Ugh...

I'm back from Nagano, very sore and feeling the first symptoms of what I suspect is an uncoming cold, no doubt contracted as a result of running around sweat-covered in shorts and a tee-shirt in the chilly mountain air. Our team wasn't the worst there, but it wasn't the best either, and a draw that pitted us against the top three teams in the tournament in the group stage didn't help matters. We battled gamely but fell to the eventual champions on Sunday morning. At least I got to work on my goalkeeping skills - nothing improves you at that position like facing a lot of shots from skilled players.

Now, I'm just hoping this cold doesn't turn out to be anything to bad. I hate getting sick, particularly in Japan as the damp climate and lack of central heating always seem to mean it takes me forever to recover.

Off To Play Some Soccer

This weekend I'll be traveling to Nagano-ken, one of Japan's loveliest prefectures, to participate in a nationwide amateur soccer tournament. I'm not expecting to win (I've never played with most of my teammates before, but based on past experience I doubt we'll be particularly good) - all I want is to run around, get some fresh mountain air, and have a good time. The best things in life really are free.

Happy Birthday To Me

Today, I turn 31. In contrast to last year's epochal "holy crap, I'm entering a new decade!" milestone and the year prior's depressing realization that I had just about used up my twenties, the decade of life that's supposed to be fun and carefree, this one doesn't feel like a big deal. In a weird way, being at the beginning of a decade, rather than the end of one, actually makes me feel younger. It helps that I'm actually looking forward to things like settling down into a permanent career and a more stable living situation at this point, having gotten somewhat bored of the rootlessness and irresponsible pleasure-seeking and self-exploration of youth. Doesn't make feel any less inclined to celebrate or throw myself a party, however.

It's Oh So Much Nicer To Come Home

After a long (and I do mean long) train journey, I finally arrived back in Sendai last night at about 7 p.m., after almost three weeks of travel around southern Japan. It was a fantastically enlightening and enjoyable (if sweltering) trip, and I return feeling I have learned something new about the country I've now lived in for almost five years, particularly from the time I spent in Nagasaki, a city of fascinating cultural and historical depths whose fame ought not to rest solely on its status as the target of the second atomic bomb dropped at the end of World War II. Now that the trip is over, however, I find myself humming the refrain of the eponymous Sinatra tune. Nothing replenishes enthusiasm for sleeping in one's own bed like three weeks of, in T.S. Eliot's words, "restless nights in one-night cheap hotels". I will begin posting the photos to my Flickr account as soon as I have a chance to sort through them, and will perhaps write a few more in-depth posts about my experiences of the trip once I've had a chance to reflect on them. Stay tuned, if you are interested.

Away I Go

For the next few weeks, I'll be off galivanting about Japan trying to see some parts of the country I've not yet been to. I'll try to post updates on where I am and what I'm doing (if it's anything interesting), as well as some photos, but I'll probably be online less frequently. I'll resume posting more regularly when I get back at the end of August.

In Memoriam

I can scarcely believe I have to write something like for the second time in two weeks, but life can be senselessly cruel sometimes and write it I must. I just found out via Facebook that a childhood friend of my, Alex Myers, has passed away at the age of 27. I say friend, but he was really more like a cousin, the male cousin I never had; he was the son of my father's best friend, and our families often took trips together when I was young - ski vacations, camping trips, and the like, during which he, my brother, and I got up to all sorts of trouble. I had talked to him a few times over the past year or so, and things were going very well for him - he had a serious girlfriend, and was finishing up law school in Los Angeles, and a whole life of glorious possibility open before him. That it was not to be realized was sad, but sadder still is the loss for his family. When Alex was still a child, his mother died of lupus, and as painful as the loss is to those of us who knew Alex from something of a distance, it can only be unimaginably moreso for his father, Greg Myers, a kind and decent man if I've ever met one. His stepmother Laura, and his step-siblings Michael and Kelley also loved Alex dearly, and theirs is a family that has endured more heartache than I feel I can summon words to console.

I am not inclined to orthodox religious practice, but I find it a natural instinct to pray at times like these. It is not may not be reasonable to ask for solace for people I happen to know from a vast and inscrutable universe, but this is one time in life when reason is of little use in trying to cope. No amount of introspection or rationalization can make sense of the death of one so young, no dry and abstract consolation can be found by framing the matter of a life cut short in a different way, and the pain of grief, for my own loss, but more achingly for the losses of others I am powerless to make whole, makes me disinclined to try. All we have when fate kicks us in the gut in this way is to hold on to whatever will get us through the moment, and to cry out - one of the first human experiences we have when we come into this world. Tennyson, a man who knew something of grief, said it better than I can in In Memoriam:

So runs my dream, but what am I?

An infant crying in the night

An infant crying for the light

And with no language but a cry.

Farewell, friend. I will always cherish my memories of you, and though time may allow me to accept that you are gone, the sadness of knowing you will make no more of them, for me or for anyone else who knew and loved you, will always endure.

Sayonara, Friend...

In shock and sadness, I report that a Japanese acquaintance of mine, Miho Kanazawa, has just passed away. I can't presume to mourn her as a close friend, but she was a friend, a funny, spirited, and warm-hearted woman who never let the barriers of language or culture get in the way of the many friendships she cultivated with foreigners here in Sendai. She was also young - less than forty - and a single mother, and leaves behind a ten-year-old daughter, Ruca. We will all miss Miho, but she more than any of us. Everyone dies eventually. But those who are most loved leave behind the biggest holes when they are taken from this world, and judging from the size of the hole Miho has left she was extremely well-loved. R.I.P.