2009-08-27 - 12:00 a.m.
Dear Rana Dasgupta
I really liked the article you wrote for Granta. More importantly, I'm really glad that you wrote for Granta. I inherited, amongst a bunch of other books, five of these magazines from an Aomori ex-pat a couple of years ago and hadn't taken the time to do any more than skim through them until after reading your article. As it turns out, Granta is a treasure. Treasure has been waiting on my bookshelf for years and I didn't even realize it!
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The kid next door and his family moved out. One morning there was a moving van outside when I left for work and when I came home their house was empty, their car was gone and there was a fresh corncob on our driveway. It pleases me to imagine that the corncob was left as a gift for me, though I have yet to discern what the message behind it was intended to be.
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Grandma Kawakami came over the morning after the earthquake. (No doubt she gathered information from every house she could that day. I get the impression that our other neighbors don't appreciate her nosey ways, but I don't mind at all. Everyone needs a hobby and I like to talk about myself.) When I came downstairs she was berating Shuhei for being at work when the earthquake hit. (Honestly though, who am I fooling? I should just admit that I think that Grandma Kawakami is fabulous.) In the midst of castigating Shuhei she found the corncob. A little desiccated, but still exactly where I'd first found it. She made a motion as if she was going to pick it up. That what a present. I'm just going to leave it there, I said. For a few seconds Grandma Kawakami seemed a little confused. Then she either accepted this statement or forgot about the corncob (I'm not entirely sure that Grandma Kawakami isn't at least a little bit senile) and left it where it was and where it continues to shrink and turn slightly browner each day.
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Shuhei and I went to Shirahama Beach for a couple of days. I've wanted to go there for more than a year and (unlike so many childhood Christmases), despite all my anticipation, Shirahama Beach didn't disappoint. On the morning of the second day the waves were high. We should go swimming now, I said to Shuhei. I think they're going to close the beach soon.
(I grew up with lakes. Beautiful, sparkling, limestone-bottomed lakes. The ocean is, quite frankly, scary to me. Too many species live there. The water tastes gross and burns your eyes. And most people can't even swim in most places. The tides and tows in a lot of places are entirely likely to drag an amateur swimmer out to sea. Waves are, as far as recreation goes, the only way in which I think the ocean is better than lakes. Oh boy, waves sure are fun. And I know that I'm not alone in liking them.)
And as the waves crashed down on Shirahama Beach that morning, fun stepped up to meet their intensity. The first group to cave under such pressure was the girls in full makeup. Some resigned themselves to ruining the work they'd done and walked, bravely, out into the waves. Many more simply surrendered and headed back to shore. So much for them.
The next divide occurred amongst young dads. Some of them could be observed in shallows where waves didn't break but rather petered out, nevertheless watching over their young with unbroken and oddly disconcerting concentration. Other fathers took their kids out to where the waves were breaking and did their best to keep them within reach. Towards this, they achieved various levels of success but the look on every kid's face who really got to play that day said that they were forming glorious memories that were going to last a very long time. Bravo to the deepwater dads.
At one point I saw a bikini top floating, lonely, out to sea. I thought about trying to grab it but didn't have the nerves to go out that far. So bravo and my apologies to whoever that bikini top belonged to as well.
Three days later I was still scraping sand out from my ears with Q-tips.
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Shuhei and I had gone for a long walk the night before. There were few streetlights and the road was very dark. Overhead the sky was filled with countless stars. It was very pretty.
We found a little path leading down to a small, starlit beach. I promptly walked into a big spider web and from then on Shuhei led us down the path, breaking through the webs as he did.
It is a walking formation that we have used before and there are basically three variations of it: Jesus, in which Shuhei walks ahead with his arms out to the side, the windmill (rarely used but nevertheless worth mentioning), a groping sort of walk reminiscent of that you would do while saying to your little sister I'm-just-going-to-walk-in-a-straight-line-like-this-and-if-you-get-hit-it's-your-fault, and the yogi which is pretending to stretch your arms as you walk in the interest of passing through as much space as possible.
It is, I think, I very noble thing to take spider webs for your sweetheart. It was a great night. It reminded me of nights from times when I was proud of us more often than I have been lately.
Nevertheless, by the time we got back to our room we were too tired to do anything but watch TV for a while and go to sleep.
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As with previous earthquakes, it has been taking a long time for me to come off of on-edge. When a big truck drives by and ground shakes or when a strong gust of wind rattles the windows my heart pounds and my chest constricts and I find myself unable to think clearly.
And I remember having had this feeling on the first days of new classes and jobs, or when the phone rang and it was a boy I liked, or while saying something that I knew to be obnoxious but was nevertheless saying anyways. And it makes me, my current self, feel hopelessly boring and old.
