It's been almost two week since the big earth quake in japan but the after shocks are as present as ever. In between bouts of disaster amnesia and borderline trauma, the logistics of life fill in the gaps. I've gone to work twice after the quake. Standing in front of a huge picturesque traditional looking lantern trying to get people to ride a two wheeled, grandiose rickshaw, with me at the nose, driving and guiding the city, is certainly innocuous but most likely inappropriate, considering the suffering that is happening a day trip away. But at the same time, the company exists, tourists still arrive, though in dramatically lower numbers, and the drive for profit remains unaffected. Or perhaps the facade of business as usual is a way of coping with the enormity of the disaster. Whatever the case, incongruity drifts in the air as the haunting accuracy of normalcy seeps into whatever cracks and rifts that were caused by the earth quake, but i feel the wounds are too deep for the ordinariness of the past to just return, its belongingness is unquestioned. I feel tense, i feel like i need to feel tense, but i'm also relaxed and enjoying life, which tinges life with guilt, but what does one do? how does one react? the flowers are faithfully blooming to spring's gentle suggestions. green leafs sing to wind as grass grows tall. although the laws of security and the myth of civilization's powers have been violently subverted, the laws of nature and life go on unaffected, or even fortified.

It all started friday the 11th of March, and the progression of events, for lack of a better comparison, really feels like a movie, a chain reaction of disastrous events that seem better placed in the realm of imagination than happening right now, in my life, at this time, on this earth. It started off as a tremble, a gentle nudge to the subconscious, it could have been a truck passing by, someone DDRing in a neighboring room or just another unobjectionable earth quake that happens so often in japan, quietly appearing and disappearing like transient clouds that temporarily halt the warm gaze on a winter day. After i realized it was longer than a quickie passing by, i ran out of the house and by then the shaking was increasing in violence. once i got outside it seemed like someone was violently shaking the ground, the houses, and everything around. it seemed like the whole world was going to burst, and a whole range of emotions, thoughts, images just coursed through my head. when the exceptional nature of the quake started to dawn on me, i felt like the world as i knew had just ended. that buildings would crash around me, families separated and the fort of comfort that my routine had built was about to crumble. it seemed like the quake lasted for a minute or so, which in terms of experience felt literally like it would never end. i had never felt anything like that, that strong and that long, and while i stood there seeing the shaking, hearing the rattling, feeling the violence, i quietly and hopelessly waited for the preordained wreckage to come out from hiding, as inevitable as dusk. as the gravity of the situation turned the playful expression of nearby construction workers to that of fear, the shaking finally subsided. right then it seemed like disaster's protruded calamitous claws clenching onto my consciousness were being gradually protracted back beyond the horizon, and that slowly safety and security would return. feeling shaken up and afraid of returning in doors, i walked around the neighborhood talked to some people around, and as i was walking around i visited the local gardening store and saw spring's burgeoning welcoming party in the making. the scents, the colors, the shapes and the visibly tangible transformations brought a welcome respite to the urgent palpitations triggered by the quake.

much has happened since, and i often find myself feeling guilty for not being present with the suffering that is happening, especially as i live my life as if nothing happened. all the wasted time on the internet, the ingratitude and discontent shown to people, the petty concerns dominating my thoughts, all of these weigh heavily on my conscience, because so much was lost to so many, but i who have lost naught, fritter away what i have been so blessed with... and that for me is exactly what i need to change. With taiko boot camp on the horizon i will definitely be restricted in what i am allowed to waste, but until then what i can do is truly love the fact that i am alive and able to spend blessed time with people and all these moments around. love thick with emotion to all.

Spring Rebirth part Deux

Last i recall, spring seemed to be slowly crawling out of the basement and it seemed that the days of my makeshift winter clothes were numbered. i could feel the earth's orbit inching in towards the sun, awakening frozen memories of the soft texture of shorts and t-shirts on my skin. that is until today when snow gently waded down the sky, a graceful breast stroke towards earth, with utter contempt towards propriety of place and season. Three hours later the sun is lazily doing its thing, wrapping everything but shadows in a dreamy haze and the out of season snow but a puddle of the past.

The new year came, anxiety and hope trailed close behind, stayed for a while, and disappeared unnoticed, and here i am in feburary(well now march since it took slightly less than forever to finish writing this), living in a strange daze, being guided through each day by my footsteps that carves through the the dense tokyo pedestrian traffic with more confidence than i have towards my life. it's a whole lotta new situations for me right now; i'm living in a new city, in a new house with someone i recently met, working at a new job, and counting down down the days for the impending future that's peeking right around the corner of april. which i guess, is something of a constant in my life, but this fact never settles quietly. there was a point where all of this was the ideal outcome, the proverbial plan A, but the fact that it all materialized so smoothly and accurately is kind of frightening, while i also feel responsibility to enjoy it, because i did hope for it at some point. anyways, that's too many broad strokes without enough detailing so let me start from 2011's ground zero.

