One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things. — Henry Miller
It has been laughs on laughs on laughs. You and I, we don’t click yet. We’re both trying but it’s not there. These miscommunications are amusing to us both, but I’m sure at some point these feelings will fade into frustration and at some point, utter embarrassment. For now, we shake our heads and smile.
In the midst of trying to explain the flavor chocolate chip, I somehow order two ice creams on a 35°C day.
“Extra,” I say, spinning around to the first person in line behind me, eager to get the melting cone out of my hand.
“A gift? A gift for me?” His eyes widen.
“Uhhh,” I say. I think. I can’t call it omiyage if it comes from here. “Yes.” What I really mean is “accident.”
The women around him giggle, and then I realize I should’ve given it to one of them. His gratitude is overly apparent and everyone in the shop begins staring as if I’ve caused a spectacle, as if I’ve done something absurd, as if I’ve just kneeled down and proposed.
The next day, he’s found me on social media. I learn the phrase gomen’nasai, kareshi ga imasu for future reference — just in case. When you are a gaijin in a rural town, you are known by everybody. As I’ve been warned, you are also watched by everybody.
* * *
A few weeks in, it’s all so new. I’m unsettled in how I speak, how I act, how I feel. It’s the same in how my body isn’t sure what to make of this place yet. How I occasionally sleep next to an EpiPen as a precaution so that if the lips keep puffing up after eating fresh wasabi, or was it the curry? I’ll be okay.
I wake up in the middle of the night because I realize I forgot to turn off the gas. I religiously check the sheets for mukade before crawling into bed and I’ve never scrubbed a place so clean, an act I hope will ward off huntsmans spiders.
By Thanksgiving, I want to be able to explain something complex. I want to say I think X, but I feel Y. I want to say I disagree with you, and that’s OK because we’re on grounds of respect. I want to say I like your culture’s emphasis on —-, and not just say you do everything better than what I’ve known.
Today, I spit out domo arigato gozaimasu but I think dekuju. I nearly wash my clothes in bleach and it takes me fifteen minutes to figure out how to open the rice cooker—not to learn how to turn it on—just to open it. I count coins so slowly that the woman behind the conbini counter occasionally reaches into my wallet to speed it along. These 1-yen coins, man, why do they exist?
* * *
I’m standing in the grocery store trying to figure out which trash bags I need to buy and contemplating why garbage is so damn complicated here, when I see three little pint-sized kids run up behind their mama’s cart, fingers pointed, focused aim, yelling, “kancho, kancho, kancho.” I slip out a laugh in the middle of the store.
Everyone turns to look.
Acclimate Already 