Sunset

January 27, 2004 | Laughing Knees | 10 Comments 

I went with my wife for a long evening walk along the No­gawa River near my home the other day. A cold wind bar­reled down the cor­ri­dor be­tween the con­crete walls of the river, lay­ing the dead reeds flat to the ground and ruf­fling the feath­ers of the spot-​​billed ducks, pin-​​tailed ducks, lit­tle egrets, gray star­lings, rock doves (com­mon pi­geons), jun­gle crows, car­rion crows, and white wag­tails that hud­dled along the an­kle deep wa­ters that gur­gled by. Ini­tially we had gone to share the ex­pe­ri­ence of us­ing our dig­i­tal cam­eras to­gether, but as I walked the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of count­less white plas­tic bags, dis­carded tis­sues, beer and soda cans, old mat­tresses, man­gled bi­cy­cle frames, washed out shoes, a pair of panties, a mo­tor­cy­cle hel­met, sham­poo bot­tles, smashed liquor bot­tles, a col­lage of smut mag­a­zines laid open with pic­tures of young women in dif­fer­ent poses, twelve (I counted them) flu­o­res­cent green ten­nis balls float­ing in the river, two car bat­ter­ies wrapped in plas­tic, a bucket on its side spilling its con­tents of ripped lot­tery tick­ets, a plas­tic, red-​​checkered ta­ble cloth, a weath­ered printer, sev­eral snakes of com­puter wiring, a rust­ing mo­tor scooter, and a hu­mid­i­fier in a soggy pa­per bag, well, they all just re­ally got to me. My eye was dragged to them when­ever I raised the cam­era lens and looked at the screen. I wit­nessed the birds wan­der­ing in­no­cently amidst this and felt, sim­ply, disgust.

When it comes to their en­vi­ron­ment Japan­ese are truly slobs. Peo­ple sim­ply don’t care. I’ve been pon­der­ing whether to go about paint­ing some huge cloth signs to hang up along bridges and on the side of build­ings ask­ing, in Japan­ese, “Don’t you have any pride in your own coun­try? I, a dirty for­eigner, can see the aw­ful mess of your land, why can’t you? Why don’t you at least clean up your garbage, if you can’t ac­tu­ally make an ef­fort to make the en­vi­ron­ment healthy? Mt. Fuji is a disgrace!”

Know­ing the Japan­ese, the po­lice would be in­volved and I would be de­ported, most likely.

The scene and these thoughts killed the an­tic­i­pa­tion of tak­ing beau­ti­ful pho­tos. My wife and I sat down on a bench over­look­ing the river and watched a huge blue cloud ob­scure the sun and burst with god-​​rays, shafts of light walk­ing over the cityscape, the edge of the light pierc­ing our pupils. We held hands and talked about sad things, of end­ings. Of the fi­nal move­ment in a long strug­gle. A fat tabby cat squat­ted down just out of reach be­side us, mew­ing for a hand­out. We laughed and in laugh­ing broke down weep­ing. We turned our backs to the pub­lic path to hide in pri­vacy, and cried to­gether, still hold­ing hands, the cold wind still brush­ing be­tween our legs, our tears turn­ing cold on our cheeks, and both of us reach­ing out gen­tle fin­gers to brush them away.

Three bombers pass by over­head as I write this and I ask, how can any­thing so ab­stract and face­less mat­ter more than the dif­fi­culty of learn­ing how to love and how to let go? Of know­ing what is im­por­tant to you and find­ing the lan­guage that would let you de­fend it and keep it near? I would say this is wis­dom in the mak­ing, but I never knew un­til now that it hurts some­times when wis­dom comes call­ing. And that some­times love in­volves con­ced­ing an ab­sence that al­most feels more than you can bear.

Kind­ness and grace sing alone in the evening, ask­ing only that you lis­ten. It is what you rec­og­nize in the heat of the set­ting sun, that last reach­ing out across a dis­tance and feel­ing the warmth of some­one who is nec­es­sary to your existence.

