Autumn

These Aren’t The Demons You’re Looking For

At the gym, Mori, the fabulous trainer, stops me. “Brenda,” he begins seriously. I nod and wait expectantly, trying to don a familiar and friendly face. He pauses. He is translating his thoughts from Japanese into English, checking back with the Japanese. I have seen students do the same thing. I know that this takes time. After a moment, he comes up with a mixture of Japanese, English and mime. “Daijobu?” he says, okay?. I look at him, familiar, friendly, confused, and nod. He goes on, “Yesterday,” he says, and mimes working out. “Today,” he says, and mimes working out. I understand. He knows that one is supposed to give the body at least 24 hours of rest between lifting sessions. I haven’t. He wants to know: Is there a problem?

I understand this, but how to I explain an upper/lower-body split workout schedule in Japanglish? Lots of mime. “Yesterday,” I say, and indicate the lower half of my body. “Today,” I say, and indicate the upper half of my body. He understands.

In fact, Mori has correctly surmised that, here, there be demons. But these aren't just any demons. They aren’t, in other words, the demons he’s looking for. Still, he is correct, there is something that’s not okay. I'm at the gym looking for what that thing is, trying to find out what that things (or those things) are. I am looking for my own demons at the gym--or, at least, I’m trying to work out the demons by working out my body.

I’m going to move on to an explanation here, but skip this part if you find talk about personal demons strange or self-absorbed.

Yesterday, I drew my fortune from the box of cowgirl quotes that Stef gave me as a going-away gift. It was a quote from a woman named Barb White, who in 1906 said, “If you have a weakness, make sure you know what it is.”

Think about that.

It’s really a cowgirl echoing the inscription on the Delphi oracle: Know Thyself. It’s older wisdom, I’m sure, than the 6th Century shrine upon which it was inscribed.

The Same River Twice

It occurs to me on the train that everyday I cross the Ara River. I never, I think, cross the same river twice.

How does this apply to my working out?

I'll explain that my body holds onto things. Three years ago, it was holding on to an extra two hundred pounds of things. I carried around all this garbage, baggage, luggage. I mean, I literally carried it around on my person, all those things that I felt I couldn’t let go of: the kind of childhood that has felled greater men than me, the collective effects of years of inherited depression, an inherent belief in my own inferiority. The process of changing those things, of course, necessarily included working on the mental aspects, but it also including working out the physical implications.

Working out at the gym allowed me to see that my body was holding on to this kind of knowledge, was on some level acting as storage for the mind. I realized this as I worked out and emotional issues rose to the surface.

Though that sounds strange, think of the tension you hold in your neck and shoulders how getting a massage affects you, or how dancing affects you (if you enjoy dancing). Those are physical actions that improve your outlook. The same was happening for me at the gym, but it wasn’t just physical release from tension that I was seeking. No, I was chasing down demons, working out what they were and how I could rid myself of them. That’s all.

However, in doing so, I did come to realize that I could work the process backwards. That is, if something were bothering me and I couldn’t figure out what it was, I could, if I paid attention, by working out, find an answer. I didn’t have to wait for those things to re-submerge themselves in my psyche, but I could hunt them down and rid myself of them. I could come to know myself.

That’s what I’m doing at the gym now.

So What Are Those Demons?

Well, those I’ll spare you. The dictum is “Know Thyself,” right? Not: Know thyself and then post that knowledge online.

Instead, I’ll tell you about autumn in Japan:

Try Something New

In autumn, Japan changes. By that, I mean that the season changes, the weather changes. The heat of summer lets up with a disorienting suddenness and it starts to get dark at five in the afternoon. The gentle rocking of the earth (which had, for a time, seemed to lesson) begins again with a quiet insistency. The leaves begin to change color. In response to this incredible and, to me, sudden seasonal change, the Japanese themselves undergo a change. Everyone you ask will tell you, of course, that autumn is the time when you try something new.

For example, this week, all the women showed up to work in new clothes. It’s autumn, they explained. Oh, of course.

The textbooks at The Kaisha cycle around to Unit One, Day One. I came in about three-quarters of the way through the texts, so I have never taught these lessons. I spend as much time prepping lessons as I did when I first arrived.

Many students change classes and new faces appear in the classes I have. Hello, I say to each class. Welcome, I say to the new students. Everyone, please introduce yourselves. Kumiko, please introduce yourself. Kumiko loves uni like I do. She loves pandas. Noboru ate whale, in school in Kyushuu, for lunch nearly everyday. (Imagine growing up in a place where you ate whale for school lunch. We always had flabby, steamed hamburgers and soggy frenchfries. Noboru munched down on whale sashimi.) Sosuke works for a paper company and has for the last seven years. Akiko works the night shift. Akari loves ice cream, any kind. Kyoko works in the law office upstairs. Junko, an office lady (they call them that here, and my attendance lists her as OL), has been to about eight different countries, scuba diving and surfing. Yuka just got back from France...

Ahhh. Welcome, everybody. Welcome.

Please open your books to page one.

Let’s begin.