Naked in Japan
運命
***
“Unmei,” she said.
I asked her to repeat it. She put her cup down and said it again.
“Unmei. That’s the word the Japanese have for that.”
“For what?” I asked.
“I asked you how. Why did you come here. To Japan. You’re telling me the story.”
“But what does that word has to do with what brought me here?”
“I’ve been here many times. I come here to work with indigenous people. I’ve seen things happened. Let me tell you this: Japan is a miracle country.”
She continued,
“Unmei means fate. Fate brought you here.”
***
It was my first morning in Japan. I was sitting outside a coffee shop in the northeastern side of Tokyo jotting entries in my notebook when a woman walked past the table I was sitting at and went inside the shop.
Ten seconds later the manager of the shop asked if the woman could join me.
I said yes.
I asked the woman if she wanted to sit out because others were smoking inside. She said no.
She never did say why she wanted to sit at the same table I was.
I didn’t press. I never asked. I’m learning not to ask questions.
***
I walked into the room.
The man behind the counter pointed me to the vending machine. I got a ticket out of it.
I took the shoes off, put them in a locker. I gave the ticket to the man. He handed me a towel, a set of instructions, in English, and a clear bag. Inside the bag I found a washcloth, a toothbrush and a razor.
I smiled at the fact a razor was included in my bag.
When one is on the road for this long, shaving is not really something you do. I rather clean the chain of the bicycle over shaving the legs - and other body parts. To put things in perspective, the bike chain doesn’t get a lot of cleaning.
Before I came to this place, I did shave to maintain my quasi Western-like appearance. I didn’t want the Japanese women to think a furry creature made its way to the streets of Tokyo from the Japanese Alps.
The man then pointed to the room where I needed to go.
There were other women in the room. All of them were naked.
I had just walked into an onsen.
I was about to start getting naked in Japan.
***
Japanese baths - onsens - have social etiquettes which must be followed: washing before entering the hot water, how to enter the hot water, what not to do with the washcloth while you are bathing, no photographs, etc.
As I got ready to get into the bath, I was tempted to look around but I didn’t. I looked at the floor instead.
I raised my foot to enter the bath area. I looked up to ensure I wasn’t going to bump into another person. Then I noted that the women in the water have taken a keen interest in the naked body of the only Latina in the room.
I caught them giggling and staring. They bowed. I smiled and bowed to them.
It made me wonder if they asked themselves the same question a man in New Zealand asked as I was riding my bicycle one early morning.
“Why are you so brown? You must’ve been cycling for a long time.”
I dipped the body in the hot water. After a few minutes in it, I felt as at ease as when I drove on the left side of the road.
Yeah. The many years of reckless driving in the US and Puerto Rico finally paid off. I just had to come to the other side of the world to properly experience it.
I feel really at ease with no clothes on. But I’m not so at ease at taking them off. It seems I struggle with getting, as opposed to being, naked.
Before I put my clothes back on, I took a look at my body in the mirror. Over seven months have passed since the last time I took a glance at it that way.
This body served me well. It has been covered with black and blues. It has been scratched, bitten, scraped, burn, sunburned, swollen. It has been cold, hot, wet, tired and ridden with excitement. It has been tanned, filthy and fit and most days, these days, it shows a belly that has been meticulously filled with chocolate and as of late, onigiri and wagashi.
But it wasn’t until I started taking my clothes off when I noticed how uncomfortable I felt with the process of getting naked. Thirty nine years of uneasiness.
It made me think of the instances when I chose to feel safe over baring it all.
I married when I knew I shouldn’t in the name of safety.
I stayed in relationships I needed to end in the name of safety.
I have stayed in jobs I needed to leave in the name of safety.
I stayed quiet when I should’ve spoken up in the name of safety.
I haven’t loved harder, wilder, wiser, deeper in the name of safety.
I have been foolish, irresponsible with myself and with others in the name of safety.
After months of cycling and hiking in the southern hemisphere, a sudden change of heart that pulled me away from Southeast Asia, mysteriously pushed me to Japan.
Two weeks into my stay in Tokyo, I set off on the bicycle and headed northwest.
The things I learned while traveling and carrying all my things on a bicycle are teachings that perhaps I wouldn’t have learned with any other forms of travels.
leaving tokyo, heading northwest. photo credit: nanako kasahara
The last seven months have stretched me.
During my last weeks in Australia, something reignited.
Not really sure what it was or still not sure what it is.
