Monday, March 28, 2011

Speaking Japanese in NYC






Shinji in New York
Chelsea Hotel and High Line --
Magritte on Sunday.

Yesterday after sleeping in and trying to catch up on emails I set out to meet Shinji Shishikura -- the performance artist who I had been scheduled to collaborate with in Tokyo. Shinji is being sponsored by Sony to record his performances around the world, in front of museums including the Louvre in Paris. He was in Okinawa for the earthquake, on a smaller island of the many islands that make up the prefecture. The ferries stopped running, and in order to get back to Tokyo (where his mother was potentially scheduled for an operation), he had to hide himself on a fishing boat that was checked by the sea police. He told me all of this yesterday, as we walked around Chelsea, and I spoke Japanese again. Faltering at first. Feeling shaky. But soon, we were drawing pictures to describe the things my Japanese couldn't muster, and once a wavelength was reached, my confidence returned, and then I felt there was nothing I couldn't express.

Shinji had been scheduled to arrive in New York with his troupe of performers -- but because of the earthquake everything was thrown for a loop and he barely managed to get out himself, finding a last minute accommodation over the net. The weather was cold yesterday, but bright and sunny. We talked about a candy that comes from Brighton, England -- where Queen the rock band got their start and where Grahm Greene wrote some of his novels. The candy is called "Brighton Rock," and is like a peppermint stick with a picture etched in the center. No matter where you break the stick of sweetness, the image stays intact, like the rings of tree. I had my storyboard notebook which I had purchased for our collaboration, and had even written on the first page, in Katakana: "Shinji to Regina." He drew two pictures in the two storyboards...starting with a sketch of BRIGHTON ROCK on the top right frame. Then, in the top left frame, he drew the same rod sketch, this time with a face etched in the top. This, he said, was "Kitaro." He also wrote the kanji for it beneath the letters. Apparently, KITARO is a candy just like BRIGHTON ROCK, in Japan. It goes back at least 100 years, and is known especially by the older population. Looking at the two images side by side, and picturing a map of the world in my mind, I told him: "naru hodo." "I get it." A specifically sweet coincidence of candy cane proportions.

Shinji is staying on 28th Street, off the 2/3 -- so I thought the high line was a good place to start. I pointed out one of my favorite sights in NYC -- the wooden water towers that sit atop countless buildings. They are quintessential Manhattan to me -- and always pull my eyes upward. I told him I wasn't sure where else these vats made from wood existed -- and didn't they seem like they belonged on a farm? We made our way south, turning west on 23rd street. The Chelsea Hotel loomed at our left, and as we approached I remembered going there once with Cynthia Karalla, to a party in one of the apartments one winter when I lived in New York. Thinking back to that night, the images were mixed in my mind with the film CAPOTE; still not sure why. Maybe I had seen CAPOTE right around that time. Or maybe the interior of the apartment was so very similar to the party scene from the movie. Grand piano. Velveteen couch with significant wear. Low lighting and old lamps. Hardwood floors and built in cabinetry. Guests who each seemed to step off the pages of a Salinger novel -- everywhere I turned people seemed fabulous in their vintage frocks and black framed glasses. Sipping wine while a plate of cheese, crackers and grapes made its rounds. Listening to Cynthia introduce me as "Regina the actress," who "is just simply fabulous as Agnes in Agnes of God."

We snapped some photos in the lobby. I noticed the old telephone booths to the left of front desk, and told Shinji that those kind of full standing 'boxes' were a thing of the past -- so hard to find a Superman telephone booth these days! We made our way west, but the entrance to the High Line at 23rd was closed for construction so we walked along The West Side Highway, stopping at what looked like a stage. In fact, it was a building that seemed in transition -- with a wall that had been spray painted in black and white, and off the side (aka stage right) -- an old black and white photo of a man leaning down in front of a brownstone had been plastered to the wall. We stood on the 'stage," marveling at the space with the cars flying by where an audience would be -- and the Chelsea Piers buttressing what might have been the back of the house.

Walked by the new IAC building, which was featured in the opening credits of the most recent version of Wall Street. A Frank Gehry work, it is a glacial white, shaped less like a building and more like a complex carbohydrate under high magnification. The building itself is owned by media magnate Barry Diller, and is in fact like a complex carb, home to many media companies within -- including Notional, the TV company that hired me to do the gameshow with Chris Wylde in February at TV Asahi -- in Tokyo. It's also where Potocki worked last spring and summer, on the pilot "Tonight's Funniest," for Comedy Central -- and where Mom and Dad came to stare at the Hudson from high above with a view of the Statue of Liberty. I have a picture of my Mom, her back to the camera as she looked out towards the revitalized piers, remembering bidding farewell to the steamships that carried her Aunts and Uncles on vacations when she was a little girl.

Up on the High Line, we marveled at the architecture. I explained that it was once the elevated train line that ran down the west side. And that Barry Diller himself (owner of the white glacier building), and his wife Diane Von Furstenberg (the fashion icon), were huge supporters and donors for the construction of this much loved social space. I was turning out to be quite the tour guide -- in Japanese, no less.

As we walked past the closed Chelsea Market, I urged Shinji to return on his own (it being so close to his place). The conversation turned again to the earthquake, but this time about my leaving Tokyo. I felt I needed to explain, and started to describe what had happened to me 16 years ago in the Kobe quake, and how (having just recently returned to Kamakura) I had come to realize the severity of my staff infection (which engulfed my right leg). No sooner had I mentioned it, that Shinji stopped me -- pointing to a solitary black boot that lay on the sidewalk next to a fire hydrant in front of us -- seemingly abandoned. We stopped and stared at it. It was a combat boot for the right foot, and next to it was a plastic bag filled with some mystery contents. On the fire hydrant, spray painted in yellow, was a singular question mark. "Anata no hanashi to kore o mittara -- Magritte mittai, ne?" Shinji asked me, smiling. "It's like a Magritte -- your story about your leg and this, here now." We marveled at the surrealism. I pictured Dali's melting clock and for the first time understood the intersection of our imaginations -- and reality.

As we approached 28th Street it was getting towards 6pm. I talked again of this week. Was there some way we could collaborate? Shinji thought about it and said that we had met in Tokyo, and were collaborating now -- by walking and talking. That like a good wine, what we can create will be even more delicious if we give it time to age. Perhaps we should shoot something in front of the Louvre -- where his work is currently on exhibit. Or maybe in LA. What was better, he wanted to know -- shooting in LA or New York? I hemmed and hawed, explaining that New York has an energy and a history that LA cannot touch. Thinking of Woody Allen's movies and the way the shadows cast on old brick. But -- that LA has Venice, and the canals. And that the history I had discovered there most recently (of Abbott Kinney and his Coney Island of the West with roller coasters and piers) -- could also make for a beautiful setting. We decided to leave it undecided. But certainly in process.

Where else did he want to see? The Dakota. Central Park. Dumbo. So that is now on tap. I'm excited to be a tour guide for Shinji -- but also for myself. He will come to dinner here with Chris, Bentley and I tomorrow night. The south street seaport, where we are now, is a treasure trove of history. Cobblestone streets and the Brooklyn Bridge. Oh, the Brooklyn Bridge. Nothing quite like its cathedral-like arches in pigeon gray.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Get Back to Where You Once Belonged...






I have been having writer's block. Or blogger's block. I like 'blogger's block' better. Alliteration has a way of winning.

When I lived in Japan at 18, I kept a copious written diary. I filled eight journals with minutiae, including the songs that used to play on my mix tapes to and from school, back in the days of walkmans and mix tapes. If I missed a day, I fretted until the moment my pen would touch the page again. At which point I'd make sure to list what had happened. Who I met, what I thought, what I ate, epiphanies and heartaches. That's how we learn to do it. "Dear Diary..." Who, What, Why, Where and When. Not unlike the questions an actor must ask herself. Who are you? Where are you? What do you want? What's in your way? Who are you talking to? It's how we tell a story -- to ourselves or to others if we are making believe. When you keep a diary, you record what happened with the strange built in audience of your imagined future self, someday picking it up and reading it. Because the future is unknown, everything is significant.

When I got to Kobe last week, I spent all day Wednesday writing, wanting to make sure the images of my journey weren't lost to new agendas and realities. I left off on Monday 3/14, like a page folded in a book that I meant to come right back to. The rest of the week I was in a 'liminal' state (thank you Victor Turner and George Mentore). Not on the inside, and not quite on the outside. Out of Tokyo, but not yet back home. But the beauty was -- I knew the town. Kobe was where I first learned to speak Japanese. The marune color of the Hankyu train cars -- which I once rode to school dressed in uniform -- were the same. Each station with its town written in both English and Hiragana, cream lettering on navy blue. Once upon a time I stared out those same train windows, a sea of clay tile roofs stretching towards mountains in the distance, listening as the conductor announced the next stop. I'd study the foreign script, the curvaceousness of Hiragana (once used only by women) testing myself on the characters. Slowly, slowly learning how the sounds got mushed together. Then I would try it out for myself. "Toyonaka." "To.Yo.Na.Ka."

