Facing my anger with dignity

I do believe anger, as an emotion, gets a bad rap.  Too often we're told to let it go, not let it consume us.  It's considered a "negative" emotion.  Anger can eat away and fester within us, I agree.  I also believe many of us don't deal with it and push it aside. 

I want to face my anger with dignity.  My 20-year old son cautions me against making statements like "I'm angry at nature" or "I'm angry at the ocean" saying it makes me sound irrational.  I see his point.  I also know there is anger within me and I have found myself directing it at, very specifically, the wave that caused so much damage.

When I was five, I stood at the top of the stairs and yelled what was considered a very bad word for a five-year old girl to use.  That I directed this word to my mother and her group of women friends was quite an egregious act for any daughter, much less one only five.  I believe I was sent to my room for the remainder of the day waiting for my father to come home, knowing there would be some form of punishment.  I specifically remember the waiting being much worse than the punishment itself.

The word I yelled down the stairs was "baka."  By itself it's not all that bad of a word.  It translates as  "stupid" but in certain contexts carries more weight.  In hindsight, that I was five and had the audacity and terrible manners to use this word to my mother, the ultimate in disrespecting her, was what got me in trouble.

I bring this up to say it is this word "baka" that I plan to yell at the ocean when I go back to Ofunato next week.  I mean it in the worst way possible.  I mean it with all the venom it can hold.  I am angry.  I can't simply ignore this emotion.  It's deeply rooted within me and I have yet to find a way to let it out.  After being home a month and dreaming about Iwate every night, it's clear to me I need to let go of this.  I don't know how to without letting the ocean know how much it pained me to see what it did to three hundred miles of coastline, ruining buildings, washing people away and causing so much emotional and physical damage.

Cursing at the ocean, in my book, by my definition, is not an irrational act like the one I committed when I was five.  It's a very legitimate way of letting go.  For that, I will yell it at the top of my lungs and not worry about the punishment that may follow.

Waiting for Sister

It was a small job.  They hadn't gone into their home yet since the tsunami partly out of fear, partly out of dread.  They wanted some help in looking through their things--not valuables necessarily.  My take on this was they wanted company.  They didn't want to be alone when they went back home for the first time.

I stood in the doorway trying to stay out of the way of the younger ones hauling things down the steep and cluttered staircase.  I glance at the floor of the genkan (the front entry way) totally covered with muck and gunk except for one pair of shoes.  I take a photo just because they seem so out of place.  They're polished, clean and placed neatly in the corner as if they're waiting to be worn.

More youngsters go up and down the stairs.  More stuff gets taken outside into the road for the family to sort through.  I continue to stand in the doorway just sort of watching, making sure I'm not needed, fielding calls on the dreaded "white phone."  (More on the white phone in another posting.)

There are three women who are from this house.  A youngish woman and her teenage daughter and the mother.  Three generations of women.  I talk to the young woman making sure we're doing what she wants, who suggests we talk to "mother" and together we talk to the matron of the family to get her input. 

Mother sees me, bows, thanks me profusely and we exchange gratitude, compliments and general goodwill.  Out of the blue she changes the subject.  "See these shoes?" she says.  I nod.  "They belong to my oldest daughter."  She chokes up.  I get it now.  They're missing a family member. 

The younger daughter, the one I'd been speaking to earlier says, "Mother said to put these shoes out for sister.  We're waiting for her.  These shoes are so she'll know to come home."

What do I say to this?  Seriously.  What do I say to this?  I just looked down, fought back tears (and failed) and then when I finally looked back up, nodded to mother.

Not feeling guilty

I wrote yesterday about daffodils and how they anger me.  I see more today.  Of course.  It's spring.  More flora will bloom in the next several weeks.  I realize it would behoove me to find a way to enjoy nature's beauty and not be constantly angered by the inequality of how it behaves.  I realize this.

It hit me this morning as we were mucking out a man's yard.  Half of his trees were blooming and the other half were dead.  He pointed out his rose bushes and said, "if they soak in salt water long enough evidently they die."  Neither of us knew that.  It's not common knowledge now, is it--except it's not rocket science and once I realize roses aren't meant to be underwater, much less salt water it all seems pretty obvious.  He was lamenting the loss of his bushes and trees when he pointed out his daffodils and tulips.  I now hate tulips as well.  I just do.

My phone rang and it was "the official" (again) and so I walked across the street to get away from the yard to take the call.  My dislike for nature is something to behold.  Again, I'm not proud of it, but I claim it.  Who goes around saying "I don't like nature"?  Right?

I pace as I talk on the phone saying "hai" (yes) a lot.  I thank him for all he's done, say things that he'll like, ask him yet one more favor.  I keep pacing.  Then I look down.  I see them.  More daffodils.  These are daffodils that will clearly not survive.  There are no flowers.  The stalks are yellowing.  These must have been affected by the salt water in a way I can't explain.

