愛の意味論ーThe Semantics of Love

I laid awake for a while and tried to think about everything she said that night but I’d forgotten most of it already. It seemed like we were just saying the same things, like we were at opposite ends of a swimming pool treading water and blow bubbles trying to get the other’s attention. Two hours ago, I felt like I was drowning. Now with a clearer head from the sleep, like a humid breath of fresh air I felt like this was a relief. You stare at the ceiling for long enough though, you’ll question every decision you ever made in life. I was mad at myself for not having settled my heart. I had also skipped on basketball with the boys for the umpteenth time. Now I’ll never get the chance to go to the Cabaret club with Uncle Billy and those guys. Work finishes next week. After an hour or two I was finally able to sleep again.

The following morning (Wednesday, July 16th 2008) I woke up early and ironed my shirts for a change. I felt sh*tty but there was no use in moping. It’s in your worst moments that you owe it to yourself to pick yourself up. Everybody slumps, even Ichiro. If you commit an error out on the field, you just shake it off and make up for it in the batters box. This sport is 90% mental, you can’t let your mistakes get to you otherwise you’re finished and you’ll spend the rest of your career (or worse, retirement) in Tacoma (or maybe like Gen, in the Texas league). You have to rebound. I was looking good, getting ready to run out the door when I heard that sometimes-irritating tinny sound your computer makes when somebody signs in on instant messenger. You know who it was.

I stared at the name for two minutes or so, before I opened a window. I hoped at first that she’d be the first to speak, but once I started typing the words just poured out of me.

Last night was a mistake, please don’t leave me. I wanna get back together IneedyouthisissowrongpleasegodhelpmeIloveyou.—or something like that, only in two languages and a lot worse.

The window read “k***-s*****e@hotmail.co.jp is typing a message for about three minutes without a word before she gave up and said, “Let me call you.” I was out the door into the sunshine with my broken yellow phone in my palm and first full of optimism and nervousness, walking towards work when it rang. The weather was f**king beautiful.

“Sore tte hontou?” She with girlish skepticism.
‘I told you, I’d change my mind.’ I laughed.
‘You’re an idiot.’
I considered various responses to this observation.
‘…I wanna work on this too.’ She said, ‘But I’m not sure this is a good idea. Can you please give me a few hours to think about this?’
‘Can I phone you during my break?’
‘…’
‘Soon-Mi?’
‘Sure.’ She said, uneasily.
Emotional vulnerability is a pitcher’s downfall. Good batsmen prey on this. She agreed, I’m not letting her off.
‘Ok. I’ll talk to you then.’
‘Ok.’

I closed my phone. I kepy walking and listening to the bugs and looking at the clouds. It was hot. I opened my phone again to type an email to Uncle Billy, say something about ‘thanks for all the b-ball memories’ and ‘next year’, but I realized I’d prolly be somewhere else. I trashed the draft and stared at the tiny screen. All that was left for me in there was the email from Shoko Touyama.

I was coming up on the kindergarten, just past the park still trying to figure out what to do with my hands when it occurred to me I’d been here last week. And I don’t just mean that in purely the physical sense of this exact spot on my way to work, nor just the metaphorical sense of “the journey” in life, but that exactly one week ago at almost this exact same and almost this exact same physical place on earth I had phoned her and said almost the exact same thing. I’d rode my little emocoaster up and down all week all over west Tokyo and here I was back again pleading with her to love me still.

I had to seek outside guidance. I grabbed a mobile breakfast and rushed into work to get to the phones. I was an hour early which made it around suppertime back in Freedomland. I arrived in the office to discover I had been left to guard the desks, as is not unusual in the case of the foreigner-temp. After I made a quick phone call the Gen, I returned to my normal desk duties which was basically nothing. Other than this, I had a Softbank Hawks game to look forward to tonight at the Seibu dome…prolly be my last match in Saitama for ’08…and...what else…nothing, yep, nothing. Phone. More work?

