The New Song Completed hr597

At long last, my new song is finally complete. It took about five years to finish it, which seemed too long, but my previous song took more. That previous song of mine was my everything. I had always craved just one song that I could think I was born to write, that represented myself, my life. The song was exactly what I had been after. Since I put everything I had into the song, I was almost going to retire when I finished it. I said all things I had wanted to say to the world and summoned up all skills I had to the maximum in the song. I thought I had nothing left in me. But once I tried to retire, I found myself at a loss. Nothing except for music interested me. I also realized I couldn’t do anything well other than music. I decided to continue writing songs and singing, by way of retirement. I set about my new song with an easy mindset intending to make light work of it because I considered my chief song done. However, it didn’t go that way. As I went on, I couldn’t help working seriously. My easy attitude toward the new song quickly vanished. The more I worked on the song, the deeper I was in it. The concept of retirement was simply pushed away. I even revised the words and the song became profound. I was as focused and eagerly desired perfection as for the previous song. As a result, it took five years while at first I had meant to finish it in a week. I put everything I had again in the end, and I was filled with rapture that I didn’t feel in my everyday life when the new song was completed. The feeling lingered for several days and I didn’t feel like doing anything. It was like all energy was drained out of me and I was absent-minded all the time. It seemed I lost my concentration as a whole. I knocked off a glass and wasted my drink that I never do, though I’m clumsy and a regular dropper. Even my bowels were loose. The completion of a song doesn’t necessarily mean all the work is over. I need to make a backup of all data, store them, convert to several different formats, release publicly, arrange distribution, and so on. Although those mountainous tasks of post production await me, I still have a thick head and haven’t gotten down to it for a few weeks now. I noticed that I was less anxious to release and promote my new song than before. I used to get down to post production right after a new song was completed so as to make it public quickly. But I don’t have zest for it as I did before. It’s probably because I don’t expect the world so much any more and my trust in human beings has decreased over the years. I’ve learned that songs in which I do my best and with which I’m satisfied completely don’t have to do with the market. My previous song proved it. The song was fruition in which I got a real sense of fulfillment. Yet, it was totally disregarded by this world. I get used to seeing my songs ignored and my expectations failed. Big sales or admiration are no longer such a big deal to me. I just wish my new song would reach someone and help her or him in some way when it’s released a few months later. I hope my songs are heard by those who need them, and play an important role in their lives. I believe it will happen, somehow…

Hidemi's Rambling No.383

When my younger sister had learned Japanese dancing for a couple of years, my mother decided to get her on a local TV talent show. Unlike me, my sister was always my mother’s pride for her prettiness. To be on the show, there was an audition in a city, about 20 miles away from our home. My father was going to drive them there. I assumed they would go with just three of them, leaving me behind as usual. For this particular occasion though, I felt rather happy not to join them because I had borne a grudge against Japanese dancing since my mother let my sister take lessons not me. But my mother had the nerve to demand me to come with them to the audition, saying that it was a huge event for my sister and I should show support for her. I got in the car, not for her audition but for a possibility to eat out at a restaurant on our way back, which we hardly did and the three of them might do without me. My mother was never punctual and we were already late by the time we left home. From then, things were just like the movie, ‘Little Miss Sunshine’. When we got there, the registration was closing and the judges were leaving. My mother desperately begged for the audition. They reluctantly allowed it with the obvious intention of making it finish quickly. After my sister danced for a few seconds, they stopped the music and said thank-you. I kept asking my mother if it meant she passed or not while my sister gloomily undressed. When my mother admitted my sister failed, I felt over the moon. I thought justice had been served. I was in an utterly good mood and was saying, “Let’s eat out! Which restaurant shall we go?” all the way in the dismal car. My parents and my sister were too depressed to respond to me and we ended up going straight home. I couldn’t get to eat out after all…

