A Year in June: Chapter 6

            At precisely 5 p.m. a loudspeaker cackled and a song drifted through the open bedroom window. June couldn’t quite place what song it was, but the simple melody sounded familiar. She stopped unpacking to listen more closely only to catch a sustained beep at the end, then silence. One more oddity to add her growing list of things she needed to ask Mina about Minamisanriku. She had been to Japan before, but only for a month or two. Somehow the switch in mentality from tourist to yearlong resident had her noticing more differences around her than before.

             June returned to unpacking her belongings: three pairs of jeans—one black, one grey, one blue; six free T-shirts she had received from events in high school and college; two pea coats to properly represent the east coast and two heavy jackets for the serious winter to come; a weeks worth of boxer shorts, she preferred this kind of underwear; three bras that she honestly didn’t really need; and ten hats. She had contemplated how many hats to bring with her to Japan and in the end decided that she necessarily needed ten. Any more than that would have been excessive. As she picked up and felt the stitching along the brim of her favorite red hat the door behind her slid open.

            “Five o’clock!” Mina announced as she beamed through the door.

            “Second announcement today,” June smiled back, “what was with the 5 p.m. song earlier?”

            “Oh that, they have that everywhere around Japan. It comes from the speakers right outside our house. Did you see?” She pointed up and toward the front door. “The same speakers that sounded the tsunami warning.” she added grimly. “Anyway, in this house that song has a special meaning,” her smile came back bigger and even more lopsided as she pulled her hands out from behind her back, “beer!” She tossed a can in June’s direction.

            Both hands outstretched, June caught the cold can and felt a chill spread from her hands through her body. She was more of a wine than a beer type of person, but she was willing to give this Japanese beer a try.

            “On a hot day like this, beer is perfect neh?” Mina tilted her head back and took a big swig. They had moved to the living room and were sitting cross-legged around a small table. “Any day really, beer is good,” she added nodding solemnly to her Sapporo.

            June watched a mosquito fly slowly by, drunk on the afternoon heat.

            “Ah! Gomennasai! You don’t drink?” Mina asked.

            “I do,” June took a quick sip to prove it, “it’s just that I haven’t eaten anything in a while and I don’t want you to remember me as the girl who got drunk her first day in Japan.”

            Mina laughed, “Where are my manners? Please, have something to eat” she said as she pulled out trays of crackers, nuts, and candy onto the table. “And don’t worry” she lowered her voice and drew closer “after tonight, you will remember me as the girl who snores and sleeps with her mouth open!”

            June was taken aback at first but was soon laughing and confessing along with Mina. “Sometimes I talk in my sleep and ask for things, usually food.”

            “I drool sometimes when I am not careful.”

            “I always kick off my blankets.”

            “For me, the most comfortable position is on my back, mouth open, snoring and drooling with my hand down my pants.” Mina drained the last of her beer and crushed the can. “Dakara, no pictures please!”

            June laughed as Mina went to grab another can. She had heard that many Japanese were introverted and not very open to new people. Incredibly polite but rather cold, she was told. It seemed like they were wrong. I’m roommates with the complete opposite, June thought happily.  

            “June-san wa? Another Beeru?” Mina asked, head in the fridge.

            “Yes,” June said tilting her head to catch the last drops, “onegaishimasu!”

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Lessons from driving in (Tohoku) Japan

- Drive on the opposite side of America

- But when in doubt, just drive in the middle

- Parking is tough (small spaces, reverse parking)

- When in doubt, bow (when someone lets you merge, when a pedestrian waits for you to drive by, when you cut someone off)

- There are no one way streets in Japan, only really narrow ones

- There are no right OR left turns on red lights. Just wait. 

- Oji-chans (old men) can ignore all of the above rules and just park wherever they want and read their newspaper. That's what's up. 

A Year in June: Chapter 5

            “June-kun, want to take a break?” Mina asked, wiping sweat off of her brow with her scarf. “June-kun?”

            “Who, me?” June asked carefully painting a crevice of the porch. She much preferred painting to building, even if Mina insisted on painting the whole porch a dull uniform brown. “What’s a kun?”

            “In Japan we add these to the end of people’s names. Kun, chan, san, sama, they mean like ‘mister’. Some are formal, but kun is for close friends.”

            June felt warm despite the late February chill, “So can I call you Mina-kun?” 

            “No, you can call me Mina-chan. Kun is for boys.” She grinned mischeviously.

            “I’m not a boy!” June protested.

            “Sorry, it is selfish, but in my life I always felt closer friendship to boys so I always use kun for close friends. So is it okay to call you June-kun?”

            “Of course, Mina-chan. Although, I still think Mina-kun sounds better.”

            “You can call me Mina-sama, Master Mina” she retorted.

Mina and June spent the rest of that afternoon joking and working until the sun dipped below the horizon and 5 p.m song had them clamoring inside to continue their banter over beer.

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A Year in June: Chapter 4

             When June received funding for her project in Japan she felt like she had won the who-is-doing-the-coolest-thing-after-graduation lottery. For the few months between receiving the yearlong funding and arriving in Japan she was able to tell her friends, family, and one time only acquaintances all about her project. She was given several thousand dollars to travel to a country that had undergone one of the worst earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis in recorded history. A studio art and photography major in college, she was not going to be helping out physically. It wasn’t that June didn’t have the physical strength, as the daughter of a college level gymnast and high school level wrestler she had muscle strength. However, she rarely did manual labor and was more inclined to flex her right brain.