“Moshi moshi?” That voice. Like a thousand breezy lilies in Elysian fields, like lotus petals draped over mine eyelids! She: Miss Takahashi, calm siren of the Tokyo bay whose softely spoken magic spells sway wayward sailors to wrack them on her magical breasts, her ineluctable smile, her- -her ankles. Oh maiden—Oh Goddess!!
“Aw hey sug’? Somthin’ I can help ya’ll with downtown there?”
She giggles. I wonder why I always put on a southern drawl I'm talking to her. I must be an idiot, my [ex]girlfriend certainly seems to think so. “Ah iie’ she goes on, “Konshuu no deito no koto desuga…”
Our date? “Deito?”
“ee…anou…kyou meeting no tame ni, kochira no hou ha…”
Busy. “Ishogashii non?”
“Mn…sore de…”
Today’s no good. “Kyou ha muri deshou.”
“Mn…I’m sooo sorry.”
I’d forgotten we had a date today. Checked the calendar. It was Wednesday. I am Mr. Wednesday. Or I was leastways…but that…was a long time ago. Another I…
“Well, so are you free tomorrow?” English. I love it when she speaks English to me. Let’s see…last week, Wednesday July 9th, had dinner at Ukai Toriyama. Oh yeah, the train. Flirted with her on the train, prompted her that we oughta resume dinner rendez vouzes now that I’m off the leash. Am I off the leash? Soon-Mi. I only called her what? 2pm, so…6 hours ago. Love of my life. (Life for lovin' life for lovin') come back to me!
“I am. I am free tomorrow night. Although you might have to phone Mr. Thursday and check if it’s all right with him. He can have my spot next week on the 23rd.”
She laughed. She still remembers the joke. At least I made some impression on her. I wonder if she’ll ever come skiing with me.
“Ok. So…I will be at…the…office there tomorrow so…we can go for dinner afterwards…maybe six?”
“Sounds perfect.” I smiled. She couldn’t see me.
“Ok. See you…”
“Bai Bai hitsurei shimaaaasu.”
*Click*
*Click*

Whatever. That wasn’t counter-productive. Work work work.

＊　　＊　　＊

All I have written in my notes about the early part of that evening was that I was watching the Lions get pounded by the Hawks by some unreasonable amount from the Seibu-dome with a few of the Blue Spirits and their usual late-inning-deficit sarcasm. I have no real recollection of the game other than penning down the words “pounded. By Softbank!” in my white“Remember!”-brand notepad, which I turn too only when I’m mobile and fear I’ll be unable to keep the thought long enough to make it to a computer. I’ve had it for longer than I would’ve expected. I have some of my better days from it plucke out and framed. Like to doodles I made the night I met Yuki, and Soon-Mi’s phone number. The directions to the Nana concert, and something about groceries, right below a reminder to email Miss Takahashi when I got back. Back to Calgary that is, I wrote that note when I was in Montana. After this trip. This trip that happened a year ago, that I still haven’t finished travelogging. How did I get this far behind. “pounded. By Softbank!”…that’s all I have to remember this night by. No metaphors for life's grandeur, no moralizing on girls and men, no sentences to arc to faded denim of time and turn milestones into word-magic and tell us I learned something. Just three words to transition into a dim recollection of what happened afterwards.

I had taken the train home and felt groggy. Soon-Mi hadn’t called but I had encountered her on the instant messenger when I had gone to check my emails before bed. She asked me if I had time. Sure. Time is all I had. A lot of it has come in between now and then.



「ね、聞いて」 30分位後で彼女が言った。 「愛とゆうのは…二人は、感情が強くて、自分の形を変えるようになること。他人が合えるように。」



‘Listen,” she was saying, about half an hour odd later. ““Love is when two people…feel very strongly about each other… change their shape, so that they match the other.” She slowly mimed the concept with two flattened palms. Turning each so that slowly they met each other and her thin, white piano-player’s fingers met in a temporal matrimony. I watched the whole thing transpire in the boundaries of our video-phone communion-window with religious attention.

