Maggie's Mind

Hi. 2017. Dang.

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Wed, 04 Jan 2017 18:43:00 +0000

Sometimes I really miss here. I know those days are gone, and clicking on links and remembering old blog pals makes it even more apparent, but we had some fun, didn't we, back then? So I just wanted to say hi. And write a haiku. I used to love writing haikus over here.

when you are watching

facts and faces change slowly

peek back later? dang!

If anyone is left to see this, I hope you are well. I should go update my About Me again, some day. It's been almost 3 years, and I've been married for almost two of them to someone I haven't introduced you too in my blog absence. He's great and cracks me up by being accidentally hilarious sometimes; you'd like him. I'm still in Japan, and the ticker at the bottom of this old blog keeps better track than I do. I just answer "forever" anymore when I'm asked now how long I've been here, but it's apparently 7 years, 5 months and 1 week. Sounds about right. I'm still cooking, something that started here on this blog, and I'm still more of a recipe-follower than a creator, but I've expanded quite a bit and am no longer at a loss when a recipe calls for "dashi" in a Japanese recipe (which is most Japanese recipes).

I remember why I loved this space and sometimes still miss it, even if I know it's like a beloved toy from childhood that I come across once in awhile and will pick up and remember enjoying but won't actually play with anymore in earnest. It's not that I'm any more mature (or, well, not that that's not the case, either, so many years later) or have outgrown blogging, but that time and technology have moved on. I share things/my Maggie-ness on Facebook with a not public audience because I'm over 40 in 2017, and that's just how it's done, but I do miss writing and sharing like this, too. I have a journal, of course, because I'm over 40 in 2017, but that's another kind of different. Maybe I'll pop in for a haiku now and then.

How are you?

Haiku Friday - Speaking With My Heart

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 00:31:00 +0000

we were both so young
there was so much more to say
please hear my heart speak

Today is that day. It's been 19 years since my mom's last birthday and her death the next day at the age of 56. I was 22. Somehow this all seems so much younger now than it did even then. A lot happens in that stretch of time, and there are certain moments when it's especially noticeable that my mom is gone. The big milestones are obvious, but in some ways it's the little ones that are harder. I remember the last time I saw my mom and knew that it was likely the last time. I tried so hard then to tell her everything I thought I would want her to know. It came out something like "I love you. I will never forget you. Thank you." In some ways, I suppose that's enough, and it hits the most important points, but how could I know all of the gazillion other things I'd want to say. So many of my friends get to call their moms regularly, and it's so beautiful. I'm not bitter and jealous about it, partly because I wasn't raised that way, but I notice it and admire and appreciate how special it is and do wish I could have that, another conversation with my mom about everything. Since I can't call or email, sometimes I just talk to her with my heart and hope that she can hear me.

More for my reference, but also in case anyone wants to read, here are my three most favorite posts I've written about my mom. They aren't terribly sad, I promise. One is actually hilarious, and I bet you will cringe with embarrassment for me and giggle out loud.

Thursday Thirteen about my mom, lists of stuff, written in 2008

But Where Does It Go? I just read this today and still find comfort in it, whether there is a heaven or not

Legacy this is the hilarious one - really, just go read it

Spring Clean Update (with Decluttering)

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 01:58:00 +0000

Since I said hello again yesterday, I figured I'd go through my old and outdated About Maggie page and update with current stuff since a million things have changed since the last time I updated it. Not sure if anyone is still reading, but I still like having this space to be and to write, and a little spring cleaning feels nice this time of the year.

Speaking of...

I'll be moving out of my current apartment of 5 years (!) this summer, and there is just so much stuff that has accumulated. Some of it is junk left behind by others that was there when I got there, and some of it is stuff that I at some point thought I wanted or needed. Just going through little by little and seeing what all is there and then putting things into one of three piles

Keep
Toss
Dunno Yet

seems to the be best way to get any of it done. I've been reading a little about how to decide whether I actually want or need something I've been holding onto for so long so that I can best put things in the proper piles. Some of the best questions seem to be these:

Do I NEED NEED this?
Does it make me happy?
Does it add any value to my life?
Is it worth repairing/maintaining?

