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I’ve been thinking a lot about place and how it can be so important to some people and others can just live where they are and get on with things. I am not one of the latter and it probably seems ridiculous to anyone who knows me that I ever thought I was. I’ve got to keep moving.
I do have big ideas about having a small plot of land on which to grow food without chemicals and whatever other crap we dice with when we shop at supermarkets. And I’d also love to have a house just so that I could have somewhere suitable to cook and to work. I love reading things by 21 year olds who say they are free by living a location independent lifestyle without owning anything and travelling indefinitely, because I thought that too, when I was 21. But, I can tell you that after a few decades of travel you kind of want more than a kitchen space the size of a small chopping board to encourage you to prep real food rather than subsist on takeaways. And anyway, I like food. I write about it.
But, back to place. If I had this house and land, where would it be? For years I thought it would be New Zealand. And, I do like New Zealand, don’t get me wrong. But it is very hard to live here. The houses are full of damp and work is hard to come by. Unhealthy and stressful. Because I spent my childhood moving round the United States, sometimes I think, well maybe I could just go there. I do have family there. Houses are cheap now if you can get work to pay the mortgage and the general cost of living is low. But it’s not that easy, mentally. To go back, I mean. And what about Japan? I love it there, but life can also be difficult not to mention the fact that borne of my own experience is a fear of earthquakes (And, yes, I recognise how ridiculously fortunate I am to get to choose based on this fear). My beloved Thailand? Malaysia? India? Somewhere in Europe? No, I doubt that.
So, to someone like me who has never felt rooted to the ground, it seems like I could just keep looking for that mythical land where things are perfect, well… better. But, do I just keep looking forever? And, even so, the idea of committing to one place for.ev.er. is just scary as hell. I don’t think it’s going to matter where it is. I guess if I could find a good place that also provided enough income for me to keep travelling, maybe…just maybe, I could be content with being tethered to a mortgage.
Where am I going with all this? Dunno. I’m just feeling fed up with the rain leaking into my house and clearing mould off the walls and not being able to utilise the wasted space in my house because it is rented. It’s just a great big, get it off my chest, gripe, I guess. I want to do something.
I think the other kids had already lost interest by the time I found myself staring at a lifeless frog with an ice cube on its belly. That image is still very clear to me. The girl with the fuzzy brown hair and the waffle-soled shoes had put it there, an older kid, one of “the babysitters”. Older kids were usually scary or boring, which is probably why I was the only one left to see this miracle. I was always the one who wanted to know things, especially weird ones, and since this girl had learnt about frogs being cold blooded at school, and deduced that that meant ice would give a dead frog life, I was not going to miss it. Sadly, here is where the memory ends. I just can’t remember if the frog came back to life or not. I must have either been pulled away by some other fascinating endeavour such as playing Star Wars on bicycles, or just walked away thinking it might not work and I didn’t want to know. I remember really, really wanting it to work. Does it work? Wait, don’t tell me.
In the morning, before anything else such as opening my eyes properly, I have a cup of tea. If I were a frog, this would be my ice. I can’t do anything without it. My body is so used to it that if I don’t have tea for some reason, I just stumble round until I realise what is wrong and then put the kettle on to rectify the situation. I don’t need coffee. Coffee is good, but it would put me from 0-100 in 10 seconds, and then I’d crash. Coffee is for later and for special occasions like sitting in cafes with friends. I need gentle tea full of sciency things like catechins and antioxidants. Black tea, freshly boiled water, milk. Americans call this “with cream”. “Cream and sugar?” is the collocated question you are asked in an American restaurant. I love watching English people hear this question for the first time because I can see the internal struggle on their faces when, horrified that someone would put cream in their tea, they politely reply, “With milk, please” . Little do they know it doesn’t really mean cream, it means milk or that strange little animal, half and half. How can you have half cream and half milk if milk IS cream with some of the cream taken out? At which point do you call it milk? Anyway, this is how I have my tea. In the morning, there is no other way.
When my brother and I were little, my family went to Walt Disney World. We drove down to Florida where, we believed, the local kids did not have to go to school. I mean, you could see them all at Disney World so obviously they didn’t have school*. We felt a lot of freedom there because our parents let us run around for hours as long as we “stayed together”. We rode favourite rides over and over and, for my brother, this meant Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. I am quite certain that they don’t have that ride anymore because a) it wasn’t sophisticated enough to hold the attention of the kids of today and b) it was based on the Wind in the Willows, a book, with pages and a cover and book smell. I don’t know how many kids read this type of book anymore. I didn’t much care for the ride as there was a scary part at the end, but do you know what my one memory is? There were a bunch of frogs sitting on a picnic blanket…drinking tea!
