Week 3: If Only

(袋にお入れしますか？Translation: Would you like your items in a bag? This is usually a phrase you’ll hear at convenience stores or grocery stores since they charge extra for plastic bags in order to eliminate waste. It may be hard to catch for newbies – like myself – since the clerks wear masks and speak quicker than I can understand, so just do your best and be polite)

Being allergic to mosquito bites sucks. Being allergic to mosquito bites in Japan? Forget about ever knowing a day’s peace again. The bugs here are no joke, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many centipedes in my entire time living in the U.S. than I have within three weeks here (they’re terrifying, and they bite, so leave them alone). Alas, they are an inevitable occurrence that one must face if you want to go anywhere in town past 5pm.

We started firing the kiln yesterday. The small kerosene one out back, not the wood-fire Anagama. The initial bisque fire shouldn’t have very long, but as the temperature rises, we have to go and check the gauges to be sure that it’s not heating up too fast or too slow. This means that every hour, usually around the twenty minute mark, someone has to go out back to the shed and record the temperature difference and make sure everything looks to be in working order. This means staying up late – a skill I used to pride myself in having mastered, but has since disappeared while living at the residency. I have become, to my abject horror, a morning person.

(Even writing it out gives me chills.)

But with the kiln now firing, I have to work with the rest of the artists in staying or getting up in the middle of the night to check on the progress of the kiln. Because the sun seems to rise and set so early here, my sense of time has been thrown off in a way that has nothing to do with jet lag. So going to the 7/11 down the street to grab dinner past 7:30pm or later means walking in darkness, as if it were already well into the wee hours of the night.

A small part of me wonders if the employees at the 7/11 remember us now, and what they think of us if they do. I can’t imagine the awkward American with brightly dyed hair and an undercut not drawing attention, but considering that the majority of my interactions with the staff include awkwardly charades-ing my way through understanding that they’re asking if I want my food in a bag and then thanking them profusely for fear of any inconvenience I might have caused, I hope the general consensus is that “they tried their best.”

I found myself getting into a routine though. And then, within the last few days, breaking it. I’d wake up early enough that I could shower and get ready uninterrupted before going to the convenience store by the time the sun was fully up and getting myself breakfast. Now, I’ve found that the majority of the artists here don’t turn in nearly as early as I do, so I’ve changed my routine to picking up breakfast the night before in order to hang out in the common areas a little later. There is a significant age gap between some of us, meaning that our interests seldom align – but I still don’t want to seem rude. Everyone here is so friendly and easy-going, I don’t want be the ball of stress someone trips over.

Let’s be honest, “Stressing about not being stressed” is completely on brand for me.

The biggest help thus far seems to be the schedule I’ve given myself. Even though Luisa and I are technically here as artists too, we’re still interns, and that means office work. I can do that, and I can do that well, so when I’m not sure where I fit in amongst the occupants the household, I put myself back into my work. Archiving, data organization, designing posters, spellchecking, and translating. And yes, I fully recognize that feeling like I fit in only when I’m being “useful” isn’t healthy, but I like being useful. I like knowing what I’m good at and doing that to make other people’s jobs easier. Doesn’t matter that I’m barely an adult and still in school; I like helping!

Just so long as I remember to help myself too, I’m happy with that.