May 29th, 2005
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The boy with the green handkerchief and the red badge of courage
I was lucky enough to be able to carry the omikoshi today, since I was at work until about 11:40 last night (that’s beta). Suffice it to say today rocked and there was no better Sunday spent in recent memory. But boy, does it hurt. You can’t accurately comprehend what over a ton of wood and gold means on twenty-five mens’ shoulders. If it was just carrying, it wouldn’t be so bad, but it BOUNCES– left and right, up and down, and it leaves a mark [see picture]. But we do it with pride, and we pay respect to the village elders and to the god that lives within.
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Today I wore my first tabi (kind of like a sock but a shoe), and the full garb of a devout village partitioner, thanks to the kindness and support of Tanaka-san and her family. When on break I plied a new mother with a vast array of questions on childbirth and what it feels like to be a parent as she held her fragile, sleeping, one month old cherub.
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I vaguely remember going to a very long party afterwards, but there was drinking, cheered chugging, and eating, and Billy Joel, and then I decided to leave, since I had ridden my bike from home to Yushima (about a forty minute ride to the other side of town). So I made the long voyage back, Rt. 17 to Sotobori dori to Yasukuni dori to Ome kaido. I then got bored so I stopped at Shinjuku station and ate rice cookies and drank a Draft One while helping some drunk high school girl and her friends, all of which reminded me far too much of a typical third-year night at Virginia. I gave the poor rag doll of a person my TEPCO handkerchief, even though she was for the most part unconscious, and after about an hour of idle chit-chat and cajoling I came home, and here I am drinking mint tea and wanting to take my (long since expired) contacts out.
Japan is a blast, and a living textbook, and it will be a countrywide classroom of enlightenment and wonder until the day I die.