Hidemi's Rambling No.382

My mother used to take lessons in Japanese dancing. A woman in the neighborhood taught it in the evening to the neighbor housewives at her house. They held an annual public performance and my mother would practice earnestly at home when it came closer. My sister and I used to imitate her and dance alongside her. I liked it and danced quite well. I was in junior high school and my sister was still in elementary school. Since my sister came home from school much earlier than I did, my mother would take her to the lessons and let her wait and watch there. My father gave my mother a ride for every lesson. So, my parents and my sister would go out together once a week while I was left in the house with my strict grandparents. Soon, my sister began to take lessons as well. I felt it extremely unfair because it was I who danced well and should take lessons. I complained to my mother as hard as I could, but she never paid attention. The junior high I attended was so far from my home and I couldn’t come home by the time they left for lessons. My mother made no effort for me to ask for a late lesson to the teacher. It seemed she simply wanted to go out with just three of them once a week. Even in an instance of Japanese dancing, I was again an outcast in my family. I wonder why it kept happening to me all the time…

Hidemi's Rambling No.381

Lately, relaxing at the communal spa in my apartment building has been the biggest pleasure for me. I take a hot bath, a Jacuzzi and a sauna first thing in the morning and also in the evening. But as usual, it’s housewives with kids that spoil my pleasure. Especially the one with a baby is the worst. I strongly disagree to bring a baby into the spa since it still relies on a diaper and the spa has a stone floor. I’ve often seen a baby slip and fall on the floor, bumping its head. It’s a dreadful sight to me but a mother is usually just laughing at it while the baby is bawling for pain. It even seems a mother tries to make an ear-piercing noise with a baby in the spa on purpose. They let babies shriek and cry all the time in the spa, and crawl around on the locker room floor while they’re drying their hair. It’s sheer madness. Some mother leisurely washes her body by leaving her baby to its five or six-year-old sister. In my opinion, it’s negligence of parental responsibilities and child abuse. Sadly, few feel angry with those senseless mothers. Other residents show great pleasure to see a baby and laugh happily while it’s crying. They look at mothers’ negligence as if it were heartwarming or something. They flock around a baby, laughing frivolously and babbling foolishly. Even a usually grumpy woman with a sullen face who returns hello very unwillingly to me is remarkably amiable to a baby and smiles at it with all her force. To me, a baby is a grotesque alien or a hairless monkey at best. I’m again in the minority here…

Hidemi's Rambling No.380

I was walking along the main street of this small town yesterday and saw a neighbor who lives two doors down from my apartment walking toward me. We’ve exchanged greetings for several times at the communal spa or in the hallway of my apartment building, but we’d never bumped into each other outside. When I said hello to her on the street, she didn’t recognize me at first. She gave me a puzzled expression for a brief moment and then seemed to recognize me. She returned hello with a friendly smile. After I walked on away from her for a while, I began to feel doubtful. Was it really she? She somehow looked different on the street and may have been a total stranger who just looked like her. Did she pretend to know me to be courteous although she had no idea who I was? I had an urge to ask the neighbor if it was herself. But, suppose I mistook a stranger for her, and ask her, “Did we meet on the street the other day?” What kind of a creepy question would it be? She must think I’m weird. And if we did meet, it would be even creepier to be asked whether we met or not from someone she actually met. She must think I’m crazy. There’s no means of finding out if that was she or not. Distinguishing people’s faces is so difficult for me and it often causes inconveniences…

Hidemi's Rambling No.379

The house where I spent my childhood was very old. Half the floor in it was bare earth and my family lived like in the way of the Wild West. With our shoes on, we walked around the house and ate meals. It was all right to throw away the rest of a drink from a cup directly onto the floor. My father used to smoke. When he smoked, he would light a cigarette with a match and toss the match to the dirt floor. It burned itself out. That is probably my earliest memory. I remember a thrown match was burning out on the floor and I said “Ah…” According to my parents, I uttered “Ah…” every time my father threw away a match as if I didn’t approve it. And my tone was always tinged with disappointment. I guess I was already cheap as a child and couldn’t bear a thing to be thrown away after just one-time use. I was nagging at my parents about everything all my childhood, and even my earliest memory is something critical about my parents. No wonder we’ve been on bad terms for such a long time…