That's what last week was like. I kept stepping back in time -- remembering all the pieces that led up to the earthquake in '95 -- and all the pieces that followed. Okuno San took me to Minoh Kooen -- Minoh Park. We walked the paths that stretch up the mountain towards the waterfall. It's where I got attacked by three monkeys whose claws broke my skin -- the scars of which I still have on my right forearm. My battle scars. My monkey scars. The weather was cool and Minoh was green, lush, reminding me of Big Sur and Idyllwild all at once. We kept looking for the monkeys but they were no where in sight. It was too cold for them to be out yet. When I used to run there, it was Spring and the Cherry Blossoms were in full bloom. The pinkest pink you've ever seen.

The day before I left, Yoshii San drove me to the top of Rokko mountain and we looked down at Kobe Harbor. She pointed out the name of a small mountain in the foreground and I felt myself topographically, staring southward towards the tip of Honshu, the Pacific ocean to my left and beyond that, California. Just the night before I had been singing Joni Mitchell with Yukiko, Okuno San's granddaughter, who is 2 years younger than I and who I had been friends with so long ago. We called ourselves "Reiko and Peach."

Oh it gets so lonely
When you're walking
and the streets are full of strangers
all the news of home you read
more about the war
and the bloody changes...
oh -- will you take me as I am?
Will you take me as I am?
Will you -- will you take me as I am?

Yoshii took me to Arima -- one of the oldest onsen in Japan where soldiers went after World War II to heal their wounds. We took off our clothes and sat side by side in small 'booths,' washing each other's backs before stepping out to the hot springs. The first was rich in iron deposits and the water left a brown tinge on the pink sandstone wall. The second was a milky white, highly ionized (or so the English description explained) with the power to cast off negative ions from a bather's body. A glass wall separated us from a grove of bamboo giving the impression that you were in fact outside. Yoshii told me of her swim lessons as a little girl, on the shores of Kobe harbor. Her instructor would toss a red rock out into the waves, and each student had to dive and swim while holding their breath until they surfaced, rock in hand. Cocking her right arm, she demonstrated the toss as water droplets hit the milky water, forming cocentric circles, spreading outward. They became the circles of long ago, as I imagined Yoshii's nine year old body swimming toward the point of entry, beneath the waves, lungs filled with determination, eyes wide and fixed on the prize.

It was getting too hot, and we had to be at Konan for a meeting with Mrs. Nagao. Yoshii San left and I decided to try one more steaming pool, but as I stepped in an older woman and perhaps her granddaughter stood up suddenly to leave. The woman my age smiled and said they were already leaving, and I smiled back, waiting for them to step out. When they were gone I stared out towards the mountains, my face newly hot with a mixture of pride and shame and anger. I stood naked and thought of Jim Crow laws and water fountains. Reasoned that maybe they really were already getting out. But let it go, knowing full well I'd never know -- and that it was time for me to go anyway.

True to form, there was Yoshii, waiting for me. She pointed towards the standing shower with a glass wall that faced the carp pond. "To cool off," she told me. I stepped in and pushed the big silver dial on the wall, a spray of frigid water stealing the steam from my skin and taking my breath away. I thought of Sendai and World War II and began to cry. My whole body felt like one big tear. Cold, so cold. My skin rippled with goosebumps.

At the end of the day we visited Konan's Women's College and took a tour of their priceless collection of books in a locked room above the stacks of the library. Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Jane Austen, Henry David Thoreau, Thomas Hardy, Goethe, and more. All first editions. Archives of letters written on stationary from The Dorchester in London, where I once stayed. As we left I couldn't help but stop and stare at the statue of "The Thinker," with Kobe beginning to twinkle in the blue hue of twilight below. A flock of crows overhead. It was strange, everyone said, for them to be cawing so loudly. I thought of my plane flight the next day. The full moon on Saturday 3/19, leaving on a jet plane. Don't know when I'll be back again.

The next morning I furiously typed into my i-touch as I rode the bus with Mr. Yoshii to the airport. All the images. Desperate to record them. Lest I forget them. Afraid of the silence that did come over this past week. Of plane rides and sleepness nights and waking in hotel rooms, sure that I was just in another room of Yoshii's house that I had not yet seen. Or even in a hotel in Tokyo. Slowly coming to the realization that I was home. Back to where I once belonged. To Seattle and to the faces of my family, airports and a train ride to Penn Station where I found Chris, on his birthday, waiting for me. And Bentley beneath the Brooklyn Bridge.

Too many moments and images to properly do justice. But I will continue to try. Or, as Yoda once said: "there is no try, only do." So I sit here now, in New York, listening to the sound of the MTA bus sail by outside...a whale beside the yellow fish taxis. All swimming upstream on the island that never sleeps, powered by the almighty hum of oil, the resource we all now hate to need -- so desperately.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Out of the Earthquake and Into the Past -- Part 2








On Monday, after Tadahiko picks me up at Shin Osaka, we make our way to his and Junko`s apartment, stopping at a small restaurant close by for lunch. I hear a sound from my phone -- I have an email. Tad orders and I see it`s from Wakako. The subject reads: "Read your letter," and the email: "What about your students?" I type back to her, frustrated by the phone`s keyboard interface and my inability to type fast: "I`ll tell you. When can I call?" She responds almost immediately: "Anytime." Tea arrives but I excuse myself to call her and step outside, sitting on the stoop of the hairdresser next door.

The conversation is emotional and I am angry, guilty, scared, defiant and sorry. She is hurt. Why didn`t I come to them for help?! They would have helped me, she says. They were so worried about me. What I did was dangerous. They all came into the office, bewildered that I left without notifying them. She says that everyone is simply stunned with what I have done. Tad comes out at one point to check on me and I signal to him that I will be in soon. From the pauses in our conversation, I can tell Wakako is translating everything I am saying. I ask if our boss is on the call. She says "no," but that Koda San is there, and that she is translating for him. I think of them, my co-workers, my friends, there in the office, and I feel sick. But I defend myself. I tell her I didn`t feel safe, even though everyone was telling me I was safe! I try to explain that I didn`t have any time to involve them. I know she understands a bit more, and seems less accusatory and more exasperated. She tells me she is worried about her own family. And that even though she has medicine to try and sleep, she hasn`t slept. I tell her I`m sorry for adding more stress to everyone. She explains that she is in a hard position and cannot be my friend on this phone call -- it has to be about work first. I tell her I understand and I`m willing to face whatever must come for breaking my contract. And that I will wait to hear from them.

Back inside, our ham sandwiches have arrived, but Tad hasn`t touched them. He is waiting for me and smiles when I sit. Tadahiko is a kind man, open, funny and quick. He is the Japanese version of Steve Buscemi with the warmth of Greg Kinnear. He tells me to eat and drink my tea. Junko Yoshii, Tad`s wife, was the second exchange student to Radnor High School in 1963. When I did my exchange she introduced herself as "Yoshii San," and became my mentore, along with her best friend Yoshiko Okuno, known to me as, "Okuno San."

Yoshiko was the first exchange student ever to attend Radnor High School in 1962. She was one of the brightest at Konan and applied for a scholarship to study in the United States through a Quaker program that operated like a rotary (against her Mother`s wishes). When Okuno San came back to Kobe in the spring of `63, after a year living with her host family on Windsor Avenue in Wayne (Maggie`s Street) she told her best friend Junko, who was a year younger, that she HAD to go, too. Junko followed Yoshiko`s advice, and in the fall of 1963, took a three week journey by boat, plane and train, eventually landing at her host family`s house on Midland Avenue. 25 years later, as a chubby 11 year old middle school student, I walked the 1.1 miles to school most days, and a good part of my path was along Midland. Midland Avenue, with its wide sidewalks and turn of the century Victorian houses, 100 year old oak trees rising high above, the thick green canopies of Spring and Summer, the fiery reds, yellows of Fall....and John Cooper...my one time crush the summer I came back from Japan -- who made me mix tapes and once took me for a ride on his motorcyle through the farmlands of Westchester.

It is only in the wake of this earthquake that I grasp the signficance of my shared history with Yoshiko and Junko. During my exchange as a teenager, they were the sweet women who took me to dinners, Noh plays, pottery classes, and made sure I was learning Japanese. Dressed me in several kimonos one Sunday as we drank tea and ate senbe in Okuno San`s tatami room. When the earthquake hit, along with Nagao Sensei (then the exchange advisor) they helped to arrange everything so I could get out of Kobe and get north, to Tokyo. Now, once again in their care, they seem like family. Otherworldly family.

We finish lunch and head to Junko and Tad`s apartment where I put my bags down. Nagao Sensei calls on Tad's phone. Mrs. Nagao was my exchange advisor and had me for New Year's, just weeks before the Kobe earthquake. During that overnight, we had a small earthquake, and she assured me that big earthquakes happen in Tokyo, not Kobe. 15 days later the Daishinsai pummeled Kobe and killed over 6000 people. Tad hands me the phone and she asks if I will come to Konan. We make a plan and Tad and I head out, taking the Hankyu line to Okamoto station. He puts me in a cab and tells the driver to take me to the top of the hill, to Konan Joshi Kooko -- Konan Girls` School. I look out the window as we climb up, the port of Kobe below, the familiar houses and turns in the road. We are there in no time and I get out and take a breath. Stare at the school`s sign -- recongnizing the kanji for `woman` -- `onna` or `joshi` that is part of the school`s name. I take out my camera and notice two young women, in plain clothes, standing nearby. I overhear them daring each other to talk to me in English. I ask them in Japanese: "do you go to Konan?" They are surprised I speak and tell me with wide eyes that they graduated last spring, and are just visiting. I congratulate them and ask them and we all introduce ourselves. "Mariko" and "Marino." They are clearly best friends. Like Junko and Yoshiko. I tell them I was a student at Konan 16 years ago -- and they laugh and say they were 3 years old. I must seem like an older woman to them. And in fact, I am.

