journal features

back in Japan

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Tokyo, 2010.12.10

So I'm back. Already, I notice that things have changed.

I no longer feel like a resident here. Being back in "the old country" has knocked me loose from what was 100% my identity here: a foreign resident of this magnificent city. Now I feel like a tourist.

I don't know if it's partially a defense mechanism, given that I'm barred from making a life here, but it's something I was feeling even two weeks after arriving in Toronto. Like it was "high time to go home". I certainly hadn't felt any strong draw to go back to Toronto of all places, but it seems that the right thing for me to do and the route of least struggle are one.

Also: coming here really drives home just how cold it is in Canada, where we don't even think much of it. In Toronto today, there was a high of -6C and a low of -12C. Here in Tokyo, the numbers were 18C higher!

rand()m quote

It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

—Wendell Berry