Ping Pong

I'm catching ping pong balls all day and throwing them back with check marks and teardrops on them, both going unnoticed when a little stone [a boulder] hurtles in from the unknown and, shredding through the waistband of my stupid skirt and tights, manages to scrape the base of my lungs and leave a gasping crater the size of a young man's fiery cranium in the middle of me. Where my intestines used to be, I could say, but that's not the worst of it: I am reduced to pulmonary ash on the very week that I'm scheduled to give blood.

Christmas at the New Sanno Hotel

I tumbled fast asleep wearing my party dress and dreamed that I was sleeping in the house of my childhood. It was deserted and full of lonely creaks. My only comfort was a tiny dog, physically unlike any of the substantial yellow canines I grew up with. His eagerness filled every corner of me and I knew nothing but gratitude for him.

A Journey Homesick

My dad watches from behind the roped-off security area as I am asked whether my shoes contain metal shanks. I don't know the answer. I remove them and walk through the metal detector again.

"Yes, they do. Huge ones." The strawberry-nosed officer turns the monitor informatively toward me so I can see them.

Gary Lueders waits pink-faced and tearful until I am all the way through, and I turn around to wave. He already looks far away.

Inside, the Minnesotans all around me are smiling at each other and saying "that's ok" after colliding with their rolling luggage. One of them notices my blotchy, tear-stained face and gives me a sympathetic "hi." I turn around to see who she is talking to but it really is me. She's blond and looks like a churchgoer. I say "hi" and go back to looking at fridge magnets.

At gate E6, a soldier is returning home from Iraq. His arrival is announced and the Minnesotan waiting room erupts in an applause warm, sincere, and full of love for this one young curly American. He is given a standing ovation, and people are crying at the return of the youth, who is a stranger to them. I cry harder than anyone.

Drying our eyes, my fellow Midwesterners and I watch the KARE-11 news together while we wait for our departure to Chicago. The staph outbreak is becoming more serious, and actress Deborah Kerr has died. We watch as she famously kisses Burt Lancaster on the beach. Most of us are drinking Caribou coffees. I don't have a tissue so I go to the restroom to blow my nose. I sob at length to the tiled walls and floor, dizzy with homesickness. I'm not even gone yet.

I sleep hard on the plane. It feels like morning when we arrive. The train carries us briskly toward Tokyo. Outside, swarms of small black birds scatter and collect above concrete blocks of architecture. The navy-blue railway worker is completing his checks now. I am thanking him fervently with my eyes but he would never look there; his every gesture, dripping with decorum, seems to further revive my infatuation with his culture. He turns before exiting car #4 of the Ueno-bound locomotive and bows deeply. He would never cry in public.

It's a Fool Who Dances

I turned to the blue-eyed waitress and confided that watching People do their Dances makes me sad. On the street in front of us, other people's dads were tip-toeing and grinning like tree spirits in summer blue. I bet her that if my dad were there, he would dress in one of those little blue outfits, too, and celebrate the 1587 opening of Tokushima Castle with just as much sprightly agility as those small-kneed fathers could.

My father's knees are bigger than theirs were. My dad's were made for polka, and that's our dance, but in the end, everyone's knees are the same at their core. That's the important thing.

Some people dance in street festivals with their daughters and sons, and others save it for weddings. Some people practice their dances from the time they are little, and others have to fake it with their dads after three Oktoberfest beers. Both ways are OK, and in the end, there's not much to be sad about.

Alone

The lonely rain can wet the driest of hearts when there's an accordian in the room. You start thinking you're an old man serenading a bowl of pasta over wine, and your cigarette is never unlit. You wander into thoughts about your Mama and the way she used to cook without a conscience. You get hungry for lovers you never thought you needed. With an accordian, you can waltz all over the house. Play it in the shower, for the baby next door. Read the notes on the principal's fridge while the instrument mourns from your chest. Watch your hair curl in the mirror while the meatballs cook; there will be garlic tonight.