Originally written for and published by Being A Broad Magazine, June 2008
Friday is garbage day. I gather the yellow plastic bags and toss them in the car along with the dog. With a mug of coffee in hand, I cruise down from the hill we live on. As I pull over next to the roadside metal collection cage, a woman standing at a nearby bus stop eyes me with a curious look. I must sometimes be a sight to behold to the country folk I live among. Glancing in the mirror, I see myself in an old college sweatshirt, my hair oddly wind styled, and the very un-groomed Golden Retriever panting over my shoulder. It is my first reminder of the day that no matter how at home I may feel, I am a foreigner. I will be reminded several more times today I’m sure. It might be when I run into town for groceries and a child’s casual glance becomes a long stare. Or it might be the next time I stumble through a conversation with an unexpected visitor. Or it might be someone’s casual reference to Hanako’s house. What do you mean her house? It’s our house … But people here don’t quickly get two women living together in a house with just one bed. These reminders surprise me. They surprise me because I often forget, these days, that I am living in a foreign country.
At first, being a lone foreigner in a small town was like looking into a mirror at all times. In the United States, my thought patterns, manners, and modes of behavior blended seamlessly into the culture that had formed them. But in Japan, my behaviors seemed strange not only to others, but also to myself. With no community of westerners to validate my ways, I have learned to separate what makes me me from the context of the life I happened to be living before. Naturally, I have changed. The propensity to mimic creates new behaviors. Some social customs must be relearned. But some things remain. And perhaps those are the things that define me at the core. I must garden. I must have pets. I must make photographs. I must write. And I must supplement my deep, long-distance friendships with a handful of meaningful connections to people here in my community. And that’s it. That is what I need. It is a short list and the first four have been far easier to attain than the last.
Being a western woman in small town Japan makes you an instant celebrity. People love you for what you look like or represent, not for who you are. It poses a challenge to creating meaningful relationships. How can we move beyond the surface to really understand each other? Without a fluid shared language, it’s hard to find common ground in a verbal comparison of past experiences or future goals. In a place with a different set of household names and cultural values, I have been stripped of the titles I once used to define myself: Stanford graduate, published writer, exhibited fine art photographer. Moving to rural Japan has revealed the woman behind the curtain of accomplishments.
Forming relationships has become a long-term commitment to sharing a series of present moments. It is not a discussion of presidential bids or the race and gender politics of America. It is the sweet farmer who, like a proud father seeing himself in his child, brings me plants for my flower garden and teaches me how to protect my baby vegetables from the spring winds. It is not a critique of Richard Serra at MoMA. It is my partner’s mother, a 70-year-old woman who talks to me non-stop, though she knows I don’t understand, and drops everything when I show up on her doorstep with a basket full of daikon to learn the traditions of homemade tsukemono. Connection is reduced to a stark simplicity. It is two humans inhabiting the same time and place, observing and responding to the other’s actions. It is simply the act of always being there, always listening and opening yourself up to the language of intuition. These hard won moments, of feeling known and understood without ever actually explaining myself, have been unexpectedly gratifying.
These days, the mirror that once so sharply outlined my differences, is fogging a bit. New habits, learned behaviors, an integration of my ways and these ways, along with a handful of true friends are blending into a comfortable life. And it must, because this is not a temporary assignment. As half of an international couple, I have signed a contract with no expiration date.
With the windows down and the dog’s hot breath on my shoulder, I head back up the hill towards home. Emerging from a cedar forest, we crest the ridge on the final stretch. There, a field opens to the right and a red tractor sits among rows of freshly baled hay Memories of hometown hay fields blend into the scene in front of me and until the next reminder, I again forget to feel foreign.
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