I've been feeling stale in terms of creativity for a while. Hitachinaka is a pleasant place to live; it's very orderly (if you discount the statistics of driving accidents), full of nice homes and nice families and nice grocery stores and trains that run pretty much always on time.
It's a lot like suburban Ohio, when you get down to it, which is good for my peace of mind but horribly chafing on my inspiration.
What I liked about Taipei was that there was always something going on around me that could confuse or interest me. There were so many people to watch, so many lives being lived and events occurring at the same time. Utter chaos, like a game-show where a contestant is put in a box and dollar bills are blown around for them to catch; anything you grab is more than you had before. Anything I grab out of the air in a city like Tokyo or Taipei is a new brilliant creative idea waiting to be dissected into a whole story.
I don't feel that in Hitachinaka. I feel peaceful, serene, settled. And that feels good, until I get back into a city and the crush of life makes me itch for adventure and discovery like an addict chasing a hit. I need to constantly be intrigued or astounded by something, or else I find my brain atrophying into the tidy life of work, eat, sleep, repeat. In Tokyo, I feel my brain exploding with things to say, with characters to make, with situations to throw at them; with places I want to explore and pictures I want to take. In Hitachinaka, in a place where change is much slower and less visible (in the form of people growing up or the occasional building being constructed), I start to feel chained to reality and less able to imagine anything more.
It's the sort of thing I ran away from when I left Ohio for Taiwan in 2012, frankly. Tidy living isn't for me. I like a certain amount of certainty in my days, like knowing I can get food and water or a place to sit with headphones and ignore people if I need to. But when I arrived in Tokyo this weekend, I didn't have a hostel or hotel lined up, and the one place I wanted to go was full until the next night. I called a friend and landed a couch to sleep on, but for about an hour it was just me and an over-stuffed bag in a crowded metro station and not much else. Sure, I had my ATM card and could probably have over-payed for someplace, or gotten over my squick factor and booked an internet cafe room overnight. I knew I'd sleep SOMEWHERE, I just didn't know where. And that kind of uncertainty was fine. I didn't know what I'd do with my days here, either, aside from walk down every cramped alley of Harajuku I could find, but that kind of uncertainty was fine, too; adventure waiting to unfold.
Daily life in Hitachinaka is quite opposite. Work, eat, sleep, repeat. I know my schools, my lessons, my kids, my teachers. I know the streets around my apartment and where to get food and how much money I can spend each day to make it through to the next month. That's a nice kind of certainty, a secure one, but it gets DULL after months on end. I'm honestly a bit relieved there are mountains to the north of me, because at least I know if I need to I can hop a train and at least marvel at something dramatic that requires increased brainpower to imagine in terms of age, origin, and size.
Look at me now, even, happily toiling away at the keyboard and twisting words about with a sort of easy glee I've not had for months now. Generally I've been holing up in Starbucks in order to attain this kind of displacement inspiration, but now with Starbucks growing familiar, even that lead into writing joy has gone cold.
That might have to be my mission for this coming autumn, when I get back into school and am once again tethered to one town, one routine. I'll have to find strange places to sit down, have a drink, and plow through words even if they feel clunky or over-used.
I'd write more, honestly I would, but it's nearing 1am and not only do I have to check out of this hostel tomorrow by 11am, I'd like to get in a few more sights tomorrow before having to ultimately close up shop and say goodbye to Tokyo for the foreseeable future. Sleep will help in that endeavor.
Goodnight.
No comments:
Post a Comment