My Stripes and Feathers

I am not some stone commission

Like a statue in a park

I am flesh and blood and vision

I am howling in the dark

Long blue shadows of the jackals

Are falling on a pay phone by the road

Oh all they ever wanted

Was just to come in from the cold

(Come In From The Cold / Joni Mitchell)

The past week or so, I would have trouble answering the question how am I. The good and the bad are like layers upon each other that do not come in contact.

Well, the only bad thing, that hardly qualifies as a tragedy but is getting to me, is the trouble I have been having with installing Internet connection in my new place. I know from others such things occasionally become a problem in Japan, but the inconvenience of living without it together with a little pressure from home, the completely insane amounts of phone calls, forms, letters ans messages I had to endure, all with no consideration of me not being a native Japanese speaker, no help (which I admit, I didn't really ask for) and, probably the only thing I could really use, someone who would understand how difficult all this really is.

The cloud of Japanese bureaucracy hanging over me, together with a sudden attack of what seemed to be nostalgia, but is more likely, in my case, to be hunger for something new, left me with a general feeling that I am in a black stripe. My mom always told me life had stripes, black and white, good and bad. That's why realizing you are in a black one is actually half a comfort, since you can expect an improvement.

A sudden wave of relief was not late to follow. First, the chase after the rare and fast fading Kyoto snow led me up Philosopher's Road, into the mountain temples, that remind me why was it that I came here, and what I love about Kyoto and my life at this point.

Later, my new friend and role model Melinda took me to a calligraphy lesson, were I was not only able to get into a mood of concentrated creativity, but also find out I don't suck in an art so demanding. Hope to continue that seriously.

Another foreign resident of Kyoto had unknowingly contributed to me jumping to the next stripe, by inviting me and my friends to his birthday party, where under the influence of surprisingly tasty drinks I was able to have a lively conversation with people outside my usual gang, spread my feathers a bit, after forgetting I had them for a while. And another little piece of joy in a girls life - having a "high-spirited" conversation all the way to sleep with one of my forbidden Malaysians, and a completely absurd mail exchange with the other.

Ever since my energies are high and I walk the city happily and proudly, being its only bikeless citizen. and from the balcony of my newly furnished apartment I can almost see a new spring coming.