hard, not soft

I always seem to write when I walk. And I never write drunk, or at least it's stuff I don't want to read. But I haven't had a drink all day & I want to get through the night without the nightly ritual of going to konbini (convenience store) & buying chuhi's (sweetened Japanese liquor; tastes like juice but gets you drunk). I don't know what I'm going to do tonight. But I don't want to do that.

About walking: I had some time to kill during lunch. Usually I go to the pond. But today I just went where my body wanted to go. I made a circle around my building & didn't want to come back. I thought, the pond. Then my body turned right instead & I walked toward the baseball field.

(I know this sucks but I haven't written in five months. I was drunk, etc. etc., that time.)

Then I saw her car. It was parked there once before, the same spot. It seemed obvious. Like a message slipped under the door at night. No, not that. It was a reminder. That's what it was.

I remember her driving around in that white station wagon, me always a passenger, her telling me, "I wish you could drive."

"I love to drive," is what I always said. But can't in this country.

I remember that time she took me to the park to meet my circle of extended friends. It was a BBQ but we were there to drink & see who showed up. It was that day she disappeared in the woods & I didn't have a corkscrew to open my wine. I eventually drank it. She dropped me off for band practice & went to see her folks down south.

Another time she picked me up from the studio. We went to Don Quijote's (a store) & I got detergent, we looked at crazy costumes, & ate tako-yaki. (Insert cliche, "Only in Japan.")

And the time we went searching for her favorite Chinese restaurant, finally found it, paid to park, & worked our way through the crowd of drunk people laughing outside. But it was closed. On the way home she asked me if I was nervous with her driving & I said no. I was never nervous & that was strange.

I want to write more about the white station wagon with surfing stickers on the back, but, like I said, I haven't written in months.

Up ahead, on my walk, I saw some fuzzy looking things sticking out into my path. They were on both sides, drooping green stalks with soft-colored cotton balls on top. I decided to touch one & missed. I touched another & it was hard, not anything like it looked.

I listened to my music, felt the heat of a defeated Summer, & avoided as many dragon flies as I could. I'm amazed by their eyes.

my relationship to the present

I have been thinking about this constantly since reading it last night. After I read it, I decided to get off my ass & go for a walk.

I walked my usual route, past the station. It was Friday night. Many people were out getting drunk. I took a turn down a street I'd never been down. I looked in a little place calling itself a cantina. A girl inside, facing the glass door so we caught eyes, threw a dart while lifting up her leg. Another girl sat at the bar with her back to the door. I glanced at the menu. Beer ¥470. Not tonight, keep walking buddy.

I walked under the Higashiyama train line & took a right turn at the corner. I thought about my relationship to the present. "I am walking," I thought. How much simpler does it get? Movement through space. That is how I anchor myself in the present.

I took a left turn and headed towards Max Value. Three girls walked by me. The one closest to me stared into my eyes & grabbed a big lock of her hair. Keep walking buddy.

I saw the cashier who checked me out earlier, when I bought two chicken breasts & some mackeral fillets for ¥555. She was sweeping the entranceway now, getting ready to close. Up ahead I noticed three girls, two of which were propping each other up as they walked. They walked slowly. Both wore short skirts. I came to a red light & crossed to the other side. Three young guys in suits with crazy hair, smoking cigarettes, were laughing & pointing at the girls stumbling on the other side. One of the guys came inches of bumping into me. He was trying to create space. I walked on.

I saw three more guys outside of a bar. One was standing up drinking a pitcher of beer. The other two were crumpled over with the white sticks drooping from their mouths, their eyes expressionless. A bike nearly hit me. The bar was full of large groups of college students. I saw a girl take a long drag. The energy was Japanese. Drunken, young, confined, Japan.

There's a pressure here & you'll feel it once you step off the plane. Even if people get drunk, they do so in a structured way. There's always someone to prop you up when you walk home.

I turned onto my street & everything got quiet. I looked at the houses, their sculptured hedges, lights on in the windows. Two bricks tied together with a string sitting on the sidewalk. I walked on.