Statement

January 27, 2004 | Laughing Knees | 19 Comments 

Bare branches of a cherry tree in a kinder­garten near my home, Chofu, Tokyo, Japan, 2004

I’ve had a lot of time to think. And the con­clu­sions are not quite so cut and dried that I can claim en­light­en­ment, but there have been some tight­en­ing of con­vic­tions and brushes with clar­ity. Here are some of the peb­bles of in­sight into my­self that I found:

• I love the Earth. Ever since I can re­mem­ber it has been a more than av­er­age, deep an­ima within me. When close to the nat­ural world, when in­ter­act­ing with other liv­ing things, when walk­ing be­tween the ground and the heav­ens and no hu­man in­ter­ven­tion to ob­scure the view, when the child­like ex­cite­ment and fas­ci­na­tion en­velopes me while I crawl through thick­ets or wade up to my waist in swamp wa­ter or climb a tree to get a closer look at a nest or walk for days and days along a moun­tain ridge, those are the times I al­ways feel most alive. I live in the heart of Tokyo now and am de­nied these things. It goes against my na­ture. Like Dersu Uzala (from Kurosawa’s film and the book by V.K. Ar­se­niev) some­thing dies within me when cities are the only con­nec­tion to life that I have ac­cess to. For those who love cities this is im­pos­si­ble to explain.

• I love the hu­man race. Peo­ple can be ca­pa­ble of so much beauty and grace and gen­eros­ity. When they open their minds and care for one an­other and the places they live in, our imag­i­na­tions are lim­it­less. As a in­te­gral par­tic­i­pant in the dance of the nat­ural world, our role is as the stew­ard of this world, with the means and aware­ness to pro­tect all that is around us. Other an­i­mals have their place in the scheme, ours is to pro­tect. And there­fore I want to see that I po­si­tion my­self within my own life to ful­fill my role as stew­ard. And to re­sist with all my heart and in­tel­lect and abil­i­ties those who would de­stroy our world.

• The planet is in dan­ger. How long are we go­ing to sit around squab­bling about this? It is not some par­lor room de­bate where the “win­ner” gets to make a toast. It is the lives of mil­lions and mil­lions of our fel­low crea­tures and our very own sur­vival that is at stake. The dan­ger is NOW! And yet we sit around like crash vic­tims, star­ing with dis­be­lief out the win­dow. Mean­while we play like fools with our weapons, our chem­i­cals, our wa­ter, our air as if there isn’t a care in the world. The whole sce­nario seems to be fol­low­ing, step-​​by-​​step, Kim Stan­ley Robinson’s warn­ing, from his Mars se­ries books, where the Earth falls into world­wide cat­a­stro­phe. We are on the verge of melt­down and still deny­ing it. The planet can­not take this abuse any more.

• My anger is not im­po­tent or in­con­se­quen­tial. When I re­act with anger to what the United States and Bush are do­ing it is out of pain and love for the planet and for all peo­ple. I can­not sit idly by while there are those who would de­stroy it all. Med­i­ta­tion and a let­ting go of self is all im­por­tant of course, but what self will there be to let go of if there are no peo­ple to ex­am­ine them­selves? Be­fore Hitler took con­trol so many peo­ple had op­por­tu­ni­ties to voice their anger and pre­vent him from com­ing to power. If the Blacks in Amer­ica had not voiced their anger at and op­po­si­tion to their sup­pres­sion, where would they be to­day? Cer­tainly much worse off than they are. Or the In­di­ans. If Gandhi had not seized upon the strength of his anger with Britain, where would the In­di­ans be to­day? No, I will not back down and whim­per in a closet. I am an­gry. I am op­posed to what is hap­pen­ing and, though I am but a small voice and can­not do much, I will do what I can to op­pose the world or­der that the United States is forc­ing on every­one. This in no way means that I am not an­gry about other coun­tries and what they are do­ing, or that I think other places are per­fect, but the United States poses the biggest threat to the world to­day. If the United States can­not learn to live in har­mony with the rest of the world, if they con­tin­u­ally shake the tree with­out think­ing of oth­ers or the tree it­self, then I will work to op­pose it.

