Recently I got an email from a friend I hadn't heard from in two years. She lives in the US, I live in Itabashi, and although we have much to talk about in person, we're crap at keeping in touch. Her email said:
"I just got to Tokyo! Want to grab dinner tonight?"
This happens all the time.
To communicate the significance of this, I have to give you some context. Both she and I are mothers of small children, which mean that we don't even brush our teeth spontaneously, let alone dash out for the impromptu dinners and revels of our carefree youth. Nights out--even sedate book clubs!--must be carefully choreographed weeks in advance and require babysitters and a level of precise coordination usually associated with trapeze artists.
But when she hopped over the ocean, all that disappeared for my friend. Another continent, another world, another reality.
Some people look at global nomads or 'third-culture kids'--both terms refer to people like me who spent formative years in a culture other than their own--and surmise that we are limited in our ability to plan ahead or stick to time commitments. But it's not quite that simple. In my life in Tokyo, I am a responsible mother, professional, and friend who manage to successfully juggle a staggering array of scheduling issues. But when I go to the US, I too have been known to call up a friend and go, "Hey! I'm in your world! Let's meet up!"
This is going to sound silly, but until I'm there, Chicago or Portland don't seem like real places to me. They're like a mirage, something I dreamed. The same thing happens in reverse: when I am in the US, I can hardly believe that I have a whole life in Japan teeming with people and commitments and routines. There is a strange transformation brewing on the roaring fiery arc between one airport and the next. Forget crossing an ocean; this is like crossing into an alternate universe, a passage so dramatic that it can only be compared to the transition from one element to another: emerging gasping from water into air, or feeling the shock of cold as you submerge. No matter how often I do it, it's still a little disorienting.
It's worth noting that this doesn't happen when I go to other countries on vacation. Then, I plan and coordinate and reserve things in advance like any reasonable grown-up, and while I'm there I marvel at unfamiliar delights and annoyances, but I never forget where I am, and I certainly never forget who I am.
But between Japan and the US, I sometimes get confused.
I'm still myself in both places, but in each one I'm tuned to a slightly different frequency. The only thing that triggers the re-calibration is walking through the airport and breathing in the air: Tokyo! That moist heat, the loamy smell of the air, the lingering smoke--why, it smells like home! Or Chicago--the homely vibe fueled by beer and Live music, the rough and tumble of people carried by their own momentum--does anything else even exist?
I might appear heartless if you're only in one of my worlds. Maybe I seem unmoved about leaving you, or cavalier about going off into the ethereal wilds--but you don't understand. I have a whole world waiting there for me, ready to be picked up right where I left off. And the first thing I'll pick up is usually my phone.
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