Moments of Omotenashi

On my most recent trip to Japan, I ended up staying in ryokans, two of them, the entire time I was there.  

The two ryokans I stayed at had some similarities.  Both of them did not offer food service during the stay, something which I had come to think of a standard practice for ryokans.  On the other hand, both were very reasonably priced, with a stay of several days being about the same as a single night’s stay at other ryokans I had stayed at.  Both had rooms with tatami mats on the floor.  Though for the first one, the accommodations, with the exception of the tatami flooring, were more like a standard hotel room, rather than a traditional washitsu, or Japanese style room.  The first one didn’t have much greenery found at the ryokans I’d stayed at before, in the form of gardens or nature around the inn.  

The first one didn’t feature the same degree of Omotenashi, the Japanese word for a traditional form of hospitality, that I had come to expect from ryokans.  The staff was very polite and helpful, in the manner I’d come to expect from Japanese service personnel at hotels, restaurants, and stores that I’d visited.  It wasn’t a bad place at all.  Something like a standard hotel, with good service, and a serviceable daiyokujyo, or common bath, available. 

The second one was quite a different experience.

It was in Matsushima.  A place famous in Japan for its scenic beauty.  The Matsushima Koumura Hotel was a 15 to 20 minute walk from the Takimachi Station on the Senseki-Tohoku line.  The route my GPS gave me to follow included an unmarked service road that ran behind what looked like a school’s baseball field.  Then, a turn to the left to another service room along the Taki River.  I came upon the ryokan from behind, spotting it when I turned around to see if I had passed it.  

It definitely looked like my expectation of what a ryokan should appear like.  A garden-like area at the entrance.  Wooden frames visible in its construction.  Sliding, paper screen doors at the entrance.  Very traditional.  

What set it apart from the previous ryokan I’d stayed at, and from the other ryokans I’d visited on previous trips, was the landlady.  When I stepped into the genkan, I heard her voice coming from behind the front desk, bright and clear.  “Irashaimase!”  Welcome!

She came out quickly, greeting me before I had time to step up into the hotel proper, telling me I didn’t have to take off my shoes.  She then asked me if I was “Erick Melton,” which I verified that I was.  

After checking me in at the front desk, and explaining the features of the hotel, the location of the bath, the fact that the elevator wasn’t working, and asking if I minded that my room was on the third floor, which I said it didn’t, for which she thanked.  She then told me there was a quiz, and a prize if I got it right.  

She pulled out a card with a question on it.  “How many Islands are there in Matsushima?”  I thought for a moment.  I could remember the exact number, so I answered, “Three, four, maybe five hundred, I think?”  

She flipped the card over.  It had three answers to choose from.  A) 26.  B) 260.  C) 2,600.

I looked at the card, suddenly getting the idea that I had underestimated the number of islands in the bay.  “Is it…  C, maybe?” 

“Oh.  But you just said a few hundred just now…”  Giving me an encouraging smile.  

“Ah.  Ok.  I’ll pick B.”  

“And the answer is…  Tatata-Dum!”  She threw up her arms.  “B!  Omedetou!  Congratulations!  And here’s your prize!”  She produced a small bottle of sake from beneath the counter.  She then had me take a picture holding it, like it was a trophy.  

After that, she lead me to my room.  She pointed out where the entrance to the daiyokujyo was located, half a floor below the one my room was on.  The interior of the Matsushima Koumura Hotel was lovely.  The floor of the corridors were made to look like stepping stones crossing a running stream.  And the interior was done in the same traditional fashion as the exterior.  

My room was very much a traditional washitsu, with a genkan where I did have to take off my shoes.  Paper screen doors.  A futon, already laid out.  The landlady showed me every detail, from where all the light switches were located, from sleeping/living room, to bath and toilet room to how to work the remote control that worked for both the lights and the air conditioner.  

After putting my things away, I decided to go for a walk and check out the surroundings.  Since there was no food service here, as with the previous place, I would have to find a convenience store or a supermarket to get something to eat.  The previous place had a small convenience store in the lobby where you could buy frozen bento boxes that you could heat up in the microwave in the dining room.  Because the Matsushima Koumura Hotel only had a small  “Eating room,” with a microwave and refrigerator for the guests to use, with a table and chairs, plus a vending machine with things to drink, I’d have to buy food, or find restaurants to eat at.