Her definition of love. She had to explain it to me two or three times. She said she couldn’t make it simpler for me. I was exhausted, I had forgotten the meaning of 形 (shape) and which “kaeru”（ 帰る、変える、買える）she was using. When it hit me and I translated it in my head, it struck me as beautiful. I guess for how simple it was. I had tried to tell her the night before that she was complicated, and I liked her for that. How like me, always looking for character motivation: a tortured past, a horrible but human secret dying to exposed. She scoffed at me. How like her, her friends, she said, always told her she was simple. Mayble she was. I liked that about her. Not like me. Compare to my definition of love from four years ago:


“Jesus Kaori, don’t be so sad…can’t you just hit me with a stick or something for being a pervert or insult me like you always do?” I say. She remains silent. “That’s why I like being around you…you’re never dull, never boring, and I know you like to act tough and punch me…And I know that you’re hurting now, I can see that, but I’m not dull to your pain…you can talk to me about it or take it out on me if you want, and I know that I cant be there to protect your feelings always, but - - but if nothing else - - I’ll be here to put the kettle on and ask how your day was…”

She looks up for an instant, hiding her eyes behind her hair, and then buries her head in my chest again and on come the waterworks. She sobs for a little while and asks, “… where did you come from Mike. How do you always know what to say?”
“I don’t say what I want other people to hear…I just say what I feel…Sometimes that gets me in trouble- -I’m pretty far from perfect though...” I trail off. “…And I told you enough times already. I came from Saskatchewan” I say with the sense of pride that all Prairie-dwellers share on the subject.
“I- -I don’t know how I feel, Mike. I’m so confused.” She says between sobs, the tears still coming constantly, “I’ve waited for someone like you for so long. Not someone who just thinks I’m pretty or fun or cute of whatever- - Just- -someone who genuinely likes things about me that I don’t.”
I don’t know how to respond to this. Is she- -
“- -Mike, wa…” she asks softly.
…
“Watashi no koto…”
…
“Suki?~”
.
.
.


That’s me. 17 years old, Laid out between Mike Knudsen and Kaori Shimizu. The first couple I ever rendered completely in my still (after four years) unpublished novel “I Hate My Girlfriend and I wanna Die”. How teenaged. How convoluted. Two people who need each other because of their "bad" childhood situation. Bohemian love in Vancouver between a half Japanese Kanagawan and a Saskatchewanite ex-player. Was my childhood so bad? Never. I fantasized about having tribulations to express, which is why my portrayal in fiction always turned up so shallow. So when I wanted to write better I created some, and now I’m standing in them. I’m still standing in it a year later. “Someone who genuinely likes things about me that I don’t.”—I met someone who does once, she wasn’t who I wanted her to be. I turned her down a million times. I met a few girls who genuinely like me for things that aren’t genuine about me. One of them gave me a second and a third chance. I didn’t stick around and try for the fourth to find out all the things she doesn’t genuinely like about herself. I’m guessing I’m one of them by now. I thought that’s what made my connection with Soon-Mi so special. I thought it was her, all hurt and lonesome little musician gal: stressed out, misunderstood, under-appreciated, and discriminated against as a racial minority in her own country—but I can help you out! I can take all the pain away with a kiss and a promise and you can help me out by getting her out of my heart…Garbage. Count on the white-man to convince himself he’s doing a favor to the people he f*cks.

I wanted her to be that girl for me. To absolve me of my crimes. To take the pain from me and say it was all right. That I had worth. That I wasn’t just bad for people. That’s why I told her everything. About Yuki, and the travelblog and how I had tricked myself and 12,000 others into believing that she was a terrible person when really it was me, and that’s why I told her about the bar skank and ‘I can change, I can change’ I went on pleading, crying.

「ええ加減にしてぇ。」She said with authority.

I read it on her face and beat her to it. 「今気づいた。」I said. ‘There are things that I shouldn’t tell people. I should’ve probably just kept that to myself. I should've never told you about the blog. I should've never told you about the bar skank. I should've never told you all about Yuki and the things I did to manipulate women in high school...’ I should've just buried it and started over with you. Like God intended. Perhaps our conceit and our shame are sometimes our best tools.
And she said, what you’re all thinking right now. 「今気づいたかぁ？。。。当たり前でしょ？　あんた馬鹿？」
('You just figured that out...YES! Are you a moron?')

