(no subject)
I am going back home tomorrow morning. Thirteen hours on a red-striped airplane, swooping over the former Soviet Union while I fiddle with the remote and attempt to readjust to my adopted culture. I know that every time I come back, the first thing that hits me, apart from the eerie lack of emotion in the arrivals lounge, is the distinct scent of Japanese disinfectant and chemicals. On the train, the subtly different body odour, the waft of fish broth and soy sauce, and the smell of killed dirt attack my senses, letting me know I'm back in the country where it's impolite to blow my nose but fine to hawk globules of spit at the street, were I the owner of testicles.
What have I learnt? It's been so long it's hard to count the lessons. I came back feeling ill at ease and detached, as if I was wearing a toilet seat slung around my neck that everyone else swore was an adorable pea coat that really suited me. I was outside looking in, feeling like my body was betraying me, signalling that I was one of the tribe, when in fact I was a long lost stray who had forgotten the rules. I had longed for the frank honesty of Europeans, but their concomitant sass and apathy shocked me. I was thrilled at the speed with which strangers dived into philosophical conversation or honest disclosure, but cast a disdainful eye at the lack of care with which shop assistants scattered lingerie on the dirty shop floor, or groups of women who shower their cigarette butts on the pavement, already covered in the stuck-down sakura prints of used chewing gum. I was aghast at how their corpulence forces them to waddle, how young mothers yelp at their children and shove sugar into their mouths to placate their whinging, and how, well, 'broken' Britain seems. It's a sad society: classist and divided, angry and alcoholic. Kids don't know what to do with themselves so they breed, incesssantly, fueled by cider and welfare checks. The cold turned people inwards: less partying, perhaps less crime. But more staring out of the kitchen window at the white blanket, which stared implacably back, cold to the human desire to travel by train, walk without slipping, or step without soaking one's toes.
The east end looks particularly miserable in the cold, with a grey pall and too many factory memories on its landscape to cheer. But it was only a few days ago when I passed a building with scaffolding that I remembered the sweet, heady smell of paint. Everything in Tokyo everything is plastic moulded or made out of metal. I am heartened by the fact that old buildings here are cared for, renovated, jazzed up. In Japan they summon the bulldozers, and then there is nothing but noise and dust.
I made peace with my body in these six weeks. I usually view it as an uncooperative imposter, a cell of keratin, amino acids and ligaments whose creaks bely its age and irritate its owner. I liken its ailments to being under the influence of drugs, or chloroform, or disease: not my fault; external; insidious; debilitating. And yet, while the medical system I have always railed against continues to be absurd and uncaring, I have found that everyone else was right, to some extent. I break out in silent tears when people suggest my whinging is mere hypochondria; that nothing was wrong at all last year apart from not eating enough; that it's all in my head, all under my control, and all my fault. But over the last two weeks, somehow bikram yoga has convinced me that there is nothing for me to do but take it into my own hands. I cannot solve this psychologically. I attack things physically, fizz with energy when forced to sit still, and so the best way to approach this is with sweat and gritted teeth, promises to myself that my forehead will kiss my toes today and I will slip around on the mat, wet with effort. I used to find it cheesy and overwrought when celebrities claimed that yoga had changed their lives, and themselves. But somehow, that ninety minute blast of heat and determination has changed my mind.
Someone told me, "Get rid of the qualities that cause pain." I like to blame things on other people. I am selfish with my time. I get easily frustrated when my plans are thwarted. I am annoyed when people act pathetically or weakly, and even more so when they fail to make the best of their time and then moan about it. But none of these are things that can improve my life, or that of others, so why bother pursuing them, continuing with them? I am coming to realise that we merely repeat patterns of behaviour because they are habit, and we are choosing to follow them, either consciously or unconsciously. You can also unchoose them. Something happened to me last year. I became more nervous. I had panic attacks. Even now, when I am late, my chest seizes up and my shoulders are sliced through with stabbing pains. Even watching a film two nights ago- Black Swan- induced the same physical pain that I get when I am nervous about exposing myself in some way, being late, fucking up. I know that it is only me that can stop it, it's just that I have to learn exactly how to. I have to learn to let the anger go.
Yet at the same time, the one 'negative' quality I don't want to let go is my motivation to do things at the expense of other people. I have always valued my plans above anything else, which is why I am so bad at honouring social arrangements and agreements, and why I shun meals and drinks and meetings in favour of doing something I want to do. And in some ways, I feel trapped cohabiting, even if our hours don't coincide neatly. I feel I had to turn things down to spend time with him, and when he comes home my concentration explodes into tiny pieces of shrapnel and settle down outside, beyond my reach, while we talk over the mundanities of the day and he begins to cook. I wish I had the singular concentration of some of those I've met in the past six weeks. In a vain way, I hope I was interesting enough to still interest those people I've admired, especially from a far. Yet I feel like they'll never understand where I live and what I'm doing. I have half forgotten it myself. And tomorrow, I go back.