I ask them what they are doing now. Mariko, who wears glasses, tells me she is about to move to Los Angeles, and will attend a small college for dance. I tell her I live in Los Angeles, and give her my business card. "If you need anything, you can let me know. You`re a student of Konan -- so anything you need, I`m happy to help." The girls are shocked. They cannot believe the coincidence and tell me as much. One girl in 800 is going to LA - and we happen to meet. I nod, and agree -- isn`t it amazing? But something bigger is happening, for me to have been on that platform this morning, and now, just hours later, standing on the top of Rokko mountain at my old school. I think back to my relaxation exercise with my students just the day before. Washing ashore, walking through a forest at night and then coming to the top of a mountain. We take pictures together. I tell Mariko I will wait for her email.

As I make my way past the guard and up the stone stairs, the slope of the path feels like and old friend. The bonsai, perched at the top, and the hint of the carp pond beyond. Nagao Sensei appears, hurrying towards me, waving. "Regina!" I run up to meet her and see her face. She hasn`t changed -- except that now she is the Vice President of all of Konan. Next to her, I can hardly belive it -- is Nakata Sensei, my Japanese tutor. She wears a wool tweed suit, and her hair is longer. I hug both of them. Nakata Sensei looks me up and down and says: "you`ve lost weight, right?" I laugh out loud. When I lived in Japan I gained 20 pounds thanks to culture shock and love of food. I was sensitive about it, but clearly remember Nakata Sensei asking me if I liked vegetables one day out of nowhere during a Japanese lesson. She goes on about the kind of words and expressions I liked best. The subtle ones, like the expression for the sleeves of two people`s kimonos touching. I don`t remember this, but I am smiling and staring at her freckles, wanting to hug her again. To make sure she is real. A young Konan student runs by, excited and shy. I snap a picture of her, giggling in the same uniform I once wore -- which hasn`t changed in 90 years. I show it to Nagao Sensei and Nakata Sensei. It`s a beautiful shot -- her in motion, pony tail and laughing face, running down the steps.

We start to catch up when Bamba Sensei appears. Bamba Sensei, Setsuko, my last host mother, who I have written about and pondered over for years. Nagao Sensei calls her over. We hug and she is as thin as I remember. She looks me up and down. Comments on the change of my shape. I nod and say it`s true, that it`s different. She stays on this point. How round my face used to be until I started to go running at Minoh Kooen, the park where I got attacked by the monkeys. I show them my scar. I still have it. Mrs. Nagao tells me that she spoke with Okuno San who will take to Minoh tomorrow, if I am ok with that. Setsuko says she wants to be in touch and I give her my card, one with the Hankoo - the marble stamp that has my name in Katakana and Kanji. I pull it out of my purse. It was made by my calligraphy teacher`s father as a gift, and as Mrs. Nagao says the teacher`s name, I hear a crow being to caw. I look up on top of the auditorium, thinking of Cathy. I snap a photo, and then another of the grecian statue of a woman in front of the doors. Then a few more of the carp pond. It`s getting towards dusk, and the stone lantern has a warm glow to it.

"Shall we go inside Regina?" Mrs. Nagao asks. I say goodbye to Setsuko and Nakata Sensei and follow Kinuyo inside. We stop at the foot of the stairs to admire a painting done by the students -- a rabbit made up of kanji -- in bright colors. A pointillism of words, or symbols for words, in the form of a rabbit. "It`s the year of the rabbit," Kinuyo tells me, and I nod, snapping a picture of it. "Will you stand in front of it?" I ask. She does, and I must fiddle with the settings having moved inside. I get it and show her. We make our way upstairs to the teacher`s lounge -- the place I`ve never been. She pours me some green tea and tells me she still remembers my writing. That after the earthquake I wrote an essay for the school on my experience (which I had forgotten about). "It was so visual," she tells me. Like you were talking in pictures." I thank her and tell her I`ve been thinking about a movie. That perhaps I could shoot some of it here, at school. She smiles. Asks me what it`s about. I start to tell her when my phone rings. It`s Yoshii San, parked at the gate, which is now locked. We finish our tea and head down. Now dark with the light from the streetlamps, Junko and Kinuyo greet each other, bowing and laughing - it has been a while. They are lovely -- in my mind the perfect combination of Japanese grace and politeness but also extremely worldly and smart.

We make a plan for dinner. I jump into Yoshii San`s car, as we head down the mountain on the left side of the road. "Would you like to meet my Sister in law and her dog, Ichi?" Yoshii San asks me. I smile. "Wherever you take me is where I`d like to go," I tell her. She squeezes my knee and smiles, laughing. "Sore de, ikimashoo!" Well then, let`s go!

Monday, March 14, 2011

Tokyo to Kobe -- Out of the Earthquake and into the past -- Part 1





I am in Kobe. Where I did my exchange -- 16 years ago. The past 72 hours have been a blur. Not sure where to begin, but to begin...

After writing my last post on Saturday, I head to class. Talk to my students about trying to avoid too much news, that the images will cause stress and that they should try to separate themselves and meditate. I also start talking about the upcoming power outages. How they could plan to have something else to do. Like reading a book, or making something with their hands, or painting. I encourage them to plan ahead, so that when the electricity is gone, they won't continously reach for a lightswitch or the computer or their phone charger -- and feel the stress of rememembering, again -- that it isn't available.

Sunday is full -- I teach three classes in a row and try to do more of the same: talk to my students about their own experiences, lead them in a relaxation exercise that includes lying on the floor in dead man`s pose, eyes closed, while "Just Like Rain" from `Monsoon Wedding` plays from my computer. I walk them through a series of images:  washing ashore, walking through a forest at night, standing on the top of a mountain with the wind so strong it almost lifts you up, and sitting in a cave, watching the flames of a fire. We do more improvs, scriptwork and some monologue work.

When I get back to the office, it is just around 7pm and one of my co-workers brings out a cake -- in celebration of the 1 year anniversary of the school. We all sit down to eat, marveling at how delicious Japanese cake is in comparison to the cake in the US -- which tends to be too sweet. There is a pause in the conversation and then the subject switches -- to sushi. I say that the best place for sushi in LA is KATSU YA, and we agree that in general it`s hard to find good miso soup outside of Japan. My two male coworkers give each lady white chocolate truffles for "White Day," the `non-Valentine`s Day` exactly one month after Valentine`s Day on March 14th. No discussion of the upcoming outages, except for the fact that they will start on Monday (tomorrow) around 5PM. This is part of the work ethic. Keep going. Be positive. Don`t dwell on what cannot be helped. I look at the clock which reads 7:30pm and remind my co-worker Wakako that we should probably head out to buy a flashlight and maybe a big round candle.

I say goodbye to everyone and wish them a restful weekend before proceeding to walk through Shinjuku. The night is warmer than any nights have been, and my first thought upon stepping outside into the almost humid air is: "I wonder if the heat is from one of the nuclear reactors." I realize this is a strange thought to be having. The natural thought would be: "Spring is here." I think back to the footage from Daiichi Fukushima, the reactor `blowing its top` on Saturday, yesterday、90 miles from here, but Wakako is talking to me about something funny that happened during one of the improvs, and we both laugh about it. As we leave the stretch of corporate skyskrapers and round the corner towards the shopping district, it is all together different. The streets are almost empty. Usually, at this time of night on a Sunday, the same neighborhood is packed. There are people walking around -- but not many at all. This is the first time I`ve been past the neighborhood of work and my apartment building (which are 5 minutes apart) since the earthquake. There is a different energy in the air. It is eery.

We arrive at Bic Camera, kind of like Best Buy or The Wiz. The rows of flatscreen tv`s and countless displays on the walls, usually flickering baseball games, commercials and sexy dramas -- are all turned off. We ask a sales associate which floor for lighting components, and upon hearing #6 -- opt for the escalators over the elevators. It will take longer, we both agree, but neither one of us really want to get inside an elevator -- especially after the improv from today when two crazy characters were stuck in an elevator -- during an earthquake.

Once we get to the section of the 6th floor where flashlights are sold, it becomes clear that they are gone. As in -- completely cleared off the shelf. Bic Camera was our best bet for bulk, but we press on. MUJI, a chain that has everything from envelopes to khakis, will most likely have flashlights, but the metal facade of LUMINE, a department store usually bustling, is pulled shut, all the lights off. MUJI -- and all the stores within -- closed early, it seems. Wakako tells me she`ll bring me some small candles, and I thank her. Then I say: "what about the 100 yen shop?" Her eyes light up...they just might have it!

We head there and I feel excited. It`s open and the shelves look full. But once inside, all we find are rainbow stick plastic lights for key chains -- and multi-colored tea lights. Disappointed, I buy the tea lights and feel desperate approaching the register. Was there anything else I should buy, while I was here, while there was electricity? I scan the rows of plastic chachkies and Hello Kitty accessories, opting for two of the keychain lights, and a Snickers bar (Snickers has protein and really satisfies). I also need tampons, so we decide to head to a drugstore as a last stop before home.

