Part One: (written over a year ago on Facebook)
Hiromi is coming!
by Ben Sanford on Monday, March 28, 2011 at 4:33am ·
Hiromi! YES! Last night I finally conceded defeat and canceled my Tokyo ticket. I am reading updates on the nuclear situation every day and intend to still go there to teach English whether it's in May or a year from now. That being said, today I'd been feeling upset and disappointed about it because I've been dreaming of working there for six years and seriously planning on it for almost a year (and especially the last three months of living at home). And now I don't know what I'm doing with my life. And then I was feeling guilty for feeling disappointed about it because obviously thousands more Japanese people are suddenly without homes or loved ones who are dead, and millions more are dealing with aftershocks and watching a terrifying nuclear situation with fear, and sacrificing in all sorts of ways, and feeling guilty for feeling scared because other people have it much worse than they do (and somewhere on earth other people almost unbelievably have it worse than they do, as bizarre as that seems; the world is an insane balance. Any time you want to complain about anything, someone is having a worse time or isn't even here anymore to call you out on how you should be looking on the bright side of things).
I won't be fulfilling my dream of following the Tokyo sign this Friday, but I will be in Schenectady. To anyone who knows Schenectady, this may sound like a strange thing to be excited about. The thing is, a few hours ago I found out that the best, most creative, talented, complex, beautiful and energetic musician in the universe will be playing the piano at Proctor's Theater in four days: Hiromi Uehara!!! youtube her. She's out of this world. I found out about her through a friend three years ago, and seeing her perform was like witnessing Beethoven, Jimi Hendrix and John Coltrane all being channeled by one small yet larger than life Japanese woman. I've been interested in Japan since I was 13, but Hiromi was the clincher on a necessary investigation of the Land of the Rising Sun. That journey is on hold until I (selfishly) don't have to worry about a nuclear plant and get the impression that I would be a help as opposed to a burden to the Japanese people. I assumed that was going to be the terms of my residence there anyway, but I'm a little self-conscious after one of my friends accused me of "stealing food from Japanese mouths" by still considering teaching them how to speak English in person. Nobody accused me of doing the same thing when I went to India and walked by armless and legless street children and old men and teenagers passed out dead on the sidewalk. They just looked at me like I was on crack when I gave one of them the equivalent of a dollar, changing his life not at all).
Here is the universe in a very simple yet accurate sentence: good things are happening and bad things are happening. Always. If you are experiencing the good things, recognize that and make the most of it and appreciate it. If you are experiencing the bad things, I wish you the best in confronting your dragon and enduring the battle as best you can. And helping someone who is going through bad things is a good way to keep up the good things for everybody. But just because there are bad things (and everyone experiences them to some degree from time to time, even if they're not catastrophic), it doesn't mean that you can't still pursue a good experience.
So on Friday I'm supporting Japanese culture the best way I can think of it: by giving my awareness and my money to an artist who has given the universe an experience that goes well beyond the standard connotation of a "good thing". There are no words for it. Only beautiful sounds. And that's why musicians like Hiromi are constant reminders that no matter how hard I try as a writer, I'll never have the magical power wielded by someone who organizes the universal vibrations through such a medium. Even so, every time I see her it inspires me to be better at what I do, and be more creative and outrageous and throw more energy into it, whatever it is. In the end, that's all you can do, right?
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Part Two: Written a Year Later, on Blogspot
April 23, 2012:I wrote the above Facebook note about my Japan situation and upcoming Hiromi concert about a year ago, on March 28, 2011. On March 28, 2012, I had my final lesson with my Japanese students in Tokyo. Perhaps I have some explaining to do.
I waited out the nuclear situation until mid-April, 2011, when I became very close to throwing away the idea and deciding to move to California and do who knows what. That very same day the State Department significantly downgraded the threat to Tokyo and an English school/landlord I had been talking to e-mailed me saying he desperately needed teachers. The call to adventure had resurfaced. I left home on May 3, and spent 11 months living in the Tokyo area teaching English to students ranging in age from 3 to 60. I wrote more than I ever have in my life, ate healthier than I ever have in my life and enjoyed working more than I ever have in my life. You could say that my year in Japan was the most outwardly productive year of my life, not counting my year of adventure in 2010 as the same type of productive (honestly, I felt that was more productive, but I didn't really have the financial option to ramble around after that. Japan was about perfecting positive habits in a more realistic day-to-day life when you're not constantly traveling. Plus, questing makes you tired after a while).
I learned much about myself by deconstructing my past captured in pictures that I had taken all around the world. I learned much about my own country and its Oriental opposite, and the strengths and drawbacks of each culture. Simply by removing myself from my homeland once again, I found that I was benefiting my soul with the Zen Buddhist concept of non-attachment. Having done that for a year, I can say that it's great to be back.
As an added bonus, I got to take in two Hiromi Uehara shows while in Tokyo, the second of which, the December 5 show at the Tokyo forum, may have been the best performance I've ever seen in my life (and if you know me, I've got a long list of musicians' that compete heavily for that title).
Better yet, when I returned to my home, New York, I saw my lucky #7 Hiromi show at B.B. King, and she signed autographs and posed for pictures afterward.
Now that I'm back from Japan I'm looking forward to living and working in America, my home, for the first time in 3 years. I've either been traveling, working abroad or "transitioning" at my parents' beautiful farm in upstate New York since I left New York City three years ago this month. Luckily, I've got some money saved from my time teaching in Japan, so I'm finally going to drive across the country with the best iPod playlist the universe has ever designed. Hopefully I'll settle on the coast somewhere and find a job where I get to converse with, teach and learn from people again.
Once that's settled, the book begins! I hope that turns out to be an even crazier fun-filled adventure, and that I have half as much fun expressing myself as Hiromi appears to be in that Independence Day picture.
As for you the reader, I hope that you wear a similar smile with whatever it is you choose to do now too.
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