Hidemi's Rambling No.378

In my childhood, I lived with my grandmother who inevitably said, “There’s no place like home” when she got back from her rare traveling. I used to think that meant a huge waste of time, money and effort considering that she judged home was best after the trip. But when I came back from my trip this time, I thought, “There’s no place like home” by myself. Does it mean I’ve already felt at home in my new apartment in this new town? Or, am I just simply getting old? It snowed in this region yesterday for the first time in this winter and the ground was thinly covered with snow. The region is famous as a heavy snowfall area. As I had lived for a long time in the urban area where it seldom snowed, I’m exhilarated when it snows. But local people here feel depressed about snow since it’s too much. I’m having my first winter here and not sure how long and severe it will be. So far, I’ve been still fond of winter and snow. When I live here long enough, will I get tired of snow and hate winter? Maybe that’s when this place really becomes my home…

Hidemi's Rambling No.377

The hotel that I stayed at for the night of my trip was a brand-new one and included an all-you-can-eat breakfast although I had found it online at the lowest price. The cool lobby sparkled with cleanliness and high-tech gadgets were here and there like the card key that called the elevator or opened the room with electronic sounds by just being held over the small panel. But stepping into the room, I was taken aback at its small space. It had two small double windows designed not to open since the hotel stood right above the train station. I was afraid that I couldn’t breathe and sleep because I have claustrophobia. Thankfully, I did both, as it seemed I’ve been overcoming claustrophobia since I moved in a town surrounded by the mountains. Next morning, I went down to the restaurant for the breakfast buffet I’d looked forward to. Although the place was quite big and had many tables, only few tables were left empty. Along the buffet was a dire long line of guests to get food. There were too many people everywhere! I began to find it luxurious that I now lived in a sparsely populated town with plentiful vacant lots. I think nature is astonishingly beautiful, far more so than neat shops. Few people agree with me and that’s why the city is packed with so many people…

Hidemi's Rambling No.376

I visited the Tokyo metropolitan area for the first time in six months since I moved out there. After getting off the bullet train, I walked to the faraway platform to transfer the train. Because Tokyo Station is too big and so many different train lines come in, it took fifteen minutes to get to the platform even by using the moving-walk. The whole station was filled with an enormous number of people even though it was midday of a weekday. It reminded me of a news image of a department’s floor in US on Black Friday. I assume the total number of people walking in a long tunnel between the platforms for one day exceeds the number of shoppers for one year at the busiest shopping area in the town where I currently live. On both sides of the tunnel were cool shops that glowed in the dazzling light. After a 40-minute train ride, I arrived at the nearest station to Costco, which was my first destination for this two-day trip. This station was also crammed with passengers all the way to the ticket gate. To descend from the platform to the ticket gate, the long lines were formed in front of the huge stairways. It took a good ten minutes to exit the station and I missed the bus to Costco. It was raining with bitter wind, as the weather forecast had said. The thing that has been almost always wrong proved right on the particular day of my trip…

Hidemi's Rambling No.375

My weekend trip to the city approaches. I basically like to travel, but it’s a time-consuming process to make a plan, to check the train schedules and the transfers, and to make reservations for the bullet trains and a hotel at the lowest prices. I’ve been still unpacking after moving in here and setting for my home studio is unfinished which means my music work has been suspended. Added to that is packing for the trip and setting the timer of an HDD recorder for TV programs while I’m away. Since it’s the first time to go down to the city from the secluded, highland town in six months, my schedule of the trip is quite tight with lots of things to do. I wonder I can really enjoy this trip. If a trip begins when it’s planned, so far it’s a tie between excitement and stress. Because I’m spending a lot of money for a cheap person, I’ve been under tremendous pressure to make the trip worthwhile and to keep a good condition without catching a cold. In the meantime, the weather forecast for the first day of the trip is for rain…

