Thursday with Cubist Me

Kashiwara was a very interesting period in our lives. My husband and I were so together like never before. We were stranded on a deserted island. No other foreigners, no other friends. We needed only each other to survive. Just us and the people of Kashiwara. Some of the students would invite us to dinner to their homes, restaurants, festivals. Although, it was our third year in Japan, it seemed as if it was the first one. We were sightseeing more and travelling within Japan. I don't remember how but we befriended this wonderful lady, I think her name was Fumiko. Her and her daughters would spend all the festivals together with us. She would prepare everything for us to enjoy them. She would roll our a blanket, take out bentos filled with new to us dishes. One of them was a bitter vegetable called goya, like the famous painter. It's origins come from Okinawa, Japanese tropical paradise island occupied by the American Army. Fumiko was showing us the whole new Japan. She was adding a new perspective to what we knew about Japan. She was showing us Kanto spirit. Thank you!

My little dancer with a halo... After two years of partying and clubbing in Tokushima, Kanto quiet time seemed like a vacation, a honeymoon! Also, it was the time when only I worked full time so the resources were limited. And it was also the time when I was rigorously paying off my student loan. Simple things became our luxury, like weekly trips to Tsutaya to rent a movie or once in a while we would go to a little takoyaki shop by Kashiwara station. A nice shopkeeper had 12 takoyaki for $200! Can you believe it! Or we would just go to my school owner's wine shop and get a nice bottle of wine from Kashiwara vineyard. My employer at the time owned half of Kashiwara mainly because of the family owned win and sake business.

This quiet time when we couldn't spend a lot of money also became a very perceptive time of our stay in Japan. We felt the culture more, we observed the people better. I painted and drew almost everyday. We cycled all the time, which meant we saw Japan in slow motion. We could breath the air, smell the aromas around the homes, look at people and hear them more personally. And when we wanted privacy we would just get a bottle of wine or Campari, take our chairs outside of the house and enjoy the privacy. Where we lived nobody came during the weekend. We were left to our own comfort! 

When the contract with Kashiwara came to an end I didn't extend. I decided that there was something better written in my book. That is when Kamikawa contract found me. I got my bottle of Kashiwara wine as a going away present and I was on my way with my husband and two cats in a rented van going across Mie-ken, Nagano-ken, Yamanashi-ken to get to a small village in Saitama-ken called Kamikawa.