letter from tokyo

bookbear express travelogue #2

Announcement: a Boston meetup is happening November 2nd! Also: the second Sydney meetup is happening November 3rd! Also: a LA meetup is happening on November 10th. If you’re organizing or end up attending any of these meetups, feel free to send me pictures and/or a recap at avabearexpress@gmail.com! And of course if you want to host a meetup in your own city you can let me know via email. There also seem to be a lot of organization efforts in my subscriber chat.

In Tokyo I bought the rainboots I’d wanted for so long, in a department store called Hands, on a floor called Weather. They were made by the Wild Bird Society of Japan and come up to my knees. I’d wanted a bright green pair but they only had grey. I find that I cling to objects in periods of turmoil, rely on them to bring order to the world. 

Breakups feel like the end of the world, and I keep thinking that they are, in fact, the end of a world. Two people share an entire private language, a thousand inside jokes. Particular gestures—a hand resting on a waist—are repeated enough times to become ritual. We sleep in the same position every night, know each other’s coffee orders. No one knows me like you know me. In certain positions I can’t distinguish your skin from mine. 

We don’t always talk, but we always understand each other well. You can tell how I’m feeling by how chatty I am. I know when you’re irritated well before you do. I’m a private person, but I’ve told you a lot of my secrets. You rarely ask, you just listen. You’re only friends with talkative people because you’re better at being receptive. You project a solidity that everybody finds comforting. 

*

In Tokyo, I also bought: a thin brown sweater with a rounded neckline, a red v-neck cashmere sweater, a jacket from Engineering Garments, a textured black Comme des Garcons skirt, two different hair masks, a serum, a toner, a packet of moisturizing face masks. 

We’ve spent a lot of time together. I guess people never know exactly how much time they have. I’ve tried to be appreciative of every passing moment, but surely I’ve failed. You would point out that I’m always on my phone. When we first met, I spent just as much time on my phone, but I was even worse at replying to messages. So bad that it was a joke amongst my friends. There were emails that I should’ve answered years ago lingering in my inbox like ghosts. I was afraid of conflict—if I’d gone on a couple dates with someone and wanted to end it, I didn’t have the nerve to tell them directly. I had to run away from a lot of things. In the beginning, I tried to run away from you, too. 

In my early 20s, I hadn’t fully accepted all the things that have always been true about me: that I’m a writer, a romantic, deeply devoted to my friends. That for me, love is the most important thing. I was trying to be whomever I thought I had to be to be safe. Looking back, I see that you understood the most important things about me right away, though it’s not like you to articulate it.

When we first met I hadn’t started writing regularly yet. I’ve never told you about being in sixth or seventh grade, posting poems on DeviantArt, writing in my head on the way to school. You can talk to someone for so many hours and still miss important details.

When we first met, I had trouble crying. Now I cry at everything all the time. I believe that this is an improvement. 

*

The first time I went to Tokyo, I was 19. I couchsurfed and slept in a bunk bed. My host wanted to practice his English. I thought I was in love with someone I barely knew, no doubt. These days I believe something I didn’t back then: you can’t mess up real love, as long as you act kindly and earnestly. 

There are a few people in my life I have unfinished business with, as in, we were once close and now we are not, and I don’t know if we’ve ever had a good conversation about it. Some people say that closure isn’t real but I believe you can decide for yourself what kind of closure you need. There’s a part of me that believes I should reach out to each of these people and ask them to get coffee with me. But a year ago I did that with one of them, and I’m not sure if it made me feel better. 

In my experience, when someone truly has something to say to you, they’ll say it. So perhaps in time I’ll think of the right words for each of these people. Then I’ll tell them. 

I can already tell that friendship breakups in my 30s are going to be different than the ones in my 20s. I’m reaching the age where people just peel away. They partner up, and then you never hear from them again. They have kids and move to London. It’s not dramatic, it’s just a shift in priorities. I was talking about this with D in Shibuya yesterday morning, and she cited some statistic that you eventually lose touch with 80% of the people who attend your wedding. I haven’t confirmed the statistic, but I do know that people drift. 