When I came downstairs, the landlady was talking to a couple, with backpacks and hats, like they were about to go hiking.  They were chatting like they’d known each other for years.  The landlady introduced me as, “the new guest, starting today,” and told me they had just finished their stay and were moving on.  The man, turned and told me it was their first time there, and that they’d enjoyed it greatly.  

After they left, I asked the landlady about where I could get something to eat.  She immediately pulled out a map of Matsushima.  She began a very detailed explanation of where most of the restaurants were located, on a road that faced the ocean, the closest end of which was ten minutes on foot from the hotel.  Did I like sea food.  Matsushima had excellent sea food.  Especially clams.  She circled several spots on the map, drying lines from the circles to draw other circles where she entered notes about the food and hours they were opened.  When I told her I’d tried gyutan, beef tongue, a speciality of the region, on a previous visit to Sendai, she circled more restaurants and added more notes.  There were two gyutan restaurants that had the same name, run by the same owners.  One was styled as a family restaurant, the other as an izakaya, a local pub.  The food was the same, she told me, only the atmosphere was different.  When I left with the map, I had a dizzying array of choices on where to go to eat.  In the end, I went to one of the two gyutan places, the family restaurant version, during lunch on my walking tour of Matsushima.

I used the map to find a supermarket by the train station, where I bought some items for breakfast the next morning.  

The next day, I took my walking tour of Matsushima, lead by a private tour guide I’d hired.  You can read about that in my previous post last month.  

When I came back, though, I had another surprise for me.  

They had cleaned my room while I was out.  That wasn’t the surprise.  Hotels do that sort of thing.  But what startled me was what they had done with my stuff. 

Everything of mine was organized and put in order where I had left it.  My laptop, notebook, writing utensils, computer mouse, were organized next to the wall where I’d left them.  My sweatpants and t-shirt, which I’d left on the table, were both folded and set next to my futon.  I knew I hadn’t folded them, because I don’t fold things that neatly.  The items in the bathroom, toothbrush, toothpaste, vitamins, personal cup, everything was set up and group logically together.  Even my canvas shopping bag, which I’d tossed on to the shelves in the genkan, was neatly folded, handled on top, ready to grab, on top of the shelves where I’d left it.  

“This is crazy,” I thought to myself.  I couldn’t believe anyone would go to this length for someone, even a paying guest.  

The most touching incident, though, had taken place early that morning.  

I got up early, around 4 AM, to write.  This is part of my regular practice at home, which I maintain as best I can while traveling.  

I had been walking a great deal during this trip, first up and down the mountains around Nasu, my first stop.  And now, from the station to the hotel, and then around the neighborhood to find the convenience store to by my food for breakfast.  As a result, I didn’t think sitting on a cushion to write on the low table sounded very comfortable for me.  So I decided to go downstairs to the Eating Room and use the western style table and chairs to write. 

As I carried my laptop, notebook, and writing tools in my backpack downstairs, I ran into the landlady, getting cleaning supplies out of a closet.  She asked me if I was going to take a walk to see the sunrise?  I told her I wasn’t.  That I was going to use the table in the eating room downstairs.  Then, as an afterthought, I added, “To write.”  

“Ah, so…”  She bowed to me and added, “Ganbatte.”  The Japanese word that means, “Do your best,” which is sometimes translated as “Good Luck!”  A wish for my success.  

I set myself up at the table.  Per my usual practice, I wrote a page in my notebook.  An exercise to notate thoughts of the day to clear them away before concentrating on the story I was going to work on.  Then I set up my laptop to start working on it.

It was after I started typing on my laptop when I heard the sliding door to the room being opened, slowly and quietly.  

The landlady walked in on small shuffling steps.  A tray was in her hand.  She moved to the end of the table.  Placed the tray there.  And bowed to me.  

“Ocha, dozo.”  Some tea.  Please have it.  

She then backed away, closing the sliding door just as quietly as she opened it.  

I paused.  I looked at the tray.  On it was small pot of green tea.  A small, lovely tea cup.  

I felt something welling up inside.  Her simple gesture carried a profound degree of respect.  I was moved.  It felt as if not only my presence in her ryokan as a welcomed guest was being acknowledged and welcomed, but my dreams to write stories, and my being as a person with such dreams.  

“Itadakimasu,” I whispered.  The Japanese word used with accepting something with humble gratitude.  I took a sip of tea, which I honestly thought was the best green tea I had ever had in my life, then continued with my writing.  

The two ryokans I stayed at this trip were both inexpensively priced.  Neither provided food service.  One was looked more like a traditional Japanese in, with an interior decorated in the same manner.  The common bath at both was decent, though not spectacular.  And the staff at the first one were polite, helpful, and friendly.  