Hidemi's Rambling No.374

Each of us has a must-have item for our dream home. For some, it’s a walk-in closet, and for others, it’s a Lazy Boy. For me, it’s a bagel guillotine. I’d always dreamed about life with a bagel guillotine on a breakfast bar. Actually, the final push to decide on my new apartment was its online picture showing the breakfast bar opposite to the kitchen. But I’d never seen a bagel guillotine on the market in Japan. To begin with, Japanese people hardly eat bagels. They like soft, tender food and tough food like bagels doesn’t appeal to them. A few days ago, I happened to go in a small cafe in town for the first time and they carried a bagel guillotine at 80% off in the obscure corner. It was an odd appearance since the cafe didn’t carry bagels nor any merchandise except for the bagel guillotine. The only merchandise they carried there and the only one who had wanted one of those in this small town encountered miraculously. I got it and put it on the breakfast bar in my apartment. I was so satisfied and felt moving in here was a right decision. But to get bagels themselves, I have to go down to the city on a long train ride because I haven't seen a store carry bagels here…

Hidemi's Rambling No.373

Since I moved in this small town, I’ve noticed two peculiarities that I didn’t experience when I lived in a suburb of Tokyo. One: no coins are found on the street. Two: the odds of getting a wrong total when shopping are more than 50 percent. Because of the latter, I check a receipt thoroughly here every time I shop. At a home furnishings store I often shop, at least one item among what I buy has a different bar code from its price tag on the shelf. I’m surprised if they don’t make a mistake for a total at the checkout counter. When I shopped at a grocery store the other day and carefully checked the receipt as usual, I found a mistake, as I’d expected. I complained to the cashier and she paid me back the difference. But the refund was still one yen short on my calculation. As a super cheap person, it’s out of the question for me to give up one yen, and I claimed again. She gave me one yen back. Walking toward the bus stop to go home, I made sure the total again in my head and realized I had miscalculated and my second claim had been false. I got extra one yen wrongly. I didn’t want to steal from the store but didn’t want to turn back either. I got on the bus feeling guilty, and on the floor, I found a one yen coin. That was the first money I’d picked up in six months since I moved in this town. Peculiar…

Hidemi's Rambling No.372

Three months ago, I wrote here about a middle-aged woman who told me to take off my slippers in the locker room at the communal spa of my apartment. Her reason for the strange demand was because everyone except for me was barefooted inside the locker room as an implicit rule and I should have followed suit. I feel wearing slippers is more hygienic than barefooted on a shared floor and still have kept wearing them there to date no matter how many puzzled stares I received from other residents. And at last, it happened yesterday. After taking a bath, I came in front of the washstand in the locker room to dry my hair as usual, with my slippers on. Then, lo and behold, on the feet of a woman sitting next to me was a pair of slippers! The second example has emerged, and I’m no longer the only resident that isn’t barefooted. She must have seen me wearing slippers and thought it was a good idea. I’m glad to have had the courage to keep wearing them. I struck a blow at Japanese bad habit of being the same as others. With a small step like this, the world can be changed. I was greatly encouraged by such a petty incident concerning just a pair of slippers…

Hidemi's Rambling No.371

Right before I moved in this small town, a cool Western style restaurant had opened near my new apartment. It has become my favorite place right away, as there are only few Western style restaurants around the town. Until this summer, it offered an all-you-can-eat buffet. But now it has been ordered a la carte and closed between lunchtime and dinnertime. Because I have a jinx that my favorite place is almost always destined to close down, I’ve been feeling anxious about the future of that restaurant. I went there for lunch yesterday and found they had replaced the menu book with a printed sheet of paper. A list of the menu had decreased to a quarter of the previous one. The number of the employees had been also drastically reduced and a chef was bringing the food to the tables and clearing them. The showcase that used to have lots of pieces of a variety of cakes was empty. Since I really like this restaurant, I do hope it will survive. But an ominous sign is that it’s already my favorite place. As long as I like that restaurant, there is a high probability that it will also close down like many other favorite places of mine…

