I miss Japan

But the Japan I miss I can't return to-- it exists only in the jungle of my memories. What remains now is the right-angled, towering concrete of modern Japan. I miss the wild of Oba-chan's back yard, where Jane and I, dripping with sweat, would stalk spiders and stray cats. I miss listening with a mixture of laughter and awe as Oji-chan chanted his prayers, the incense heavy and woodsy in my nostrils. Of how he would throw the left over rice out the window and marvel at the birds as they swooped to catch the grains. We would go every night to the public baths and steep in water so hot I swore it scalded me every time. Later Jane and I would sit outside, the summer heat now feeling cool against our skin, and tease the giant koi in the pond outside with our toes.

Ghosts and spirits descended on us from the mountains, kodama lounged in the bows of the pine trees, and the red bean ice cream was sweet. I try to relieve this hunger for the past through my writing, and increasingly Japan has been sneaking in, one way or another. Is this what is meant by ethnicity?

On a slightly different note, but related, a couple weeks ago I observed the fourth anniversary of my mother's death. They lie when they say time heals pain. It does not. I sat quietly in the room where I had found her fallen and reflected. Did I do the right thing? I pulled the plug, now I have to live with the consequences. I think I did the right thing, but I will never know, for sure, and always there's that lingering hope, turned to dread now, that maybe, maybe she could have made it.