I will try to hold onto you forever. To let go of you would akin to relinquishing these tender, tentative years of my life, my shaky steps into real adulthood. I’ve been so lucky to have been witnessed. I can’t hold onto everyone, especially not against their will, but I do believe that I’ll be close to some of my friends for life.

*

In Tokyo we went to an otter cafe. The otters were fat and happy. The staff would dispense treats into toys, and the otters would clamber all over you trying to get them. Their paws are like human hands. 

I’ve been away from my dogs for two weeks now. I miss them. When I was a kid, I wanted a dog so badly. It was the one thing my mom never conceded on. She thought that they were dirty and too high maintenance. She said, you can get a fish, and I pointed out that no kid wants a fish as a pet, because you can’t cuddle them. Getting Akko felt like proof that things can occasionally be as good as you hope they will be. 

I imagine that people who actually live in Tokyo are sick of all the tourists. There are so many of them now. There’s not really any good vintage shopping to be done in any of the popular areas like Shibuya and Ginza anymore because the stores cater so thoroughly to foreigners. I really wanted to buy a Pleats Please top while I was there, but I couldn’t find the right one. 

You love Tokyo because it’s so clean and orderly. Everyone is polite and respectful, just like you. We both repeatedly commented that it was such a surprise you’d never been, that we’d never visited together before now, but truth be told you don’t really like traveling. Why is it then that we’ve traveled so much in the time we’ve been together?

I always say I don’t like traveling, but I’m starting to accept that I do. I am thoroughly addicted to liminal spaces, to the moment of crossing the threshold.

*

When I was in China, I couldn’t stop looking at babies and toddlers. I found them so unbearably cute. I don’t do that in the US, so I guess it’s a biological thing, like maybe they resemble the children I will have. The same thing happened to my mom a couple years before she decided to have me. She was 27 then, younger than I am now. I used to think I would have a kid by now but I’m not ready just yet. 

My parents love you and were impressed by how much you ate. It was a vicious cycle where you felt like you had to finish everything to be polite and they wanted to order more because you had such a huge appetite. 

You went on some first dates while we were living apart. It’s so like me to wish I could’ve been a fly on the wall. I get so curious about other people’s romances.

There are a lot of cute girls in Japan. Every time I used to visit Japan, I would decide that I should get bangs because everyone here has the most perfect hair and their bangs look so good. But after the last time I cut bangs, I wrote down in Apple Notes: BANGS ARE NEVER A GOOD IDEA. NO MATTER HOW TEMPTED YOU FEEL, NEVER GET BANGS. YOU WILL REGRET IT. 

This time, I didn’t get bangs. I did perm my hair. It looks great. Japanese hair and nail salons are noticeably better than the ones in the US. C says it’s because they’re more conscientious as a culture.

In the past few months I’ve been haunted by the feeling that I’m being shunted down a waterslide, an opaque tube that goes on and on. I can’t see where I’m going and I don’t know where I will be spat out. But there’s certainly movement. My heart seems to have permanently moved into my throat. 

Maybe when everything calms down I’ll get another dog. But what if things never calm down? 

*

I wear the same earrings and I never swap them. I wear the same rings every day. I think this means that I am essentially a committal person. When I was 21, I didn’t know that. 

I will probably write every day for the rest of my life. I guess I’ve always aspired to monotony. 

I feel lucky to get to do what I love as a job. It makes me so happy that some people are now in relationships because of my matchmaking project.

I love you so much, your discernment and your gentleness. We are different in many ways but we’re also alike. The most important thing is that we’re both utopian about love. We’ve attended a few weddings recently and I’ve been thinking that it’s really so hard to predict which relationships will work out and which won’t. Sometimes it’s obvious, but often it’s really not. I said to someone a month ago that my dream in life, or at least in the next 10 years, is to help all my friends end up in happy marriages. I guess we don’t get to pick what we find interesting, what we care about. I’m endlessly compelled by relationships and always have been. D and I were saying that we are probably people for whom our relationship is the primary focus of our lives. Which is not true of everyone but like she said: what else would I rather prioritize than love? 

Hotel room #3

Ben and Mai’s incredible wedding

Walking to Daikanyamacho