By the time we get home, it`s almost 10PM. Wakako comes into my apartment and tries to turn the NHK channel to an English setting, but no luck. She looks exhausted and the feeling is mutual. I assure her that since I'm not used to watching any of the channels in English, I won`t be missing anything. We say goodnight, and I crack a beer and fire up my computer. New email from Mom. The subject, all in lower case, says simply: "leave."

I open it, heart pounding. "news here says the plant is in meltdown stage...using seawater is a last resort...if the power outages start what will be running the trains...get to Kobe." I call my parents over skype. My parents` voices. My parents` voices. Measured. Speaking slowly. Loving me. If the power grid shuts down, it will be harder and harder to get out, my father reasons. If more people are trying to get out when resources are limited you may face very different conditions that will leave you without any options...

My mind is racing. It`s 11pm. Just leave? I could try to leave now -- but I am exhausted. Should I tell Wakako? She is just upstairs -- but if I tell her she will have to include our boss -- that`s part of her job, to convey any information from me -- to everyone else. It will become a discussion. One which I have become familiar with: "Tokyo is safe. Tokyo is fine." "You are safe here." I don`t have time to be reasoned with. I have to pack -- but what should I pack? I came with two suitcases and have received gifts and bought clothes for the cold weather. I think again of what to take.

I skype with Chris. "Sentimental value comes first," he says. "All can be replaced. You cannot be. You can do it." Chris stays on with me while I pack. Talks to me about everything and nothing. Bentley`s adventures with Asher, the dog walker, and his work week. Tells me I look pretty. It`s time for him to take the dog out. I tell him I`ll write in the morning. We tell each other we love each other.

I look at the clock; it`s 1:00AM. Piles are in order but I still haven`t packed. My skype phone rings. It`s JJ, sitting at home on her couch in Santa Monica, her drapes the same fabric as our couch in the office, in Venice. Daytime there. I tell her I`m packing, leaving, fleeing. We laugh about my agony over leaving so much behind, my pack-rat nature...how I always seem to find more and more STUFF. I hear myself ask her how SHE is (all this time we`ve been talking about ME!) but as soon as I do, the record skips -- this is not that kind of conversation. She is keeping things real to keep me calm. Not to catch up. JJ senses as much. "I`ll let you go," she says. "Good luck. We are all thinking about you."

I double check the location of the Shinkansen over Google. Marounochi line to Tokyo station for the Shinkansen to Kobe. I know how to get to the Marounochi line from my apartment. If I can get to Tokyo station first thing in the morning, my chances of getting on a train are good. 16 years ago, I took the same train out of the massive Kobe earthquake to Tokyo. Now -- I am fleeing the Tokyo earthquake and its aftermath, heading to Kobe. South to North. North to South. I am in the same situation, again. But this time I am a big girl. If I can just get to the train. If I can just get to the train.

I put my packing in high gear. Eat a banana. Drink some water. Shovel some spoonfuls of yogurt in my mouth for protein. Pull the green suitcase out of the closet and put the chosen pieces in, filling bags with everything I can not fit and stack them in my closet. Empty my drawers. Choose necessary toiletries. I look down at my favorite draw string pajama pants that were a gift from Shawn and Serena at Christmas years ago. Covered in blood. Shit! I love these pants. I fill the sink with water and the Japanese version of woolite to soak them and remember to empty the trash bins. That will be the last thing I`ll do before leaving: take the trash to the basement, bring my luggage to the hall, lock the door, drop key and note to Wakako, head out. Head out.

By the time I have it all packed...canvas bag with granddad`s memoirs and my green journal from Heather, my computer plus cords and chargers, suitcase with clothes, shoes, jackets, Night 2 backpack with toiletries, sneakers (they won`t fit in my suitcase and I have to take the brown leather boots I found with my cousin Mollie at a thrift store on 2nd avenue and 7th) -- I realize I should take a bath. I don`t know what the next day will bring, or how long it will be until I shower again -- so I fill the tub and begin thinking about my notes to everyone at work. What will I write them on? I remember the images of people I printed for class on computer paper -- photos taken by Diane Arbus and Vivian Maier -- and grab the stack of black and white pages, turning them over to use as stationary. I will write them first thing in the morning, I tell myself, as the electronic female Japanese voice of my OFURO sounds: "O Furo ga hairimasu!" "It`s time for your bath!" This is followed by a ring tone length version version of "It`s a small world after all."

I sit down on the stool in front of the mirror and wash my hair, telling myself to breathe. The water looks perfect and I grab the white round of soap from Maggie`s hotel (it smells like Baby Kate) and lather up, excited for the relaxing soak. I get in the warm water and start to sink down -- but the ground is moving. I stop, eyes wide. Another earthquake? An aftershock? The water sloshes around me. I can`t tell. Was this just my body in water, a new buoyancy and therefore playing tricks on my mind? The room seems to shift again. I can`t tell if I am tired or if the plates are shifting far beneath. I looked at the buttons on the wall, the one for heat a fire signal in red. Think of the gas line breaking, like in Kobe when so many Mothers who rose early to make lunches for their families died in front of gas stoves. I am in a tub of water and the heat is electric...I get out. Towel off. Legs throbbing. Run a comb through my hair. Throw my towels in the washer. Stare at my bed and the envelopes, all addressed. Write them now while you have been thinking about it. You will be too tired in 3 hours. Write them now, I tell myself.

I sit down, opting for the black uniball elite, Shawn`s favorite pen. I used to order them by the box load -- making sure they were always in his car, in his bags, on his desk. No doubt about it; it`s the perfect balance of ink and tip precision. Write each letter out. Apologizing. Explaining. Trying to speak from my heart. A new email from my Aunt Cathy. "I am here if you want to talk." I write her back. "I should go to bed -- am trying to leave early." A quick reply: "Went to noon mass and said a special prayer for your safe travel. Sending you angels for your journey." I crawl into bed. Almost 5AM. Alarm set for 8:00.

I wake up disoriented and sweaty. My room looks bare. What am I doing? The sun is shining outside. It`s my day off. But I have to leave. I need to leave. I check my email and see the one from Alicia Brady who has fled a part of Tokyo for Ichikawa Chiba, where her husband`s mother lives. She tells me that I should get out if I can. That the army is passing out food and water in her part of Tokyo, and that it looks like a war zone.

I remember the email to let everyone know I`m leaving and began to type furiously. Am about to hit send when Chris calls on Skype. "You`ve got your traveling pants on, I see!" I look at my reflection in the lower left corner, the top of my brown cordoroy jumper showing and my black wool turtleneck sweater. "Yes I do," I say with stage bravado, thumbs tucked beneath like a chorus member from Rogers and Hammerstein`s OKLAHOMA! "Don`t forget to put your Japanese cell # in that email," Chris says. I`m wanting to send it already, wanting to shut down, wanting to pack up, wanting to go. But I go back into another email. Copy the number I don't yet know by heart and paste it into my gmail draft. Hit send.  Chris says "don`t forget to wear your glasses."

I sign off from Skype. Opt for `Shut down` on my MAC. Unplug ethernet and leave the yellow cord, my umbilical cord to the news and to home and to the world, on the floor below. I wrap Anne`s prayer shawl around my neck and take a look at my apartment, grabbing the trash, and begin to head down to the basement but turn around, ALMOST forgetting the key. I cut to that scenario. Me, locked in the trash room with all my luggage packed in my apartment and missing the train. A near miss. A near miss.

I walk out into my hallway and the light is bright in my face. There is a crunching sound and I look down; the floor is covered with moving paper that stretches to the elevators and starts from the apartment next to mind. I clock the men in uniform, stacking the worldly possessions of my mystery neighbor on a dolly. I`m not the only one leaving. I think of "Empire of the Sun," but a different version. This version.

Back upstairs I pull everything into the hallway, take one last look, lock the door. Leave my bags out of the way of the movers and and head upstairs to Wakako`s, bringing my note, the key to my apartment, and the jar of marmalade from the Suzuki`s -- still unopened but now with a sticky note: "Marmalade from the Suzukis" and a heart. In one of the most amazing coincidences, Wakako my coworker had gone to school with Kenichiro, the Suzuki's son. We had more than marveled over the small world of it at my welcome dinner - it was a kind of destiny that we meet. Give the marmalade to Wakako. From the Suzukis.

I come back down. Grab all. Head down in the elevator. Pass the grandfather clock in the lobby that had stopped with the earthquake -- but is now working again. Step outside, pulling my suitcase behind me. I look towards my way to work, my usual way to work, but instead cross the street and head down, down into the subway. The sound of my suitcase on its wheels, rolling along carpeted halls of this pseudo department store that stretches out from the subway line with tourist type stopping points. Japanese sweets, women`s clothing, a shoe shiner, coffee. I follow the sign for the subway and the Marounochi line. Down another set of escalators. I pull out my subway pass and see the track number for Tokyo. Down one more set of escalators. I`m on the platform. I did it. I`m here. I look around, relieved. Relieved. And then. And then.

