This is the sort of comment Sarah and I have heard a lot since we’ve been back. Some other popular comments “Aren’t you glad to be back?” “How close were you?” “You made it through it,” “What was it like?” and finally; “You should write about it.” That last one was first said by my father, but I continue to hear it. They suggest I write it sooner rather than later, while its still ‘fresh in my mind, while I can remember every single detail.’ I think they are afraid that I might forget it somehow. Right now, I don’t see how that’s possible. For the past few weeks I’ve been dwelling on it and if it’s not my primary focus it’s still there sitting on the periphery of my mind.
So I guess it probably is the best time to write about it maybe not because of its freshness but as a form of catharsis. The hope is to move it from my mind’s periphery to someplace more manageable. The sounds, the panic, the fear, the smell of toast (I was making toast when it happened) are indeed still fresh memories but I would like them to start to go stale.
I’m not sure the best way to go this. The easiest way, I guess, is to address some of the more popular comments we’ve heard starting with “What was it like?”
What is was like:
That’s easy; scary. It was scary. Not the benign, fun sort of scary either. Not the ‘I just watched five minute of Ringu and can’t sleep’ sort, nor was it the ‘about to jump off the high dive’ sort of fear. It wasn’t the ‘I got a detention at school, what am I going to tell my parents’ type of fear and it wasn’t the ‘there was a test today and I had no idea’ kind either. For me, it was a brand new sort fear, not the kind promised by movies ads but the kind where conscious thought is entirely replaced by instinct and adrenaline.
Sarah’s mom, Laura, had been visiting us so for the week and I had been staying at my apartment in Imaichi while Sarah and her mom were in Utsunomiya. The apartment was far too small for the three us to fit comfortably. It was built for one person but Sarah and I made it work with two. That whole week was scheduling nightmare. Sarah and I still had work which meant her mom was left to go sightseeing mostly on her own. The three of us had only been in the same place for about 5 or so hours that whole week. Somehow, that afternoon we all managed to be at our apartment in Utsunomiya. Sarah and her mom were returning from doing touristy things around the city and I was on my way to work. Usually I taught exclusively in Imaichi, a town about 30 minutes north of Utsunomiya but I was covering for someone down in the city.
We met at the train station and decided to go back to the apartment before we all separated for the rest of the day. Sarah and I were going to go to work and Sarah’s mom was going to do some more sightseeing but first we all went back to the apartment. So, somehow, we were all together.
The shaking started at 2:46, 34 minutes before I was going to catch a bus, around 40 minutes before Sarah was to catch a train and the precise moment I was about to butter toast. I had the knife in my hand, the butter was out and the toast was toasted. Frankly, I was really looking for to it. I hadn’t had much to eat that day and I wanted a snack. That’s when it started. The world and everything in it began to shake. It didn’t start strong. It felt like all the earthquakes we had experienced up until that point. After living in Japan for a few months we thought we were used to them, in fact that morning I was dismissive about one that happened while I was talking to my parents on Skype. The one that afternoon was different. It didn’t stop after 10 seconds. It didn’t peter out. It only got stronger.
We had been told what to do in case of a big earthquake; first you open the door, and as the shakes grew stronger one of us suggested we do just that. By the time we were at the door, we knew it was time to follow the next step; if possible, get out of the building. I shouted that we needed to get out; Sarah mentioned something about keys and locking the door and then said something about forgetting about the keys and getting the hell out. I’m not sure what was said exactly and I don’t think it’s because I’ve forgotten, but more because I wasn’t really there listening. At this point I was no longer David but instead I was a ball of instinct and adrenaline. I didn’t think about my following actions and don’t even think it I could claim that I did them. Things just happened. We got down stairs. We stayed together. We tried to stay out from under the power lines. We held onto each other. We stayed standing.
It lasted 6 minutes.
During the earthquake we were joined by some elderly Japanese women. They were terrified. We were always told that when you see the Japanese scared during an earthquake that something was wrong.
At the epicenter the quake was measured 9.0, the largest one to ever to be recorded in Japan. Japan Meteorological Agency seismic intensity scale, which measures the amount things shake on the ground, rated the shaking in Sendai, the closest large city to the epicenter, a 7. In Utsunomiya it was a 6+. The scale only goes to 7.
We didn’t know the scale of the damage until the next day. Right after the quake we walked over to our company’s regional office, which was about a block away from the apartment. At this point Sarah and I were still worried about getting to school on time. We spent the next few minutes and aftershocks talking to the ladies from the office. Soon the street was filled with the office workers that emptied out of the nearby buildings.
It’s not really appropriate to describe the scene as tense. It was more uneven. Sure, there were still scared people but there were people laughing. Some of the office workers looked like they had just gone on break. To my right there was a man casually smoking. We were chatting to the ladies from the office, practicing our Japanese, introducing Sarah’s mom and talking calmly about what happened. Of course every time there was an aftershock a tense and scared air rolled over the crowd.
