When I taught English in Japan, there was a lovely department store a mere few steps from the office building where Berlitz's Fujisawa Language Center was located. I would go down to the basement, where there were wonderful prepared foods (bento boxes) for my lunch. Often I would buy gyoza (Japanese dumplings) and rice, and my colleagues would tease me. Jen, you love the sarariman's (salary man's) lunch. It was true. There was nothing I loved more for my workday meal than five gyoza, and a little steamed rice... except when the gyoza was too garlicky. Never a good thing.
Especially not when you talk for a living.
But I digress. This post is not about Japanese food, however delicious and memory-evoking it is. This post is about... celebrating.
Soon after I met Pierre, my fun Quebecois ex-fiance whom I met two months after moving back to Fujisawa, it was evident that we were going to be more than friends. Look, we can have fun while we are here in Japan, but I have a plan to go to graduate school after Japan, and being with you won't stop me. The sheer audacity of the twenty-something I was. I knew I wanted to be a school counselor more than anything. What I didn't count on was the following answer.
Jen... that's my plan too.
So, for the next year and a half we frolicked and enjoyed everything Japan had to offer... the food, the hot spring baths, the late-Saturday night karaoke with friends... even though we both had to get up and go to work on Sunday morning.
It was perfect.
Pierre and I went home for the holidays in 2002. Christmas in Florida with both of our families (his parents came down for a glorious party and the holiday itself) and New Year's... where else? In Quebec, where they feast on a traditional yule log cake and put on the most marvelous talent show in the basement until well after midnight. It was fun... and exhausting. Pierre's family was bilingual, but of course, since their first language was French, they usually only spoke English when they were talking to me directly. I experienced a crash course in conversational French. I had bought a book and studied with Pierre in my spare time in Japan, but the book in no way prepared me for immersion into the Quebecois world. That said, they were wonderful people. I simply tired of listening so hard all the time to be able to participate in the conversation, and would crash into bed each night and sleep hard until morning.
After New Year's, Pierre and I drove to Acadia University, to meet with professors in our prospective departments. We had decided long before that it was a much more affordable option for me to be an international student in Canada than it was for Pierre to come to Florida. Acadia was located in Nova Scotia, about an hour north of Halifax, not far from the Bay of Fundy, in the lovely town of Wolfville. Nova Scotia, according to Pierre, was warmer than Quebec, but still within driving distance of Quebec City, where Pierre's parents lived. Wolfville had an Irish pub, some chi chi restaurants for the professors, and lots of great little student hang-outs. The first time I heard David Gray's Babylon, I was having lunch in a small cafe in Wolfville.
I met with a prof in my department, and Pierre met with a prof in his, and he was told that as long as he applied, there was a spot for him. He was a potential M.S. in Poli-Sci candidate; I was a potential M.Ed. in Counseling candidate... I was told that another professor's wife was applying and she wasn't guaranteed a spot. Apparently my program was highly competitive. I left campus not feeling very good about the future. Pierre left secure. It felt very strange to be in such different places after both being in the same boat for so long.
I applied in February, which was when I was supposed to apply, and had a phone interview with the professors responsible for choosing successful applicants a couple of weeks later. I had expected the interview to last at least thirty minutes.
It was over in less than ten.
I called Pierre, distraught, Can you come over?
Jen, what's wrong?
They only talked to me for nine minutes! They don't want me!
He was on my doorstep twenty minutes later... the time it took for him to catch a train to console his girl. Pierre was good like that. (The professors, by the way, had given no verbal indication that they weren't interested in having me in their program, I just jumped to that assumption when the interview was so short.)
The next couple of months were torturous. I expected to hear from Acadia within the next month. March came and went. April came and went. May began, and my head teacher continued to ask me if I had heard from Acadia.
I had not. It was the worst kind of limbo. Although I loved every single minute I lived in Japan, I was eager to start the next chapter of my life in my true calling. Teaching English was fun, and I made a really good living doing it, but it didn't feed my soul. I felt like I needed a job that did. And a Master's that would allow me to do so.
One day I was in Saikaya, visiting the housewares department. Before I go any further I have a confession to make:
I am addicted to chinaware. Everywhere I traveled in Japan, I always came back with dishes. I have assembled the most lovely, eclectic set of chinaware you could imagine. It's not crazy-taking-up-rooms-and-rooms of space, just a couple of cabinets. Every piece I bought has a memory attached to it; I really love that.
So, back to Saikaya... I was wandering about the housewares, when I came upon the most lovely set of glass dishes, with handpainted daisies on them.
Next to tulips, daisies are my favorite flower.
It was a sign. I didn't buy them that day, but I knew that sooner they would be... all mine.
A couple of days later I couldn't stand the suspense any more, so I called the university admissions office. I explained my situation, and the woman on the phone was shocked I hadn't received my notification. Just a minute Honey, I'll go look it up.
My stomach was in my throat. I knew I was seconds away from learning my fate. If I wasn't accepted, I would have to make a much different plan that the one that had been mapped out for Pierre and I over the next year and a half.
She came back to the phone. My heart was pounding so loud I was sure she could hear it.
Honey, you're an Acadian! You're in!
I am? Thank-you! Thank-you! I could feel the tension easing out of my body. I looked around my apartment and knew I had just over a month to go in my little one-room home.
The next day I went to work and gave them my notice. During my break, I walked over to Saikaya, and I bought the plates, bowls, little bowls, and lovely little juice tumblers (that are actually the perfect size for wine) of the glass dishes adorned with handpainted daisies. I still have the boxes they came in, and every time I move, they go back into their original packaging.
I think it's safer that way. The unbroken dishware tells me I am right.
The set was my gift to myself-- my own personal celebration-- for getting into Acadia and beginning the next phase of my life. While career opportunities took Pierre and I in two different directions after we completed our graduate education, I don't regret the time we spent together. We both learned a lot about relationships, and compromise, and when it's time to let go.
I still use my daisy dishware every day. Not only is it lovely, the set is a reminder of everything that I have gone through to get where I am. An actual physical token of my journey from Japan, to Canada, and back to Florida. I love dining on memories.
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