It’s been such a long time since I’ve used this thing.. tap, tap, tap, 1, 2, 3… ahem, ahem, ahem. Hello.

My internet is finally back after moving to a new apartment and having to wait two weeks for the local Yahoos to start up service again. Also, I took a few weeks off for local travel and another week to just plain catch up with folks I managed to click a bit with near the end of my 1st contract year. The end of the yearly cycle has also meant, unfortunately, that a few close friends have now returned to the western hemisphere. Perhaps too cleverly I scheduled my period of travel away from Hamada during much of the final goodbyes and apartment/school switchovers, so by the time I checked back into the ‘hood, the old folks were gone and I was left only with Total Difference.

Change and life have become synonymous enough that I ought to be used to the entire process by now, but I’ll still miss ‘em.

As I marched straight into August, I also braced myself for some further shock and despondency due with the recognition that I’d willfully extended a slightly restricted state of existence for another twelve months… with language limitations, stagnant job situation, shallow dating pool, and remnants of 60s gender values all inclusive. Getting to and past July 30th, the anniversary of my initial arrival, really hadn’t been the smoothest process. More correctly, I filled quite a few months with a number of doubts that lead to a few mini-meltdowns and to Oh Shit! What Am I Doing Here? Oh My God, I Signed On For Another Year! I Must Be Crazy and Am Totally Putting My Life On Hold For No Good Reason! type freakouts of capital letter proportions. As blogging clearly shows, the past five years have provided fertile headspace for a lot of self-questioning. My mid to late 20s period is starting to get really old.

Yet, despite all the buildup, anticipation, quarterlife drama, whathaveyou.. I came back to Hamada, to the solitude and slowness of countryside suburban life, to my own approach to how life runs and what I secretly think feels normal, just to figure out that, aside from a few sad notes of absence here and there, I actually felt fine.

In fact, I felt comfortable.

Maybe it’s the new apartment. As mentioned earlier, I recently moved to a new place, much more spacious and closer to the ocean than the previous one. Residing in The Box in Chicago did wonders to acclimate me to SMALL and DARK as possibilities for daily living, but man oh man, to have multiple rooms and light(!) during the day is tremendous. I still even get one room with tatami mats, so there are qualities of what I liked from the last apartment intact.

Here are a few shots taken in the immediate vicinity on a gray day. Not all gray days are bad and this one felt quite nice. I can literally walk 30 seconds from my door to get to the water.

Narrow road leading to the waterfront.

Row of other houses lined along the sea. I don’t know for certain what to call those stone blockades that look like jacks, or whether they’re meant to break the waves or what.

More water and a jacks bridge in the middle of the bay. There’s a memorial of some sort on the right. Not sure dedicated to who yet.

Viewed from the 2nd floor of my building, in front of my door.

A nice cementary nearby (you can see it better if you click). It’s not scary or unusual for the dead to reside close to the living in Japan.

Other changes have happened since the start of August as well. My mental state lightened with the increased luminescence, and I’ve just felt more at ease again both in and outside the apartment. I started trying out more Japanese speaking with more Japanese acquaintances and friends. Even certain people who I haven’t felt too much fondness towards and had been thickening my skin in preparation for their presence have turned out not so bad, just given more time to see their better side.

Maybe there’s a maturation process that’s miraculously happened over this past year. Whatever it is, as long as I can keep it up once school officially starts and I’m back to the daily grind of what I can and can’t do with language teaching, I feel like things will be okay. Got to also start the wheels-a-grinding in switching my career path and planting myself into the proper job before I get back to California.

For now, it’s off to meet my sumo-fanatic friend for a bike ride and tea. Yay, I’ll finally get to see some sumo within the upcoming year. Hoo ya! Slap happy fat man action.

And you know, really all this time, I was just trying to figure out a way to insert that last sentence.