What have I learnt? It's been so long it's hard to count the lessons. I came back feeling ill at ease and detached, as if I was wearing a toilet seat slung around my neck that everyone else swore was an adorable pea coat that really suited me. I was outside looking in, feeling like my body was betraying me, signalling that I was one of the tribe, when in fact I was a long lost stray who had forgotten the rules. I had longed for the frank honesty of Europeans, but their concomitant sass and apathy shocked me. I was thrilled at the speed with which strangers dived into philosophical conversation or honest disclosure, but cast a disdainful eye at the lack of care with which shop assistants scattered lingerie on the dirty shop floor, or groups of women who shower their cigarette butts on the pavement, already covered in the stuck-down sakura prints of used chewing gum. I was aghast at how their corpulence forces them to waddle, how young mothers yelp at their children and shove sugar into their mouths to placate their whinging, and how, well, 'broken' Britain seems. It's a sad society: classist and divided, angry and alcoholic. Kids don't know what to do with themselves so they breed, incesssantly, fueled by cider and welfare checks. The cold turned people inwards: less partying, perhaps less crime. But more staring out of the kitchen window at the white blanket, which stared implacably back, cold to the human desire to travel by train, walk without slipping, or step without soaking one's toes.
The east end looks particularly miserable in the cold, with a grey pall and too many factory memories on its landscape to cheer. But it was only a few days ago when I passed a building with scaffolding that I remembered the sweet, heady smell of paint. Everything in Tokyo everything is plastic moulded or made out of metal. I am heartened by the fact that old buildings here are cared for, renovated, jazzed up. In Japan they summon the bulldozers, and then there is nothing but noise and dust.
I made peace with my body in these six weeks. I usually view it as an uncooperative imposter, a cell of keratin, amino acids and ligaments whose creaks bely its age and irritate its owner. I liken its ailments to being under the influence of drugs, or chloroform, or disease: not my fault; external; insidious; debilitating. And yet, while the medical system I have always railed against continues to be absurd and uncaring, I have found that everyone else was right, to some extent. I break out in silent tears when people suggest my whinging is mere hypochondria; that nothing was wrong at all last year apart from not eating enough; that it's all in my head, all under my control, and all my fault. But over the last two weeks, somehow bikram yoga has convinced me that there is nothing for me to do but take it into my own hands. I cannot solve this psychologically. I attack things physically, fizz with energy when forced to sit still, and so the best way to approach this is with sweat and gritted teeth, promises to myself that my forehead will kiss my toes today and I will slip around on the mat, wet with effort. I used to find it cheesy and overwrought when celebrities claimed that yoga had changed their lives, and themselves. But somehow, that ninety minute blast of heat and determination has changed my mind.
Someone told me, "Get rid of the qualities that cause pain." I like to blame things on other people. I am selfish with my time. I get easily frustrated when my plans are thwarted. I am annoyed when people act pathetically or weakly, and even more so when they fail to make the best of their time and then moan about it. But none of these are things that can improve my life, or that of others, so why bother pursuing them, continuing with them? I am coming to realise that we merely repeat patterns of behaviour because they are habit, and we are choosing to follow them, either consciously or unconsciously. You can also unchoose them. Something happened to me last year. I became more nervous. I had panic attacks. Even now, when I am late, my chest seizes up and my shoulders are sliced through with stabbing pains. Even watching a film two nights ago- Black Swan- induced the same physical pain that I get when I am nervous about exposing myself in some way, being late, fucking up. I know that it is only me that can stop it, it's just that I have to learn exactly how to. I have to learn to let the anger go.
Yet at the same time, the one 'negative' quality I don't want to let go is my motivation to do things at the expense of other people. I have always valued my plans above anything else, which is why I am so bad at honouring social arrangements and agreements, and why I shun meals and drinks and meetings in favour of doing something I want to do. And in some ways, I feel trapped cohabiting, even if our hours don't coincide neatly. I feel I had to turn things down to spend time with him, and when he comes home my concentration explodes into tiny pieces of shrapnel and settle down outside, beyond my reach, while we talk over the mundanities of the day and he begins to cook. I wish I had the singular concentration of some of those I've met in the past six weeks. In a vain way, I hope I was interesting enough to still interest those people I've admired, especially from a far. Yet I feel like they'll never understand where I live and what I'm doing. I have half forgotten it myself. And tomorrow, I go back.