Hidemi's Rambling No.370

The other day, I happened to have an unpleasant need to call my parents. Since we don’t get along well, the last time we spoke was when my mother called me to see if I was all right after the Japan’s earthquake in March. Whenever she speaks with me, she brags about my younger sister at great length. My sister has drifted from one job to another all her life while I’m a musician all my life. Even so, my mother is extremely proud of my sister who she considers a member of society, whereas she considers me an outsider and has kept denying my way of life. In our latest telephone conversation, she mentioned that my sister had moved out my parents’ house for her new job and lived near my place when the earthquake occurred. According to her, my sister got injured and stayed at a shelter. I had thought I was the only one in the family who suffered from the earthquake because my parents’ house was far from the seismic center and I didn’t know my sister had moved to the region where I lived. My astonishment was, that my mother hadn’t told me all about this until now although we spoke right after the earthquake. For some reason, she had kept it in secret for her benefit. Whatever the benefit might be, she kept me from helping my sister on purpose by concealing that my sister lived close to me. I’ve known her useless secrets and schemes, but this time I was amazed what a monster she had become…

Hidemi's Rambling No.369

Until I moved in this small highland town in the mountains, I'd forgotten about enjoying beautiful colors of autumn leaves. The leaves of trees around my apartment have been turning yellow and orange. As its peak seemed near, I decided to go up to a mountain park nearby. It took me too long to prepare to go out and I consequently missed the bus. The next available transportation was a train. When I went outside of the building, it was chillier than I'd expected, and I went back in to change my jacket to a heavier one. By the time I went out again, there was little time to catch the train, and I had to scurry to the station. It made me sweat and changing a jacket futile. I was already hungry when I got off the train and walked to one of my favorite restaurants for lunch. From the outside, I saw a kid in the restaurant, which meant I couldn't go in as I have kid-phobia. I changed my plan to have lunch at the restaurant inside the mountain park. Because I was starving, I wanted to get there as soon as possible and scurried again to the cable car station to catch the earliest available cable car. It had just departed when I arrived at the station sweating all over. To the next departure, I was eating free samples of food and sweets at the shop in the station. I finally had lunch at the park and the view from the restaurant was absolutely breathtaking. Autumn leaves were woven through the mountains, from the front of the window into the distance. Beneath the window was a blanket of cosmos flowers. My hectic chases of a bus, a train and a cable car seemed to pay off. When I was leaving, the cashier couldn't handle the cash register well and started to grapple with it. During her repeated unsuccessful attempts, the departure time of a cable car to go down the mountain was getting closer. I handed the exact amount of money not to receive the change and asked her to let me leave. I barely made it. Even on a day off, I was pushed for time all day...

Hidemi's Rambling No.368

For the first time in six months since I moved in a new town surrounded by the mountains, I’m going to get out of the town by going down the mountains to the city. I’m going on a trip to Tokyo Disney Resort and my hometown next month. After precise planning, I made a reservation for a hotel and trains online yesterday. I found myself lucky when I saw some online special discount packages just released on the same day. The package included a hotel stay and a round-trip train ticket, which was cheaper than the list price of the train ticket. That meant a high-class hotel stay would be completely free. I jumped to the offer, filled out the application form and clicked a submit button. The web site showed an error message saying it was already sold out. When I got back to the package list page, the one I had chosen turned into an unavailable sign. It seemed sold out while I was filling out the form. I chose the second-cheapest package among the available ones, filled out the form and submitted. The result was again that it had been sold out. I repeated this for five or six times and still couldn’t make it. Each time, by the time I clicked a submit button, the item had been snatched. Was everyone online all at once making a reservation at this particular web site, for the same destination and date? Could it be possible? Or, was the application system simply gone down? While suspicion took hold of me, my online reservation had become a fierce battle of speed. Finally, I successfully made it with a less discounted package. Although it was still a great discount, I felt like I made a loss after seeing the bigger discount items…

