This month, instead of an essay on declaring dominion over your life, I'm sharing something I wrote last summer as the rains came down. It's a love letter to a country I love.
The Rain Spirits
The rains are coming down. We are deep into tsuyu, the rainy season. There is an atmospheric shift, a heaviness in the air, a density to everything.
In Tokyo, the green wages its yearly attack on the concrete. Most of the time my little burg is a hostile zone of carbon dioxide where you can count the trees on your toes, and even the parks are forlorn patches of roped-off grass and swiss-cheese shrubbery. But in June, the hydrangea burst out everywhere: behind the train tracks, in the town square, and out of the dilapidated buckets and styrofoam boxes standing sentry in front of every crotchety old house. For this one month it seems that the earth's weeds, leaves, stems, and branches have a real fighting chance of overtaking its brittle concrete skin. The people sag and wilt but other life-forms go into an orgy of reproduction. Mold spores, mildew, little clumps of mushrooms, mosquitoes: they are on the gospel train, and they are winning. In July the brutal heat will beat back these wild revolutionaries, but right now mother nature has the upper hand.
We have been watching Tonari No Totoro (My Nieghbor Totoro) a lot at my house. The wonder of Miyazaki's teeming, fertile worlds begins to make sense, because right now even our city streets are hopping with mad life. My daughter is in heaven. This week alone, the children at her preschool have seen otamajakushi (tadpoles), frogs, and enough bugs to give me the faints. Last week on a walk they saw a snake.
The pitiful strand of cypress trees along the train tracks turns into a sauna; you walk by and you are steeped in the fragrance, you are a muslin bag swirling in cypress tea.
Laundry goes sour before it can dry. The tap water begins to smell of fish. The umbrellas get bedsores.
The air is so thick that it is almost impossible not to believe in ghosts. It's like walking through soup, or cobwebs, swimming your way through, clearing a path through the thick seaweed of wraiths. Everything lingers.
The moss on the stone lantern at the local Shinto shrine, that rough dry carpet, turns into a thick sponge, a slick raincoat of possibility, sheltering entire worlds of microbes, bugs, algae. Anything might come oozing out of there. Totoro might drop by with a bundle of acorns at any moment.
We go primordial. People have affairs, get pregnant, lose their minds. They sit in exhaustion and bewilderment. There is only one thing to do, and that is to find a bit of cool woven tatami, whether it's a room, a mat, or just a pair of sandals. Press yourself into it. Roll around if you have room enough and no shame. Let your eyes close a little, taste the thick air, let it settle on your tongue.
These intense days are a cool misty prelude to August. Before the heat sucks the life out of the air, go out and get a little wet. Stare at a hydrangea until you feel raindrops on your neck, or until a wispy presence swims through the ether and taps you on the shoulder. If you see Totoro, be sure to lend him your umbrella.
Darlings.
We had an earthquake in Japan. Maybe you heard. We were fine in Tokyo, though pretty scared.
The north was devastated. One of my favorite spots in the world, the bit of coast where my family has spent the summers since I was a little girl, is no more.
We grieve for the losses, and we send all of our healing energies and love to all those battling for survival, and those battling on their behalf.
Thank you so much to all of you who have reached out to me with messages of love and support. I've had more offers of places to stay than I could count one hand, and I am grateful beyond words.
A few days ago I wrote a note about the way I was choosing to battle my fear instead of succumbing to panic. It's called "How to stop being afraid--even when the whole world thinks you should be." I decided that the techniques that were helping me cope with my fears might be useful to others who were feeling afraid, no matter what the reason. You can read that below.
Shortly after that, I decided to bring my daughter to the US. We arrived safely in Portland, and are staying with my siblings here-- a strange bit of delightful joy amidst this great tragedy.
In deciding to leave Japan, I got the answer to a question I'd been wondering about for a long time-- how to tell the difference between fear and intuition. I wrote about that, below.
I'm glad to be here, but big chunks of my heart are still in Japan. People in the north face untold hardship and loss. My partner remains in the country, though he has gone further south. My parents, who have been missionaries in Japan for more than 25 years, feel called to stay and minister to their church family and the other missionaries in their care. I deeply respect their decision, but my heart aches.
For now, I am taking my daughter to the park, leaning against these mighty trees of the northwest, and watching the rain come down on the daffodils and crocuses. I have no idea what happens next. But I am grateful. I am so intensely grateful for so many things, and one of them is you who are reading this.
Much love to you and yours.
Anna
As I write this, I am in Tokyo. It’s been 48 hours since the biggest earthquake that's ever been recorded in Japan. Ever since the sheer terror of those five minutes in which our building shook and swayed and groaned, and I didn’t know if my daughter and I would make it out alive, I have been glued to the public lens—tv, facebook, text messages, photos—with a surreal combination of horror and paralysis. The devastation north of us is shocking. The normalcy of Tokyo is shocking, too, except that water, rice, and batteries are disappearing from the supermarkets. And looming over everything is the very real chance that a nuclear reactor will melt down and release unfathomably toxic substances into the air, water, and land.
I have been afraid—terrified, really—for 48 hours.
