FIXING A HOLE
July 9th 2009 15:53
After a drunken phone call or two, I soon came to realise that I’d be stuck with my host mother for the remainder of the trip. My contact who I’d hoped would provide me a place to stay in actually lived in Nagoya, which was hours away from our town. It’d be impossible for me to stay there. I looked around my room – there was no escape. I sighed.
Nonetheless, things seemed to change within the house. For no grounded reason whatsoever, everyone was suddenly nicer. My host father, this white haired guy who never used to mutter a word to me, suddenly smiled and asked me about my life. It turns out that he loves baseball; his favourite player is Tomoaki Kanemoto from the Hanshin Tigers. My host brother offered to take me out drinking and asked me if I knew “Fixing a Hole” by the Beatles. I also began having deep conversations with my host mother; I still couldn’t understand everything she said, but I went on and kept saying things to her anyway. I was pretty sure she told me about her dead sister at some point, but I had no idea what to say, so to provide some level of comfort I decided to say a joke that in the end failed completely.
My bonds with Trevor and Natalie were definitely growing. We’d run around the campus, we’d play tennis, we’d throw crap around and laugh at each other – we pretty much did everything lovers in movie montages did. In the mornings Natalie and I would walk to the train station together and I’d admire the school girls as she’d tell me about her family and her boyfriend back in Brisbane. All the irritating little parts I used to see in Natalie were becoming endearing, and soon enough I’d realised that she had become a source of my every day happiness.
Living in Japan had become living my life. It was now normal for me to wake up from a futon; my wallet was full of Yen, not dollars; I was no longer surprised by people walking around in kimonos and clogs. Natalie would sometimes tell me that although she enjoys Japan, she also misses her real home, the warm sunlight. I said nothing. Although Brisbane was still there, swimming underneath the bubbles, there was something about it that I wasn’t ready to return to, there was something I still had to learn.
Hiromi Uehara - Sakura Sakura
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Comment by Lara M
Love Speaks
Food Slate
Hmmm...I think I know how you feel. Great that you're enjoying it over there and everything is going well.
Live in the moment and enjoy...