The Book of Matthew

For the past week we have been packing. Chrissy and I now have a plan to start a moving business that specializes in divorce moves. This may seem like a very limited market, but it really is quite a broad niche. We will move divorced, divorcing or even married couples. We are certain that once the move is complete everyone will hate each other and that even once happily married couples will be in the full throws of divorce. Chrissy and I don’t move well together. She is a control freak and I know how to really pack boxes.

This is the second birthday in a row that we have spent moving. Last year, my primary birthday memory was sitting on the bottom steps of our landing. We had just set our wardrobe on the floor of the entry. It took four of us to negotiate it over the rail of the upstairs landing, down the stairs to the ground floor. On the bottom landing we had to pirouette it over our heads. Yuri and I took the full weight of the beast in the final seconds. Four people couldn’t fit under it on the landing. When we had moved it upstairs, we didn’t have a railing. I wanted to leave it, but Chrissy insisted that it could be done. It took nothing short of walking on water to move it and it now is our entry closet in our new house.

This birthday, we will wait for the shipping company to pick up .86 cubic meters of household goods. Chrissy has cataloged all of the contents and will send off the packing list to the shipping company. I have no idea how our luggage from a year ago has expanded to spread through ten boxes. It must be some miracle like the loaves and fishes from the Sermon on the Mount. Through the packing and the un-Christian curses to make things fit into the boxes, I have forgotten some of the things that I will miss in Japan. Last night, I was reminded of some of the best things we have experienced over the past year when we went for our last supper at Katsumoto’s house.

He invited us last week. It wasn’t anything special, just the same as the three or four other dinners we have had with his family this year. That is what has made it so special; he has included us with his family.

Since my bike was packed, he picked us up and drove us over to his house. We stopped at the local organic grocery to pick up a few items, then he took us to a small park that overlooked the Shinkansen as it disappeared into the tunnel below us on its way to Kobe. Finally we made it to his house. As Shigeko cooked in the kitchen, he mentioned a small neighborhood festival just a few blocks away. Shota climbed on a chair and onto my shoulders and we went downstairs. On the backside of his block, a small parade of three floats had stopped. The people who were pulling the floats through the neighborhood took a few minutes to rest before they would continue on their way.

We continued on across route 43, under the highway to a small Shinto shrine nestled between the houses. The alley in front of the shrine was lined with six or seven carnival style vendors. They were selling various kinds of Japanese foods, candy and games for the kids to try. On the north side of the alley the small shrine was opened up. People milled into and around the shrine. A Shinto priestess danced to the sound of a flute and drum inside the opened doors of the shrine. People climbed the steps to ring the bell over the entrance, clap twice and pray to the area Kami. Shota scrambled over to one of the vendors just in front of the shrine and turned in two tickets for a chance to win a prize.
Disappointed, he won drew two tickets that were exchanged for a pound of salt and six boxes of tissue. He gave them to his dad very quickly. Across the courtyard another vendor sold small charms, which carried different blessings. You could buy a charm for good tests or victory. We bought one for a safe trip.

The shrine emptied out. There were seats inside on the left for people to sit in. Katsumoto handed us three tickets and told us to go in and sit. Within minutes, the Shinto priestess began her dance once again pointing a four-foot wooden spear in different directions as the flute shrilled a traditional Japanese tune. At the end of her performance, we turned our tickets in for another charm, a little bell in a bag granting us another blessing. At the door of the shrine volunteers offered us a taste of Sake.

Back in the alley on our way home, Katsumoto paid three hundred yen for Shota to play one of their pinball games. He won a pair of handcuffs. I paid another three hundred yen for him to play it again. He won a handheld game that squirts tiny rings onto a couple of spires in a little tank of water. Shota put the game he won with my money in his pocket and opened up the handcuffs. He walked home cuffed with a pair of gold plastic cuffs. When we got home, I showed him how to cuff people ‘American Style,’ hitting the wrist with a closed cuff hard enough to make the cuff spin around and locking the wrist within. He tried it on me, but my wrists were too big, so we made Chrissy his victim.

At home, Shota turned on the Sunday evening cartoon that he watches every week. This cartoon is traditional animation from the 1960s and has been on the air for the last 40 years. Katsumoto went to pick Maho and her friend up from Juku, English cram school as Shigeko finished making Yakisoba on the table in front of us. The rice balls were already on the table.

Shota brought out a small train set to show Matt. He has a little battery operated Hankyu line that circled the track. Shota and I, sitting on the floor, continued to add cars, engines and batteries from other train sets onto the track with the moving train.

When Maho and Monami arrived with Katsumoto, we began to eat the Yakisoba, noodles fried with vegetables in a sauce. When Chrissy took a rice ball to eat, Katsumoto told Shigeko how Chrissy would put soy sauce on the rice ball.
Shigeko looked mortified, but she went to the kitchen to get the soy sauce. Chrissy demonstrated how she ate rice with soy sauce and Shota tried it as well. Shota pronounced that the rice with soy sauce was delicious, “Oishi!” At the end of dinner, Shigeko brought out the watermelon that we had picked up at the organic grocer. Shota, Maho, Monami and I sat on the floor to play a couple of card games. For the last game, Matt joined us on the floor for a game of memory. The girls each were able to match eight pairs; Matt and Shota matched four, and I matched only three.

Being a school night, the kids had to get ready for bed and Katusmoto took us home. We were home by 9:30. I was glad for the respite from packing. It reminded me that the most important things would never fit in the suitcase, but the sights, the sounds of the culture and the fact that we were included in the family will nonetheless be packed away and treasured.