In Japan she wanted to restore what people had lost that was less tangible than a house or a business. She would comb destroyed houses, abandoned lots, and side streets for irreplaceable memories—photographs carried astray by the waves of the tsunami. After restoring these water damaged memories she would return them to their rightful owner in return for nothing more than gratitude. She felt certain that mementos of a happier time build the foundation for happier times to come.

When she told people of her project in a few succinct words “next year I’ll be restoring the damaged photographs of tsunami victims in Japan” she was always guaranteed the admiration and attention of those around her.

“Wow, what an unique experience”

“That’s so cool; and it’s paid for?”

“I’ve always wanted to go to Japan”

No one asked her what she would be doing after that year. She would not have been able to answer that question with any confidence anyway, so it was better for her that no one asked. Still, her parents worried and, secretly, she worried. But, determined to soak up all the experience she could and just live in the moment, she banished all thoughts of the future from her mind from the moment she set foot in Narita Airport.

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A Year in June: Chapter 3

            June opened the door to her small one bedroom apartment on Trowbridge Street.   After she shoved the stubborn door closed behind her, stillness descended upon the space. The dying light from outside filtered weakly through her kitchen window leisurely traversing the distance across the kitchen and into her eyes. She squinted and then closed her eyes, trying to drain the memories out of her mind. Yet pieces remained, like oversized clumps clogging up the strainer basket of a kitchen sink.

Too slow, she sighed, and grabbed a bottle of wine from the kitchen. She turned into her bedroom. Her wine glass was waiting where she had left it that morning. June looked distastefully for a second at the residual wine that had dried at the bottom of the glass then poured to the brim.

As the wine slid down her throat she popped open her laptop lid and let the liquid and artificial light force the remaining clumps of memory down the drain.  

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A Year in June: Chapter 2

            The summer heat and the ocean breeze mingled and settled with the swirling dust of the rock lot. That was what, June was told, the locals called the wide pebble filled space in front of her house. The space where two houses previously stood; the space now inhabited by small stones and odd bits of debris. June stared intently down at what looked a piece of ceramic pottery. It was slightly faded but the design was of a yuzu fruit, broken before it could complete its yellow oblong shape. She wondered whose cup, bowl, or plate this had been before it had been washed away, broken, and deposited in this rock lot. The rock lot swayed beneath her feet.

            “Hey! Daijoubu?”

June jerked her head up and lost her balance even more. As the blood rushed to her head, a hand came out and caught her shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

June, embarrassed, nodded and traced the hand back to its owner. The girl who had steadied her was tall, much taller than June, and slender in frame. Her medium-length hair was carelessly worn, with a few wayward strands turning upward near the nape of her neck. She dressed in a simple fashion, a loose shirt and bright yellow shorts. Comfortable, June thought, and found herself uncharacteristically loquacious.

            “Sorry about that, I kind of got lost in what I was—its been a long, anyway that’s not really imp—I’m Juniper but please call me June, what’s your name?” June blurted out, the words tumbling over themselves.

The girl laughed, “Minazuki desu, nice to meet you.” Her English wasn’t fluent, but it wasn’t too difficult to understand either. This was a nice change from the constant barrage of Japanese that June had faced on her trip up to Minamisanriku, the northeastern ocean-side town. She had taken one short flight, one long flight, an overnight bus, and another bus to get here.

Her travels had been largely without incident, but whenever she asked for directions she felt the on comings of a small anxiety attack. Was it pronounced DO-ko or do-KO? Maybe if she just muttered the Japanese under her breath someone would make sense of her words for her. In any case, her appearance allowed her to swing either way—as a Hapa by birth, with a Japanese mother and a little bit of everything European American father, she could be seen as Asian, Caucasian, or neither. Unfortunately when she did manage to pronounce everything correctly, the automatic assumption was that she was Japanese and the rapid-fire responses to her question always left her even more confused. Not wanting to embarrass herself she would nod and walked off in whatever direction they were pointing.

“Mina to yobimasu, you can call me Mina” Mina said as a smile played with one corner of her lips.  

“Yoroshiku onegaishimasu” June tried out for the first time.

“Hey, you know Japanese!” Mina exclaimed.

“Hardly any, but I tried to learn a little bit before coming here. My mother’s grandmother was from Japan so she knows some and taught me even less”

“Better than my English already!” Mina laughed. “Welcome to Japan. Your travel here ok?”

“Yes,” the tension was finally draining out of June’s body and she felt an intense weariness taking its place, ”it was long but not too troublesome. Sorry for being rude but, are you the girl I am living with?”

Mina confirmed that they were roommates and brought June through the rock lot and up to her room.

The inside of the house was dusty like the air outside. Surely something June would get accustomed to with time. She preferred her living spaces clean and orderly, but she understood the difficulties of living in a post-disaster area. Their bedroom quarters were tight: two beds, sides facing each other with multipurpose shelves and a desk built into the wall at the foot of each bed. Looks like there is a fine line here between work and rest, June thought to herself. She laid her backpack down on the empty bed and resisted the urge to do the same with her tired body. She glanced at the clock mounted on the wall between their beds—3 p.m. If she could just last a few more hours, that would be enough.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Mina rummaging through a giant yellow knapsack. What a colorful individual, June thought to herself before Mina exclaimed,

“Kitta! I have never had long-term roommate before, so it was in bottom of my bag.” She took two long strides over. Cupped in her palm was a key to the house and a keychain of a pair of silver wings.

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