If you're a nature lover and you don't like seeing things die then you should probably stop reading here.  I'm not proud of what I did but neither do I feel guilty.  Here it is:  I stomped on them.  If felt good.  It's my one small act of rebellion against beauty that destroys.  It did appease my anger even if it was just for a bit.  I doubt I'll need to do it again.  If I do, I probably won't tell you about it.  There's certainly enough else going on here that I can write about.  I needed to say this to you once:  I am not a nature fan.  I appreciate the beauty but not this time around.  It did too much damage for me to love spring flowers.

Rikuzentakata, again

We needed to go meet with a city hall official in Rikuzentakata today.  We went to City Hall, or rather, the temporary City Hall which is essentially four long trailers made into offices.  The original City Hall is damaged beyond repair.

As we were driving back towards our current base in Ofunato, we drove through what remains of Rikuzentakata.  Again.  I looked out the window to my left and sat it:  Kenritsu Rikuzentakata Byoin.  The main hospital in Rikuzentakata.  It's a four-story structure, white on the outside, rectangular.  It looks like a typical hospital.  There's nothing special about this hospital except that all the windows on the first three floors are blown out.  This is the hospital where the doctors, nurses and able-bodied people ran up to the roof to escape the tsunami.  They had to leave behind those who couldn't escape in order to save themselves.  They heard those die as they fled up to the fourth floor and onto the roof. 

I can only imagine what they must have seen from the roof.  It couldn't have been that far to the rising water below.  Fear and guilt are two potent emotions to combine.  Seeing the building I had read and heard so much about brought it back all over again.  This sucks.

There are two other apartment buildings that I look at every time we go to Rikuzentakata.  These two five-story apartment buildings stand one in front of the other, the first one being closer to the ocean. All of the windows on both buildings are blown out for first four floors.  I can see through the first building to the second one behind.  This means the wave was four stories high and powerful enough to blow through windows, a hall way, another apartment on the other side of the hall way, then go into another building and wreak the same damage all over again.

It's a quiet hell.  There's no fire, burning bodies, pain, blood, screaming and devil-like creatures as I've seen in artwork in museums and books.  This is an entirely different kind of hell.  It's quiet.  There's no one around.  It's mountains of rubble everywhere I look.  Pile after pile of cars, splintered wood, and everything you can imagine inside.

Then as I we're driving, I see it.  Someone put a statue of a Buddha on the side of the road.  This came from someone's home.  Artifacts dot the roadside here and there and I'm at a loss for words all over again.

"I have a responsibility to start over"

The campground I will be moving to shortly also operates as a shelter for 120 people.  One of those staying at the shelter is a city council member.  He was instrumental in pulling strings to get us to the right people to get permission to use the campground as one of our bases.  There's a photo of Hirota Bay hanging in the main hall of one of the campground buildings.  Hirota Bay is where Rikuzentakata is located.  It's this bay that the tsunami came into and then onto Rikuzentakata.  I will find a way to take a photo from a hill so you can get a sense of the extent of the damage in Rikuzentakata.

Hirota Bay is known in Japan for its oysters.  Other areas are known for producing mass quantities of oysters but Hirota Bay provides the gourmet brand sold only in high-end restaurants and hotels in Tokyo.  The entire oyster crop was destroyed.  The city council member who I've now become friends with is also a fisherman, or rather an oyster-man.  He lost everything.  He said it will take him five years to get his first oyster harvest back.

He runs this family business with his three sons.  While all of his family members survived, he lost all of his houses and had to run up the mountain towards the campground to get to higher ground.  He, too, watched the tsunami destroy his homes, Hirota Bay, his oysters and livelihood.  I asked what the local oyster growers were going to do here on out as all of them lost their crop.  He said half would take their allotted payment from the government and retire.  "Not me," he said.  "I have a responsibility to start over.  This is a family business.  I need to have something to pass onto my sons.  They are still young.  If I can live five more years and get them their first harvest after the tsunami I've done my part."

What does one say to this?  I might worry about where my next job is coming from but I have a spouse who has a steady job.  Both of us are employable.  We can move.  The people here don't have that kind of flexibility.  Houses are gone.  Family members are dead or missing.  Livelihoods shot.  Listening to their stories tests my ability to say the right thing at the right time.  So far I have yet to stick my foot in my mouth.  I am careful to dance delicately around the subject of death and destruction as so many have lost so much.  It's not a casual question.  Offering regrets, comfort and words of kindness only go so far.  This is far more complex than I ever imagined.

Everywhere I look....

This is what I see everyday.  Note the boat.  This is over half a mile inland.  It just breaks my heart.  I didn't let anyone see me take this photo.  I meant what I said when I wrote I won't capitalize on their pain.