Of course, there are more really good questions to ask when actually de-cluttering physical junk, but the questions above have also been really helpful in de-cluttering my thoughts so that I choose which to give the most attention to in my mind. My mind races with a million thoughts and ideas and beliefs because that's what minds do, but that doesn't mean I have to assign high value to all of them or put them all in the pile to keep, especially if they don't add anything of value. This is what I've been learning from various situations over the past few years, and you know what? I feel lighter and more free than I ever have in my life.

This afternoon, I tackle a good chunk of that stack of papers on my desk.

If It's March, It's a Blog Post

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 00:21:00 +0000

Of all the months, March is the one that brings me back here, a place I used to write, a place that felt like home somehow out in the public of the internet. Every March, I'm back and feel like maybe I should make some new resolution to get back into blogging. But, then, now there's my personal Facebook page for my thoughts. It fills the gap of self-expression, but, of course, it is different.

Anyway.

Today is March 11th in Japan already, the 3rd anniversary. I've already talked about this when it happened and as it was unfolding, and I woke up today just feeling the same things: relief that my friend and her children were alive and well, in shock at the images on TV that I still can't un-see even years later and heartbroken for all of the pain and fear and cold and sadness that so many had to endure. It still feels like yesterday. So many are still living in temporary housing, their lives on hold while the world moves forward. I just... I don't even have the words anymore.

On another day, maybe soon, I'll update what's been going on in life. First, though, today my heart and mind is with Japan, wishing I could wrap up everyone still hurting in my heart. Then at the end of the week is my mom's birthday on the 13th and the anniversary of her death on the 14th. Then there's graduation on the 15th. Like I said, there's enough going on in March to bring me here, this place where I can stop a moment to think and write. Maybe I'll be back tomorrow. If not soon, I'll likely be back this time next year. If anyone still reads this, I hope you are well.

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 22:49:00 +0000

Hi. It's already September 11th where I am. A few years back, I had the honor of writing about a beautiful young woman we lost on that day, and I'd like to re-share it. Go have a look. Go give someone a hug.

http://www.maggiesmind.com/2007/09/jean-d-roger-lived-until-september-11.html

Haiku Friday - We Meet, We Part

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 06:24:00 +0000

end of march, japan,
much ichi-go, ichi-e (一期一会)*
april start anew

(*perfectly worded reminder from Patty's comment on my Facebook status)

Today is the last day of the school year for teachers, and this year so many at my school, including some of my favorite teachers that have made here feel more like home when I'm living so far away, are being transferred in this puzzling Japanese March tradition. Today I wrote some letters and shed some tears, and people finished clearing out their desks, slowly transitioning them from full to empty by the end of the day when they will leave for good. This year has been the biggest transfer time blow I've experienced since I've been here. Tomorrow night, we will eat and drink and cry and maybe sing karaoke together one last time if I'm just lucky enough.

Next week, about a third (!!!) of my co-workers will be brand-spanking new total strangers.

It's hardest on those leaving, for sure. This isn't their blog, though. From my side, like many foreign teachers here, this big shuffle that happens in March can be really hard in a different way. It can be exceptionally difficult for a foreigner to fit in in Japan, and most of us never really feel like we completely do. Still, I/we finally manage to navigate the complexity involved in achieving even just a handful of those super elusive meaningful relationships, only to have to start all over again, from scratch, come Monday (or, OK, technically, Tuesday) morning and do this all again come this time next year. In one word, it's bittersweet.