People, I am here to say, that is long enough.
Here is where my fear got me: my head aches. My shoulders ache. My jaw aches, from clenching it. My breath is short and shallow. My heart aches at every sad photograph, and my nervous system is at the mercy of every authoritarian voice broadcasting worry.
In that condition, I am no more useful to the world, my family, or myself than a very anxious marmoset.
So here is how I am changing my frequency. If this stuff is working for me today, it will work for you too—whether you are afraid about your finances, your future, your failing left tail light, or your embarrassing flail in yesterday’s meeting.
1. I turned off the news. I can receive up-to-the-minute information via text, and my heart is already with those who are suffering. When I read information, it goes to my brain and not straight to my primal fight-or-flight response. The music and images of TV news are geared to trigger panic and an empathic flood; I’ve decided not to let myself get triggered.
2. I cleaned my house. This grounded me, calmed me, and got me back into my body, which is a much more reliable navigation system than my shrieking reptile survival brain, what Martha Beck calls my ‘lizard.’ My lizard tells me that we are DOOOOMED. My body tells me that we need to stretch, to sing, to self-soothe with quiet rhythms. (Folding laundry works nicely.)
3. I faced the worst-case scenario. My partner and I came up with a plan for what we would do if the reactor begins to spew, or if there is a serious food crisis in Tokyo, or any of the other frightening scenarios that have been haunting me. Now that I know what I will actually do if any of those events come to pass, I can dismiss them when they clamor for my attention. And the last line of every plan is: “And if none of that works, we wing it as well as we can.” This is actually a pretty good plan.
4. I questioned my scary thoughts. My underlying thought, the one that was making my heart palpitate and my fists clench, was: “We are in danger right this very second!” I asked, “Is this true?” And the answer is, Who the heck knows? We could be, for sure. But then any of us could be in danger at any minute of any day. But what I know right now is that I am sitting in my apartment with running water, electricity, heat, and very fast internet. My loved ones are safe. We are getting the best information we know how to get. So I choose to live in the blissful sense of safety that most of us inhabit when we’re not acutely aware that the sky could fall at any moment. Believing that I am safe is no more arbitrary, at this particular moment in time, than believing that I am in danger, but it feels a lot better and it makes me more insightful, more courageous, and more wise. It lets me think more creatively and compassionately. And all those things, paradoxically, will work to keep me and the ones I love safe. If I am in real physical danger, my system will flood with adrenaline and I will be able to act on the terror I’ve been feeling and suppressing these last two days. I will run, or fight, or negotiate, or do whatever I need to do. Until then, I choose to keep breathing deep, calming breaths (Thanks, Terry DeMeo) and asking myself, “Is that scary thought even true?”
5. I took constructive action. I made up a backpack full of emergency items and our important paperwork. Maybe your constructive action is making a phone call or getting something checked out. Maybe it’s opening the scary envelope or looking at your online balance. You’ll feel better if you just do it, I promise.
6. I let my body release. Because I was with my daughter during the most frightening part of the quake (lying on the floor of our 16th-floor apartment as it pitched and creaked like a ship in a storm), I spent significant energy holding it together for her. We talked a bit about how scared we both were, and she seemed okay, but later she had a major sobbing meltdown about something inconsequential. Then she was perky again. Little kids are very wise that way. I waited until I was alone in bed that night to sob and shudder. With each heave of my shoulders and shuddering quaking tremble, I let some of my fear and tension release. Animals tremble and shudder to shake off trauma; we need to do it too, even when the trauma is only visible to us.
7. I consciously flooded myself with beauty. I listened to music that makes me want to move my body and heal the world. For me this means Christine Kane, The Dixie Chicks, and other things too embarrassing to write here. I also bought flowers today, a big gorgeous bouquet of them, in a flagrant act of flipping the bird at fate. I am buoyed and nourished by their blooming faces as I make my way through my home.
8. I grounded back into my purpose. I had a brief panic about a class I’m teaching in a few weeks, The Queen Sweep. I wondered if clearing clutter would seem frivolous in light of global tragedy. I questioned its ultimate value in the world and the worth of the work I do. In other words, I freaked out. Many people are layering their immediate fear with scary thoughts like this about their future worth and their careers. Screw that. In a crisis like this, I’m more glad than ever that I know exactly where to find my passport; that my papers are in order and I’ve declared a guardian for my daughter; that we all have clean underwear and clean sheets to sleep on; and that my home is an oasis of calm and beauty. Whatever the crisis, the world needs people who are sharp, who know their stuff, and know what they can contribute. Be ready to bring what you can to the table.
9. I gazed at my daughter. She is so beautiful. She is so alive through her fear, her joy, her rage, her desire—she doesn’t shut any of it down. It’s all right there, messy and inconvenient at times, but gloriously awake.
10. Most importantly, I remembered that I am the boss of my own energy. I kept waiting for someone to make me feel better, to reassure me, to tell me what to do. Guess what? No one can declare dominion over my life besides me. I have to be the leader that I was waiting for. Chin up, deep breath, flowers on table. Here we go.
|
RSS Feed