On Missing, and Loving, Home
I walk out, on a Tuesday, with a cup of spearmint tea and my yellow rain jacket on, into a dark mist. This mist, part of a week-long weather event that’s dropped more moisture that myself or Poppy anticipated, came after weeks of sun and heat that nearly took away our pond, leaving campers without a place to swim. For a while, they waded. But the rain is here, and it’s filling up again.
I said a dark mist. That’s because it’s 8:42pm. The sun set today at 6:39pm. It’ll raise tomorrow at 5am, sharp. That’s August 13th in Tsunan, Japan, for you.
I sniff the tea more than drinking it. The scent is stronger than the taste. They taught us in school that smelling was half of tasting. I probably would’ve brought up this tea as something to remark at if I had a cup of it at one of those moments, as a kid. I used to bring up lots of odd things in school. I also used to cringe at those memories. I think of them lovingly now. He was a kid, acting like a kid. My teachers wrangled me in well enough.
The cabin that I’m walking to, the one I’ve shared with 6 other guys for the past month, has decent A/C, a tatami mat floor, and plenty of things from plenty of places and people everywhere. We keep it decent. I try to keep my corner.
Most notably, I’ve been counting the days for a while.
I received my offer to volunteer at an English immersion summer camp in Japan back in April. I was thrilled. A two-month return to Japan after my stint studying abroad in 2023. I’d be a lifeguard (official title: Waterfront Master) and I knew nearly nothing about the camp. I had the idea of it in my mind, though, and an excitement. I studied back up on my Japanese, fairly intensely, for the 3 months leading up to my excursion. I planned on visiting some friends for a week and a half before getting to camp, and I wanted to be able to actually talk with them. A taste of solo traveling, something I forgot that I don’t particularly like, by means of little justifications and reasonings here and there. I don’t blame the guy for planning it. But if 4 months ago Jacob would’ve asked 4 days-into-solo-traveling Jacob how he was doing, he probably wouldn't have had the best review.
Nonetheless, in April, I started counting the days.
After touring Tokyo then Sendai then Osaka and Kyoto and Kobe then Tokyo again, I met for the first time with my soon-to-be coworkers. Co-volunteers, some. I’d be in that category. We traveled from one train to the next, small talking, settling into sharing the same air. I had a bigger smile on my face than I’d had the few days past. I saw a light and a hope that brought me confidence in my mission.
We landed in Tsunan in the dark. The train station was a bit bigger than a shed.
“I think I’ll like being in small-town Japan much more than Kyoto. I think the parts I disliked about Japan was being around so many distant, unexpressive, closed-off people for so long. Tsunan feels more like it’ll be closer to small town Oklahoma, I’d like to think.” But Mom isn’t a drive away in Tsunan, nor anyone else I know.
That next morning showed us mountains that smiled and swayed as they saw our mouths, agape, remarking any given comparative remarks about mountains, or lack thereof, from where we came. “We have a hill in Oklahoma,” I joked more than once. I went to that hill two times with Slater and Louis back in high school.
Staff training started. “Summer camp for you adults. Take it in. It’ll all be for the kids after this.” I relaxed. I had fun. I got to meet with my new coworkers (or co-volunteers), folks from over 30 countries, here for a month and a half or longer.
5 days of rest, then camp began. Each session is 5 days long, but the fifth day of one session overlapped with the first of another. Activity leaders, as I’m a part of, don’t work those days, forming our schedule as 3-days-on, 1-day-off. Given that, we never refer to any real weekdays. A session can start on a Tuesday or Sunday or any of the other five. We made our own concept of time, a 4-day week, called a Meek. It’s best explained in person.
And I’m terrified that people think my writing is obnoxious. I just did some personality tests. It says something along the lines of “yeah, you do feel that way don’t you?”
Camp is fun. I relished at the opportunity, the privilege, to be a part of something so memorable for these kids. I hold a lot of experiences I had at summer camp as a kid near my heart. It was always a hoot. I want to make this a hoot for them. I’m silly, I talk in voices, I throw them in the water after asking them and double checking and asking what kind of throw they want. We recently added “spin style” to “regular,” “gently,” and “super duper insanely high style.”
But now it’s August 21st, and it’s the longest Thursday of my life, and I’m realizing how good, how disgustingly good, I’ve gotten at waiting. And I’m headed home.
I’m not nearly patient. I’ve actually been horrible at the virtue. I’ve been counting down the days since I arrived in Japan. I’m not patient at all. But I have gotten good at waiting.
