess I hadn't realized just how many of those ghosts that used to haunt my steps I have laid to rest over the past two years. I have a million connections to Japan, and I felt many of them reactivate today. Meiji Jingu is heart-rendingly gorgeous and still one of my favorite places on this good Earth. Takeshita Dori is still a blast, but the connections I expected to feel the most were oddly silent. As I sat on the roof I found myself thinking, "I don't need to stand here and wait for nostalgia to hit me. I have a million memories of this place, I don't need one so disconnected from the rest." I honestly feel no need to relive the past. Living it once was enough.

So, I'm ready for new memories of Japan. Somewhere over the last year or so, I stopped wanted to come to Japan to recover the life I lived that brief summer and began wanting to come to Japan simply because I like so many things about being here. What I think this very long blog is trying to say is that I came back to Japan and found it very much alive and demanding to be recognized in the present, not confined to the past and populated with ghosts. Goodness knows, the 12 million living people here are more than enough.

So, hello Japan. I'm back, and you're still Awesome.