Before “Wow!” Becomes Wallpaper
Okay. I’ve been in Japan for 50 days. It’s time to start writing this blog I promised. But first, let me address another, now broken, commitment.
Sometimes I make declarations to my friends and family in an effort to push myself. When I originally set out to write this blog, I announced my intention to break up with social media.
At the time, I was in a toxic relationship with Instagram. I felt locked in a compulsive pattern of scrolling incessantly, comparing myself to others, and being contrived in my posts because of a looming awareness of who would see them — an ex-boyfriend, an ex-boss, etc.
This is not a unique phenomenon. This is the pervasive dark side of social media. Instagram is a brag board. Influencers exist to pander, not inspire. So, no one gets the real scoop on each others’ internal lives and most of us are left feeling some degree of loneliness and inadequacy. If your life is actually as consistently praiseworthy and celebratory as your photos, you’re in the minority.
I feared I would spend my precious time in Japan glued to my phone and not present to this amazing experience. A blog felt like an antidote to this possibility*. It was a way to share my adventure with a small, hand-selected audience with whom I had mutual care and concern.
When traveling, the mundane can be magnificent.
That said, when I got to Japan, I had a lot to express. When traveling, the mundane can be magnificent.
Neither the ubiquitous seaweed wrapped rice triangles nor the vending machines from whence they come are ubiquitous where I’m from.
Something as banal as the pedestrian crosswalk button registers as a rare alien creature.
Here, it is common for senior citizens and mothers packing two children to use a bicycle as their primary mode of transportation.
Teenagers working at Starbucks are a far cry from their American counterparts, bowing graciously with profuse thanks when you order and abruptly commencing to wipe your table as soon as you leave. The list goes on.
The number of capture-worthy moments is vast. Blogs take time and effort. Social media is instant. So, I got back on.
I don’t want to be that person, that American.
Even my loneliness has been a source of fascination for me.
The frustration of learning to use my all-Japanese rice cooker, among other more crucial household appliances puts me in touch with daily luxuries I take for granted.
Walking home for an hour at night in the rain instead of taking a 15-minute bus because I can’t read the bus schedule forces me to experience the sheer novelty of feeling safe walking alone on a dark and quiet street. (Every woman should come to Japan at least once to get a taste of the sweet, sweet absence of nighttime assault anxiety.)
Avoiding places where I’ll have to speak at all gives new meaning to the word isolation. I feel embarrassed when I can’t communicate. I feel like exactly who other countries think we are: entitled to our common tongue, demanding accommodation. I don’t want to be that person, that American.
Social media feels less like a distraction and more like a portal for immediate connection.
Right now, this is all fresh. Experience tells me that I will adjust. “Wow!” will become wallpaper.
In this condition, with these circumstances, social media feels less like a distraction and more like a portal for immediate connection and a way to capture and commemorate these little moments as they arise.
Instagram Stories feel like pages of a scrapbook while my Instagram feed is the best-of/photo-album-worthy stuff. Good ol’ Facebook gives my family and their friends a peek into my world, which apparently brings them joy. I don’t want to be overly curated, but I don’t want to keep these photos to myself or just my inner circle. I want to share.
While blogs can feel like one-way communication, save the occasional comment, social media is a conversation. I’m hungry for conversation. So, why not?
That’s the whole thing with creativity. It takes space. It takes time.
Fast forward to this moment — I have since learned to how to get around with flow and grace, navigating trains, buses, rice cookers, washer machines, grocery stores, Japanese utility bills and bank accounts.
I have Wi-Fi in my apartment, which was an epic tale of trials and tribulations involving a payphone and more being outside in the rain.
I have a nourishing morning routine, including the writing I’m doing right now as well as studying Japanese, made possible by living alone and working at night.
I even have a handful of budding friendships!
In retrospect, I wish I had had the bandwidth to write more when it was harder. But that’s the whole thing with creativity. It takes space. It takes time.
The darker the thought, the richer the soil.
Before I left Maine, I exchanged tarot card readings with my friend, Mischa. At the center of her reading for me was the Hermit card.
Even though I teach English to kids everyday and am starting to socialize with actual adults, I am ultimately alone here in Japan.
I commute 2–4 hours round trip to work. I come home to an empty apartment. I wake up alone. I don’t yet speak the language.
I am, in many ways, isolated. Like Japan, I am an island.
The Zhouyi says “Let go and make your prison cell into your hermitage.” I am, by no means, in prison. Being here is a lifelong dream come true and having the time to stay as long as I want is nothing short of a miracle. However, the Hermit card and this whole journey feel like an assignment.
I am being ordered by wisdom to wake up early and take these precious yet abundant hours before I have to go to work to shed something old and grow something new.
Anytime I catch myself lost in thought about the past (my karma’s greatest hit), all I have to do is open my eyes and see that I am in Japan.
Then, I imagine my worries and regrets are compost for the seeds I’m planting in this chapter of my life. I send them downward toward the earth. “The darker the thought, the richer the soil,” I tell myself. That seems to do the trick.
*As it turns out, my biggest screen distraction here is not actually social media, but the availability of all eleven seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race on Netflix, which is not the case in the U.S. What I did to deserve this monumental boon from the Universe is anyone’s guess.
