Auntie and Linds are home, we assume, because we’ve been getting emails from them that say: You must have my Japanese fabric. It is nowhere! that are followed twenty minutes later with oh! I just found it in the side pocket of my suitcase. Don’t worry! to which I want to say once and for all that we have scoured the apartment and have found no hair ties, no spare glasses, no extra fabric. NOTHING WAS LEFT BEHIND. We did find a curling iron burn on our grey pleather (I know) couch and as I was eating dinner the other night a shard of glass worked its way into my foot, so thank you for ruining our furniture and nearly causing a visit to the emergency room. We had a good time with you, too.
But I am kidding! and Linds if you ever read this, I mean, if the City of Phoenix doesn’t call this site “forbidden” and then phone you to explain yourself (true story, folks)–thank you for the note we got in the mail the other day. We particularly liked the purikura picture of you and Auntie in an ice cream sundae. I mean, if you’re leaving Japan with a good grasp of the purikura scene–our job is basically done.
We’ve been getting back into the swing of getting up early and taking trips to pottery towns in the rain. I purchased a nice sake set for my husband who doesn’t drink sake. That’s how much I like the pottery. I’m actively working to convince myself that five teapots is a good place to stop. FIVE TEAPOTS. Not to mention the number of small, handle-less teacups I’ve bought over the last two years. We have a luggage scale to ensure that our checked baggage is under 50 pounds, but I’d better hope no one notices me sweating as a heft my carry-on onto the security belt because it will have, at a minimum, 25 individual pieces of pottery nestled inside it.
The reality that we’re leaving K-town in two and a half months (right in the middle of typhoon season) is starting to sink in. We’ve been somewhat careful in accumulating things (except disregard that statement entirely when it comes to pottery) and yet we have so many THINGS. Wooden old people dolls, fabric cranes, towels with snow-covered cherry blossoms on them, cute plastic bowls, magnets, posters. MY BOOK COLLECTION. I have a master plan (by which I mean I’ve made lots of lists), and yet my main strategy appears to be surveillance. Piles of white polo shirts and short linen pants surround our bed and spill over into the living room and instead of sorting through my moth-nibbled sweaters and making room for the summer clothes in the closet I just hop between the shirts, reach into a stack to pull out a t-shirt and hope the whole thing doesn’t crash down in a fluffy cotton pile.
The husband is less than enchanted with this situation. He sorted his winter clothes into geometric bundles and secured them with twine. He asks me, “should I take these to a second hand shop or recycle them this morning?” while I’m wearing mismatched socks and smelling my undershirt to see if it’s clean. I’m eyeing my clothes to see what will make the boat home. I can tell, with a quick glance, whether a certain article of clothing has been washed in our disastrous excuse for a washing machine. The fabric will be faded and the sleeves so stretched out that the armpit holes hang down to mid-bicep. So I’ve decided no new clothing will be washed in Japan! I will save what cotton I can! I know it’s a naive resolution to make headed into the hottest and muggiest season of the year when I strip naked in the afternoons and sit, after school, panting under the air conditioner (not as sexy as it sounds), but this is the beginning of my detachment process. Most people pull away from friends and loved ones and gird their hearts in preparation for departure. Not me! I stop washing my clothes and spend my weekends buying ceramic plates in the shape of bamboo stalks.
This plan does cause me to wonder if I’ll get home and wish all my clothes looked faded and spun into felt by our machine. If I’d rather my shirts had small white lint balls from the polluted air and the stiff feel of shirts hung dry in the sun than look like regular American clothes. I mean, what better way to throw into a conversation that I used to live in Japan than in response to the question, “what happened to your pants?”
“Oh,” I’ll say modestly, “it’s just my washer in Japan, where I lived, used to eat these holes into the hem of all my pants. And this hole in the shoulder of my shirt? That’s from a poisonous centipede that crept up on me while I slept. Man, I miss it there.”