March Madness, Japan Style

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 05:04:00 +0000

No, this isn't about whatever brackets or grids or sports or whatever is going on back home, about which I clearly know too little about to even be saying as much about it as I have. In any case, there's this thing that goes on in Japan in March, right at the end of March, when Madness descends, and people find out that they are being transferred elsewhere while others learn that even if they are staying, everything will all be different come April One. April Fool's Day has never sounded more appropriate than it does on that day when everyone is new, and everything is a scramble, and nobody has any idea what the hell they are doing. In truth, leaving people usually find out a week or two sooner than everyone else, but it's all such a Big Damn Secret, and that's hardly enough time for people that need to, you know, find an apartment in a new city. In the case of teachers, it's usually just a matter of doubling or halving their commute, but for some it can require more change than a reasonable person cares to deal with every 3-5-7-or-so years. Yes, changes happen that often, every March/April.

I used to ask why Japan chooses to go this route. I kind of get the idea of shuffling teachers around to prevent certain schools from always having/keeping the best teachers and the idea of sharing the goodness or diluting any badness, or in a company to provide advancement and promotion in other roles or locations or to take cross-training to the next level and not let any one person become too powerful. Sure, some of that makes sense, but the whole last minute top secret silliness makes it tougher on everyone than it has to be. Anyone that's ever tried to explain it to me kind of ended up shrugging and admitting that they don't really get it, either, so I've just stopped asking and put it in the inscrutable column along with face masks, lack of soap and waiting at a completely empty intersection in the middle of nowhere (come visit me once and giggle) until the light says you can cross the street before people will make the leap.

My school is losing A LOT of teachers this year. I cried a little as the official word was released. Some changes I saw coming, others where completely out of the blue, and all of them just made me wonder what the next school year (we start in April - so, yah, not much prep time on that side, either - silly madness, all of this is, sincerely!) will be like. In most jobs, probably all around the world, the people that you work with side by side every day can really impact the experience. Mine's been really good so far, overall, and I'm sad to see some really excellent teachers go. Hopefully we will do OK in the trade and get some more of the good ones. If not, there's always next year. Sigh.

Goodbye Flowers
(Not Mine)
There will be lots of these saying goodbye all over Japan in the weeks to come.
These are actually the second ones I've seen so far.
I saw the first in the clutch of a man passed out on the last train the other night,
presumably coming back home from his own goodbye party.

Are you there, blog? It's me, Maggie.

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 05:38:00 +0000

I managed to go an entire year without blogging, and I kind of miss it. I don't miss feeling obligated to write something just for the sake of writing something (OK, maybe I kind of do?), but I do miss having a place to express myself in ways I otherwise don't. That said, I'm very (perhaps too) active on my personal Facebook page, and it has filled some of that need I have to say stuff where people can see it. I'm toying with the thought of spending a bit more time here, sharing some pictures, writing some haikus, waxing on while I navel gaze, you know, the usual fare around here. Part of me wants to start a 365 project of some kind to hold myself to being here, doing this. Part of me is afraid I'll fail again. Part of me doesn't care because it's my blog to do with as I wish. So, we'll see what shakes out.

Meanwhile, it's been a year. I wonder if any of you who used to read here will even see this, especially once Google Reader goes away in a few months (I'm using Feedly instead and am liking it quite a bit!). Are you here? Maybe say hello? Anything you'd like to see happen here if I get this thing rolling again? What have you been up to? Are you still blogging? Should I follow?

I'm still in Japan. Tom and I really only expected this Japan thing to be for one year, but here it is already my 4th year. I'm still having a ball, and he's still OK with it. We finally got Tom out of Tulsa and up to Chicago, and it will make leaving here a lot easier knowing that we are reuniting there. Surely there are a million other things that have happened in this past year, and so much is still on the horizon, but this is what I've got for now.

Oh, and maybe a picture and haiku, inspired by the most delicious sakura (cherry blossom) tea I'm drinking. If I do get back to blogging, look forward to pictures of Japan's gorgeous spring. Cherry blossoms are just around the corner. Lots of flowers are beautiful because that's what flowers do, but cherry blossoms reflect the cycle of life (or love gained and lost, I suppose) with their fleeting beauty. There's that giddy sense of anticipation for their arrival, the joy of savoring every moment they are here, and the realization one day when you are used to having them around that they are suddenly just gone (until next year, anyway). Along with them, so come and go all the seasonal sakura flavored joys of the season.