At one point I wondered aloud about catching my bus and the regional manager looked at me bemused and said “There won’t be any classes. Classes today are cancelled.” We realized that the situation was more serious than that unevenly calm crowd made it seem. Classes were never cancelled.
After awhile we went back to the apartment to assess the damage. At the time everything seemed like it could go back to normal. As we approached our building the postman delivered a letter from Sarah’s Grandmother. We thanked him in Japanese but he didn’t respond. He was visibly shaken and delivering the mail was normal. He wanted everything to be normal, but of course it wasn’t.
Up the stairs in our apartment we were met with a scene of minor devastation, some cooking oil fell in the entrance way, dishes were broken on the floor, our microwave and toaster oven lay shattered in front of the fridge on top of two pieces of bread. My toast was ruined.
For the rest of that day and the first half of the next, Sarah, her mom and I were in a sort of haze. Put simply we were lost and confused. We had no power at the apartment which meant no internet, our primary source of information. Our phones could basic TV channels, all of which were covering the disaster. They were of little use; our Japanese was never quite good enough to understand a newscast. Beyond that they barely worked, calls wouldn’t go through and texts and emails were spotty at best.
We didn’t know what was going on and were perhaps in denial; the news on our phones showed rushing water, people surrounded and stuck on top of parking garages. Our denial suggested that maybe a dam had broken. Of course it was really the tsunami.
That night we tried to make things as normal and possible. We had dinner, some wine and went to bed. Sarah and her mom had bought some clams earlier in the day and turned them into a pasta dish. However hard we tried it simply felt absurd. Quakes were still happening every hour, we had no electricity and no idea what was happening. What made the whole even more ridiculous was that we didn’t have a real flashlight or candles. Before coming to Japan my dad, who watches all the natural disaster shows on TV, gave us an earthquake kit. We left it in Imaichi, in my apartment. All we had was a tiny Buzz light year flashlight and a little book light. That’s how we went about our business that night.
We hung buzz above the stove in the kitchen, Sarah and her mom went about cooking; boiling the water, cooking the clams, making a sauce and putting together a salad. I sat in the other room, trying to occupy myself, checking the news on my phone every 5 minutes and not understanding what was going on.
That night the three of us lied down to sleep in an apartment built build for one person. Sarah and I shared a futon, again made for one person, and failed to get any sleep. The aftershocks went on all night long. Every time we succeeded to doze off went we were awoken not necessarily by the shaking of the earth but when it stopped.
The next day walked to the other side of town. We lived on the east side of the train station, where the power was out, but there was power on the west side. We settled in a coffee shop that had internet and found out exactly what was going on.
How close we were:
Utsunomiya is the largest city in Tochigi-ken, a prefecture north of greater Tokyo. To the west are the prefectures of Nagano and Niigata. East of us is Ibaraki, north is Fukushima and Miyagi. Tochigi is landlocked and is considered a gateway to the mountains, a stopping point for tourists from Tokyo. The Fukushima, Ibaraki and Miyagi prefectures were the hardest hit by the quake and the resulting tsunami. Sendai, Miyagi’s capitol, is 126 miles away. The bullet train goes from Utsunomiya to Fukushima city in about 45 or so minutes. That’s how close we were in terms of distance.
We were of course close in other ways. All of us had been to Sendai; Sarah’s mom was there a couple days before the quake. I had taught in both Sendai and Fukushima. In January Sarah and I spent three days in Sendai, toured the city and the surrounding area. We took a sightseeing cruise in Matsushima, an area made famous for awe inspiring islands. We walked about the town in the snow, visited the temple and shrine there, saw ancient carvings in the cliff side and were made speechless by its beauty. We were charmed by everything the town. The train station seemed to be carved into the cliffs. Sarah had some sort of pickled clam or oyster or something that I didn’t try.
Matsushima and Sendai were some of our favorite places in Japan. We planned to go back in the summer. The epicenter of the earthquake was off the coast near Sendai and Matsushima. What we saw, what we fell in love with may not be there anymore. Frankly, it’s hard to think about.
Beyond that, Utsunomiya is on margins of the most affected areas. To the east and north there was devastation, but where we were there was little. Few buildings were damaged, few people were hurt. The city had a strange aura about it the first couple of days after the quake. What it felt like exactly is hard to put into words. Certain metaphors come to mind; ‘It was a close call,’ ‘we had a close shave,’ ‘we dodged a bullet.’ None of them seem to fit however. We weren’t spared by the disaster, but we weren’t devastated.
Everyone around us, the salary men, and the construction workers, the students were all trying to get back to their normal lives but the trains weren’t running. And that’s really the best metaphor I can come up. The trains weren’t running literally either but the metaphor extends beyond that. Trains are more than essential. They are a part of how I define Japan; a country of people and places connected by long steels rails. Everyone takes trains, they are a constant, and they are supposed to be there and running. They are the veins of the country and the disaster put on a tourniquet that crippled half of Japan. But for days they sat unmoving in the station. I don’t know, maybe it’s not much of a metaphor but it’s all I can come up with.