2010 was supposed to be the year that i took huge steps towards developing and exploring my spiritual and artistic self through going to a taiko apprenticeship on an island called Sado in Japan. unfortunately, it seems that i was not sufficiently prepared and ended up using 2010 as material to construct a springboard to reattempt my escapade to the island. more often than not 2010 was spent brooding rather than moving, and for the most part, was definitely a year that i was not particularly proud of. nevertheless, i guess time always keeps its satchel of discoveries close at hand if you know which armpit to look under, and no doubt i had many valuable experiences regardless of my disposition to shrug them off. 2010 took me from selling vegetables at a ghostly vegetable market that had more staff than customers, to boarding a cruise ship around the world as an interpreter, to a 10 day meditation retreat of 100 plus hours of sitting and meditating, where i also learned to observe rather than feel pain, and then finally to the southern island of japan volunteering at a Eco-lodge/village kind of place, working harder than i have most of my life and still being treated like more a piece of shit than i ever have been.

but all that is behind me now cause i'm a proud rickshaw puller now, the all encompassing tour-guide that serves as transporter, historian, cultural insider and of course generic tour guide with limited knowledge but bountiful authority. but all this will be but a fleeting memory because i'm finally going to the long awaited taiko apprenticeship from april!! it's been almost 2 years since i first found out about the taiko apprenticeship in India when i was one day dejectedly surfing the web for some source of inspiration. (i guess surfing the web sometimes is productive!!) it surely has been a long journey since then but the thought that set roots two years ago is finally sprouting. but there was some serious fertilizing that had to happen before all this happened.

going back to the two day exam that i endured last year, or more like survived, was not a pleasant thought. just thinking about standing in front of the 15 to 20 interviewers again, coming face to face with the people who were accepted from last year's applicant pool, heading into the three minute self-promotion time being watched by 40 or more extremely talented people without having prepared anything, going through the examination process that thoroughly crushed me like play-doh is done to by kids, especially without really having done anything that would position myself any better than the previous year, was a pretty nerve wrecking experience, complete with a full assortment of the heebie-jeebies. leading up to the exam, my feelings were all over the place, as a side of me felt comfortably confident about my chances, while the other logically identified all the reasons why i would not be accepted.

amidst all this i headed into the island of Sado that welcomed me with its below zero temperature and its white velvet snow that gently veiled everything in sight. Though the temperature was lower, the weather more calamitous and my confidence a little less, overall i had a pretty happy disposition. the inn that i stayed in prior to the exam had 3 other applicants and we all shared our worry, fears and hopes. i got a buzz cut from a local barber, and although i already haggled him down, he gave me the extra service of shaving my beard AND cleaning my ear! but most importantly he assured me i'll get in and that we would meet again in april, while he also gave me back change when i paid the agreed upon price. little as all this seems, it did result in me heading into the examination loving life and people, and being a little more relaxed and comfortable with my own skin existing in this world.

this year the hard wood floor seemed much colder than last year. white streams of vapor climbed to the ceiling each time we opened our mouth. the warm up drills and exercises was as strenuous and torturous as before but somehow it seemed a lot more bearable and even enjoyable. i imagined that seeing the faces of those who were accepted the year before would make me feel a mixture of embarrassment and envy, but all in all i sincerely felt happy to see them. unlike last year where i felt the other applicants were my enemies vying for limited space, where i secretly listed in my head why each one should not be accepted, this year i genuinely felt a certain love for all that were there and i sincerely wanted everyone to be accepted, and imagined how great it would be to spend our next year in that place with each other. rather than competing with the others i felt like we were enacting the future, sampling what in april would be our reality. where i felt envy the year before i found respect. where i felt contempt and superiority the year before i discovered love and compassion. and where i felt fear i experienced joy and happiness of having a second chance.

although there were moments of awkwardness and fear, of wanting to run away and forget it all, i also saw all my insecurities in the others as well, and ultimately i let myself believe in the thought that whether it be a confidently talented self, nervous self or in between self, yourself is all you have, so why worry about what you're not when you can calmly start from where you are, and enjoy what you have. this state of mind seemed to work well. now, more than a month has passed since the exam, and less than a month remains until i go to the island, but i'm still trying to relive the enjoyment that i found in that situation of extreme duress. in a place of comfort and ease, i seem to find more enjoyment in finding imperfections rather than enjoying the imperfect perfection of all that has brought me here, and where here will next take me. what all this means to me right now is, it's been gone for a while now, but i can feel the loving happy magic knocking on my heart's front door. i still don't feel the tingly steady vibrations that unconditional love gives, but i can feel the gentle swell approaching. just in time for spring's welcoming warmth. i truly hope that all of you are feeling love and giving love, because for me that may be all that matters. but for now, off to the island i go. yipee yay yay yo!