"Hemorrhoids are popular in Japan." a friend assured me. I'm pretty sure he meant "common," but where would I be without the hilarity of English confusion? I would laugh a whole lot less, I assure you. It's been an interesting week; bright, clean, green, windy, cold, and full of ebb and flow, big moons, clear skies, and all of the wonderment and freshness that comes from awakening from a long dream.

Tokushima never really turned brown; I was noticing that today as I zipped through the streets on my faithful blue Crispy. The palm trees still rattled their olive fronds; the tropical trees shone emerald and crisp in the cold air. All winter, something was blooming in every garden. Already bulbs are pushing up and through; I pass sweet Narcissus on my way to work, and was shocked to see a tree bursting with pink blossoms that I remember seeing a year ago. With the decision to leave Japan, I feel like the bottle of my heart has been uncorked; I am breathing again, seeing again. I'm peeking over garden walls and taking detours to watch kids practice baseball in their immaculate white uniforms. I'm rediscovering of the fantastic weirdness's that had seemed to become so routine to me.

For example-- the pigeons; I've meant to write about them a million times, but I never seem to get around to it. Tokushima has the laziest pigeons I have ever seen. They sleep laying down on the sidewalks, and in the flowerbeds in the parks, and the seem to hate to fly. They remind me of the California quail back home, who run like mad on their wee little legs across the road in front of your car, freaking you out as they launch into flight at only the last possible second. The Tokushima pigeons are similar, but lazier. I don't know how many have casually sidestepped my bike as I was bearing down on them in the park, like it was no big deal to have a massive rolling metal thing coming right at them. You have to be posing a real physical threat to them to get them airborne.

Another thing; Setsubun. I missed it last year, being fresh and uncertain and without Japanese friends to explain the right way to throw beans. One doesn't want to throw beans the wrong way and mismanage the flow of good vibes that you are meant to be directing into your house. Setsubun is on the evening of February 3rd, and marks the last night of the old Japanese year. I decided to include Kat and Joanna and Melissa in this exercise in Japanese tradition. I bought my package of peanuts (should've been soybeans, but I was shopping late and had to settle for the next-best thing) and my paper devil's mask and headed over to Bubu's for instructions. He was pleased that I was going to be participating, and sternly reminded me that we were to shout "Oni wa soto!"(get out, demons!) while we threw the beans out the front door, and "Fuku wa uchi!"(come in, good luck!) while throwing beans in to the house. Made sense to me. I knew that someone could represent the bad things that you want to be rid of by wearing the devil mask, and you could throw beans (or, in our case, nuts) at them, too. I thought this was a great idea, especially since my cousin has recently contracted some kind of nasty cancer. She's always had a marvelous sense of humour, so what could be better than chucking nuts at her 'cancer'? We weren't sure what the procedure for that was though, so we doubled them up by having Melissa stand outside the door holding the mask to her face as we hurled nuts at her and shouted "Oni wa soto! Oni wa soto! Oni wa soto!" over and over. She was a bit of a boring demon though, standing with her arms crossed and complaining that the nuts were getting too close to her face. So I switched with her. I danced around with such an abundance of demonish glee as I dodged the nuts that we were all soon laughing too much to speak the magic words. Time to chuck the nuts back in the house; "Fuku wa uchi! Fuku wa uchi! Fuku wa uchi!" Then we settled down to part two; eating the same number of nuts as there are years in your life. Luckily we were all in even numbers (24, 26 and 28) as peanuts come jacketed in pairs. We settled down to unshelling and munching. "Mmmm. I like monkey nuts," Joanna said, apparently the British word for peanuts. Which got us laughing again.

I talked about Setsubun a little more with my language exchange partner, Kenji last night. He had a compass attached to his cell phone. I wondered why when I recalled that Bubu had said something about eating an uncut maki-zushi roll while facing North East (this year's lucky direction).
"That's right," confirmed Kenji. "And you can't say anything, you must eat it quietly, until you are finished. I don't know why."
"I do!" I offered. "Bubu told me. It's to bring good luck." Kenji narrowed his samurai eyes at me.
"But I don't know why it brings good luck. Many young Japanese... they don't know why we have traditions anymore. 'Why' is the most important thing."
I really admire Kenji. He really makes an effort to speak with clarity and good humour; the result is a brutally honest exchange that never offends. He's also got such a perfectly cut face that I itch to sketch him every time I see him. He's kind of like my mirror; a reflection, similar but opposite. Me: Female, Canadian, age 28, has lived in Japan for one year, creative, craves the next adventure. He: Male, Japanese, age 27 & a 1/2, lived in London for one year, creative, craves the improvement and deepening of his lifestyle. There's a saying that I came across years ago and have never forgotten, although the source escapes me. Something to the effect of: There are two ways to live. You can live Wide and Shallow, or you can live Narrow and Deep. I admire Kenji because he's just starting to get the hang of Narrow and Deep, which is something I think I aspire to. There are wild parts of me that balk at the thought of anything that hints at "settling down," but I also know that there are riches in being grounded that are beyond my imagining. He made the choice to come back to his hometown, to be near his family, to carve out a life for himself of meaningful pursuits and solid dedication. That's very cool. For me, a little scary, but not without its allure.