Of course people did their best to go about their lives but on the other hand it was obvious what had happened. An example being that 711 was still open but the power was out. In fact it was the only thing open that first day and there was a line out the door. In the days after the quake people tried to go back work and their lives but the emergency supplies disappeared from shelves of stores that somehow managed to open. There were lines for gas around the block. People went back out clothes shopping. Bottled water and instant ramen became hard items to find. Arcades were full of children. People tried their hardest to go to work but the trains weren’t working.
Yeah, it’s not a very good metaphor.
We made it through:
Every time I hear someone say this I think of a Mighty Mighty Bosstones song from 1997; the really popular one. It starts something like this:
Have you ever been close to tragedy?
Or been close to folks who have?
Have you ever felt the pain so powerful
So heavy you collapse?
Right after I think about the song I feel silly. The Bosstones, being a ska band, aren’t exactly known for the depth of their lyrics and I never expected to feel so connected to them. Other Bosstones’ songs involve talking about cool hats, not knowing how to ‘party’ and something called royal oil. After the silliness subsides I begin to earnestly wonder about those lyrics and how they relate to me. Have I been close to tragedy? Sort of. Have I been close to folks who have? In a way I guess. I didn’t really know anyone in Sendai, or anyone who lost someone in the disaster, but I did see them on the street on the phone, desperate to get the person on the other end to answer. Have I ever felt the pain so powerful so heavy I collapsed? Not yet, that I know of.
I then wonder about what it means to make it through something and whether or not my experience qualifies. Was I ever in any real danger where I was? If I was what exactly was the danger? Did I make it through it? What does it mean to make it through whatever it was I experienced?
Then there are the ‘what ifs,’ those terrifying thoughts that plague me day to day. We had been to places that are no longer there, or at least not in the way we knew them. What if I was there when it all happened? Sarah’s Mom was there days before, what if… She was talking about going back that day, what if…
Those sorts of questions never seem to end. Does that bring me close to tragedy? I really don’t know.
The song continues:
I’m not a coward; I’ve just never been tested.
I’d like to think that if I was I would pass.
Look at the tested and think there
But for the grace go I.
And I just have more questions.
Am I glad we are back in the US:
No.
And of course I am.
When Sarah and I moved to Japan it quickly became our home. This might be because we were living a sort of transient life for the few months before that. We were in the process of moving from Maine to Japan but first we had to move everything we owned to storage in Colorado and attended weddings on opposite sides of the country. So when we finally settled in Japan we settled firmly. It was home.
I thought about how much I loved living there every time I took the train to Imaichi from Utsunomiya, every time in went into an electronics store, whenever I managed to have any sort of conversation in Japanese and finally on the bullet train to Narita with whatever possessions we could fit into our suitcases.
It wasn’t the quake or tsunami that caused us to leave but the radiation from the plant. We were simply too close and watching the news since we’ve been back has certainly validated our quick departure. I just wish it never happened.
It is good to be home and safe; and we did very much miss Colorado and our families. The nicest part of being home is not being afraid anymore. The days after the quake, while we were still there, every little thing caused us to seize up in terror. The earth never seemed to quit shaking, and while it’s true that there were many aftershocks we were also afraid when a truck went by. When the nuclear plant continued to fail, as the scare turned into a crisis, we had something more to worry about. How could we be certain that the food we were eating was safe? The water we were drinking? We were in a constant state of unease, we were uncertain of our future, safety and the stability of the earth below us.
Since we’ve been back I can’t really say the fear is gone, the unease has dissipated, that we are certain about our safety at all times but it is getting better. Now every time the wind causes something to shake we only freeze in terror every other time. When someone steps heavily and the floor seems to move, we don’t panic as fully. We are starting to relax.
But while I’m starting to feel safe, calm and relaxed, I still feel like I want to go home.
At least you can say that you were there, that you were a part of history.
Small talk has gotten easier that’s for sure. We have a story to tell on why we are home, everyone we talk to is eager to know exactly what happened and how but I think that’s the only real benefit. I don’t have to come up with something to talk about. I know all the questions, I have all my answers prepared and I know exactly how they are going to respond. Each new conversation has already been plotted.
Beyond that I’m not sure there is anything good about what happened. I can’t imagine thinking any sort of ‘at least’ beyond ‘at least we were lucky, at least we survived.’ But honestly even that thought doesn’t feel right, I’m still not sure I was ever in any real danger. So I can’t even say I was really a part of it, I don’t feel a part of it. Yes, I was there. Yes, I was close to the most affected areas. But still feel like a bystander, like someone who just saw the disaster on TV, because while I was close to the worst of it, I wasn’t there.
Of course this feeling is hard to explain, it’s hard to describe what it’s like to be on the periphery of disaster. So, when I hear ‘at least you can say you were there, that you were a part of history,’ I can only respond with a shrug and an entirely empty ‘yeah.’
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