Look at this teapot!
The photos are by Vince42 on Flickr
*We later moved to Florida and were highly disappointed when we found out that we did, indeed, have to attend school.
As soon as I hear the “Where…” , anxiety rushes in. I’ve learned from experience that not having the ‘right ‘answer creates problems. People don’t want you to be ‘interesting’ or ‘weird’. They want to be able to file you in the folders of their mind discreetly and easily so they have a point of reference from which to judge your actions. People love to judge on place.
I first opened my eyes in a place with beaches, warmth, and never-ending swamps. Water fell from the sky in half-day, seasonal downpours. Like clockwork, heat turns to rain making everything steamy and unbearable save for the scent of Cuban beans simmering that hint at the pleasures in life to come. Home? Within a year my family headed to the cold northern state of Michigan.
The water here falls from the sky in snowflakes and it makes for great fun sliding down hills with my brother in those precious moments when sibling rivalry hasn’t taken over. Detroit has urban things like the Henry Ford museum where my classmates and I saw the chair that President Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot.
“Miss Jones, is that his blood?”
“No, it’s the pomade they used to put in their hair.”
“Sam, what’s pomade?”
“I dunno. I think it’s blood.”
“Yeah, me too!”
Michigan also meant family as once every couple of months my Mum bundled us into the car for the three hour journey “up north” to see relatives and, from my perspective, go to the lake. Lake Huron was a wonderland in those days with giant plaster animals on the beach containing slides and swings and firemen’s poles. There were precious Petosky stones to search for which I didn’t recognise as fosilised coral until I was in high school. But the lake was best in winter. In the daytime people would ice skate along the shore and at night it became a game to spot the glow of the ice fishermen’s lights in the little temporary shelters.
We also explored the woods which were full of exciting things like bear poo and half-eaten prey of some bird or animal. We never played cowboys and Indians…only Indians. We really wanted to believe that we could live like native people and survive in the wild, but in reality we were fortified by pierogies and potato salad (family recipe)until the sun went down and adults called us in.
After those days we lived in the tornado alley towns of Omaha and Kansas City. Scary days when the sky went black, sirens went off, and we hid in the basement with Mum and Dad listening for the telltale train sound. It wasn’t like this in Little House on the Prairie. But there were blizzards which seemed fun for children, but not for my parents who busied themselves stocking up the survival box as they did the hurricane box in southern Florida. Same cans of Spam and stew for different potential disasters.
And there were other homes in other states every two years on average. By 18, the pattern had set and I carried on to the UK, Vietnam, Japan and New Zealand after that. Of course, Lake Huron doesn’t freeze anymore and our house in Miami is long gone thanks to a hurricane. Sometimes I’m surprised at how much focus there is on place when defining home. Home is much more than place to me.
We’re finally in our new house. We had to give up on the ‘owning dream’ since nobody has job security these days, but we’ve rented the biggest place we’ve ever lived in. It’s really cool to be able to spread out(heating this place is another matter). Plus, I’m opening boxes of cool stuff we brought back from Japan that have been in storage until now. Christmas in July!
The past two weeks has just been about processing jobs. Change the address on this and that, buy a washing machine and get it delivered, chase up the phone man who can’t seem to find out address to put the phone in, chase him up again…and again, pack boxes, clean, clean new lace, unpack boxes, eat MORE takeaway until we can find plates and pots, the list goes on.
Tonight is the first night that I am not totally obligated to meet someone, go somewhere, or clean something. Mr. P asked me to meet him and colleagues in town for a drink but the last thing I want to do is get on a bus only to fall asleep at the bar. So, I’ve put my foot down and I’m staying in. Well, as a compromise, I’m giving him a lift home and we’re going to get some food on the way. But then I’m REALLY staying in!
Well, a few days, but still! This is what I saw out my window on the day we were leaving the flat in Shibata. Talk about Seasonal Affected Disorder, it hadn’t even been snowing that long yet but we were well and truly ready to get to the New Zealand summer.