The ground is shaking. It sounds like a train is coming -- but it`s an earthquake. An unmistakeable, ground shaking, earthquake -- and it feels substantial. All of us on the platform stand frozen, bracing ourselves, looking at each other, wondering what is going to happen next. I stare at the escalator, thinking about how many levels I`ve just come down. My bags are lethal to me now.  A Japanese man comes over the loudspeaker, sounding nervous: "We are experiencing an earthquake. This is an earthquake. Stay calm. Stay calm." I feel the tears coming. This is it. I shouldn`t have left. I am going to die down here. Oh my God, please help me. Please help me. I make eye contact with a man who looks like Ben Kingsley with a dash of Peter Falk. He is holding a newspaper and wears a hat. He smiles at me. We both consider the escalator and move towards it, but then, the earthquake stops. We go back to the platform. I look at the subway station clock: it`s 10AM. I imagine the news flash: Earthquake rattles Tokyo at 10AM. "Did you feel that?" the man asks, a twinkle in his eye. I nod. "I did. I did." The announcer comes back. Annonuces that the train is approaching.

The train arrives and it is packed. As in: sardine style, no room for me plus my backpack plus my suitcase and purse slung across my body. This man helps me push my way on. We are slammed against each other. I tell him the last time I was on a train this crowded, I was groped by a pervert while wearing a school uniform. He laughs. I feel literary. Powerful. I see the veins in my hands as I grip the bar above. He asks me where I am from. "Originally," I say, proud of this, "Wilmington, Delaware." Over the past 10 years...New York and Los Angeles. You?" He turns his head but cannot fully face me. I see his profile. "I`m from Montreal," he says, and I recognize the `n` in `Montreal` is like Shawn`s. "Montreal!" I say. "I used to work for a man from Montreal. I hear it`s a great town. I lived in Vancouver for four months," I tell him, feeling worldly. He chuckles. "You`re telling me you`ve been to Vancouver but you`ve never been to Montreal? You are missing the whole point."

We come to a stop. People get off and begin pushing past me. I start to lose my balance, unable to stay put next to my suitcase with the weight of so many moving, anxious bodies. The man holds my suitcase while I gain footing and find a pocket. I ease back to him. The car is crowded again and I can feel the sweat covering my upper lip. All of a sudden I feel panicked. Am I going the right direction to Tokyo? The man pulls out his map and we confirm that I have it right. He says he is getting off at the station just before. Then he says that he was in the corporate world for more than 30 years and now teaches Japanese people how to study for their MBA. This is his 29th trip to Japan. I tell him I teach acting. He smiles and says: "I`ve been acting all my life! All the world`s the stage..." I pick up where he left off: "and all the men and women merely players."

He exits. Wishing me luck. My stop is next. It comes. I get off and push upstairs asking a Subway Official which way to the Shinkansen. He points me to the left and I go through a series of turn styles, watching what looks like a CNN crew interview a foreigner. I see the ticket booth for the Shinkansen, and there are at least 100 people in line, in front of me. The guy just in front of me turns around, taking in my suitcase, my sweaty lip, out of breath. "Wow, you really packed everything, huh?" He is perhaps my age or perhaps 10 years older. I cannot tell. In good shape, with a pressed oxford tucked into wool pants and a kind smile. He explains that he is line to buy a ticket for his wife, who wants to go to Hiroshima. "And you?" I ask. "Don`t you want to get out?" He smiles and starts showing me photos of mountain peaks on his i-phone. "Me? I`m a climber. I like high stakes situations. Places like Kili? Mount Ev? That`s my speed." I laugh. "So Kili is Mt. Kilimanjaro, right?" He shows me a pic of it. Then of one with him on it.

We chat. Turns out he was in New York during 9\11, too. Driving on the New Jersey turnpike, he looked up and saw that half the sky was black. I tell him about listening to Howard Stern on the radio in my apartment on 97th street and 3rd and how I was supposed to have jury duty, but at 9PM the night before, the bailiff called all the jury members and said the Judge was canceling the session for the next day, a Monday. It`s a familiar conversation...the `where were you, what did you think, who did you know who was there,` -- but I haven`t had it in a while. I must appear nervous because he says: "you`ll get on today. But it`s good you came when you did. See all those sheets of paper? They are changing all the schedules. It`s going to get harder and harder to get a ticket." I see he can read all the kanji easily. "How long have you been in Japan?" I ask. "I was brought here from India out of college, to work as an engineer. Then from there, New York for 15 years. That`s where I met my wife. She is the one who wanted to come back." His phone rings. "Excuse me," as he answers it. Talks to his wife in Japanese. We chat a bit more about what I am doing here and he asks for my email. "I have a friend in the film business in Tokyo who you may want to connect with. He sends me an email from his i-phone with the Kili screensaver. We`ve come to the front of the line and the train official waves me over.

I pull the ticket out of my pocket, the one Yoshii San bought and sent to me for 3/28 -- when I had planned to travel to Kobe with her granddaugther Tamami. The official lets me use it as a credit towards the whole fare, and asks which train do I want -- 11:20 or 11:30. "Ima nan ji desu ka?" I ask him. "What time is it?" 11 he tells me. I opt for 30 minutes, say goodbye to Ash, and push my way towards the upper platforms. The escalators are not working and 3 long flights of stairs separate me from my platform. A Japanese woman makes her way back down and picks up my suitcase. I thank her over and over in Japanese. She smiles, shaking her head, and tells me that we are all helping each other.

On the platform the sun is shining. I search for my car number to board and place yen in a vending machine, downing a gatorade-like drink called "pocari sweat." The Shinkansen appears, a sleek white train that looks beautiful to me. As beautiful as a new Mac Powerbook -- as chivalrous as a white stallion. I try to get on but the conductor tells me they are cleaning it first. An old Japanese woman and I stand side by side and she smiles. Tells me her child lives in Osaka and that when the earthquake hit, so many items in her apartment fell over. I tell her my story and also that I was in the Daishinsai, in Kobe. She pats my cheek and tells me, in Japanese, that I am a lucky girl. I am a lucky girl.

The doors open. I get on. Look at my ticket. Seat 3A. Window seat. I heave my suitcase above and sit down, shaking. I am on the train. I am on the train. I pull out my Japanese cell phone and write a broken email to Chris and my Mom. My Mom writes back. "When will you arrive in Kobe?" I attempt a reply on the buttons meant for writing in Japanese. "2:06." I call Tadahiko, Yoshii`s husband. He tells me to get off at Shin Osaka. Asks me what car I`m in. I think he`s asking for the train number and I am stumped. He tells me not to worry, and he`ll be there on the platform.

The train starts to move as a woman sits down next to me and her son. Someone comes around with a cart. I order a coffee. The woman passes me my coffee, and asks me where I am headed. "Shin Osaka," I tell her. So is she and her son. She is Japanese, but her English is perfect. We start to talk about the earthquake, the news. She tells me that she has been watching and reading everything. The Japanese news, CNN, BBC, Twitter feeds, and more. She is upset with how conservative and secretive the Japanese Power company and government has been about the nuclear situation. "It is such a sensitive issue for Japan, because so much of their exports depend on this nuclear power." I think back to skyping with Saemi, and us having the same conversation on Saturday night, just two nights ago.

We introduce ourselves. "I`m Naoko," she tells me, and this is my son Ken." She tells me her husband is still in Tokyo, but that he will join them on Friday. And that she, like me, decided to leave just the night before. She also says that her husband, who is American and whom she met in New York, is upset because all the other embassies (French, British, Swiss and German) have been telling their citizens in Tokyo to flee -- but that the American Embassy had not issued any warnings to citizens abroad. Further, she tells me, the members of the American Embassy had themselves already fled to Kyoto, and that soon, the Royal Family would be leaving Tokyo for Kyoto as well. I look at the window, watching the scenery fly past, and think of my empty apartment. The incense stick holder and my magnetic calendar with birthdays and appointments written in black sharpie.

We talk about New York, and how she was working in the Twin Towers when the first attack rocked the trade center in the 90`s. She tells me she and her husband lost someone in their family who worked at Canter Fitzgerald. Then she looks up at the red ticker tape of upcoming stops and, apparently, news reports. There is a special report about a new explosion at the third nuclear reactor that was under close watch. My whole body embraces the speed with which we are moving south. I continue to talk to Naoko, and soon Ken, about everything, it seems. Jazz, movies, the firing of John Galliano from Christian Dior, her work as a line producer at Mad House Picutures, my experiences working on Night at the Museum 1 and 2 -- at which point both of them get excited.

They LOVE these movies. Especially Ken. They have questions for me and I am so happy to share information. About the exteriors shot in New York and DC, the stages that were built, the story of a Museum coming to life. She tells me that when she took Ken to the Museum of Natural History, the first thing he wanted to see was the diorama of all the Railroad workers from the first movie, when Owen Wilson first appears. I tell them how the sound of the banjo in that scene was actually provided by Steve Martin -- a colleague and friend of the director -- who stopped by to offer his expert percussive pluckings on a sound stage at 20th Century Fox -- and how the voices of Shawn`s company, mine included, were the very voices that populated that Chinese/Oklahoma/Turn of the Century scene (aside from Owen Wilson`s and Ben Stiller`s, or course).

Before I know it -- we have arrived at Shin Osaka. I step off the train and see Tadahiko, waiting for me. I say goodbye to Naoko and Ken, snapping a picture with them and exchanging info.

Tadahiko leads me through the station and we take a few trains to home. Where I am now. Typing this. Needing to sleep. It is 5AM -- but I had to get it all out. What happened when we arrived at Ashiya Gawa -- including my visit to Konan (my old school) and reuniting with three of my teachers on the stone steps next to the carp pond...I must save for tomorrow. After sleep. After sleep.

