A Good Way To Be Tired

 I have been in Japan for ten days.  Every one of them has ended with my falling asleep moments after entering my hotel room,

I could blame some of that fatigue on the heat and humidity: Every one has felt like the steamiest one I experienced in New York, Florida or anywhere else I’ve lived or visited. I don’t recall Cambodia or Laos, which are well within the tropical zone, being so  resembling a sauna. Today I did the trek up Fushima Inari, where ten thousand orange gates frame the trail up the mountain. Every body—including those young enough to be my grandchildren and lithe enough to be ballerinas and marathoners—were sheathed in sweat.

 

 

Were my fatigue a result only of the sweltering conditions, I would feel resigned, perhaps dispirited: The weather just happens. But I am satisfied, even content. I am experiencing so much during my days here, not only from my bike rides and visits to shrines, temples and other sites, but simply from being here.

It’s as if I am “catching up” or “making up for lost time.” At the risk of sounding trite, I wish I’d come here sooner—as in, decades ago. I find myself wondering what I might be like had I immersed myself in a culture where people do their jobs and helpful not because they’re trying to be helpful, but rather because, really, what else can we do? Now I wonder how much I’ve come to see aggression and confrontation as normal as a result of living in New York and, increasingly, the United States.

When I ride the unprotected bike lanes that line some streets, I don’t hear a crescendo of car horns behind and beside me or feel the hostility of drivers who just might run me over if it meant nothing more than a fine and points on their licenses (if indeed they have licenses). And in the sidewalk bike lanes, I don’t get the sense that pedestrians see me as part of an invading hostile force.

Oh, and store clerks don’t stare and sigh when I confuse the two coins with holes in the middle—a 50 vs a 5 yen piece—and explain—or call someone can —when I ask what’s in a package or bottle with a label printed only in Japanese. They have better things to do—namely, their jobs—than to shame or patroniize you.

In short, I don’t think I have ever been in a more civilized place. I wonder what I might now, be like if I’d experienced it earlier in my life. For now, it’s an adjustment—and adjustments tire me out. But I don’t mind this kind of tired.