It was the omotenashi I experienced at the Matsushima Koumura Hotel that turned it from an inexpensive stay at a place I wanted to visit, into a special moment that I will remember always.  

Half Convinced, Half In Doubt, and Fine to Stay that Way

 

At the end of May this year, I went to Japan to fulfill a couple of travel goals I had there.  The first one was in the town of Nasu, in Tochigi Prefecture, to attend a festival called the Gojinkasai (“Divine Fire Festival”).  It is centered around appeasing a yokai, specifically a legendary fox spirit named Tamamo-no-mae.  The climax of the festival is building a large bonfire before the boulder her spirit is imprisoned in to appease her and guarantee a bountiful harvest.  

It was a short festival.  It started in the afternoon on Sunday, May 31st, running until after sunset when the bonfire is lit.  Despite its small size it is quite fun and lively.  With lots of activities, modern dances, folk music with traditional instruments, parades of cosplayers dressed like fox spirits and other yokai, or spirits.  

To my surprise though, the climatic moment of the festival, lighting the bonfire was very moving.  Evocative.  I stood on one of the wooden walkways as the torch bearers, dressed in white robes, wearing fox masks, followed the path down the slope from the shrine at the top of the hill.  While drums and flutes played, and a Shinto priest recited traditional prayers.  

When the “Tree,” the pyramidal stand of wood, with a tree top at its top, was finally set alight, the crowd let out a deep throated “Ahhhh.”  Goosebumps rose up on my skin.  I felt like “something” was about to happen.  I stood there, watching the fire burn as the music played.  I could see the “tree” begin to lean to one side.  I waited for the inevitable collapse.  When it finally happened, I applauded along with everyone else.  A feeling of…  Accomplishment, filled me.  Something…  Important had happened.  

But what?  I was not sure.  I’m not a believer in Shinto.  Indeed, I would describe myself as agnostic.  Willing to believe that there is “something” more beyond the world I experience around me, but more willing, probably, to believe in something closer to the Catholicism I was raised with.  

So, what was it that moved me?  What had we “accomplished?  Was it some sort of race memory from the stone age, related to fire and darkness?  Had I been touched by some pagan rite, and needed to push it aside as temptation?  I didn’t know.  And it persisted in my thoughts.  

After Nasu, I continued on my trip to the town of Matsushima, on Sendai Bay, next to the city of Sendai itself.  Another place on my travel list, this one prompted by my desire to visit all the places mentioned in my Japanese lessons, where the famous poet, Basho, created a poem about seeing the islands of Matsushima and was so moved he could only recite its name three times.  

Since I knew very little about the town, other than its reputation for scenic beauty, I decided to hire a private tour guide.  A young woman named Mai.  She had been born in the town, left to go to school in Tokyo, later work in India, travel to 22 countries around the world, and then return to Matsushima, where she works as a local tour guide.  

It was from Mai that I learned about Matsushima’s cultural importance.  How it was originally a site for the ascetic training of Buddhist monks.  The islands of Matsushima have numerous caves carved into them where the monks would live, pray, meditate, seeing to strengthen their belief.  I also learned from her that the daimyo, or samurai lord, that build the city of Sendai, and turned it into a regional commercial center, Date Masamune, was a man of conflicting beliefs.  Though he insisted throughout his life that he wasn’t a Christian, he commissioned a ship, based on the ships the Spanish and Portuguese used to come to Japan, to be built and sent on a multi-year trip to Rome.  The representatives were granted an audience where they asked him to send support to the Japanese Christians against persecution.  

After crossing the bridge that connected the closest island, Oshima, with the mainland, we came upon a small Shinto shrine, no bigger than an old style phone booth.  Shinto and Buddhism co-exist peacefully in Japan, so seeing the shrine was not a surprise.  But it did prompt a return of the unanswered question that came to me in Nasu.  

The small shrine was dedicated to Inari, the goddess of rice and its harvest, amongst other things.  The shrine that oversaw the Gojinkasai was also dedicated to Inari.  While Mai was explaining to me that Shinto shrines didn’t start getting built in Japan until Buddhism came to the country, when they were prompted to build houses for their gods as well, I remembered another visit to a larger, more famous shrine to Inari I’d visited and something I’d seen there.  

The Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto, is world famous and is always crowded with tourists, both domestic and from overseas, coming to see it.  It’s most famous feature is a series of mon gates that cover the pathways that lead to the summit of the hill it sits on and back.  Hundreds of gates.  Perhaps, thousands.  On one of my visits I asked workmen setting up a new gate over one of the pathways how many they erected each year.  Their answer was, “over a hundred.”   

In addition to the mon gates, there are as many, if not more, altars set up along the pathways.  The same workmen told me that each altar could be dedicated to a different kami.  The work “kami” is usally translated as “god” in English, though “Spirit” or “Faery,” as in the Fey from Celtic Folklore would be more accurate.  

It was clear to see that not every altar was treated equally.  While some were well maintained, during one of my visits I saw one being used by a small group of people, others were clearly neglected.  One had a tree growing across the walkway approaching it, making it impossible to reach without crouching down on your hands and knees to crawl beneath the bowel of the tree.  Others were broken, the mons before them leaning against them, as if waiting for someone to return to set them up again.  

One in particular came to mind.  It was an altar that had been neglected for so long it was covered with a fine patina of moss.  When I visited the shrine and saw that altar, I imagined the kami that it was dedicated to becoming angry.  Angry at those that had created it, and then abandoned their worship of him or her.  

With this altar in mind, now connected with my unanswered question from the Gojinksai, I asked Mai about the Japanese people’s belief in Shinto.  Did they believe the Shinto kami existed and hear their prayers, are moved by their bonfires, or was it a tradition that has been carried on to today, because it’s fun and bring the tourists?  

Mai paused for a moment, as she looked at my picture of the altar.  She answered me by talking about her time in India.  While working there, she read a number of books about different religions.  Specifically about Hinduism.  And Christianity, due to the western influence on India.  

She told me that reading those books taught her that the Japanese and Westerners don’t believe in the same way.  The books about Hinduism were closer.  But the book about western beliefs showed her something very different from what she was used to. 

I asked her to explain.  She referred to my picture of the moss covered altar.  She talked about how Shinto was focused on nature and its processes.  That when they, Japanese people, attend festivals like the one I described, they are responding to those processes.  Birth.  Life.  Growth.  Maturation.  Decline.  They feel them and know they are real.  She nodded at the picture of the moss covered altar on my phone.  She told me then that she believes the kami that altar was dedicated to would probably see the altar in the same way she saw it.  

I asked her how she saw it.  She said, “Beautiful.”  

This answer startled me.  I had never considered it being perceived in that way.  As I looked at the photo again, as if for the first time, I remembered something I had read recently.  From a book I had started reading before the trip.  A sort of preparation for what I was going to experience.  

The Book of Yokai (2nd Edition) by Michael Dylan Foster is about the spirits of Japanese folklore.  There is a section in it about fox spirits, and Tamamo-no-mae is mentioned in it as well.  But it also discusses how the belief in and relationship toward these spirits has changed over time, up to and including the present.  

In one section of the book, which I remembered after hearing Mai’s perception of the moss-covered altar, it discusses the concept of “hanshin-hangi” which means “half-convinced, half-in doubt.”  According to Foster, this is not describing a mental state where you’re trying to resolve two opposing beliefs, to come to one conclusion.  It is a state where both coexist peaceful.  The question Foster poses at the end of the passage isn’t whether or not the Japanese believe in yokai, and by extension to my question, Shinto.  But why we westerners require a yes or no answer in the first place?  

It was then that I began to see my experience at the Gojinkasai differently.  Throughout the festival I found myself engaged with the event and the people I was sharing the experience with.  I watched the “hyakkigyagyou,” the “March of a 100 Demons,” where the cosplayers recreated a legendary event from the past, now recreated for fun.  I watched people dressed as fox spirits in a cafe down the street from the park before the festival took place, dancing in character as a violinist played Pachelbel’s Canon.  I listened to the invocation of the Shinto priest as the white robbed torchbearers marched from the shrine after being blessed, to carry their torches in the gathering darkness.  I shivered as everyone “Aaah” as the “tree” was touched with the fire.  And I applauded as it collapsed, feeling that…  We, had accomplished something.  

It comes to me, as a former Theatre Arts major, that I may have just been giving into the suspension of disbelief that any good performance requires.  Or, it might have just been me achieving a long-standing travel goal.  Or, it might have been something more.  Something greater.  Or something less.  It might just be something I don’t need to answer at all.  And just go with the feeling.  

Baseball or Horse Archery, THAT is the Question!

 I have a dilemma.  I’m going to Japan.  That’s not the dilemma.  But the dilemma stems from that.  