Today I came to Kobe from Tokyo. I did not come by myself. There were angels all along the way. Thank you, my family and my friends, for sending them to me. Thank you for sending me your prayers and thoughts and energy. I received them in the form of people who reached out to me over and over again. I am crying with tears of joy to be here.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

NEW-KLEE-UR...nu-kli-er...noo-kuh-lee-yer


The first time I became aware of the word 'nuclear' I was in 7th grade, in Mr. Hockenberry's Humanities class. I went to Radnor Middle School, and the curriculum was strong -- meaning the teachers were well paid and generally quite dedicated to providing quality education to the impressionable young minds of suburban Philadelphia adolescents. Mr. Hockenberry was a perfect example of this. He wore Hawaiian shirts to school, dark polyesther pants, and a variety of leather shoes which had once boasted the Brooks Brothers sheen but were broken in from years of travel around the world. He created the "SSS" -- the "Samurai Sanitary Service," which consisted of Seven Students who, for a month at a time, left class 10 minutes early to pick up any trash that had been discarded on the carpeted hallway floors. By the end of our 7th grade year, everyone had worn the SSS armband. I think it was Tim Rowe who pointed out that the SSS was actually a spin on Hitler's "SS," -- which gave the armbands an added quality of mystery. We were Japanese Samurai, not World War II War Criminals, and our intentions were of the purest form: to keep the hallways of Radnor Middle School free from trash.

One day, Mr. Hockenberry sent home a form for all the parents to sign. He would be showing black and white footage from the tragedies at Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- and if any parent objected to their child seeing this footage, they could of course opt out. Most everyone signed up for the in-class movie, brought to life by the film projector which hummed and flickered August 6th and 9th, 1945 -- onto the nylon screen. First, there was news reel footage of the silver air force bombers, their hatches like Pez dispensers, popping out blimp shaped bombs, which hovered for a moment before beginning their descent to detonation. Next were the shadows of human beings burned into the ground in Hiroshima, followed by skin falling from the faces of women as they cried, and the blank stares from nameless souls who were missing limbs. It was hard for me to grasp, this act of war. I understood it in the context of Pearl Harbor -- how they had attacked us first. But still -- this bomb, this 'atom' bomb -- was all together different.

Filled with questions and imagery, I remember talking to my Dad about it at home in our living room. It was terrible, of course, he told me. And why the US had decided to drop the bombs on such populated cities, instead of the countryside, was always the question that troubled him. But he encouraged me to ask my grandfather, his father Harvey, about it. My grandfather Harvey Taufen knew a lot about Japan -- having traveled there extensively in the 1950's to broker deals between Hercules (a competitor of Dupont) and many chemical companies -- including Mitsui and Teijin. But it was only later that I would learn that Harvey worked on the atom bomb itself in the early 1940's as part of The Manhattan Project. He was one of the many bright, young chemists plucked from graduate programs and brought to Oak Ridge, TN with his young wife Helen, and their small child Lester. They lived in government housing built amidst a pine tree grove, and when it rained, the mud was almost knee deep. From my grandfather's memoirs I have these details, plus the strange description of the place where they separated the isotopes -- as large as a football field and so magnetic that if anyone happened to approach with something metal in hand, they were in danger of losing it.

Later -- I would travel to Japan as an 18-year old exchange student, and visit Hiroshima myself. The shadows are still there, burned into the ground -- preserved so that the world will not forget. But it is now, that I am back here, after the 9.0 earthquake that rocked Sendai on Friday -- that I am thinking of all things that fall into the category of man-made radiation. Atom bombs and nuclear plants, specifically. And of the 11 compromised nuclear power plants at present amidst a total of 52 -- within a country the size of California (Japan is about as big as California, with half the population of The United States). Hobbled after WWII, with no standing army, and dismal prospects of regaining a place in the developing world -- what was Japan left to do? I am left to ponder the decisions to build these powerhouses of isotopic energy. And the irony that their very construction was a direct result of the devastation such energy had caused.

It's a lot to process right now. This morning I felt myself getting a little panicked, even after a session of qui gong and the lighting of some incense -- I started to cry. But then I remembered what Michael, Junko and Cathy told me: stay hydrated and sing to myself. So I sang "Don't Cry for Me Argentina." Upon seeing my reflection in the mirror, singing the song from EVITA, I started to laugh.

I think Mr. Hockenberry would approve. His class wasn't all horrific images from World War II. I fondly remember staring at Seurat's "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," as Mr. Hockenberry played the Broadway recording of Stephen Sondheim's "Sunday in the Park with George." Who was this woman, singing her red-headed lungs out in the sweetest and most articulate warble I had ever heard? That was Bernadette Peters, I learned -- punctuating each note -- in pointillistic perfection.

Upcoming Power Outages -- For all of Tokyo


Am at work...and just listened to the building announcement that tonight, between 6-7 pm, there will most likely be a blackout of power in all of Tokyo. From what I understand, the power companies are preparing for what they expect to be the failure of the nuclear reactor that is responsible for supplying Tokyo with lots of power. In anticipation of this, they will be conserving energy during this 'peak' period. Everyone is being asked to conserve energy as well.

Wow. I think I just realized I am on an Electronic Island. That might lose power. What would Kitty Landers do? Wish I had my leatherman but that got lost a long time ago just after 9/11 and I carelessly had it in my purse. It was confiscated by a smug airport security official at JFK -- and I eventually replaced it with a Swiss Army Knife -- but that is at home in Venice. I think of Bear Grylls and Les Stroud. More Les Stroud. Chris and I have watched both Man Vs. Nature shows and we agree that Les is the real McCoy. Bear Grylls tends to amp it up for the camera. Plus -- Les has the better name :) What would Les Stroud do?

Hmmm. I was telling all my acting students to avoid watching too much news, as all those images will inevitably lead to stress. But it's hard to avoid it -- especially if there are blackouts. I remember the blackout in New York a year or so AFTER 9/11. At the time, Chris and I ran to the stone garden on 51st street between 2nd and 3rd, along with some other random folks who had poured out of their office buildings. We were convinced (everyone seemed to be) that a bomb or imminent terror plot was soon to unfold -- as how else could the whole grid of New York from Albany southward have simply failed? Still don't think that chestnut was fully explained...but I remember it starting to get dark, and it being hot, and people lighting candles. Flashlights and AM radio. We listened to Art Bell (Coast to Coast) and all the conspiracy theories and talked about all the things we could do without electricity. Eventually (years later) that conversation became an idea for an eventual Kitty Landers episode...when there is a blackout and Kitty must figure out what to do...

Another announcement over the loudspeaker. I am struggling with the announcer's extremely polite forms of grammar. Getting about 70% of it. It will be followed by an English version, but we all just laughed about how poor the last English version was. Kind of like that scene in Lost in Translation when the director gives Bill Murray very specific direction about being sad and nostalgic, thinking about men in his life (like his father and grandfather) that he wants to honor and remember...and then when Bill Murray asks what the director says the translator says something like: "be louder."

Have not been to the supermarket yet, but my co-worker told me that all the prepared foods are GONE, and the only things left on the shelves are dry goods, etc. My plan is to leave tonight and hit my bulk supermarket which I discovered (or should I say Wakako told me about). There was a tremor during my second class -- both Wakako and I felt it but my students were immersed in a scene -- and did not.

The funny thing is, I have been mentally planning for this. Just the other day while walking to work, I thought: "If there was an earthquake right now, I'd want to make sure I had all my chargers. My computer charger and my phone charger and my i-touch charger and my batteries for my camera." OK -- that alone is kind of ridiculous. Can Steve Jobs please get on this already? Or did he already do that with the i-phone?

When I was a freshman at UVA, I once woke up in the middle of the night, CONVINCED there had been an earthquake the night before. This was the year after I came back from Japan, and clearly the memory was still in there, triggered by some mystery synapse during REM sleep. I jumped out of my bed in the middle of the night and screamed, shaking my roommate Becky until she woke up. "What IS it?" Becky asked. Becky was an Engineering student and wanted to be an astronaut. She studied constantly and took tests that involved the kind of physics and math problems that I was happy to escape for the likes of sonnets and essays on cultural anthropology. Becky liked her sleep. "We just had a MAJOR earthquake!" I shouted at her, pacing back and forth in our small dormitory room (Metcalf). "Oh my God, go back to sleep, you're dreaming!" she said, pulling the pillow over her head.

I did go back to sleep but I was convinced there had been an earthquake in Charlottesville, VA. The next morning I walked up to the geology lab on O-hill and asked to talk to someone in charge -- about the seismic activity of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The guy who helped me was most likely a grad student, on the shorter side, with curly hair and thick glasses. He happily pulled up a chair and tapped into whatever instruments they had in the lab -- confirming Becky's suspicion that the earthquake had in fact been a dream. I accepted this scientific data as proof, but was stumped. It had seemed SO real. I mean -- I thought my bed was shaking. I told him as much and he asked me out to dinner. I thought of that moment in Silence of the Lambs when Jodie Foster politely deflects the advances of the nerdy Moth specialist: "Ever go out for cheeseburgers and beers? Or the amusing house wine?" Jodie Foster smiles, tucking the hair behind her ear in a pseudo flirtatious reply (perfect West Virginia twang): "Are you hitting on me Doctor?"

But...I accepted his invitation as I was new to college, and nerd or not, he had a car -- and would ostensibly pay for my dinner. Which he did.