• Bush is a crim­i­nal. Not just a lo­cal crim­i­nal within the U.S. it­self, but an in­ter­na­tional war crim­i­nal. He has at­tacked and mur­dered thou­sands upon thou­sands of peo­ple. He has started two wars, based on lies, and de­fied the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity. He has up­set the bal­ance of the en­tire world, pos­si­bly putting the sta­bil­ity of the world’s econ­omy in jeop­ardy. Per­son­ally, I be­lieve that he was re­spon­si­ble for the New York tragedy… there are just too many co­in­ci­dences, lies, and sleights of hand to see it any other way, much as Amer­i­cans are just too horror-​​struck to ad­mit the pos­si­bil­ity of such a heinous act on the part of their own pres­i­dent. Al­most no one in Amer­ica has even en­ter­tained the pos­si­bil­ity of this, in spite of the aw­ful lies and acts that Bush has al­ready com­mit­ted. The fixed elec­tion; deny­ing ac­cess to the in­for­ma­tion about what hap­pened be­fore the New York tragedy; trip­ping up the in­ves­ti­ga­tions; plan­ning the at­tack on Iraq long be­fore the tragedy; the in­abil­ity to find bin Laden (who was in the em­ploy of the CIA for many years…which is sus­pi­cious in it­self); the con­ve­nient death of Sen­a­tor Paul Well­stone; the il­le­gal and hu­mil­i­at­ing in­tern­ment of peo­ple de­nied even the most ba­sic hu­man rights at Guan­tanamo; the back­ing of Sharon’s atro­cious sub­ju­ga­tion of the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple… just how many more out­ra­geous and “evil” acts must cross the tele­vi­sion screen be­fore peo­ple wake up and in­quire into the go­ings on be­hind all these things? Bush should be sub­jected to an in­ves­ti­ga­tion at least… re­ally he should be fac­ing trial in an in­ter­na­tional court.

I am cer­tainly not go­ing to back down and qui­etly “ac­cept” the state of af­fairs. Bush los­ing the elec­tion this year al­lows a great crim­i­nal to get away with­out an­swer­ing for his crimes. That sim­ply is not enough for me. Some­one has got to say some­thing, even if the out­cry is in­ef­fec­tive. At least I am try­ing and not sim­per­ing in some cage. If Bush man­ages to get you to cower, then he has won. He’s man­aged to gain the crown with­out even re­ally mak­ing much of an effort.

• I will find peace. If I hold fast to my con­vic­tions and prac­tice lov­ing what I love, if I get out there and pro­tect the world and peo­ple who mean so much to me, if I don’t let some­one bully and in­tim­i­date me, I will find the stead­fast­ness within me and know who I am. THAT is what I will med­i­tate upon, not some wilted stem that for­gets who and what it is.

But it would cer­tainly be eas­ier and the go­ing a lit­tle lighter if oth­ers of you would join me, if we would join hands and stand up to­gether. Many small voices can cho­rus into a roar. Even mice have strength in numbers.

Shaking Out the Dust

January 22, 2004 | Laughing Knees | 3 Comments 

Lots of wis­dom in the com­ments from every­one, so much so that it feels big­ger than my mind at the mo­ment. I took time in the quiet of my morn­ing liv­ing room to­day to slowly fol­low the lessons of a Pi­lates work­out, my first time, breath­ing in and out, con­cen­trat­ing only on my res­pi­ra­tion and my mus­cles and en­lon­gat­ing my oc­cu­pa­tion of space with my bones. Af­ter an hour and a half it felt as if tox­ins were be­ing ex­pelled with my ex­hales and a ball of fire, like a lit­tle sun, ris­ing in my belly. The heat this gen­er­ated burned through­out the evening, right through my classes, a long-​​missed cheer that had me burst­ing out in my char­ac­ter­is­tic laugh­ter that al­ways echoes through the school and makes my boss put her face in her hands, shak­ing her head.

