nipponDAZE

Postmark: Beppu April 23, 1990

Just thirteen weeks left! JQS is already saying, “I can’t believe we’re going home!” Yesterday was rainy, so we stayed home and spent a lot of the day assessing our experience.

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At first I had the vague notion that I’d learn Japanese and work as a translator. I realize I can’t learn Japanese and I don’t even want to live here any more. The real reason for coming has turned into a self-test. I needed to stir up my life; I was becoming too comfortable and too complacent. Sometimes I worry that after I return that the high point of my life will be in the past. At least I can say that I did something with my life but I don’t want to stop at that. I want to keep doing something.

Living here has forced me to examine my life and to redirect my energies. It’s been difficult but necessary. I have met a lot of nice people but I have no intimate friends, no one to hang around with or just to talk to. It was so great to talk to you. I could live here quite comfortably if I were able to talk to someone every day. I wouldn’t get so morose.

I always sound down when I talk about being here but it isn’t really like that. It’s not a vacation. We do the ordinary things of working and keeping house. It’s just weird enough to make us look at the ordinary differently than before. We don’t take our way of life for granted any more. That makes it worth it.

I have made a start at learning calligraphy, flower arranging, tea ceremony, and Japanese cooking and I want to carry those things into my life in America.