It will be my first trip to Japan since Covid cancelled the trip I was supposed to take in 2020.  It will be the first time I’ll be going alone since 2017.  The last two times, in 2018 and 2019, I went with my friend, William Ruzicka.  We were supposed to go the trip in 2020, but Covid, right?  We were talking about another trip together this year, but William passed away in February this year so…  Going alone.  

There was a resistance of sorts in getting started planning the trip.  But this week I finally got Delta Airlines to finally make the final FINAL corrections on the credit they gave me for the William’s ticket and bought the flight to Hanada Airport.  Once that was done, an excitement of the prospect of returning to Japan sprung up inside me.  I immediately booked a room for the first few days of the trip just to have an address to where I could have baseball tickets sent to me for when I arrived.  

That has been one of travel goals when I went to Japan.  To see a baseball game in every professional park in the NPB (Nippon Professional Baseball).  On our 2019 trip William and I made two tries to see a game at Chiba Lotte Marine Stadium, which is just east of Tokyo, across the northern edge of Tokyo Bay.  The first time we went the game was rained out (it was perfectly sunny the day before and the day after).  The second time we went, the tickets were for the wrong stadium (due to my error reading the schedule, written in Japanese, on the photocopier machine in the convenience store where I bought the tickets).  

Yeah.  Photocopiers in Japanese convenience stores can sell you tickets to baseball, games, concerts, and other forms of entertainment.  They’re quite handy.  Just make sure you’re reading them correctly. 

So, one of the goals of this trip are to see a game in Chiba Lotte Marine stadium.  I arrive on a Friday, and the Marines have a home stand that weekend through Sunday.  Perfect.  I have a site where I can order tickets in advance and a Japanese address (the hotel I’m staying at) to mail them to.  Perfect. Right?  

Then I discovered a couple of other things.  

First, one of the teams in the NPB has a new stadium that they started using this year.  The Sapporo Ham Fighters.  I feel the need to explain that the team’s name is the “Fighters.”  The company that owns the team is “Sapporo Ham.”  Think of it as a Japanese version of Farmer John’s and you won’t be too far off.  They’re not a team named after people that punch hams hanging in a giant refrigerator like Rocky did with sides of beef.  I wondered about the name until I found out about Sapporo Ham.  

Anyway, when I went with William in 2019, one of the places we went was to Sapporo where we watched a game between the Ham Fighters…  Uh, the Fighters, against the Marines.  The very same team that plays in Chiba.  We saw them play in the Sapporo Dome, where the Fighters played at the time.  This was my 11th professional baseball stadium in Japan where I saw a game.  Eleven out of twelve.  

But, Chiba Lotte Marine stadium didn’t work out.  We tried before Sapporo (rain) and we tried after Sapporo (my ability to understand photocopier instructions in Japanese).  I promised myself, on my next trip to Japan, I would go to Chiba Lotte Marine Stadium and see a game there.  

The Fighters now play in EsCon Stadium.  Or EsCon Stadium, I’ve seen it written both ways.  I knew that Sapporo Ham was looking to get a new stadium built (Sapporo Dome is owned by the city, and they get all the proceeds from the food and drinks sold there, plus they charged the Fighters rent on the days they had games).  I just thought that we’d get a chance to go back before than happened.  

But it didn’t.  And now, if I were being really picky with myself, I would have to say that after I go to Chiba and see a game there I will need to go back to Sapporo to see a game in Escon or EsCon Stadium to see a game in every professional part in the NPB.  

So why don’t I just add a trip to Sapporo and do that this time?  Well, yeah, I was thinking that, but…  There are issues.  

Such as another thing I was planning on seeing during the trip that is happening at ALMOST the same time.  To the point where they overlap by a day.  

The Reitai-sai is a festival in Kamakura, an ancient capital of Japan, which is southwest of Yokohama, which starts on September 14th.  The highlight of the festival takes place on the last day, the 16th, which features a horse archery competition.  

This is another of my travel goals for Japan.  Every since I saw videos of the Reitai-sai on YouTube I told myself I would definitely go if I had a chance.  I even talked about moving our annual trip in the spring to the time when the Reitai-sai would take place with William.  He was down with the idea as well.  When talking with William at the start of the year of taking another trip together, he was planning a solo trip in February.  I told him I would be able to go until around the Fall and his reply was, “Just because I go in February doesn’t mean we can’t go together then!”  