All things sakura
this is springtime in Japan
so momentary.

Welcome Pre-Cherry Blossom Season

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 14:36:00 +0000

I look forward to that time of the year in Japan when cherry flavored everything hits the shelves in anticipation of beautiful cherry blossom season. I've been on the lookout lately and found this chuhai tonight. Spring can't be far away.

61/366 - Spring is Just Around the Corner
(taken on my iPhone, toyed with in Instagram)

Graduation 2012

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 09:14:00 +0000

Today was graduation day, and these students in particular were special to me because of how much they changed. To quote myself from this post last week:

I will always remember these particular graduating 3rd year classes. They taught me to never give up trying to teach even the more difficult students and to just get more creative and more patient and more focused on whatever successes until, just maybe, the magic happens and some of them come around and surprise you.

Lots of crying today all around, but in between the tears, it looked something like this (well, except that there were students, but to respect their privacy, I can't share those shots publicly - imagine lots of cute, uniformed students).

60(1)/366 - They Seem to Say "Happy Graduation," Don't They?

60(2)/366 - Company's Coming (and if it's Japan, they'll need indoor shoes)
(these were for folks like the mayor, head of the Board of Ed and other fancy pants people)

60(3)/366 - To the Gym
(Graduation is held on a school day, and the younger students attend, sing and even
give a thank you speech to their sempais that will make everyone cry.)

60(4)/366 - The Stage
(Students do not come up one by one for their diplomas, but speeches happen here, and the principal gives
the diplomas to the class rep, who gives them to the homeroom teachers for each class to distribute later.)

60(5)/366 - Homeroom 3D Forever
(This is the 3D homeroom teacher about to give out the diplomas.)

60(6)/366 - Graduation Bento
(Colorful, elaborate, delicious and reminds me of the way flowers have a way of saying something.)

The Woman She Was Before All of That

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 12:22:00 +0000

This is that day. The one that comes every year. The day after my mother's birthday. The anniversary of her death. This time it's 17 years. Ridiculous. Impossible.

Lou Gherig's disease (ALS) is indescribably and unbelievably cruel. I still look back and wonder if it wasn't all just some nightmare. For many years, on this day, it was so hard not to remember her that way, the woman shrunken and distorted in sickness with a mind alive and well trapped inside the prison of a paralyzed body (I still can't imagine), instead of the woman she was before all of that. I want to remember that one:

The one that could speak (usually too loud). The one that could hug (the best kind of no holds barred hugs). The one that could smile (happily, mischievously, she had all kinds). The one that could laugh (loudly, from her gut, sometimes at inappropriate times). The one that really was my mom.

58/366 - The same flowers, depending on mood.
(taken on my iPhone, toyed with in BeFunky app)

March 13th, 2012 (for lack of a better title)

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 11:34:00 +0000

It's my mom's birthday. And I miss her. Rather than attempt to write some elaborate post that I just don't have it in me to write after this past week or so, I dug through some old posts and enjoyed wandering through some memories. Three stand out: one where I described my mom, one where I told her a hilarious story that happened to me in part because I am her daughter (if you understandably don't click on all three, just go read this one, seriously - I'm a nut, and I bet you will laugh) and another where I sorted out just where it is that I know she lives now. She does not live in the sky. Still, she is all around me and within me, and seeing a beautiful sky today on the way home from work somehow seemed fitting.

57/366 - Happy Birthday, Mom.
(taken on my iPhone, as is, amazingly enough)

The Road Ahead

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 09:33:00 +0000

I've had to make some very difficult decisions lately. From those consequences came the opportunity to make another decision that is more than a little long overdue. It never occurred to me that I had a choice. I am at once sad yet liberated, walking forward on a road that may be bumpy but that will lead me to a place of healthy perspective where the truth I know carries more weight than what someone thinks they know.

