On the Train Platform

I arrived to the station eighteen minutes before my train. After inserting a combination of coins to pay for my 320 yen ticket, I made my way to the mostly empty platform.

Being early has it's advantages. I was able to sit in an empty seat next to an older Japanese woman. Her eyes were closed beneath large rimmed glasses and her head bowed towards the shopping bag at her feet.

The Japanese, I've learned, spend a lot of time on trains. Napping in the process is quite common.  Looking at the clock, I still had about fourteen minutes until my train would arrive, so I took out my iPad to catch up on some reading.  As I read, the platform filled, mostly with school children heading home for the day.

A familiar chime told me the train was approaching, and I stood just as it arrived. Looking over, I saw that the older woman was still dozing. The doors to the train opened and a uniformed swarm of kids began filling the cars. The woman didn't move.

I hesitated for a moment, and then gently touched her shoulder saying, "Sumi ma sen." Excuse me.

Her eyes opened, and I gestured to the train. "Ah!" She looked at me with complete gratitude. "Arigato a gazze mash te." Thank you so very much, she said, and then quickly picked up her shopping bag and ambled onto the train, disappearing among the students.

I boarded the train as well, sat down and finished the article I started reading on the platform.

Decompression Burning Man 2012

Every year I go to Burning Man, Decompression is a little different. Decompression is the period after the Burn when we come back to the Default World possibly overwhelmed by stimulation overload and definitely dusty.  I think one of the draws for those who regularly attend the event is escapism.  When you're out there on the Playa, your preoccupations are geared more towards survival than voice mail. It's always a bit of a transition coming back.

This year for me was different. I was fortunate enough to be asked to come early for set up and stay late for post event operations. I was on the Playa for a total of 34 days. Working behind the scenes is definitely more my speed. Event week was merely an increase in the number of people I saw every day.

Working is what I do best, and when I'm busy I'm at my best. I always say I learn something every year at the Burn and this year I think I realized not just how much I love to work, but how purposeful work contributes to my overall well being. I'm a different person when I have good work. I'm stronger, more motivated, and make better decisions.

I admit, that I was worried going in this year. I was worried about my stamina and whether or not I'd be able to pull my weight. But, as soon as I got there, something in me just clicked into gear. Before I knew it I was my truest self again, enjoying an experience not many get to have.

It was an interesting Burn highlighted by the epic and unexpected. I had an evening of Playa tales with Naked Bob and Cowboy Carl and made conversation with Bruno in Italian. I rode on a fluffer van, got a donut from a cop, sang with the Jerks on BMIR radio and had the best view of the burn yet. I made some new friends and cemented friendships that were merely acquaintances a couple of years ago.

I'm happy to have made it there and back and of course can't wait to do it again next year.

Father's Day

It's Fathers Day, the first one since my Dad died, and I can't help but miss him today. My dad loved to fly, so we always tried to buy him things with an airplane theme for special occasions. He also loved to tinker. For him a day out in the garage was pure bliss. He'd reorganize tools, build things out of sheet metal, and revive that which was broken or discarded by others. I remember when we were house hunting he wanted a house out in an unincorporated area so he could have his own junk yard. Luckily, my mother's sensibilities won out on that one. In some ways I understand my dad more now. As the only woman in a male household, I recognize why he sought out sanctuary in his garage. He was a male in an all woman household, although I sometimes think that my tomboyish ways helped a little. I at least knew the difference between a Phillips and a flathead. This next phase of life is nothing like I expected. As my own children grow and start to plan on lives of their own, I recognize how we change and evolve, but also how so many things remain the same, like my memory of him in coveralls, fixing things.

Working in Japan

Getting work in any foreign country can be difficult if you don't speak the language. Japan is no exception. But as the universe would have it, an opportunity was laid in my path, and I jumped at it.  So, now I have a job in Japan.

My Japanese Business Card

Although the language barrier exists, 99% of my work is based in English. Knowing Japanese would help a lot, but I'm getting by with the few phrases I know so far, and am starting to pick up a few more.

Working in Japan is different from any other experience I've had thus far.

