Nonplussed

After spending the holidays State-side, I realized two things. The first I realized while I was back in San Francisco, standing in line at Peet's Coffee among San Franciscans, whom I generally regard as being on the polite and friendly side. It is this: Tokyo-ites have the amazing and admirable ability to co-exist in a way that I find truly inspiring. The secret lies in the fact that they, at least seemingly, are simply nonplussed by everyday occurrences that inevitably stem from living in a city with such a dense population. The distinction between what I have observed here and what I myself have practiced and have observed elsewhere was made clear to me by Nick recently. When everyday mishaps or accidents occur or almost occur (e.g., two moms almost crashing on their mamacharis), people don't just let it go; rather, they don't let it bother them for even one millisecond. It is a complete and utter nonevent. It doesn't even appear to enter into their consciences to let it ruffle their feathers for one instant. Now I will admit having days, usually when commuting by public transportation but sometimes while driving a car and well even sometimes on the bike too, like Dostoyevsky's Underground Man, I have become completely irrational about people getting in "my" way and consequently firmed up my elbows and shoulders to prove my point against all those who dare push up against me in the subway or walking down the street (or just thinking really bad thoughts about people while driving). Having become conscious of such ridiculous inner thoughts I have learned to exhale and forgive when people bump into me or whatever. Like Camus' Clamence, I become righteously patient and forgiving. This, however, requires me to take in the incident and subsequently, let it go. It also still has me operating under the thinking that it is my space to begin with. So I started asking myself, who is better off -- the Underground Man who lets it ruin his day (life really), Clamence who thinks he is a saint, or the Tokyo-ite who has the free head space to think about other things with his time? So I started practicing living the Tokyo way but even this is flawed as it requires me to think about the event and my reaction to it. Am I forever flawed or might I one day reach this state of non-perturbed existence?

The second thing I realized almost immediately upon our return and that is that the very same aspect that I love about Tokyo is what makes it so difficult for me to live here. It is, for the most part anyway, completely orderly and organized. For example, the same Christmas wreath I was so proud to have hung on our front door early in the season (take that neighbor who commented about my lack of Halloween decorations!) stood out like a sore thumb upon our return as all of the Christmas decorations in the entire city had vanished and been replaced by kadomatsu -- lucky charms placed by every home's entrance for the New Year. There are rules and rituals and customs and norms that everyone apparently knows, understands and accepts. It is the reason the trains are on time, the streets are clean and everyone runs their asses off if they think they might be late for something. Clearly it is a bit difficult to be entirely organized when you have a two year-old throwing herself on the floor in a full-blown terrible two tantrum and a nine month-old screaming her head off if mom is out of her field of vision for one second (the bus ride home from Narita airport after an 11 hour flight was fun by the way). Good thing another custom here is to avoid eye contact (thank you samurai era) so we don't have to deal with irritated people glaring at us. Or maybe they are simply not irritated to begin with. Could it be?