56(1)/366 - I. Am.
(taken on my iPhone, toyed with, sepia'd and stuff)

56(2)/366 - Me and My Shadow, Facing the Road Ahead
(taken on my iPhone, toyed with, sepia'd and stuff)

How to Rock. And Tea. And a Day to Reflect.

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:59:00 +0000

It was a fun night out in the city for our little group out here in the inaka. There was a ridiculous amount of meat eating and some hardcore karaoke. And also a stop at a tea shop one of our group loves where I might have purchased some decaf black tea that is supposed to remind me of spring and definitely reminded me of cherry blossoms.

54/366 - How to Rock Properly
(taken on my D5100)

55/366 - Remind Me of Spring and Cherry Blossoms and Hope and Warm and Happy Times.
(taken on my D5100)

I'm posting two pictures today and numbering them separately as part of my 366 project. Tomorrow is March 11th, the 1st anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that claimed 19,000 lives and drastically changed the lives of many, many more. I can't imagine what I might find to photograph that would feel appropriate. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Either way, I'm planning to take the day to reflect. If you are interested in seeing a very recent (just aired on BBC about a week and a half ago) documentary mostly from the perspective of some amazing children who were affected, I recommend this one (also below). It's an hour long, but I found it worth watching. It is both heartbreaking and hopeful, and it includes the realities of people's lives even almost a year later, some living just outside of the exclusion zone, forced to abandon their homes even if it was one that hadn't been destroyed, and still close enough that radiation is still very much still a daily topic. It's hard to believe it has been a year.

Georgia Black, Friday Night

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 12:04:00 +0000

At some point in my late 20's I realized that drinking coffee in the evening made it more likely that I'd stay up too late and have weird dreams when I did actually go to sleep. A few years after that, it bothered me enough to make a point of avoiding it. Something I will never understand is that the weird dreams from evening coffee consumption never happen to me if I don't have to get up for work the next day. The other thing I will never understand is the whole Georgia coffee brand here in Japan. Seeing Ranier as a coffee brand makes sense - Mt. Ranier, Washington, Starbucks, coffee, drive-thru coffee huts in gas station parking lots. Georgia? I think peaches. And a cute accent. And being on my mind, and stuff. Not coffee beans. In any case, this Friday night was the right time to run across the street to the vending machine for a can of coffee just because I could.

53/366 - Georgia Black on a Friday Night
(taken on my iPhone, toyed with in BeFunky app)

Clean

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:01:00 +0000

I'm preoccupied with some heavy things but still aiming to post a picture every day even if I'm not doing so great at commenting back right now. Thank you for still stopping by anyway. Honestly, the highlight of this tough day was a new bar of soap I bought to try. So clean, so fresh, I love I new bar of soap. Just me?

52/366 - Clean
(taken on my iPhone, toyed with in Instagram)

Red

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:16:00 +0000

I saw red on three occasions today. Two of them were highly unpleasant experiences. This one was the opposite of unpleasant and definitely my favorite. What a good looking train.

51/366 - Seeing Red

March is Thank You and Goodbye

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 09:43:00 +0000

March is already a tough month for me, but in Japan it's also graduation season, a bittersweet mix of wishing my favorite students well and knowing that I will miss seeing their faces when the new school year begins again in April. Today I said goodbye to half of my 3rd year students. Tomorrow, I get to say it to the others. I wrote them a letter of congratulations and encouragement to dream big and to not be afraid of making mistakes in English but to just try to communicate. That's what language is really all about in the end. I reflected about how much they have grown. I met them as unruly 1st years and who became difficult 2nd years who started to change mid-way through that year into the 3rd year students in front of me, with whom I developed some hard won rapport. I didn't expect any words back, but at the end of our final class (*sniff*), they stood, and one of them read me this short note while I did an amazing job of mostly holding back tears.

I will always remember these particular graduating 3rd year classes. They taught me to never give up trying to teach even the more difficult students and to just get more creative and more patient and more focused on whatever successes until, just maybe, the magic happens and some of them come around and surprise you.