I had a feeling I would feel this way. Japan was a dream. The minute I walked into Haneda, my mind flipped a switch. One half of my Jaeger brain (see: Pacific Rim) turned off and made me look straight forward. It’s rusty at it, though. I thought I’d lose it, I thought I was losing it, on my flight from Tokyo to LA. Around hour two of ten, I had my sleep mask on, and I kept hearing this screeching. Over and over. And I ignored it. Ignored it to a fault. “Have I supped so full of horror that terrifying sounds no longer frighten me?”
It was the overhead bin. No terrifying sounds, Macbeth. And watching Mickey 17 wasn’t productive. You know what was? A Pride and Prejudice and The Fast and The Furious double feature. They pair well for someone who can’t sleep and wants to feel both sides of their brain.
And now there’s an hour and a half until I touch down in OKC. And I’m disgustingly good at waiting.
“Look at me! I’m as helpless as a kitten in a tree!”
I’m quite capable, actually. That’s a lovely song playing in my earbuds though.
Truth is, though I knew my return was coming, my brain didn’t believe it. One of the worst parts of my homesickness was that my brain convinced me that I’d always be in Tsunan and I’d never not been in Tsunan and maybe all the rest of everything was a dream. I reviewed my days often, top of my class for counting. Counting up, sure. Counting down, now that’s a star pupil.
Nonetheless, here I am. And all those days passed. And I’ll return to an Oklahoma City nearly the same as I left it. Though everyone is just about 2 months older, and I’ve got people waiting for me.
And I ramble and ramble, “broken heart records leave alone.” That was true once. Wrote that for a song in March. But that’s not nearly true now.
All of my hardship in the start of July, Sendai’s woes, the bawling that I didn’t expect to encounter and had no clue what to do with, through all of that, I felt so alone. I never was but I was always. None of this was home. I couldn’t find a home there, and it killed me.
When I made my way through the train station gate to start to the airport, I was anything but alone. In sooth (I’ve already quoted Shakespeare, might as well), I was supposed to be on this plane 15 days from now. Some small circle knows that my plans changed. It all got to be too much, I broke down. Poppy was there for me, a hug in person. Many more gave their ears and hearts on the phone. I decided, after our full 8 sessions of camp, I’d head home. I’d originally signed on for another single private session of camp after the 8. I’d also planned a week and a half in Tokyo by my lonesome. No sir-ee.
Again, when I left Tokyo, after all of us camp worker and volunteers went back on the bus then bullet train, I wasn’t alone. The night before, last night speaking technically, I slept at my friend and manager’s place along with 7 of my closest friends from camp. And this morning, 26 hours ago, we cooked breakfast and laughed and rested. And 24 hours ago, they took me to the train station and I said a goodbye to each of them.
“I’m leaving Japan a whole lot differently than I came.”
You know what my manager said? (Such a common phrase, of course you don’t, but I know and you’ll read now.) At our (unofficial) staff party, however many drinks deep we all were, he told me how lucky I was. “I realize, Jacob, I told my wife this, I’ve never been homesick. Do you realize how special that is? To have people and a place and a life to miss this much? As much as you do?”
Sometimes it’s felt like a pity party. The shame that comes with looking at your watch every 7 minutes builds on you. Counting your days. I told them all the truth. “I want to be here. I love being here, I love these people. I like what I’m doing. It’s home that I miss. I wish I could change, I want to, I’ve been trying to. I’ve just got to go.”
But there’s no shame. Carried shame like that is a way of making an enemy in our mind that tells us bad things and wants us to believe them.
I found my limit. I found where my bucket emptied. I poured and poured until suddenly there were only drops lefts, and it terrified me. And that enemy told me so many things that were wrong with me. But that enemy was me, and I’m no enemy. I love my life actually. I have a bracelet I made at Arts and Crafts that says so.
I love my life so much that I wanted with all my heart to get back to it as soon as I could. I saw so much of what was waiting for me, so much that could begin, that I couldn’t wait. Harry told Sally something similar.
And now there’s an hour and nine minutes left. And I think all the words I needed to get out are out.
And now I’ve been home for 17 days. It’s been a blur. I was stressed for a while. Now I’m doing better. And finally, there’s a postcard on my fridge. I sent it to myself forever ago. It made me anxious to look at the day I wrote it. And I knew it’d feel like forever until I’d see it again. And it finally came in the other day.
Will do.