Step 4: Going back a ways

Today marks the beginning of the end of what was a fabulously long and wonderful spring into summer holiday season. Thinking about having to go back to work tomorrow has me reflecting on the past five months of amazing memories. It all started back on a snowy day here in Shimukappu, Japan March 25th when I made my way to the airport in Sapporo and headed back to the USA for the first time in 17 months. Basically, I have been on a non-stop pleasure cruise ever since which has taken me all over the USA seeing family, friends, teachers, and beautiful places…back to summer-time in Japan where (despite having to work from June 2-July 22) the living is easy and I’ve been enjoying festivals, beach-time, a hike up a little mountain called Mt. Fuji, and even going to Japanese school. But now it’s August 14 and I’ve got to go back to work and transition into fall before another, dreaded, Japanese winter sets in.

Before that, however, I want to go back and share some of the details on the beginning of my time in Japan and then my spring into summer holiday season. Luckily I was journaling through much of this time so hopefully won’t forget too many of the fun details.


So, let’s start from the very beginning.


I left America for Japan on November 6th, 2008. It was an emotional departure to say the least and one that I knew was happening both for all the wrong reasons and for the right ones that I wasn’t even aware of yet. Between November 2008 and March 25th 2010 a lot happened in the emotional, physical, and sensational roller coaster of a life that I live. I arrived in a town I had an entirely different expectation for “expectation can only lead to disappointment’ and my first 2 months here were lived out feeling both deceived and lied to. I didn’t think I would survive it.  

My house in Shimukappu. buried by the snow.

On top of that the man who I’d been in a long distance relationship with for nearly 2 years arrived into the blizzard and endless white of a winter that is Shimukappu, Japan. The same destructive relationship we’d always had resumed and when the realization hit that I couldn’t fix him from all his pain I let him go from my life. It was then that I had to look into the face of being truly alone in a country I didn’t know the language, I didn’t feel any connection with it’s people, in a town of 1000, with no grocery store, restaurant, or café to escape in. Everyday I wanted to go home. All the things I loved about myself as a person were being stripped away. I’ve always respected myself for my independence but here I am co-dependent on others for almost everything. I’ve always respected my strong opinions, but here my opinions were silenced by being ignored. I became needy on my family. I became obsessed with keeping my friendships from home alive. I became aware of my dependence on a gym or a yoga class to keep me fit and found it hard to motivate myself everyday to get out on the same snowy road for my runs.

A very well plowed day on the road that I run

Thank god for my dog who arrived in March and reminded me to get up every morning. Also thank god for Chisato, who moved to Shimukappu that April as the new math teacher and quickly became my only real friend here. I was homesick everyday, but little by little I was more able to cope with where I was. One year into my 18 month contract, I had only been hugged twice: once by Chisato and once by my American friend Jenny who I travelled to Kyoto and Hiroshima with in September. For a touchy feely hugger like myself this was torture. One thing that happened that helped me finally feel more apart of the community was on the night that a group of people I had regularly been playing basketball with all transported together to Sapporo to watch Hokkaido’s Basketball team ‘Rera Kamuy’ play a game.

After the game

The teams name, Rera Kamuy, comes from the language of the Ainu, an ethnic group indigenous to Hokkaido, and means "god of the winds". Before the game we’d gone to dinner at a vegetarian restaurant they had found out about just for me and they all did their best to look satisfied by the food. It was a great game and we had a lot of fun but it was after the game-- in a karaoke joint where we all sang countless Beatles songs -- that I felt I had finally gained some ground with this group of people who I’d been both playing basketball with and teaching English to for over a year. It was a great feeling. I’d been missing that connection with people for so long and I needed that night to happen to help me see them a bit more clearly and not with so much judgment.

The very next morning, exhausted though I was, I went to play in a community soccer tournament. I recognized all the same faces from my small town and, as per usual, no one came up to me to greet me or say hello. I’d become quite used to being ignored despite knowing that every single person in the town knew my name. I was sitting on the stage of the gym stretching when suddenly someone plopped down besides me and said, in perfectly Australian accented English, “hey, how ya’ going’?” I turned to face him and looked upon a man I’d never seen. What I’d come to be familiar with about Japanese people and their reserved natures, especially when it comes to acceptance and letting people in, he seemed to have none of. I could tell from that first instant that he was something very different than what I’d become so accustomed to here in Japan. From that moment on Yohei has become the main attraction of my life here in Japan and I thank him for sharing his amazing soul with me here.

Yohei and Maya bonding...despite Yohei being allergic to Maya they love each other.

Combined with my experience that night going to the basketball and the next day meeting Yohei I finally had something good to say about the country I’d been living in for the past year. And when, soon after, I was confronted by my bosses about renewing my contract I had some hard thinking to do. I missed my family, Colorado, my friends, Americans in general, and health food stores. But with no job waiting for me at home and no solid decision on what I wanted to do, I decided to give Japan one more go around... but only if they would let me have 2 months off first. They agreed and the planning began on what would become my fabulous 2 months travelling in the USA.