50/366 - March is Thank You and Goodbye

Under the Bridge, Down the Road, Not In the Ditches

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 08:20:00 +0000

(Funny enough, we studied prepositions today in my 2nd year class. Then I come out with this title and realize the connection after the fact and giggle at myself. I'm easily amused.)

Today was rainy off and on, so that means I walked, as I do on days like this. Snapped this quick picture on my iPhone while walking. If it looks almost familiar yet different, it's the same bridge, different street from the post linked above.

I mentioned back in the post about how I don't drive here that one of the things that looks so tough is the combination of narrow roads often lined with ditches. This road is a bit narrow, but not nearly as narrow as some that look more like bike paths. Until you see a car headed toward you. It's also lined on both sides with those ditches that (as I explained in that post) many of us call gaijin traps (gaijin = 外人 = literally, outside person = foreigner, so, basically, "foreigner traps," a term that just cracks some of my my Japanese friends up the first time they hear it). The real name is 溝 (mizo), and most of them are wider. And are on narrower roads. I've never seen a car stuck in one, and this is completely amazing to me.

49/366 - Under the bride, down the road, not in the ditches.
(taken on my iPhone, then toyed with just a bit for fun)

Mini Road Trip

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 08:11:00 +0000

If our dear Lotus is doing Weekly Winners this week, these are my best of those, even if they were all taken yesterday. Saturday turned into a mini road trip to Hinase. These are the highlights.

48(1)/366 - Drive

48(2)/366 - Spanning

48(3)/366 - Under the Train Bridge

48(4)/366 - Primary Colors

48(5)/366 - Purples and Blues and Pretty

48(6)/366 - Bay

48(7)/366 - Reflecting

48(8)/366 - Kaki (Oyster) Okonomiyaki to Be
(Hinase is famous for it's oysters, and now is the season)

Ferry Boats

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 14:59:00 +0000

There's something about boats and sunsets.

47/366 - Ferry Boats
(taken on my D5100, toyed with lighting just a bit to un-darken the dark)

Haiku Friday - Say It With Flowers

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:12:00 +0000

"they mean spring comes soon,"
she translated from flower,
and i understood

One of the teachers caught me taking this picture on my iPhone on the way out of school on Friday afternoon. She explained the meaning that I'd already known and felt in my heart the first time I noticed these flowers earlier this week. Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging) can be so amazingly expressive. Every week or so, I'm realizing, a whole new arrangement appears in the entryway of my school, just like that, without me even having to seek it out. Yet, until looking for something to take a picture of every day for this project, I've been somewhat oblivious. Have there always been new beautiful flower arrangements appearing approximately weekly for the whole two and a half years I've been here?! Or is this a recent thing? Either way, from now on, if they are there, I'll be making a point to stop a moment to hear what they are saying.

46/366 - They Mean Spring Comes Soon
(taken on my iPhone, then toyed with the colors
to make them as I remember them feeling)

Yellow, Happy

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 13:47:00 +0000

Yellow is a happy color. I don't really own or wear anything yellow, but my friend does. Tonight we headed out of our tiny town for dinner and some girl time. Girl time, the train, yellow shoes - so much happiness.

45/366 - Yellow, Happy
(taken on my iPhone, toyed with in the BeFunky app)

Tiny Car Lot

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 07:51:00 +0000

I've already talked about how I don't drive in Japan, so I've only ever biked past this tiny little car lot in town and have never bothered to stop. Today I stopped, just briefly, to take a quick picture on my iPhone. Nothing spectacular, but unless I go somewhere else for a change, random pictures of places in town are likely to appear.

As a side note, I'm looking so forward to spring when the rice is planted and starts growing and then turning into the ridiculously green and beautiful rice fields of summer. Right now they are all just so brown and lonely. Also, did I ever mention that I am surrounded by mountains? I love my little inaka town.