First, is the dress code. Business attire consists of dark muted colors (black, navy blue or gray), with very plain button down shirts, although ruffles on shirts seem to be OK for women.  There are no bare legs in Japan. If you choose to wear a skirt, there will be pantyhose. Also, anything considered trendy is not acceptable. Although my office is not a strict dress code environment, I do my best to dress the part, pantyhose included.  The silver lining of dressing up for work every day is definitely dressing down for everything else.

If language and a dress code aren't enough of a challenge, there are the customs to contend with. There are very specific ways to present and accept business cards for example, and also to serve tea or coffee. I have a very helpful coworker who coaches me on such things, and for that I am exceedingly grateful.

Thus far work is going well. I do my best to be competent at what I know and ask questions about the things I don't know. Some days are more successful than others, but I'm happy to have the work. It keeps me occupied, gives me a place to go and most importantly offers a rarefied experience that I simply never truly expected to have in life.

I do so enjoy Lemonade.

Lessons from Mom

Santa Cruz use to be an anual trip for us as kids. When we were younger, we would stay the night at my grandfather's house in San Jose, and then make the quick jaunt over the mountain in the morning to hit the beach for the day, and then enjoy some of the boardwalk at night.

I can mark the stages of my life by our activities there: the year I learned to body surf, the first year I grabbed a brass ring on the merry go round, the first year I made out with a guy I met on the beach.

But this morning one instance stood out. It was the year I realized my mother was fearless. I was about 5 or 6 and we were camped out on the beach as a family. We had it all: lawn chairs, my Ragedy Ann sleeping bag as a beach blanket, the ice chest and being the 70's, a hibachi grill.

At some point in the afternoon a beach bum approached our site. He wore baggy pants and a trench and had a not so faint smell of cheap wine and sweat.

"How about a hot dog," the man barked. We ignored him as he continued to ramble something about living on the beach. I turned and looked for my dad, who would surely sent this guy off, but as I did I heard my mother's cheerful voice behind me.

"Would you like mustard on that?"

We all looked around half stunned and half amused. She handed the man a neatly wrapped hotdog and he left. At the time we laughed about it, and how our fool hearty mother was oblivious to who was asking for a handout. But years later I realized it was a lesson in kindness, that I still remember now.

Happy Mother's Day Mom. Thanks for teaching me it's ok to show kindness when others are not.

Apocalypse Now

I seldom get overly political here. Mostly this is a blog of personal parables. It's my way of providing a temporary distraction and maybe another perspective of things we all experience in one way or another.

I've been thinking a lot about a post apocalyptic times. Not the end times, but a time where what we hoped for is revealed as a tarnished dream.

The archetype of this found in movies is often that of a small but powerful upper class, consumed with the idea of personal wealth and comfort, but little else with all others in a kind of survival mode. Their dystopian existence is only a shadow of what generations before them had.

In the movies and literature, there is often a catalyst that brings on these times. But sometimes, woven into the stories is the sense of a slippery slope, that things began to slide, that apathy was fostered with manufactured outrage, and that the state of disfunction was a goal.

What makes me think of this now, is what I see in politics. And it makes me wonder how many will be willing to claw their way up a slope not slanted in their favour.

Japanese Morning TV

One of my favorite things in Japan is morning television. Morning shows in Japan only last about 15 minutes each, presumably so one doesn't have to miss the end of a show when they rush out to catch the train. The shows are an interesting combination of the absurd, the useful and the informative.

The channel I watch includes a morning exercise program where pretty girls in leotards lead the audience in a series of movements that involve lots of arm swinging and deep knee bends to a cheerful piano accompaniment.

That's followed by an angry looking bunny that explains the meaning behind acronyms such as IMF, OPEC and APEC. There's a cooking show with a girl dressed as Strawberry Shortcake, the doll not the dessert, and then comes what my younger son calls the Cabbage Patch Kids. Their show is a series of shorts and skits that on this morning included an animated tour of internal organs.

Everything is presented with a cheerful tone and an abundance of cuteness. It might seem silly, but it beats the gossip ridden excuse for morning television in the United States.