Not for that reason, no. But…  Anyway.  There are other bucket-list things that are making the schedule difficult.  

One of them is the Sessho-seki.  It’s a big rock in a place called Nasu, in Tochigi Prefecture, that according to legend contains the spirit of one of Japanese three greatest demons.  A fox spirit called Tamamo-no-mae.  You may have heard of it last year, May of 2022, when news went around the internet when a chunk of the rock split away and fell off.  The reoccurring meme that went around was that Tamamo-no-mae had finally escaped her twelve hundred year imprisonment and was roaming the world again committing evil deeds.  

I mentioned the Sessho-seki to William when this happened.  The idea of a vengeful fox spirit escaping twelve centuries of imprisonment intrigued me.  There was a story somewhere there.  I just didn’t have one in mind to put it to.  But then this year, William died.  And one came to me. 

During the time William and I worked on making comic books, there was one book we pitched that got a lot of positive feedback but which never quite got anyone to agree to publish it.  It was a story called “Modern Shamans,” about people in the modern world, using modern tools, to go into a Dream Realm in a shamanistic way to make things happen.  The most compelling aspect of their craft is that they could never prove to anyone that something happened because of their shamanic gifts.  There would always be a reasonable explanation that people would see.  

William eventually decided that his art style was too different from what the story needed and suggested that I try to find someone else to draw it for me to get it published.  I didn’t agree with his assessment, but I decided to not try to force him to keep working on it.  I’ve kept the background I created for it since then.  

After William’s death, and a series of dreams I had about him…  With him, I almost feel like saying, an idea for the Modern Story came to me.  One that a character very much based on him, and another very much based on me, are prominent.  I’ve started working on it.  It feels like it’s going somewhere.  And because of it, I have to take a look at the Sessho-seki with my own eyes.  

The first part of my trip is set.  Arrive.  See a baseball game in Chiba, another in Yokohama, where the team I support, the DeNA Baystars, play, and hopefully see a Sumo wrestling match, when the Grand Tournament in Tokyo starts a couple of days after I arrive (another item on the Japan travel bucket list).  

After that, I have a choice.  I can go south to Kamakura for the Reitai-sai, then north to Nasu in Tochigi Prefecture to visit the Sessho-seki.  By that time, the Fighters home stand will be over, with the next one starting the week after I go home.  

Choice two would be to go to Nasu to see the Sessho-seki after I leave Yokohama, and then keep going north to Sapporo to see a game at EsCon/Escon Stadium and complete my collection of Japanese Baseball Stadiums I’ve Seen Games in, bringing the total to thirteen.  But that would mean completely missing the Reitai-sai in Kamakura.  

Kamakura is closer an easier to get to from where I start.  But going to Sapporo is more doable if I got see the Sessho-seki after leaving Yokohama.  

What plagues me is, due to the events since I’ve last been to Japan, I’m more aware of how any choice I make may preclude a second chance to do anything going forward.  I just can’t count on it for next year.  

That makes it tough.  And it almost makes me feel that whatever I chose, it’s going to be, very certainly ought to be, special.  

William Ruzicka - 10/24/77 to 2/1/23

 I met William around 1994 when we both worked in the same office.  The colleague who supervised the him, a prototypical New Yorker named John Maciag, came up to me at my desk one day.

“Hey, you do that sci-fi stuff, right?”

“Uh…  I write science fiction, if that’s what you mean.”  

“Yeah, yeah.  you write that sci-fi stuff.  There’s this guy I’ve got working for me.  He does the same thing, only different.” 

“Only different?”

“Yeah.  He draws stuff.  I was telling him about you and he’d kinda like to talk with you.  It’s Ok if he comes over, right?”  

“Sure.  Yeah.  What’s his name?”  

“Vinny.”  

“Vinny” came over at lunch.  A big, friendly looking guy with a thick sheaf of papers in his hands.  

“Hey,” I said,  “Hey,” he said back.  “You’re Vinny?” I asked.  He smiled in a quirky way.  “Yeah.”  It wasn’t until some weeks later that I would find out that “Vinny” was the nickname John Maciag gave him when he started working for us.  “‘Cause he looks like a ‘Vinny’,” John said.  

After the introductions were done, he handed me the sheaf of papers.  “It’s a comic I’m working on.  It’s not very good.  The character is one I’ve been playing around with.  Would you mind taking a look at it and telling me what you think.”  

It was a Friday.  The sheaf was pretty thick.  I told him that I would read it over the weekend and give him my feedback on Monday.  He thanked me then went back to his section.  