What was - and is still - true to me was that seeing Japan from a saddle, day in and day out, wasn’t aligned with the lit up sacred urge I felt as I left the down under.
a friend from the road. she spoke only japanese. i tried using both, english and spanish. somehow we made our conversation worked.
the view of mt. fuji as i returned to tokyo.
Hm. Every labor of love starts at home.
Two days after I left, I returned. A gruesome battle with the ego took place. I’m not sure if there was ever a winner or even if winning had a point. What happened was that as a result of that, an end was put to my travels and I allowed my bicycle to take me somewhere else.
Ending my travels by bicycle turned out to be more of an act of letting go than to stop pedaling.
what the battle between the ego and the heart may have looked like when I started pedaling back to tokyo. the third one here is me; watching the entire match. ( 2016 may grand tournament ; second day)
and sometimes you just have to go up in arms and let it go. ( 2016 may grand tournament ; second day)
but this is how it truly ended. what five o'clock somewhere in japan looked after a night of toilet camping and a full day of under-the- bridge napping. the glamour of life on the road.
Absolve.
What a strange feeling.
Then a question popped:
What on earth am I going to do now with all this time?
I waited and I trusted for the answer to come.
And it did. The answer was delivered to my inbox.
***
“For I have learned that every heart will get what it prays for most.” – Hafiz
***
I’ve been off the saddle for over two weeks. My bicycle is now parked.
I still wake before the sun rises.
I’m told to hurry up because there is no time.
I’m told I can only do one thing at a time.
I’m told that is best if I don’t ask questions.
I’m reminded that there are no answers.
I’m reminded to pay attention.
I’m told that no one can teach me that of what I’m doing.
I’m told that I must learn.
Each day I fall short.
Each day I become ignorant.
Each day I think I found the answer.
The next day I realize I know nothing at all.
Each day I take notice that that, of which is obvious, may not be seen in plain view.
Each day I learn that that, of which is simple, is also beautiful.
Each day I feel am melting into something; maybe is nothing that of which I’m melting to.
Each day I learn, and re learn, that the only thing that matters is to be here.
I spend most of my days in silence. Partly because I don't speak or read the language but too because I'm choosing to listen and to pay attention instead.
I’m told that I must practice each day. That I must practice hard, that I must practice from the heart, from my soul.
And practice I do. I never thought I could be this diligent at being told what to do.
It is much easier to talk, or even to write about this stuff. So I practice and I fail. I practice again and again; knowing that I may never master that of what I'm practicing.
Then I remember that words, as opposed to action, have never gotten me anywhere.
I’m learning to drink my coffee straight. Black. As dark as I can manage it. No sugar. No milk. So I can feel it roaring through my veins. Under my skin. Where everything else is felt.
Moments do come where it feels that much of what I’m doing seems pointless; self-inflicted suffering. Some days can be exhausting, other days it feels like I’m floating.
Then every so often, the eyes well up. I can’t really explain why I ended up here, how long this may last or why my travels are wrapping up like this. But I receive what I am being offered.
Perhaps the woman that joined me over coffee was right: Japan is a miracle country.
My travels will soon come to an end. I may not ever understand how transformative this experience abroad has been. It may have changed my being, maybe it hasn’t really shape me at all.
The realization of learning how to get comfortable with baring it all comes timely, in the wake of summer.
This summer, I’m turning forty.
My mom said that life gets very good after forty. I reminded her that she said the same thing when I reached thirty-five. Back then, she said this over the phone, being an entire ocean away, two months after I moved to the desert.
It was the time when the desert summoned me home; it was the time when I was forced to grow up. Not because I wanted to, but because I needed to.
And living has never been the same thereafter.
This summer I’m also returning to Colorado. I don’t have a place to live. I don’t have a job. I don’t have a car. I don’t have a mate to return to. Some of these things may have to be different upon my return.
Yet as of today, being this bare never felt so true.
Three years before his passing, David Foster Wallace shared that “it is about simple awareness — awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: “This is water, this is water.”’
Life does get better. But it isn't really ‘better’, is that living gets richer.
It may be an age thing, or not. It may be a matter of choosing. It may be a matter of awareness.
Or it may have to do with the parking of a bicycle and choosing to sweep the same steps - every - single - morning while the rest of the world continues into their peaceful slumber.
It may have to do with eating too many rice balls. Or too much Japanese candy.
Or with learning how to get naked in front of strangers.
With learning how to get naked in front of our loved ones.
Or in front of our very selves.
Or it may have to do with nothing at all.
I truly don’t know what it has to do with as each day that passes I learn this one thing: there is so much I know nothing of.
the neverending labor: that of love.