We left the United States the other day, after an emotionally beautiful and heart-heavy Father’s Day weekend saying goodbye to our daughters. Tena and I have spent the last year selling nearly everything we own and downsizing. Sufficiently minimizing our worldly belongings to fit into carry-on luggage. Freed of excess baggage, America in the spotlight and finally, the rear view mirror. Like driving away from your drunk and drug addicted Uncle Sam’s place after a long and debaucherous holiday weekend, hoping he’s not standing under the porch light making another lewd gesture.
We lost a day by traveling west to get east and landed just outside Tokyo after a long but luxurious flight on a Japanese airline that was thoughtful enough to outfit their planes with enough leg room for a giraffe and food for a lion. Took the train through the countryside where I found myself excitedly scanning the horizon expecting Godzilla to be busting through the trees and powerlines and slam dunking fighter jets. No such luck.
Instead we rolled in and dropped everything we own into a perfect room the size of an outhouse in Shinjuku to begin blending into this mass of humanity 38 million strong. We swam upstream on sidewalks completely inadequate for the volume they carry, until we figured out the order of things. Perfectly chaotic, we found the best home cooked beef and broccoli ever prepared in a basement kitchen. When they told us “cash only”, yet Yen-less, we dug out the last of Uncle Sam’s simoleons, some loose change and a couple pills of pocket lint and still came up a buck short. They didn’t care, like Aunt Agnes, they were just happy to feed us. Gracious and gentle, if not slightly subdued, we’ve been met with nothing short of kindness and generosity. Unfathomable how they’ve maintained a culture of kindness in a city of 38 million where women can walk alley ways after dark. Probably the same ideology that builds a plane with legroom, gives first class service and sells tickets at reasonable prices for flights that routinely leave and arrive on time. Tuned in, in Tokyo!
June 19th 2025