Like it or not...earthquakes seem to follow me. Or, I seem to follow them. As my Dad said today over the phone: "I told your sister that from now on the world should be on high alert every time you travel somewhere. THIS JUST IN! REGINA TAUFEN HAS BOARDED A PLANE BOUND FOR..."

And this just in...huge explosion at Fukushima Nuclear plant 2 hours ago. Um...about that boat?!

Friday, March 11, 2011

Can't Sleep


Very strange to be here in the midst of another earthquake. To hear the sirens and be watching the news. Seeing the same clips replayed. Tsunami, fires, interiors of offices shaking. For the past 5 hours I have been reviewing my footage, trying to cut it in final cut and then i-movie and then final cut again. Cursing my software. Annoyed that it's not done already. This -- when the tapes I took of an earthquake 16 years ago are still sitting in my desk drawer at home, waiting to be digitized.

To just be in this moment right now is difficult for me, I am finding. I am trying to see around it. I'm trying to categorize it. The events today. I imagine how it must look from the outside and remember that same feeling -- when I was here before. My Mom telling me how people kept stopping by (when people used to stop by) asking if I was OK. 16 years ago -- I had one phone call which disseminated the info (the phone call that got through to my Mother on the morning of the earthquake). Now -- I have email. Facebook. Twitter. This blog. It's too much, right? I should be writing a letter right now. Said Mrs. Shouldinski.

When I came home from work last night, I ran into the delivery guy. He had the box from Seattle, which contained the shawl Anne knit for me, and her card, with her handwriting. My sister's handwriting is elegant, intelligent, and kind. It has a spontaneity that, considering the consistency of her curves and arcs, is surprising and impressive. The shawl, she explained, was knit in intervals of three stitches, which is supposed to have meditative power. It is a prayer shawl that was by her side, stitch by stitch, for most of her pregnancy with Rowan. The color is a dark teal -- appearing to be black in low light, but when the light hits it -- it becomes a rich and deep palate. I wore it today and it was just in time for the earthquake. I have been touching the stitches and pulling it close to me.

Will remember to put sneakers next to my bed and jeans. Also a quick bag to pack by the door tonight. Need to buy more minutes for my cell phone. Then again -- if I really need to place a phone call -- I believe I will find a way.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Earthquake... I Seem To Find Them (3/11/11)

Started at 2:45pm...

When it got really big it was hard not to remember the Kobe earthquake (Daishinsai)...
and there I was praying again, hands joined and eyes closed...with the prayer shawl from Anne around me. I am in my apartment now with everyone from work. We are having aftershocks! The building is rocking but my building is only 12 floors -- work is about 40. So we are safer here.

When I went to see the Suzukis last week, we talked about an earthquake. What if one comes? How to prepare, etc. They said Kanto (Tokyo area) hadn't had one in years, and that we were due. And we laughed and said I had come back for it. They are close to the ocean and I am worried. I hope they are on a train by now...

Here is the story I wrote about the 1995 earthquake in Kobe and meeting the Suzukis...


JISHIN

January 17th. Days in Japan: 137. 3rd Home Stay. Average number of new words I learn a day: 20-30. Favorite new word: “mendokusai.” Translation: “annoying.”

A dog is barking when I wake up. It’s still dark; I can barely make out the silhouette of stuffed animals on the sill. The pink ovals on the digital clock read 5:44 AM; in less than one hour an electronic Japanese woman’s voice will say: “Ima wa roku ji han desu! Roku ji han desu!” Translation: “It is now 6:30! It is now 6:30!” I want to strangle this polite woman who wakes me up every morning.

I toss and finally sit up straight in the single bed of Akiko. Akiko is seven, my youngest host sister yet, and it’s her room I’ve overtaken -- with the understanding that I refrain from touching any of the Disney figurines that line her dresser. The kid is obsessed with Disney. For fun, I turn Donald Duck 180 degrees and put one of Snow White’s Dwarves next to Belle. The rest of the figurines stare at me in horror, shadows cast across their faces. I’ve disrupted the harmony in their universe. I stare back at the chorus of pink flushed cheeks and earnest expressions. “Change is good for you,” I say in my mind (because Disney figurines are mind readers). They still look skeptical, but appear satiated for the moment. Who is this wise woman sleeping in Akiko’s bed? Maybe we’ve got it all wrong and should learn to adjust ourselves.

Yesterday, Carolyn went back to New Zealand. She was the only other exchange student at my school and a group of us headed to the airport to see her off. A-Chan, the head of our Chorus Group, turned to me like a coach at the start of a season: “Carolyn ga inai kara, nihon go de wa, gambatte de shoo.” Translation: “With Carolyn gone, you’ll really have to work harder on your Japanese. You can do it.” I nod my head and feign appreciation for her ‘pearls’ of wisdom -- but I’m annoyed. I’ve never had any Japanese language classes. Carolyn studied for two years before arriving in Japan. She’s been here for 12 months; I’ve been here for 5. No one should be comparing us.

But the truth is, I compare myself to Carolyn all the time. I’m jealous of her Japanese. This drives me crazy because if anything, she should be jealous of me. First of all, I’m much prettier than she is. Her hair is greasy and thin and her ears stick out. She’s never kissed a boy and is immature when it comes to anything outside of schoolwork. She covers her books with Hello Kitty stickers and listens to Mariah Carey. She’s a nerd. If she went to my high school, I’d be nice to her – but we wouldn’t sit at the same lunch table. Here -- I follow her around like a puppy. At least with her gone I won’t be so dependent on someone who annoys me. But who will I walk to school with? Who will translate the whispers of the girls who go to karaoke bars and sex hotels? I toss again. As soon as I can speak Japanese fluently, everything will fall into place. That’s what I’m thinking about when the earthquake starts. How everything is about to fall into place.

There’s a 1970’s movie called The Incredible Shrinking Woman starring Lily Tomlin. She plays a housewife who shrinks to the size of a doll after being exposed to too many household chemicals. Lily takes up residence in her daughter’s dollhouse and one day, the dog paws at the doors and windows. She gets tossed around inside – flailing in every direction, at the mercy of their household pet. This is a good way to describe being in a 7.2 earthquake. It’s like catching a wave at the beach that’s too big to ride. You’re helpless as the wave carries you downward with the force of the ocean behind it. The only thing to do is hold your breath and prep for that scrape into shore that you hope won’t knock the wind out of you – or worse.

“Oh Shit, what if I die?” I think, grabbing onto the sides of my mattress. It’s so loud – like a thunderstorm inside a garbage disposal. “I’m going to die in an earthquake in Japan!” Now I’m crying and just as quickly start to pray: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…” -- I’m praying God can hear me. My grandmother taught me the Our Father when I was five. I’d say the prayer at church and sometimes at the dinner table – purely as ceremony. Until one night in 3rd grade -- my Mom was late, too late to have not called, and I was home alone. I remember sitting in the family room of our house in Connecticut, the rain pouring down in sheets, lightning followed by thunder, and I knew she’d been in a car accident. I knew it. So I prayed to God that if He saved her, I promised to pray every day for the rest of my life. She survived a nasty pile-up. And I believed, at the age of 8, that I had saved her.

I kept up with my promise for a whole year. I actually became afraid that if I didn’t pray something bad would happen to my family. My prayer was a little OCD. I always ended with the word GOD, but just to be sure I had finished the sentence, I forced myself to say “ddd – God” aloud. It felt like making sure a door had been shut firmly behind me. And now, a full ten years later, I’m blubbering the words out between tears, begging God-d-d-d to let me live. Another huge jolt moves my bed across the room. Then -- it stops.

Everything stops. Seconds of silence and then car alarms, more dogs barking, the sound of my host father yelling: “Dai jobu?! Minna san, dai jobu?” Is everyone OK? He is at my bedroom door, but it won’t open. It’s made out of steel and the whole frame has warped. He throws his body against it and it gives way. I get out of bed and follow him into the living room. I’m crawling over lots of glass, and look down. The blonde of Cinderella’s hair, perfectly tucked under her blue headband, peeps out from the end of my fist. There is blood on her face – it’s my blood – my hand must be cut, but it’s not deep. When or how Cinderella got into my hands is a mystery.

My host father tells me to get under the kotatsu (a small table) and when I do, I see the faces of Akiko and her older sister Yuki, eyes wide. Before long the first aftershock comes. We all scream, but when it stops -- we giggle. This goes on for a while: aftershock, scream, giggle. It feels strange to be giggling, but it’s also a relief. Like we are all thinking the same thing: WHAT. THE. FUCK. JUST. HAPPENED?

I keep Cinderella hidden in my clenched fist but soon Akiko discovers her. I’m afraid she’ll be mad but instead, she thanks me for saving her life. I hand her over, saying it was nothing, as if I had rescued her on purpose. In my family, I’m the youngest of three, but now I feel like the oldest sister. Yuki starts to cry and I tell her everything is going to be all right. I even smooth Akiko’s hair behind her ears and rub her back. I’m a good older sister.

The sun begins to rise (in the Land of the Rising Sun) through a haze of dust. We stand on the balcony, watching the fires burning in downtown Kobe. It feels like I’m flipping through channels and have stopped on news footage of a city in Iraq. But I can smell the smoke. Somewhere nearby, a woman is crying. I try not to listen but it must be one of the apartments above or below us. Did someone die in our building?

