In Which is Explicated my Blog's Poncy Name

If I Cut Through These Woods

If I cut through these woods

The path will lead me back to that water wheel

The birds are crying dazzlingly

They may be a flock of migrating thrushes

With the southern edge of the Milky Way exploding

Radiant white throughout the night

With the fireflies streaming as never before

And, on top of that, the wind ceaselessly rocking the trees

The birds, agitated, unable to sleep

Are naturally making an awful racket

Yet

All I did was take a step into the woods

When the cries became more furious

Sharper, like a sudden downpour

What bizarre funny fellows they are!

This is a large cypress forest

With slivers of sky quivering various ways

Breathing here and there

Between each and every pitch black branch

Messengers, so to speak, of a catalogue of light

 From every possible era that is or ever was

              ...I stand in a daze, aimless

              in the birds' clamour...

The path flows dimly white to the opposite end

And Mars, muddy red, rises

From a hollow in a clump of trees

Two birds somehow slipped in unobserved

Then flew away cheerfully squeaking

Ah, the wind is blowing, carrying warmth and silver molecules

And the touch of every possible tetrahedron

When the fireflies fly in ever greater chaos

The birds' cries become denser

I hear the voice of my dead little sister

Coming from the edge of the woods

              ...even if it isn't so

              there's no need to rethink this

              for there's no difference between any of us...

The sultry fume of grass and the scent  of cypress

The birds' now-deafening racket

What are they clamouring about with such fervour?

The people drawing water to their paddies

May cautiously walk the woods' borders

The stars in the southern sky may stream steadily down

Yet there is no particular danger here

It's all right to sleep your quiet sleep.

-          Kenji Miyazawa

              Better late than never (possibly), I begin my blog chronicling this year in Japan.  Hunting for an appropriate title, and reluctant to compete with the thousand iterations of “My Year in Japan,” I decided to use a line from my favorite Japanese poet, Kenji Miyazawa.    The trouble was that his most blog-title-esque lines were either incredibly pompous (“The Phenomenon Called I”) or came from really depressing poems about death and despair (“Departure on a Different Road,” and don't think I wasn't tempted).  I settled on “A Catalogue of Light” because it's from my favorite poem of Miyazawa's – actually, one of my all-time favorites – and because this blog will inevitably fill with pictures once I get a working internet connection.  I'm a lazy writer.

              I don't feel worthy to tear into the poem itself, considering the small but fiercely educated audience I'm writing for, so I'll just say that I love it and recommend reading more of the poet's work, if you ever have the time.  He regards the natural world through densely interleaved lenses of lyricism and science, peering up through the microscope as well as down, feeling his own place in the ecosystem while he dissects it, creating vivid landscapes that bleed into and out of his own consciousness.  The poems are electric with atomic forces, myosis, beating flagella, and, well, electricity, as well as emotion, and remind me of Blake and Whitman.  Anyone need a publication?

              So, I'm in Japan, because of poetry and language and creeping inadequacy.  I've already had to answer the question, “so, why did you decide to come to Japan?” a few dozen times, and I've fallen back on a pat but incomplete answer: I came because I like studying Japanese, and because I enjoyed teaching in graduate school, so this was a great **opportunity** (what a bullshit word) to combine two of my interests [!!!insert appropriate number of exclamation points, depending on audience!!!].  What I really mean, more or less, is this.  I was so miserable in graduate school, increasingly so after the first two years, and studying Japanese was one of the few things that kept me afloat.  It was challenging, nuanced, satisfied my need to learn, and felt like nothing else in my life.  It also gave structure to my days, which otherwise would have consisted mostly of dreary lab work and, worse, the guilty, terrified avoidance of same. 

              Teaching came at the very end of my higher education, after it had become clear that I would never finish a degree and while I was scrambling to put off reality for just one more year.  I'd always filed teaching away in the “Never Ever Ever” column, between rocket science and professional golf, but I adored it right from the start.  I loved to see the faces, learn the names, know that each name and face held a mind, and try to find some way, any way, to jolt that mind into action.  Maybe that sounds reductive, or dismissive of my students, but it isn't meant to.  It was thrilling.  I had to be confident, be in charge, be interesting.  But I couldn't carry on teaching without more training, which I just couldn't face. 

              So, then the chef gig, which made a welcome change, although I soon became bored.  I snapped more and more often into “zombie state;” maybe you've met it?  Maybe you do it.  Maybe everyone does.  Going weeks, months, in a twilight equidistant from happiness and depression (though there was plenty of that too), feeling myself diminishing, growing plodding and dense.  I can't remember much from the past three years. 

              I'm trying to start again, and so far it really, truly sucks, which is making it difficult to write.  Or at least, to write with any prayer of holding your interest.  EMOOOO!!!  I can feel the bangs crawling into my eyes.  Soon I will break out in gauges, and we can't have that.  So tune in next week for lots of amusing pictures of cats, funny Engrish, and a free guided tour of The Hell of Wood Paneling!  I love and miss you all.  Yes you, even if we haven't seen each other in years.  Please comment if you don't believe me; I'd be glad to list your awesome qualities at length.  Ja, mata ne! (translation: Later, gators.  Gatren?  Gatorii.  It doesn't matter.  Nothing rhymes.)