Recently a number of people have asked me,"Why have you stayed in Japan for so long?" It is a question that I have often asked myself, never clearly resolving. Why are we still here? The reasons are numerous, of course, with no one standing above the others. But sometimes I think that maybe we are not all that different from anyone who has begun a life in a new place anywhere: you move away from what you know, but you find challenge in making the unfamiliar things familiar. Wherever you go--whether it's a foreign country or the next town over--at the beginning you will find new people that present you with strange customs, new places that force you into odd situations, and new ideas that make you uncomfortable.

So you observe at first. You watch. You laugh. You mock. You despair. And through it all, the foreign things seep into you. But you don't really know it. Until, suddenly, you realize that you are no longer on the outside. The things that at one time were unfamiliar and odd have become a part of you. You now start to expect them; you start to appreciate them; you start to assume them. And then you start to love them. That's kind of how it has been for us in Japan. We have come to love the things here.

I love the tea ceremony; how it stands on thousands of years, the same:

Rehearsals with old women dressed in kimono
sitting on their calves,
still for hours
patiently
teaching their wiggly students
in hushed voices
which hand folds the napkin
at which angle
at which distance from their body.

Ceremonies accompanied by the haunting sound
of a lonely bamboo flute
echoing between moss-splotched stones that sit,
as they have sat for centuries,
in grass gardens.
A girl with concentrated eyes and pursed lips,
dressed in a silk kimono,
trying to remember everything she was taught,
while silently preparing the tea;
the spirit of hospitality, the spirit of humility
flowing through each graceful movement.

I love the countryside:

Old wooden houses, seemingly held up
by the weeds, bushes, and trees surrounding them
(so much a part of nature are they)
nestled in clumps at the foot of green hills.

Small gardens at the side of each
tended daily by old women and men
with sun-aged skin
who carry everything on their bent backs.

Hills and mountains full of forgotten paths:
some that end in nowhere
and others that end unless you fight
through the bushes to find the lost end;
some that lead to secret places--
like small temples or old stones or abandoned houses--
and others that meander without end
from one mountain to the next
through enchanting bamboo forests.

I love the seasons:

The sign of spring in the cherry blossom trees.
Hanami parties under the pink blossoms,
that get plucked by the gentle spring breeze
to float and fall all around us.

The vivid greens of summer.
Swimming in cold river pools
to escape the thick heat.

The delicious fruit of fall
apples, melon, persimmon, pears
so copious they are almost free.
The sweet smell of rice plants, cut.
And the harvest scene:
Setting sun lights harvested rice plants
hanging over wooden racks
standing in the middle of fields of stalks,
turning drying plants an orangey-brown
against the sun-soaked green of background hills.

The cleansing outside cold of winter.
And the winter inside:
Low tables with too many legs underneath
fighting for the warmth of the kotatsu;
Low tables with too many arms above
fighting for the nabe pot in the middle
which spits hot soup from its boiling bubbles.

I love the language:

Polite, Poetic.
Its letters the shapes of old ideas.

I love the food:

Simple tastes
in elaborate presentation.

I love the people:

The gift giving people.
The people who live, always
in awareness of the other.
The people who have given me
eyes and a heart for Japan.

I could go on. I should go on. But anyway, Japan has become my home. I love this place.