No Longer Home

On the plane we watch ourselves propel down the runway on a huge TV screen, watch the earth drop until houses shrink and clouds drift over. It's already the future in Tokyo-- the morning of Nov. 24^th, 2004.

A strange meal at 11PM. We already had lunch and dinner--so this is lunch #2, or midnight breakfast? Seafood pasta with fruit and green tea and a sweet bun.

Two cups of orange juice, one cup of apple, two cups of seaweed-ey green tea, one small bottle of water later, and we're almost there. Japanese stewardesses demonstrate "relaxing stretching exercises" while Keith watches sumo wrestling and I listen to the Cure.

These are the things I remember--a fiftyish Japanese lady wearing a lime mink coat, fuschia lipstick, mule high heels covered in pearls. She was on the plane with us from NYC and helped us take the right train from Keisei to Ikebukuro.

On the train from Narita to Tokyo--green everywhere, clothes hanging to dry. Schoolgirls in blazers, plaid scarves, unbelievably short plaid skirts. Kids on a seesaw, huge Coca Cola billboard and still a haddock sky listening to Spiritualized. A parking garage full of bikes. Playgrounds and the sky a circle of flame orangepink.

The walk from Ikebukuro to our hotel down tiny alley-like streets with little vans and kids on bikes and boys on scooters. Every couple feet, at least three vending machines full of coffees and teas and juices and cigarettes and beers. The floor of our $100/night hotel room entirely covered in tatami mats. A tiny TV, an even tinier bathroom. Pokemon telling the weather on the news.

In the bathroom at Damaru restaurant there was a tiny tree growing out of the lid of the toilet where a spigot came out, continuously watering...Uniformed men sweeping leaves off sidewalks with homemade looking brooms. Women in kimonos with white socks and wooden sandals.White surgical masks over faces, even on fashionable teens. Little girls in sailor uniforms. Pachinko parlors. Babies in bike baskets. Revolving sushi in Shibuya—it was Thanksgiving and this was the only deal in Tokyo. And everything crazy Christmas. Trees covered in popping blue lights. Eating my parent's homemade oatmeal cookies all over Tokyo. No one eats on the streets and no cell phones ring on clean subways. The "Casual, Sporty, Lazy" shop in Ikebukuro. So many schoolgirls in uniforms. The girls' plaid skirts just below their bums. And all in penny loafers and knee socks--one girls' are navy with tiny pink playboy bunnies. Tokyo a mix of the neonest of neon, crazily rich dressed kids, and cleanliness. Uniformed men vacuumed subway floors and scrubbed under windows on their hands and knees with toothbrushes. Ultimately, I freaked out in Shinjuku--Tokyo's Times Square. After being dizzy from jet-lag and nauseated on weak knees by countless bowls of plastic food outside restaurants, McDonalds became my savior for the first and last time in my life. The cheeseburger and fries tasted American all the way as I looked down on thousands of people exiting a stadium, my head swimming. Soon, I was able to descend back into the heart of consumerism where high-pitched girl voices blasted on street corners from invisible speakers.

After my transaction at the currency exchange in Narita airport, a staid older man who worked there said, "For you--we were open yesterday," and handed me a bottle of Evian water....?

Our last morning, on the train to Narita--7:30 AM and everyone asleep, heads falling forward--the girl next to me leaning into my shoulder. And there was a boy about eleven in his school suit standing up, eyes closing,  his cheek smeared on the window of the door, his face so pure and innocent and he slouched, jerked awake.