I’m a giant in this house
Home feels different, now. This flat that I’ve dragged my suitcase to, three stories of stairs one stair at a time, this is mine, has been mine for almost a decade now. I used to think of it as small, suffocating — too small to fit a full kitchen, with peeling wallpaper and paint. Water stains my landlord never deemed it necessary to fix.
Now, after just a month’s absence, everything feels huge and bright. I’ve chosen the flat because it was so well-lit, I nearly never need to turn the lights on. It’s a blessing that only ever turns against me in summer, when temperatures inside reach temperatures no flat should ever reach. I stand in this huge space, and I feel huge myself. There are so many things here, all of them mine, and it seems impossible that I should have been the one to afford them all, to choose them, to place them. Having lived out of a suitcase for even a month, everything I turned to seemed suddenly unnecessary. Putting together a place, the game Unpacking has told me, both takes infinite care and no time at all. Your books go onto a bookshelf, your clothes in a wardrobe. Neither Unpacking nor Marie Kondo, answer to the question why all of this is yours, why you ever thought any of it mattered.
“I’m a giant in this house,” I text my friends, mildly delirious after over 30 hours without sleep. Later, when they ask me, I can’t tell with certainty if this is a good or a bad thing. But I am a giant, looking at myself in a full-length mirror for the first time in weeks — I have gained weight and muscle and hair. My calves especially, look huge. A month of walking 10 kilometres a day has left its mark.
I get into the shower and I shave, I scrub, I peel. I have callouses on my thumbs so big I can cut them away with scissors without hurting myself. I cut all of my nails, I slough off dead skin. Afterwards, I feel like I’ve taken off a whole person, and I think I liked her better than the one looking at me in the mirror now.
The first time I went to Japan was 15 years ago. I still want to reflexively make fun of my love for Japan, mostly because that love isn’t reciprocated, and because anyone who has what I want and/or wanted — the job, the visa, the partner in Japan — likes to sagely tell me that as soon as you’ve got what you want, the love will inevitably cool. I fell in love with Japan over anime, the way a lot of people did and do, but I think my love transformed rather quickly. As soon as she noticed my interest, my sister would make it a point to get me a book about Japan for any Christmas and birthday. Most of them were travel guides, useless for pre-teen me, but I read everything, again and again and again. I didn’t want to see Japan because it was the “whacky” birthplace of the animations I loved — I wanted to see the place for what it was.
When I thought about studying Japanese, I told myself I had to go there first to make sure. I sent off my university applications and started working multiple jobs, every day of the week. Every penny I made went into the bank until I had enough money to make it to Japan. I don’t remember a lot from that trip — I remember the giant arch of the Nagoya Dome, where I went to watch a concert. I remember my small digital camera, my first camera ever, a pink Casio Exilim that I loved like nothing else. I remember the hostel in Gion, Kyoto, with the tatami mats’ incredible smell lulling me to sleep as I lay on a futon for the first time in my life.
That day, 15 years ago, I became the Kyoto wife. I don’t know how I came to love a place this fiercely, I can’t have been in Kyoto long — my trip lasted a whole 7 days and included stops in Tokyo, Kyoto, Nagoya, Osaka and Nara — but that was it. I was in. I wanted to go back to that place, and if I had to complete a four-year degree to do that, then I would. To make the Kyoto wife into more than an idea, I went to university dirt poor. No money to shop or go out much, just the grind. It was really as simple as that.
However, if you’re reading this, you probably know I didn’t use my degree to make money. I’m not disappointed about that, not usually, because I know my degree has value beyond my employability. I know my love, and my degree, have made me into a better, or at least marginally more interesting person. But capitalism, our common way of making and spending money, wants things to be all about itself. I have nothing to show for 15 years of love, enough time for other people to attain superiority in their chosen field, or at least pass their stupid business Japanese exam. The grind for Kyoto, Kyoto, Kyoto gave way to guilt and grief, and so I went into a different field, and a different job, and I can’t keep the thing I love the most. I can see it, sometimes, mostly at a distance, other times up close, and then I have to put that part of myself away again and be someone else, a professional at loving something else.
Now, I am back home. I have taken off the other person, the lover who climbed mountains and who scuffed the leather off her trekking shoes. I’ve left her behind like my pair of ripped jeans, the middle button of my favourite shirt and rows of empty lemonade bottles. A Kyoto wife supposedly used to be a way to describe a mistress: the husband lives in Edo but he has a wife in Kyoto. It was probably a reference to Nene, Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s favourite wife, who had a temple in Kyoto built to retire to after his death. It’s Kodaiji. Kodaiji is nice, they hold regular events such as tea ceremonies and small flea markets, and they are very proud of their makie decorations. You should visit. Make sure to visit the nearby Ryozen Kannon statue as well — I have yet to see it.
It’s getting harder to leave the Kyoto wife behind with every time I turn into her. My calves will shrink, my impressions will turn into half-remembered memories, but she is a part of me. She can make me feel like a giant in this house, which will from now on only shrink around me with every day I spend in it until it once again feels like a prison. When it does, I hope to escape to be her once again.