Hawaii

365 days has come to an end. We are in Hawaii, and nothing but our memory, our old clothes, and a few unpaid bills remain behind in Japan. Health insurance bills and an internet bill actually, and I am in the process of figuring out how to pay them since I didn't have time to get all that taken care of before we left. But other than a few items of business, our year in Japan is history, and life as a full time American citizen has resumed.

Being in Hawaii has made the transition westward fairly easy. Here we get a nice mix of eastern and western culture, complete with a spattering of Japanese people to talk to. First of all though, Americans are huge! Not just fat, but tall, wide, thick. Even skinny Americans seem to take up twice as much space as Japanese people. I expected to see large pacific Islanders here, but all the Americans we have seen are huge. Why? Why is everyone so big?

On Thursday we arrived at 7:00 am, and by the time we got through customs, rounded up our rental car, loaded all 11 bags into the trunk, back seat, and foot wells, and drove to the North Shore, it was eleven AM. I took an hour long nap and then hopped back into the car with Callan to go pick up Grandma and Grandpa Franklin who were scheduled to arrive at the airport at 1:15 pm. However when I arrived at the airport the passenger pick up area showed no flights from their airline and the security guard told me there were no flights that afternoon on that airline from Vegas.

Perplexed, I drove around the pick up area looking for Vegas flights but couldn't find any. Callan was asleep so I couldn't get out of the car, and it took 45 minutes and a few more security guards to figure out that the flight was two hours late and that it wouldn't be in until 3:30 pm. With that news I took Callan to the bank, and then we got lunch at subway (amazing that you can just drive in to the parking lot, pick up an sandwich and drive off. I could never have done that in Marugame).

We finally connected with Grandma and Grandpa who brought some extra luggage for us to fit some of our stuff in to get it back to the mainland (international weight limits are 70 pounds per bag and domestic is 50. Since our flight from Honolulu to Utah will be domestic, all our bags that barely made it under the international limit are going to have to shed 10 or 15 pounds). We hurried back to the north shore where Melissa was waiting, thinking we'd probably died, or gotten lost, or something else terrible. We went to L and L Hawaiian barbecue for dinner (lots of food, lots of grease) and then we all crashed pretty early.


We've been to the Bishop museum, had dinner at the Sunset Grill in Honolulu, spent an hour in Waikiki traffic, swam at Waimea Bay, cut our feet on coral, visited the Audubon center, watched the Joseph Smith movie at the Laie Temple visitors center, slept in, stayed up late, eaten too much, and generally enjoyed ourselves. Tomorrow we're going to Hanauma bay, Tuesday we'll visit the Polynesian culture center, and Wednesday we're doing the military stuff (pearl harbor, The Missouri, etc.). And Thursday and 7AM we're on a plain to Utah.

We've had pizza, polish dogs, cold cereal, salad wraps, oreos, mint ice cream, pineapple ice cream, sliced turkey sandwiches, yogurt and granola, grilled and fried mahi mahi, krusteaz pancakes, kettle chips, grapes, cantaloupe, and whole wheat bread.

It is difficult to put words to how it feels to be done with all of this. One minute I am running full steam, teaching classes, training new teachers, taking care of last minute errands, and the next minute I'm stealing a kiss from my wife as we float in the gentle surf of Waimea bay with the sun setting behind great cream puff clouds that stretch out across an endless horizon of iridescence. For one year, exactly one year, Japan, English teaching, students, schedules, and lessons were my life. And now its all done, gone, less than a shadow, more than a memory. But its only over for me. The students will keep coming, the new teachers will keep planning, and scheduling, and teaching. The money will keep flowing, the clock will keep spinning, and the sun will keep setting.

As I jump off this Ferris wheel existence two things are evident. First, It is good to feel like I'm moving forward again, instead of just going round and round past the same scenery. And second, it is sad to realize that the Ferris wheel still spins without me. I was a momentary revolving blip in the linear, progressing lives of hundreds of people in Japan just as much as they were in mine. Our paths crossed momentarily, we hopefully had a positive impact on each others' lives, and now it is over. Neither myself nor my students were really spinning like a Ferris wheel, it only felt like that because of the detachment that results from the inevitable brevity of the interaction. At times the entire experience felt doomed simply because I knew it was temporary. Still, occasionally, when I allowed myself to live in the now, and not focus on the 365 day spinning wheel I was riding, I did feel like I was making a difference. And even now, as I think of the students, the school, and the teachers, still marching on in the same way as they were before I left, I know that despite the brevity, the inevitability of its end, I know that the experience has done much for me. Life is full of these small pockets of experience. They can be lengthy or short, but they all serve the same purpose. For me, they are teaching me to value each interaction, each episode of the larger experience. Whether it's a date, a conversation, a year in Japan, four years in college, 35 years in marriage, they are all cyclical, and they all provide the opportunity to recognize how we are changing, how we are evolving as a person.

My mom asked me if I would, knowing what I know now, still go to Japan for a year. I told her I would still go, but I wouldn't go again. I regret nothing about the year. It was twelve months well spent, and I don't think another 12 months in the same environment could offer me more than the first year did. I have learned how much I value mobility that allows me to visit my family, I have learned what type of work I want to do, I have learned a great deal about how to treat my wife, how to cultivate patience with my son, how to balance my schedule to make time for family, how to spend money, how to save money, how to take care of money without worrying about it. The lessons could mostly be catagorized as introductory courses to a life long study of a great number of subjects that are at the foundation of my existence as a husband and father, as a writer, as a son, and brother, as an american citizen, as a disciple of Jesus, and as a son of God. Far from checking off a list of lessons learned, the experience has produced a miriad questions that are sure to serve as the catalyst for future growth that would not have happened had we stayed in Happy Valley Utah.

And of course, in addition to the high minded, idealistic "things I learned during my year in Japan" speach, I should also comment that we ate some great food, saw some killer scenary, and generally enjoyed a year long extended work holiday. We visited almost every major tourist attraction and cultural sight within four hours of our home, ate in dozens of small shops, visited in peoples homes, had run ins with the law, and picked up some fun souveniers (including our unborn son, who currently ways more than two pounds and is due in less than 90 days), not to mention we took more than a thousand photographs and two gigs of video.

I could write and write and write. But i'ts one thirty am and we're going snorkling tomorrow. So that will have to do.