My host father leaves for work but is back within 15 minutes; all the trains are down. He leaves again – this time on his bike. I almost laugh and am about to argue with him – it’s more important that he stay here with us. That’s what my Dad would do. Suddenly I miss my parents terribly. I need to hear my mother’s voice.

My host mother hands me the phone. I rummage through the disaster zone of my bedroom for my phone card. It rings 4 or 5 times. “Hello?” says my Mom. “Mom – I’m OK!” I announce, expecting tons of questions and sighs of relief. “Good to hear your voice, honey!” she says happily. I can hear her heels on the slate floor in the kitchen and remember the time difference – she is just home from work. “Here, Neil – say hi to Gina while I grab the groceries.” The Chia Pet infomercial plays on the TV as the phone gets passed. “Cha cha cha Chia!” “Yo,” Neil says. “What’s up, geisha girl?” A surge of importance rushes over me. “We just had an earthquake!” I say. “Cool,” he says. “Did you feel it?”

It’s rare that my brother listens to anything I say – so the attention is thrilling. He flips through the channels, looking for some kind of news report, then passes the phone back to my Mom. “Neil says there was an earthquake. Are you ok?” my mother asks. I rattle off the same description and I can tell by her questions that she is growing more and more concerned. I keep telling her everything is fine. “It was exciting,” I say. “We’ll call you back when your father’s home from work, Regina, I know he’ll want to talk to you,” my Mom says. I nod, noting her use of “Regina,” which is reserved for times when she is pissed off – or worried.

We hang up – and I don’t talk to my parents – or anyone else – for the next three days. Strangely – all the phone lines in Kobe went down in the earthquake, so it’s anyone’s guess how I was able to get through an hour and a half after it happened. Maybe it was d-d-d-Goddd.

We can’t take a bath or a shower because there’s no running water. We also have to ration food. My stomach growls and I write in my journal: “At least I’ll lose weight.” I want to take video and decide to venture outside later that day. The street has a buckle in the middle of it, as if a Giant had stepped down, cracking it in half. Most all the buildings I can see are completely toppled or badly damaged.
The next few days are a blur. Aftershock, small snack, bit of water, write in my journal, take a nap. When the phone lines are up again, I talk to my parents. They ask me if I want to come home. “No,” I say, shocked at the very idea. “I’m really close to speaking Japanese. I can’t go home now.” They are quiet and then say they’ll respect my decision – but that I cannot stay in Kobe. A few hours later they call back with a plan. My Dad has a contact at work that knows a family north of Tokyo. The couple is willing to take me in. Tatsuo and Yumi Suzuki. Tatsuo will meet me at the Shinkansen train station tomorrow at 6PM. My host mother tells my parents she can get me to the Shin Osaka station. It’s a walk – but she will get me there, she promises.

I look around my room and pack as if I won’t be back – just in case. My journals, video camera and tapes, underwear, socks and a few pairs of pants and sweaters – which is all I can fit into my pack. I see the remnants of Akiko’s Disney figurines – most of them smashed into tiny pieces. At least I was able to save Cinderella. My host mother, Yuki and I set out for the Shin Osaka station. The walk takes us over 2 hours and we are quiet for most of it. We pass teams of dogs that are looking for people beneath the rubble. Old men sit smoking cigarettes and women huddle on the doorsteps of houses that are no longer standing. On our right is the amusement park that’s close to one of the stations near school. The sherbet colored bumper cars and fairy tale spires seem grotesque. I want to take video of them but it doesn’t feel appropriate. I can tell that my Host Mother is nervous being out amidst the rubble and the chaos. She wants to get me to the train as soon as possible.

My right leg hurts. Four days ago I noticed little bumps that turned into mosquito bite sized pimples. They itch like crazy. I haven’t mentioned them to anyone but figure I just need a shower and some sleep. I smile, remembering Carolyn. She missed the earthquake by one day! I can see her now, sitting in New Zealand, watching all the footage on the tube. She was so close to having this be her story. Now – it’s mine. I feel triumphant. Then I look around me. The careful, delicately laid streets and gardens are a jumble of concrete and wires. It makes me want to cry but at the same time it’s thrilling – knowing that I am in the middle of something historic. Maybe this is how a news journalist feels.

By the time I meet Tatsuo on the platform of the Tokyo train station, it’s a little past 6PM. He is my father’s age – in his early fifties, with a handsome face and kind smile. We take two trains to the small town of Kamakura, a fishing village with a view of Mt. Fuji from the beach. The Suzukis live in a beautiful, old Japanese house with traditional tatami rooms and sliding paper doors. They also lived in New York City for eight years and Yumi speaks fluent English. My room is upstairs and belongs to Michiko, their daughter, who is a PhD student at Stanford studying English Lit. Her room is filled with bookshelves that are packed with novels and poetry.

I am so grateful to be here – whisked away from the chaos of Kobe into this exquisite house and town. My leg is killing me but how can I tell them? They just met me. I don’t want to burden them or make an impression of someone who is going to be a bother. I want to simply be a grateful guest. So I shower and return downstairs for a late dinner. We eat and I feel better but when I stand up from the table, the blood rushes from my head and I faint. As in: pass out cold on the kitchen floor. I wake up on their living room couch and show them my leg, which is at this point swollen and reddish purple with the epicenter being one of the mystery pimples. The skin beneath it is hard and it’s hot to the touch. Mrs. Suzuki asks why I didn’t tell them sooner. I try to explain but Tatsuo points out the irony in my thinking: You stayed quiet to avoid making things more difficult -- but in so doing complicated things to the point of passing out. He’s right. What if I had hit my head? The Suzukis would have to phone my parents and break the news: “Regina arrived safely from the deadly earthquake in Kobe, but hit her head after dinner and died on our kitchen floor. My tombstone would say as much: Here lies Regina Taufen. She died so that others might not find her impolite.

The next morning we take two trains to Yumi’s Doctor. He takes my temperature, examines my leg and announces to someone unseen that he must drain it. Yumi translates this last part just as a stainless steel bowl and a lance appear from the gloved hands of a nurse. I look the other way as it punctures my skin and try not to cry but it hurts and the tears roll down my cheeks. The doctor does not speak much English and the medical terms are past my Japanese vocabulary, but later Yumi explains that I have a serious staff infection resulting from folliculitis, an infection of my hair follicles, which was most likely the result of a regular bacteria becoming toxic under the stress of the earthquake. She explains that I must stick to a strict daily regimen of draining the infection, covering the wound with gauze and medical tape, and taking my antibiotics – for 2 weeks. Yumi and the doctor speak quietly as I wait, and every once in a while she looks up and smiles at me.

Later, as we ride the train back to Kamakura, I ask what they were talking about. “You,” she smiles again, looking out the window towards a shrine with bright orange wooden pillars and pieces of white paper folded like cranes hanging beneath. She starts to speak but stops herself, then starts again. “I told him how you were afraid to burden us, and we laughed and said that maybe you were really Japanese after all.” I look her in the eyes and am amazed by her skin. She must be in her fifties, but I see no wrinkles. Just flushed cheeks and a smooth, soft complexion. “He says you are very lucky.” I nod, and say I feel lucky to have gotten out of Kobe and come here. “I mean about your leg,” she continues, decisively. “He said you might have died.” I am not expecting this. Who dies from an infection of a hair follicle? That’s not the sort of thing you hear about. I’m skeptical but don’t discount the continuous throbbing of my shin. “Yumi?” I ask. “Don’t tell my parents that, OK? I don’t want to leave Japan yet.” Yumi pats me on my good knee. “What a brave girl you are,” she says.

That night, I sleep for 16 hours in Michiko’s room. I dream of being chased by wild dogs through snowdrifts on the grounds of some ancient, Wuthering Heights-esque estate. I dig a deep hole to hide myself -- but then I cannot tell which way is up.
When I awake -- it’s dinnertime. Everyone is pleased at how much I slept. Especially Tatsuo’s parents, who are in their 80’s, and live on the first floor. They tell the story of being in the great Kanto earthquake of 1923 (which killed over 100,000 people). Tatsuo’s father was 12 and had to walk barefoot for miles in the dark searching for food. His wife is thin and frail but perks up as she eats, recalling the fires that lasted for weeks.

The next morning I pick up Michiko’s copy of “Catcher in the Rye” and sit outside in the sun, re-reading it. That night, I videotape the process of draining my wound while narrating in the voice of Salinger’s main character, Holden Caulfield. I call my leg “gorgeous, just stunning,” and refer to the bumps as ‘bars,’ while the puss and blood within becomes the riffraff in need of removal by me, the Bouncer (I’m a beefy bouncer, from Long-Guy-Land, but I’ve got a big heart). Maybe I really have lost my mind. Then I read “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath -- and feel totally sane.

I think about Yuki and Akiko and wonder if Cinderella still has any of my blood on her face. There is a knock at the door and Yumi is there with a cup of hot tea for me. “Tomorrow, I was thinking I’d send you on tanken,” she says. “Tanken wa nani?” I ask. What’s a tanken? “Tanken,” Yumi says, “means adventure. How would you like to go to a bamboo temple? I’ll write everything down for you and you can explore on your own. But you’ll have to use your Japanese.” I nod ‘yes’ and thank her for the tea. When she closes the door I say the word out loud again: “Tanken.” That’s what this has been. My Big Japanese Tanken. I like the Japanese word better. But then, I like all the Japanese words that Yumi teaches me.