It should be noted here that there's a certain type of biting sarcasm that her voice carries at moments like these that would be enough to give Gen Kaz a boner. Also, "Baka" (馬鹿) is a lot ruder in Kansai than it is in Tokyo, and that I agree with all the obvious criticisms of my actions recorded up to this point. The thing I'll say in my defense (If I'm still allowed at this point to do so) is that in my vulnerable emotional state, that I blamed my dishonestly and my "managerial" or gaming compulsion for ruining things between me and Yuki Saitoh. I figured if I went the opposite route. If I spilled all, if I tried to cut off my organs of deceit, I could be happy with Soon-Mi, and she'd love me for my dedication to truth. It's painful to recon' that obviously went too far the other direction; that we need to believe some lies in order function normally; that we don't love the truth so much as we hate knowing we've been lied to. The truth about most people is that they're ugly on the inside. The idea that beauty is only skin deep is just another half-truthーanother necessary lie that allows us to deal with each other. Only idiots, or the overly thoughtful can find beauty in that animal ugliness. Perhaps I got it all wrong. The superreal concept of beauty seems to point away from its vestiges in human beings and allude to the fact that beauty exists in what is non-human in the environment; what is non-human about humans. In Japanese, 奇麗 (beautiful) also means clean. Implying on some level, that human absence is the most beautiful things of all. The cleanest and the most beautiful spaces on the planet exist far in nature, away from the squalidness of the cities. The cities themselves, who would feign have beauty in their neatness, only look so when examined from above. Far off from where the magnifying glass reveals the dirt and the imperfection stained-in by the human occupants. Or I could be making all that up. It wouldn't be the first time. You dance around enough and the rain comes, night is day, lies are truth and anything means anything.

She sighed. 'Really...I don't know what I should do with you...'
I was silent. We had gotten off to a bad start. I had probably irreparably damaged our relationship. She was probably better off without me, unless I was capable of defying all history and making change. "Change"? This sounded eerily similar to "commitment". If I sat this out, I'd soon enough here a lecture full of preambles, semantics, bells and whistles and if I agreed to whatever vagueities she specified as "change" I'd later be held accountable if and when I failed to uphold them and as usual, I'd lose. Better to close the window now, let her rot. It'll break your heart for the time being and it'll wipe all the good memories she ever had of you out of her, but you'll suffer less in the end. In the end? What's the end? Death? So what if she hates you, it's all useless anyways. So what if that happens? Win her back with another pithy promise and then walk out of her life the day she leaves you at the customs gate? You'd only be the trillionth man in all history to ever go back on his word, she'd only be the trillionth more to have her heart broken by a rolling stone.

'Look...I like you too...I- -I want to get back together with you- -'
'But? ...'
'But well...I- -well, I just don't know if I can trust you. You never change. You just make more promises.'
'I know' *wet sniffle* 'I'm slime. I'm the worst. I know why you hate me.'
*Sighs* 'I don't hate you Teddo...'
‘Then why won’t you get back together with me!?’ There was water coming out of my nose.
‘Because…I’m just not sure if you’re right for me right now…’
'...I- -I know' *Sob* 'There's nothing good left in me. I'm no longer human✝'
(✝ The words I used 「人間失格」is also the title of an Osamu Dazai novel.)

She sighed again. Louder. 'Obviouly it's not like there's nothing good in you. I wouldn't've gone out with you if I never saw anything good in you...look you- -funny...and you think very seriously about yourself and others and you're focused on becoming a good person, but- -'
'But?' I was at her mercy. Two large tears leaked down my face and neck. I hadn't shaved. I looked like total sh*t, I smelled bad, and my hair was probably (is usually) terrible.
'But...I just don't know if you're' I could tell she was trying to choose her words very carefully, '...Mature enough...if you can- -fulfill...my needs.'
'There has to be something I can do to prove I be a good man for you...'
She paused and examined my face.
.
.
.
‘Okay, but if you’re serious about that you can’t go switching your story anymore. You’re going to be in big trouble if you back out on this tomorrow.’ She said, and she smiled. My heart and my neck and my back relaxed like they hadn't in weeks. I already felt the good sleep awaiting me tonight. She herself looked relieved; doubtful in that loving kind of way, like a mother.

I nodded eagerly, but at the same time I was scared. This was patter behavior. Desperate to see the affection in her glassy eyes and the touch of the her, softly-square Korean lips, I'd say any thing to appease, her to prolong my stay in her skinny paradisical arms. I knew that it just lead me four corners back to square one. But something was awakening within my breast, and I think it was the old me. I was just a few degrees shy of full circle. And this is where the story starts to get interesting again.

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Part of trip: The Summer of Lame

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