44/366 - Tiny Car Lot in My Tiny Town
(taken on my iPhone and toyed with in the BeFunky app)

I'm OK

noreply@blogger.com (maggie) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 09:22:00 +0000

So, I'm a couple of weeks early, but those sad feelings are creeping back in around the edges. Apparently March is my sad month. It's been this way since my mom died 17 years ago this March (17 years can't be right, can it?). Around almost this time last year, on a Friday afternoon, I was just about to pack up to leave school and hunker into a weekend of my annual it's-not-fair-I-miss-my-mom wallowing fest I allow myself to have in exchange for not completely losing my shit most of the other days of the year (When, by the way, I also still miss my mom but usually with less fanfare. Just saying.).

Just then is when the earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit Japan. I've written about this at length back when it was all pretty fresh, but it basically goes like this. I spent the first 24 hours (that felt more like 24 weeks) worried sick about people I didn't know at all, people I knew of, but most especially, a friend I'd met at our JET Pre-departure Orientation back in Chicago and and with whom I shared a special connection. She and her children were living up that way, and her town was on the news because the tsunami had just washed much of it away. What was left of the town was largely on fire. Being so worried about my friend and her children brought it all home to me as far away as I was down here in Okayama. Thankfully, after a long night during which sleep didn't happen, I finally learned that my friend was OK. It could just have easily turned out the other way. For entirely too many, it did turn out that other way (latest information I've found says 15,846 dead, 3,320 still missing, and that says nothing of how very many people each one of those must have left behind). I was full of such profound sadness and worry for days. Watching everything unfold - the images, the stories, all of the talk about nuclear power plant and radiation and microsieverts, all of it - even as far away as I was, was... simply surreal.

At other points in my life, watching people I've loved die and watching others around me reacting to the exact same event has taught me for sure that people handle difficult and painful things differently. Some of my friends here in my part of Japan couldn't understand why it was affecting me to the degree that it did. Since my friend was OK, and I didn't personally know anyone who'd died up that way, a handful of these friends thought I was being weak or dramatic or depressing or morbid or whatever. Even if I was/am all of the above, every single one of those who would judge me for whatever way I react to such a tragedy (I still went to work, harmed no one, etc.) can just go fuck off. I never say fuck on my blog. But fuck them. Seriously. For whatever reasons, it affected me the way it did. Those very same people were, understandably, on the phone with their mommies as the disaster unfolded. My mom? Is dead. And I was supposed to have been honoring the 16th anniversary of her death just about then. So, yah, maybe that's just one of many areas where my perspective was just a little different. Maybe that had nothing to do with it. Point is, people react differently (another post from when this was all fresh and I learned how true this was). And today, I'm having a reaction of sorts, I guess you could say.

All this spewing is just because Facebook did a little thing over here in Japan today that immediately brought me back to a year ago and started the process of breaking my heart along those same scarred lines that try to heal every year from roughly late March to around late February of the following year. It's like clockwork, anymore, and apparently Japan's tragedy will simply piggyback onto the scars of my personal one in one neat little package of heartbreak to take out and hold and have a bigger than other regular days kind of cry. Anyway, right. Facebook. When I logged on today, I saw a little banner announcing that they are testing the new Disaster Message Board here in Japan for the next couple of days. If you are OK, you click that you are safe, and a reassuring dark blue "safe" icon will appear next to your name on the disaster list when your FB friends look up your name. If you know that someone else is OK, you can mark them as safe, and their people will see an almost but not quite as reassuring light blue "safe" icon saying someone has said they are safe.

Just seeing this feature this afternoon suddenly brought it all back to me and felt like a punch in the throat, those sad days around this time last year. So I took a picture and intended to write a quick little post to go with it about how I thought this whole I'm OK, my buddy's OK feature on Facebook was a good and useful idea. Instead, it turned into this kind of post, and I'm OK with that. It gave me the chance to reflect and remember that I get to feel what I feel in reaction to life around me, no right or wrong ways to experience that which makes me sad and absolutely no apologies. Right here, right now, I'm sad. Since sad things often make people sad, I'm pretty sure that it just means that, yep, I'm sad, but, also, I'm OK.

43/366 - Safe.
(Taken on my iPhone.)