Things have been really difficult. In fact, it’s been the most difficult move I’ve ever made and that’s saying a lot for me. I’ve made no less than 7 international moves, and god only knows how many domestic ones. But this one just seemed to drag on and on. I think the big difference is that Mr. P had to start work, and I had to start my course only two days after landing. We didn’t even have a place to live yet! Every waking moment was focussed on getting us settled somewhere, and so we managed to find a place on about day 7 that we moved straight in to. There was nothing in the flat, and I mean not -a-sausage! So we slept on the floor a few nights until a kind person on my course offered up some foam mattresses for us to borrow. We also got into the storage unit and amazingly, after 4 years, everything was still in pretty good nick albeit full of dust. So we got the chilly bin to keep our milk in and started buying bags of ice so we could keep milk for tea. Finally things started coming together and we obtained a new bed and fridge. We now OWN stuff! Now there’s a novel concept. We’ve just this week managed to get our stuff from the ship (from Japan) and clear customs as well, but it’s pretty much box heaven round here. It can only get better, right?
All in all, it’s been stressful as hell, but we are really glad to be back!
BTW, this is what it looks like out our window now.
Houses in snow country with no insulation, tiny kitchen without a work surface, putting down and picking up your bed everyday, cycling to work in rain and snow, people who stare, variety shows, people who run away, people who look in your trolley at the supermarket ot follow you round picking up things you’ve just put down, empty seat next to you on a packed out train, people who sit next to you, realise that you are foreign, and then change seats, sardine trains of Tokyo, bacon in everything, sweltering hot and humid summers, concrete everywhere, and sleepy students
Tatami in the summer, cycling to work in 5 minutes, quiet Buddhist temples, okonomiyaki, ancient matsuri, second-hand kimono shops, cycling out to Nail for curry, rice padi, cold soba, bento boxes, Niigata sake, beautiful furoshiki, Malaika, sesame spinach, ski trips, creative licence with my classes, excellent boss and head of department (caring friendly and a bit mad), lush potluck dinners at J & J’s house, Nojiriko, red caps on stone Buddhas, Loft, Shibata cycle path, mitarashi dango, enlightening conferences, beautiful mountain backdrop, diverse and amazing long-term expats, Tokyo, convenience stores with everything in them, free tissues on the street, nice pottery, onigiri, my friends, my students, Shinkansen, ekibento, tsukemono, not having to wear a suit in the land of suits, cool postcards, natto, nabbana, mochi, and excellent 100 yen shops
I’ve been waiting for my classes to finish for the holidays so that I could finally get started on packing everything up. I’ve now got two weeks off until I go back for my final week of classes and then we leave on the 17th of January. The problem is that now I’m waiting for ME to get into it.
I seem to be like a deer caught in the headlights. I can see all the stuff that needs to be done, but I just can’t do anything yet. So far, I’ve managed to update my Flickr page and my blog, e-mail some people who can’t even remember who I am since it’s been so long, watched a couple of DVDs with Mr. P, and moved some stuff from one room to the other and back again. I think I’m overwhelmed!
My production level was actually higher while I was teaching because I kept fitting in little jobs in between classes. But now that I don’t have to fit things in, I appear to be burnt out.
This can’t happen. I’ve got to get moving. So far, it’s only halfway through the second day of holiday but I know how these things progress. Progress isn’t the right word…maybe grind to a halt. OK, one room at a time, keep calm…here it goes…
The move has finally been made to Niigata. Despite being April, it was snowing for the first three days after arriving. Pi Dog is pooing himself that every flat has got a snow shovel outside and we can’t get warm at night with a duvet AND down sleeping bag when it should be plum blossom season (That’s Japanese for ‘beginning of spring’.).
But things are really cool so far. The flat is amazing for someone who hasn’t lived many places that were very cosy since vacating the parental abode about a thousand years ago. It’s got three rooms, a kitchen, bathroom, toilet and entryway. So it’s a veritable mansion compared to our last place that was only one room. We have been swinging numerous cats just for the hell of it.
The other two teachers are OK in my book since we’d got down to some serious wine drinking by about day three. We’ve even been round the bosses house already for food and wine. I think I like this place!
Pi Dog (Hereafter refered to as ‘Cheeseboy’ due to various antics that ensued on that first fateful wine night.)is still looking for work in this small town, poor sod. The good thing is that everyone, I mean EVERYONE, has been looking around for him. He’s had a few good leads so far and we’re hoping that something will happen this week… for both our sanity.
We’re back on the ol’ free-internet-bandwagon temporarily. But so far, it seems to be pretty reliable here. I’ll try and blog more when I’ve got a bit of a routine going. I don’t start teaching until Wednesday so I’ve been just swanning round like a lady of leisure recently.
Only two shaking episodes so far!