Hidemi's Rambling No.367

The high school I attended held a team event competition on a field day. Ten students from each class formed a team and put together an event. The team that won the competition would get a trophy. When I was a sophomore, I was a team leader of a costume dance parade on a field day. I planned and directed the show of 50 students, which featured music and characters from foreign movies. For two months, I’d prepared the costumes, choreographed the dance, and practiced with other members. In hindsight, it was a puerile silly show, but our team won the competition that year. As a team leader, I couldn’t help anticipating great gratitude from the team members. A trophy was to be handed after all events of a field day were over. I did some small after-event work in a tent beside the field when a teacher handed a trophy to our team. Although it had been always handed to a team leader in school history, one of our team members received it in place of me and the commemorative photo of the whole team was taken without me. Everything happened in mere five minutes while I was inside a tent. When I was back in the field, the team had been dismissed and the trophy had been moved to a school building. I got furious. I shouted at the team members ‘Why didn’t you wait for me?’ over and over. They seemed to realize my absence right then and made lame excuses such as they looked for me but couldn’t find me, and so on. I received great contempt instead of gratitude. None of them had an ounce of respect for me. I didn’t even touch or see the trophy. In the yearbook, I wasn’t in the picture of the glorious team as if I weren’t in the team let alone the team leader. I still can’t breathe for fury remembering that field day…

Hidemi's Rambling No.366

Throughout my schooldays, a field day was a nightmare for me. I was poor at gymnastic and a slow runner. I always swaggered as the smartest kid at school, but a field day was the annual event that I was humiliated as a laughingstock in front of all students and their parents. The team events like tug-of-war did less damage because my poor performance was covered up among other students. But individual competitions like a hundred-meter dash were such dreadful events. It was raced in groups of six and I was always last. I don't know how it's felt to breast the tape. My parents came to cheer and bring lunch on a field day every year and always felt embarrassed in the stands. When I was little, I had been extremely introverted and hardly spoken to anyone except for my family members. But with a lot of effort, I had become sociable by the time I was in the fourth grade. And on a field day of that year, a strange thing happened. I came in third in the hundred-meter dash. I never thought sociability affected ability to run. I assumed my long spell of a humiliating field day was over. Unfortunately though, it wasn't. I had been skinny but as I got sociable, I gained an appetite and got fat. I soon returned to be a back marker in the race on a field day. I became more unsightly as a slow fat runner and drew more laughter than before. Humiliation added up to a field day...

Hidemi's Rambling No.365

It’s a season for a field day at school in Japan. Students have rehearsed the various events for a month or more. Parents are invited to a field day to cheer and bring lunch for their kids. Popular events are the 100-meter dash, an obstacle race, a tug-of-war, and a relay race. Among them, there is one weird competition. Students play on opposite sides of a red team and a white team, to throw small balls into a basket. Parents are required to sew the ball out of cloth beforehand and the school collects them for the event. In the competition, the handmade balls get scattered around a pole at the top of which has a wooden basket. With a signal, students dash to the balls all at once, pick them up and shoot them at the basket. Then teachers count the balls inside the baskets of both teams out loud, and the team with more balls in the basket wins. Besides this, there are other strange team events. A mock cavalry battle that a student wearing a cap is carried by two students who run around to get opponents’ caps, a composition exercise that students form certain shapes with their bodies as a group, and a dance by the whole classes. They need a lot of rehearsals because of those team events. All students must participate in a field day that comes every year until they graduate from high school…