Friday night – I have a friend or two
I’m finally here in Tsuruta, and I’m staying with the local doctor, Akemi Kaku. Kaku-sensei is in her mid fifties, looks about 42 or 43, and has two very cute sons studying in Tokyo. She plays piano, organ, violin, and yes, tennis! She lives in a small western-style house, open with a loft, and her mother lives in the traditional house next door. Grandma, as I’ll call her because I can’t remember names to save my life, is very well put together and stylish. I’m staying in Grandma’s house, sleeping Japanese-style on a thin futon on the floor. I don’t know how these skinny, bony Japanese women do it!
Tsuruta seems to be a pretty rural town. Everywhere I look there are tiny, hunched farming women with white cloths over their heads and necks to keep off the sun. The town is surrounded by rice paddies, which are burned after the harvest, or perhaps before, like sugarcane. Either way, the result of this is that the entire area is covered in a thick pall of smoke that makes L.A. smog seem like nothing at all.
On the other hand, the apple orchards are amazing. Not as neatly put together as the Hood River orchards – the trees aren’t arranged in straight rows, and the orchards don’t seem to consist of nearly as many trees – the orchards of tsuruta show an unbelievable amount of love towards the apples. Each apple is wrapped in paper until some to-be-determined moment, when the paper is discarded to tumble off among the orchards. After removing the paper, reflective mats are placed under the tree to get sun to the bottom of the apples and give them an even color. Although this may seem like a ridiculous amount of work, the apples are, I’d go so far as to say, perfect. Crisp, evenly colored, not covered in wax, and delicious, with subtle flavor variations not found in even the best Rosauers organic apples. I thought I was being silly when I still salivated over the apples I had here ten years ago, but now my memories of perfection are reaffirmed. The fruit produced here tastes of the extra love that’s put into it.
I also met a couple of my coworkers today. My supervisor, Chiaki-san, and my partner in crime, Mary Weatherburn of England. Too jet-lagged to make coherent conversation, I must have convinced the two of them that I was either flaky, weird, or both. Ah well, there’s nothing like a second impression.
So, I’m really too tired to know what my feelings are about this expedition at this point. I think I’m pretty scared still, of the job, of the winter, of the amount of time I’m committed to. We’ll see how I sleep tonight – that’s really the acid test of my mood.
Peace out for now. Gotta listen to this cool Didj and Cello cd I got from a cellist on my flight to Tokyo.
