Immigrant dreams of Japan

A recent immigrant to US reminisces about her time spent in Japan.

It’s a rainy October afternoon. My fourth month living in the States. The sky is covered in a blanket of grey. If you didn't know that the sky is naturally blue or that there is a possibility of having white fluffy voluminous clouds floating across the sky, you’d think that this is the natural state of things. Flat light, rain and leaves slowly metamorphosing into different colors. Sitting on a bus in Pittsburgh and looking out the window, beautiful Oakland buildings passing by. Like a movie scene where the main character is looking out the window. Except that this is no movie and I’m no main character. This is real life with time passing by within a blink of your eye. And there’s no way to turn it back. 

Cathedral of learning, Pitt university campus, Carnegie library. All moving so fast. Seeing such a lively university environment made me reminisce about my own university days. I am still 27 today. It’s not like it was such a long time ago. But 28 is around the corner, and I realized that the last time I was in Japan was four years ago. 

I think one’s heart gets scattered around the world throughout the years. And there’s a piece that’s left in every place you visit. In every conversation you have. In every bond you make. Every joke you share. You leave a piece of yourself scattered everywhere. And, I wonder, at the end of your life, what do you have left? 

How can it be that you just go places and come back the same person as you were? 

Whenever I think about Japan, I feel like half of my heart has been torn out and left there in Musashi-sakai station in the suburbs of Tokyo. Floating somewhere in the overcrowded Chuo line. My heart is  floating around millions of people taking it every single day commuting to work. They’re oblivious to the fact that it’s there right next to them. Sometimes I feel like my heart can feel their yawns in the early morning or sighs and the aura of their naps in the  evening. I feel like I can just see someone hanging onto the handle and swinging back and forth, left and right half-asleep with a suitcase in their hand. Someone sitting on the heated seat is in the middle of a nap, holding their purse on their lap, and about to let their head fall on the person’s sitting next to them shoulder. The person would lightly lift their shoulder to get the message across to the sleepyhead. The sleepy-one would then suddenly wake-up, apologize with a slight bow and close their eyes once more. In the rush of Chuo-sen my heart floats somewhere in one of these carts. It travels through each of them. My body’s not there, I’m 6000 miles away, but my essence is locked in there. 

Or perhaps, a part of my heart snuck into the speakers where the sound of “stay behind the yellow line” comes from, and never left. It can hear each announcement about trains arriving and leaving. About platform numbers and delays. And it travels along with sound through the spaces in the stations. Shinjuku, Nakano, Koenji, Asagaya, Ogikubo, Nishi-Ogikubo, Kichijoji, Mitaka. Next station, Musashi Sakai. 

Or maybe my heart is left in all the different routes and streets I used to take my bike through to get from my university to the grocery store or to the local ramen shop. It’s somewhere in the air along with the steam coming out of the bowls filled with miso ramen. 

My body is here in Pittsburgh, on a bus going to Oakland. But my soul is somewhere in the far East. I wonder if many people feel like that during their life? Like they're here, but they’re not really here. That they’re scattered across the world. 

“You alright?”

“Yeah. All good.” I reply. 

“We’re getting off here.”

“That was quick.”

It was a quick ride. But I felt like I was lost in my own thoughts and a special world. 

At the moment you never pay attention to these things or details. But a few years go by, and you seem to be able to recall every sound, smell or color from those days. This life is really fascinating.