I woke up in need of a metaphor.
My nervous system feels like it’s raging with sensitivity.
Not because of pain, although at 58, there is always a little pain somewhere in my body. I’m looking at you, right knee.
But emotionally, I’m here.
The anthers of my emotional neurons are outstretched, alert for the next bad-take pollinator. It’s Pride Month, and too many queer people are still hurting (and dying), and too many allies are seeking to either excuse their prejudices or center themselves.
All of that (and the stories that resulted in it) will be housed in a new essay—writing about emotions is one way I protect my fuzzy red heart. I won’t go into details here. I’m still too angry.
The Ultimate Distraction
The search for a retirement home in Japan has also enflamed my nervous system.
Hiro and I have narrowed the search down (for now) to three, maybe four, prefectures, with locations all roughly within an hour from Kyōto City. Southern Kyōto Prefecture, Nara Prefecture, Shiga Prefecture, and northern Wakayama Prefecture.
(The first question is often: Is Hiro from Kyōto? No. He is Tōkyō-born and raised. We met in Tōkyō æons ago. We relocated to the Pacific Northwest in 1998, and I think our first return to Japan after that was in 2006. We both had a similar moment of culture shock. Compared to our fond memories of our shared experience of Japan’s capital (I will always love Tōkyō for everything it gave me, including the chance to meet Hiro), in 2006 we found ourselves wondering whether Tōkyō had always been so crowded, so loud, so smelly. (We went during the summer, which accounts for the smells.) And yes, we are aware of the dank humidity and brutal heat that descends on Kyōto (and so much of Japan—let’s be honest) every summer, but Kyōto has delighted me since my first visit there in 1989 and Hiro’s first visit there with me in 2016. And when we spent ten days there last spring, we both realized something I had only intellectually conceptualized: we could be tourists in Kyōto for three solid years and still not visit all its shrines and temples.)
On Monday nights, I receive real estate updates via email. Then, for the remainder of the week, Hiro does more research. Including his passion for combing through Street View data to narrow down each property’s exact location. The floor plan above is from one of the homes he found in Shiga Prefecture. The location, in the hills above Lake Biwa, is great, but I immediately narrowed in on the second floor (to the right in the photo) and how I thought we’d need to knock down a lot of walls to create a better bedroom.
And that’s what many of our conversations are about nowadays. Which rooms need renovation? Where would our office space go? How I don’t want the lavatory to be adjacent to the entranceway because there’s not enough Lysol to eliminate our swampiness sometimes. What kind of grocery shopping/train station is nearby? Is there a lavatory on the second floor? When was it built?
The one thing we don’t talk about is money. Every house in Japan that has caught our eye has been less than $100K. There’s a housing glut, and houses usually don’t appreciate there. Interest on mortgages is very low, under three percent. Downpayments can be as low as $2K, and a 35-year mortgage payment, for example, would be about $200 per month. Of course, we’re hoping to be able to pay outright, an option that would bring the price down.
But we’re doing all of this at a remove.
Temporally, of course. I have six and a half years before qualifying for full Social Security benefits.
And physically.
Except…
We recently started talking about a trip to Japan next year. A few weeks in the Kyōto area, probably in May, renting a car and driving around with real estate agents. Hiro’s considering this trip a reconnaissance mission, but I’m not sure.
If we find the right place in the right location at the right price (and can find the right person to keep an eye on the place), I might yield to temptation.
I might.
Good News
I first met my writing friend Buick during a Writers’ Bridge breakout room in 2021. She’s both a writer and an incredible musician; earlier this week, she sent me a photograph. She bought one of my T-shirt designs, and it looked stunning on her.
Then came an email from my friend Char. She had read my Audacity essay and had the following to say:
Damn, you're a good writer. And a gutsy one. Writing one sex scene is hard enough, but one is not enough for you. Well done. The weaving of wanting and wanting to be wanted—this universal desire on so many levels in our lives—and here you wade right into the call and response of queer sex. Not sleazy, not corny, we are drawn to keep reading because this is the bare-assed (just had to!) exploration of the desire montage most people don't do.
Thank goodness I have friends like Buick and Char.
What have your friends done for you lately? Gosh knows, we all need an uplift.
Appreciation for the snapshots of a life unfolding in Japan (a place I just spent two weeks solo for the first time after a decade of mothering and not traveling). The essay on desire was brilliant. So rich and honest and nuanced. I’ve not read anything so intimate and vulnerable in a long time.
Oh I hope the house hunt goes well for you and that you and Hiro grab that brass ring now rather than later. If things don’t fall into place, then you have your answer. But I’m all in favor of living the dream whenever you can. And of course I already knew what an incredible writer you are. Cheering you on in all the things.