Iron It Out

This morning was the kind of morning where I, very conciously and with a great concentration and effort, ironed more wrinkles into my shirt than out of it.

Oh, I thought, it's not going to be that kind of day, is it?

It's Wednesday, midway through a short week. Honto, when the Japanese decide to take a holiday, it's not the Friday or Monday off, it's a three-day week bracketed by two three-day weekends. Monday was some kind of holiday. Friday is some kind of holiday. ("Respect for the Aged Day"? Psh. Why do we need to have a day to do that? And, actually, the students called it "Respect The Old Man's Day." And, sad to say, there is no way to correct that English without changing an entire culture, I think.) Not that old men don't deserve respect...but...doesn't everyone deserve respect?

I spritz the shirt with liquid from some bottle that a previous tenant left behind. There's the picture of a freshly ironed shirt on the front of the bottle and the word "a-i-ron' spelled out in katakana. Must be for ironing, I thought. It seems to work about as well as water anyway. And it helps to set the freshly ironed-in wrinkles quite nicely.

It's Wednesday, which means that yesterday was Tuesday, which means that last night was my discussion group. The topic was "decentralized management." One of the questions was about whether or not the students had or wanted to have a clear job description. A woman answered yes. I asked why and she told me that she was sick of cleaning up the conference room and serving tea at meetings. Maybe, she said, if there were a clear job description, someone else would have to help out with these tasks. It was clear from the context that the "someone else" might be one of the many men she works with. I couldn't keep the look of disgust off my face at this news that women are still expected to do these demeaning little jobs. I shook my head. "Come to America, Nariko," I said. Home of the "Want tea? It's over there. Help yourself." (But then I have to keep reminding myself that the American dream leaves some of us, those of us who are brown and poor mostly, cleaning up the conference rooms after the same men and women who can pour their own damn tea, but who wouldn't deign to, say, vacuum and dust the room after the meeting--not on a regular basis anyway.)

I ironed another wrinkle into my shirt.

Damn.

Night before last, I finished the Chandler novel I bought in Ebisu, burning through it with the regret that I feel when I know I should savor a book and yet can't make myself slow down the reading. It was Chandler at his best and at his worst. I was disgusted at his thrown-away ending, but I wanted about six or eight more chapters to savor.

In many ways, that's how I feel about my time so far in Japan: I should savor it, make it last. I can't slow it down. It's life at it's best and worst. I'll be disgusted at what I've thrown away--the time I've wasted--and, when I leave, I'll want six or eight more lifetimes so that I might spend them here.