So a good day, the heavy de­mon ex­pelled, like fog break­ing up in the sun.

I need a lit­tle more time to re­flect on every­thing every­one wrote be­fore I at­tempt a re­ply. If I try to write now it will just spill out in a leaky mess, with no co­her­ence. But the cogs are work­ing. And the ears are lis­ten­ing to the pulse, track­ing the mo­tion of the spirit, which al­ways moves with the del­i­cacy and de­lib­er­a­tion of a snail.

Cloudy Sky

January 21, 2004 | Laughing Knees | 8 Comments 

I can’t get it out of my head: the sense that my last post some­how dam­aged some­thing in me. I can’t sit still, I keep get­ting up to look out the win­dow, I can’t do my work, even try­ing to get to sleep took a while.

It’s true what so many com­menters have said, that there are a lot of Amer­i­cans who don’t sup­port what is go­ing on in Amer­ica or with Bush. I know that. Just the opin­ions of the com­menters here alone proves that. But then how does one come to terms with all that is hap­pen­ing right now? Peo­ple talk of be­ing peace­ful in­side and try­ing to work out the prob­lems then. When I don’t look at the news and get away from the city far enough so that I can’t hear the planes over­head all the ti­ime (four of them just went by over­head right now as I wrote this…), I can al­low my mind to set­tle on other things. But a lot of that in­volves cut­ting one­self off from so­ci­ety. How does one not get an­gry when Bush ap­pears on tele­vi­sion or in the in­ter­net news and says and does the things he does?

As Amer­i­cans so of­ten re­mind every­one, Amer­ica sup­posedy has a gov­ern­ment “of and by the peo­ple”. How then does one sep­a­rate the peo­ple in gen­eral from what the gov­ern­ment is do­ing? Where does one di­rect the anger if one is not Amer­i­can? I speak out about Amer­ica as a coun­try and what it is do­ing and I can’t help but in­clude the peo­ple when I re­fer to what it is doing.

Bush made the State of the Union Ad­dress last night (I haven’t seen, heard, or read it), some­thing that is sup­posed to be meant only for the Amer­i­can peo­ple, and yet I’m sure he spoke about the “world be­ing a safer place” or what not… mean­ing he was ad­dress­ing the whole world. If he was ad­dress­ing the whole world, if he takes it upon him­self to dic­tate to all of us what we may or may not do, then why do all of us here in the rest of the world who are af­fected by his words and ac­tions, have no say in de­cid­ing whether or not he gets to stay in of­fice? Amer­i­cans can at least vote about the mat­ter. I have no vote. I have to rely on the will and mood of the Amer­i­cans, hop­ing that they get some sense into their heads.

So please tell me, where do I di­rect this anger I feel, while at the same time pro­fess­ing a love for many Amer­i­cans and for the coun­try as a whole? How do I find a sense of peace about the world (I like my­self and am com­fort­able with my­self per­son­ally) when there is this man, with his con­tin­gent of mad­men, who wants con­stant war and strife? Where do I draw the line be­tween speak­ing my mind and shut­ting up?

More than ever I think it is time to can­cel the bor­ders and stop defin­ing the world by the names of coun­tries. I speak as a world cit­i­zen, a Ter­ran, a Child of the Planet Earth. I look upon this pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with some imag­i­nary bound­ary called “Amer­ica” and won­der, who are they kid­ding? Yes, Amer­ica is a beau­ti­ful and ad­mirable place, as is every sin­gle other patch of land in the world. There is no bor­der within the nat­ural world, it is all one. Per­haps it is time to stop de­fend­ing Amer­ica or Japan or Ger­many or China against the rest of the world and learn to de­fend this whole piece of cake we in­habit, all, together.

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