The comic was called “Chronoshock.”  The story was disjointed.  With lots of jumping around.  More of an excuse for action scenes.  But it had a germ of an idea that I found appealing.  A Celtic-ish anthropomorphic warrior that’s transported to the future and meets someone that looks like the woman he loved and lost in the past.  The art was really good.  I spent the weekend reading it and writing up things he should think about.  I didn’t want to rewrite it for him.  I did think it would be fun to try. 

We met on Monday.  He sat opposite me at the lunch room table.  As I talked through my notes, he kept nodding his head saying, “Yeah,” “Ah,” “Okay…”  now and then.  At the end of my feedback he said, “That sounds great.  Would you like to write it for me?”

That started a creative partnership that lasted about a decade, and a friendship that lasted almost 30 years.  

As we worked on the comic, changing the name to “Time Venturer,” I found that William was like me, but different. 

I was older than him, though by how much I couldn’t tell.  I didn’t know exactly how old he was until he passed away.  It never mattered much.   

We were both science fiction fans, loyal to the show that brought us into the genre.  Mine was Star Trek, his Star Wars.  

We both were enamored with Japan.  Me, from the novel Shogun, which I read when I was 13.  Him, from the manga and anime he loved, like the Transformers, and Ranma 1/2. 

The biggest difference though is best described as two character types in a story.  Doers and Be-ers.  Be-ers adapt to the situations they find themselves in to find what they want.  Doers will try to change their situations to reach what they want.  I was the Be-er.  William was the Doer.  And the one thing he did all the time was draw. 

I mean, all the time.  Every spare moment.  While waiting for his order in a restaurant.  Standing in line at a moving theater.  Talking to a location on the phone at work.  Waiting in the theater for the lines to dim before the moving started.  He would whip out his notebook and a pencil, and later his iPad and stylus, and start sketching.  

One time, in the lunchroom at work, going over the pages of our comic, he said, “I’ve got something you gotta take a look at.”  He turned his notebook around and handed it to me. 

It was one of the characters of another comic we were working on.  Only, she was dressed in samurai styled armor, a sword in hand, looking like she was taking a breath in the midst of a fight.  It was a cool drawing, but…

“There’s no scene in the script I gave you where she looks like this.”  I said as I handed the notebook back to him.  

“I know.”  He flipped the notebook around so he could admire his work.  “I got the idea for this look and had to draw it so I could see it for myself.  Cool, huh?” 

This was one of the times I got something unexpectedly from William.  Prior to that meeting, whenever I wrote it was for a specific story or project I wanted to publish.  But William always drew for fun.  Sometimes it was for one of our comic book projects, and other times it was something else.  But always for fun.  It made me think about my approach to writing.  I changed how I journaled, which I did daily, to focus more on things that were cool or fun.  Things I just wanted to see how they sounded like when I put them on paper.  I think my writing has improved a lot because of that. 

On another occasion, William brought a Japanese text book with him.  He had started taking lessons to learn Japanese.  I asked him why, and he told me that he’d heard that the dialogue, and even the storylines, of Japanese manga and anime could be radically changed when it went through translation (I’ve discovered that this is true).  He wanted to read the original manga, or hear the original dialogue, for himself to discover the artists’ intent.  Plus, he wanted to visit Japan himself one day.  

I thought it sounded like a good idea.  I wanted to hear and see what the artists’ intent.  I wanted to go to Japan one day.  I just never thought of myself as someone who traveled to foreign places.  Seeing William preparing to go made me think that I should do the same.  So I started studying Japanese on my own, and later took classes through UCLA’s Adult Education program.  

Since then, studying Japanese has become a daily routine in my life.  I have been to Japan five times now, and I’m planning my return to Japan after Covid in September this year.  I’ve added Korean and Spanish to my daily language studies.  And I’m thinking of trips to countries where they speak those languages as well.  All this from William’s example of getting ready to do something even if it seems so far away, and so impossible to do. 

William was an inherently generous person.  Not only through examples.  He gave personal gifts to others routinely.  My home is filled with books, pictures, plushy toys, that he would just hand to me, saying something like, “I saw this somewhere and thought you’d like to have it.”  

Sometimes these gifts would serve as little nudges.  Encouragements to do something that he knew you wanted to do.  William believed that everyone would be happier if they just did what they wanted to do.  Doing something to earn money was sometimes necessary, but always considered to be a temporary activity.  There were countless times when I would be sitting with William while he was talking to someone else, a family member, a fellow artist friend at a convention, extolling them to do this or that so they could ultimately do what they really wanted to do.  To get closer to the life they wanted.  

