Where have you been?

In just two days from now, four friends will be arriving from 6,000 miles away, to spend a month with me in Nebraska.

Ne-Bra-Ska. Is that REALLY where I live?

There's a photo on the wall in my cubicle: it's of Hisayo and I, standing in a cafeteria on my final day at Senshu University. I'm wearing a pink shirt and tie. She's wearing a skirt and black shirt. We're hugging.

When I look at that photo I remember everything about that place so clearly, like I'm just stepping into that picture and walking around campus, back down that big hill... all the way to the bottom where the dormitory waits.

It's not so much the memory of the place or the people, or even the nostalgia that comes with recollecting a particularly funny or emotional moment. It's more like a deluge of images rushing into my mind so fast that there is no real "memory" but only a feeling. A feeling that resonates in my body.

Goosebumps and tingly hairs and dialated pupils. Foggy eyed stares and fast beating hearts... my body is remembering the feeling; ringing like a tuning fork struck on the edge of a table.

It's been on my mind a lot lately.

Last night I had a talk with Takayuki.

He's coming soon.

He says I've become a lot worse at speaking his language.

He's right.

My fingers tap tap tappity tap away at the keyboard and after 20 minutes I sort of come to the vague realization that, "Hmm, I'm actually reading this..."

It's amazing the kind of feelings seeing a simple character, or hearing a certain phrase can invoke. Just looking at it flash across the screen--even in a context wholly unrelated to any kind of memory--can bring out that psychosomatik response, that fluttering heartbeat and that shortness of breath.

Maybe it's not the memory, so much.

Maybe it's more anticipation.

That, "I'm going back," feeling slowly solidifying itself in your body's core because you know, well, it's going to happen and you are just going to LET it happen and--oh my god--will it be like it was before because that was just the greatest thing ever?? But it can never be like that CAN it? Not a second time around, no. Different of course... but how and who... will I meet? And... oh it's so wonderful and exciting and all those words we use to describe those great adventures before we've really thought them through, when they are still just ideas rolling around in our guts.

But there's more to looking at a photo than all that.

Because I think a lot about the HERE and NOW when I look at that cafeteria photo with those little ceiling lights poking out from around the edges.

The here and now that CAN'T exist over there.

The here and now that I love more than anything... and oh, why can't we just compound the two. Juxtapose that place--over there--and this place, right here, and make some kind of...

Well...

Then here wouldn't be HERE and THERE wouldn't be THERE and we wouldn't have hummingbird heartbeats when we let our minds drift to the places our bodies ache for.

Part of adventure is giving up the routine that you love, and giving up the security that you've come to know. Destroying the foundation you've built and not looking back. It's pulling your roots out and just moving for a bit, knowing that home is where you will come when it's all over and where you will piece your body back together... where you will come and wait until that restlessness drives you to do it all again.

Travel teaches us that nothing is forever.

And with that knowledge anything is possible, I think.

Because you can fight it and deny it and tell yourself whatever you want to pacify the doubts and prolong the pain.

But we are what we are, and what will be will be.

In the past few weeks I've taught myself to simply hold my head like I always do, and move forward, one foot after the other, because by trying to control something, you give up control of everything.

There is always hope.

And who knows what will happen?

And am I even talking about Japan?

And am I even talking about anything?

Don't worry.

... I'm talking to myself again.

So today Google Maps finally added street maps of Japan to go along with their satellite maps! Here's where I lived last semester and here's the Kenshukan! Then there's Gyoda in Saitama (where Meg lives), a place my friends always called "the fucking country." But you can look at the street map and be the judge of that yourself...

And of course the various parks that I went to for flower viewing.

Tokyo Tower, Roppongi Hills and the Rainbow Bridge--All more impressive in person, but still neat from this perspective.

This all serves to give you an idea of how SMALL (geographically) Tokyo really is.

To people who can't read Japanese: sorry but this might be a bit confusing.

It's weird because I'm not homesick for Japan.

I'm not going to say I'm homesick.

Because I'm not.

But there's definitely something that is making my heart hurt. Something really tugging at it hard. Every now and then--maybe when I'm driving or walking or just about to lay down for bed--I get this sort of dull pain in my chest that just sucks the air right out of my lungs.

It's when a suffocating flood of images, emotions and memories just stream right back into the front part of my brain and start exploding like fireworks.

No memory in particular.

No real person in particular.

Just a sort of overall feeling.

And then I catch my breath and listen to my heart beating so much faster than normal, and I ask myself, "What if I hadn't come home?"

How long can you trick yourself to believe something that's not true?

And it's making my heart hurt looking at all those old pictures.

I'll post some new one's soon.

Sitting in this office, thinking about my friends, thinking about the trains, the city, just... everything... Even simply seeing an e-mail dated from March... it's forcing me to remember and it's getting me down.

I guess I'm back to my normal life now. Almost.

Back in Lincoln.

Back in my old room.

Back to work again, too.

It's weird being here, and seeing the sky so clearly... the buildings so small, the grass so green--everywhere--and the cars so fast.

The sun sets so late here.

And then I sleep.

And then there's my friends.

And then there's Sara.

And then I'm happy.

Alone in America.

New photos in the gallery.

Sigh.