William’s application of this point of view to his own life eventually lead to the dissolution of our partnership.  Teaching himself how to use software meant for animators to draw comics, he came to realize that what he really, REALLY wanted to to was work in animation.  With this discovery, drawing comic books became a distraction.  Now that he knew the path in life he wanted to take, he needed to start doing it.  

It was a difficult transition for us as friends.  I resigned myself to it.  We didn’t communicate with each other for a time.  

But then, one day, he sent me a text.  He had something he wanted to talk about.  Could we meet for dinner, his treat?  I replied, “Sure.”  We made arrangements to meet after work on a Friday.  

He was already at the table when I got to the restaurant.  It was awkward at first, catching up.  He stopped taking animation classes after he started getting work as a storyboard artist.  He had already worked on several well very recognizable projects.   

He took out his iPad and set it up on the table.  “I’ve got something I want you to look at.  Tell me what you think.”  It was a short animation video.  The drawing was quick, sketchy, but the action was sparkling, grabbing your attention.  When it was done, he asked me what I could tell about the story from it.  It was part of a pitch he wanted to make to his bosses at the studio.  

I gave him my feedback.  He nodded, he asked me questions.  He told me what his intent was in the story.  I replied with suggestions as to how he could bring that out.  Two things struck me in the conversation.  One was how much he had come to understand story and how to present it with his images.  The other was how into he was in the process.  This WAS what he was meant to do.  A lot of my resentment over the ending of my partnership went away at that moment.  

We spent the rest of the dinner renewing our friendship.  We made arrangements to go see whatever new comic book hero or sci-fi blockbuster that was scheduled to come out.  As we were leaving the restaurant to head to where we parked, he stopped me.  

“I want you to know something.  The time we spent, working on the comics?  That taught me that it wasn’t a wasn’t a pipe-dream.  That I could do this for real.”  

That stands as the most gracious thing any contemporary of mine has said to me.  

We kept in touch after that.  We went to movies and dinner.  He sent me texts about something I should see that was so cool and stupid.  He asked me if he could tag along on my next trip to Japan.  He would let me plan everything, so he could see how I took care of things.  We ended up going to Japan twice.  When he saw how well I spoke Japanese, he started studying again.  “Just remember,” he told me, “It’s because of me that you learned to speak it that well.”  Yes.  I remember.  

The third trip together was cancelled because of Covid.  For the next couple of years, our “get togethers” were restricted to calls, messages, and Zoom meetings.  

The last time we met in person was on New Years Day this year, in Little Tokyo, at the Oshougatsu Festival.  As usual, we didn’t plan to meet up there.  We both went.  Then we texted to see if we were both there.  We made arrangements to meet up, with other friends and acquaintances at a pop-up bar set up for the festival.  

As I sat down at the table, he reached into his bag and pulled something out.  “I saw this while shopping and thought you might like to have it.  You like doing stuff like this, right?  Writing?”  

It was a belated Christmas present.  A thick writing journal.  Wrapped in a leather cover, with pages made to look aged, like parchment.  Pretty cool.  Yeah, I told him.  I do like to write.  As I handled it, I thought that I needed to come up with some special use for it.  This was no mere diary.  

That feeling intensified when I heard of William’s passing.  

There is a quote by the 19th Century novelist, Henry James, that I’ve been remembering recently.  It goes like this: 

“Life is a slow, steady advance into enemy territory.”  

The metaphor expressed was always clear to me.  As we march forward in life, unable to retreat, forced to advance, even if afraid, we get farther and farther from the place we think of as “home.”  The terrain becomes more foreign.  We find ourselves increasingly surrounded by people that seem to be speaking a foreign language.  

And the comrades with us, suddenly, inevitably, start to fall by the wayside.  

William is a special example in this.  He is not someone bound to me by blood or genetics.  Not some hero that blazed a trail that I wanted to follow in life that has met his end.  

No, he is the first of my inner circle to fall on this march.  A squad mate.  A member of my tribe.  Someone marching with me because while we did different things, either smearing paint on the walls of a cave to show the wonders we’ve seen, or dancing around the fire, telling others new myths and legends of our journey, we were going in the same direction.  

Thinking this way, I realized what I needed to do with the gift he gave me, to acknowledge the nudge he gave along with it.  It has become my Word Palette.  W