Orbit Three: Into the deep

“Where’re at this izakaya if you want to meet us!” A picture of said izakaya was attached. It brought to mind a conversation with Mitsuo the day before, “People in Japan don’t use street names like in North America,” he had informed me, “We just know where things are.” Apparently, the same is true of izakayas. I had walked by the smiling and happy faces inside this particular izakaya numerous times, simply because it’s close to where I’m staying. Almost magically, I just knew where it was. (Also, the photo had managed to include the signage of a yakitori place across the street, they specialize in lamb, the sign has a cute little cartoon lamb with a heart beside it and I can’t decide whether this cartoon version of what is, in the end, meat-on-a-skewer is horrible or wonderful, so that particular sign inhabits conscious memory, thus I just knew where it was.)

Izakaya (居酒屋) literally means stay and drink place. Not quite a bar, not quite a sit down restaurant, they are casual, everyday, energetic places where people hang out and have drinks with friends and/or buisiness collegues. An izakaya isn't really a hitori-de (on one’s own) kind of place. Having been hitori-de every other time I walked by, I had never been inside, so was happy of the opportunity to do so. Inside at the back I found Ariane and Seiichi, who had sent the aforementioned message and photo, just as they were calculating the time left on their nomihodai (飲み放題; all you can drink). Typically, you can buy either 1 or 2 hours of all you can drink, depending on how much you’re celebrating and/or how difficult your day was. Nomihodai is quite popular amongst Large Tables Full of Otherwise Reserved and Serious Business People, who can often be found in their natural habitat, the izakaya, shouting kampai (cheers) and laughing hilariously at any-little-thing. Nomihodai is either the most brilliant piece of marketing, or bad news for AA Japan. In the end, all three of us at our table proceeded at a pace of exactly 2 beers per hour, for one hour. “If you have at least two, nomihodai makes sense” Seiichi explained. Thus the brilliance. Like most folks, when not part of the L.T.F.O.R.S.B.P. tribe, I most likely would have had only one beer, were it not for the sensible bargain implicit in all you can drink in one hour! So rather than just have one, I paid more, for the privilege of paying less, for two.

As we partook of another chicken skin skewer, Ariane said, “Of all the places I’ve lived, I was always me.” Yes. These deeply true words lead to a wonderful conversation, and great lead in to this post.

Thus we arrive at orbit three. If you are in the process of coming home to yourself, where ever you go, there you are. You are always orbiting an interior homecoming. Whatever is going on around you, you are always you. You are the thread connecting all the places you’ve been and people you’ve met, even as you are being constantly changed by the people you meet, and places you’ve been.

As Pico Eyer has famously said, “Home isn’t so much where you are from as it is where you are going.” If you’re coming home to yourself, you’re always headed home. More importantly, I've discovered, you always have access to the practices you have spent time developing and which give you access to your interior homecoming.

For several weeks, in all of the open space before me, and amongst all the possibility, I found myself watching episodes of Entourage, and looking up F1 highlights, just like back home. It was easy and comfortable, and sometimes easy and comfortable is okay when that’s what’s needed. So, yep, easy and comfortable habits. At the same time, I also had access to practices which offer me access to my own internal landscape; meditation, mindful practice, contemplation. Whatever you happen to call it, it doesn’t cost anything and it’s always available. I was grateful to past-me, who invested in future-me by establishing these practices. The investment gave once-future-now-current-me free and readily available resources while navigating the previous two orbits. It grounded me—an interesting metaphor when speaking of orbits—in important ways.

If photographers can write endlessly about their gear, I can write a couple of paragraphs about the gear that helps me access my inner orbit, right? Two things that feel worth mentioning.

The first is a very specific breathing practice; 4-7-8 breathing. Breathe in to a count of 4, hold for a count of 7, and breath out for a count of 8. Simply explained and demonstrated by Dr. Andrew Weil here. The claimed benefits seem...many and varied?...far reaching?...too good to be true? I started practicing almost on a whim. The claimed benefits start after having done it twice daily for 2 months. Okay, let's give it a go. I don't know if it's lowered my blood pressure, but I do know, I now turn to it frequently at almost anytime and almost anywhere, like busy airports, and rainy days (see below).

The second piece of gear I'll share is a drug of choice. At least that's what it feels like, because I'm not sure what I'd do with out it. It’s an app called Ananda*, basically a simple meditation timer. It plays pleasant natural sounds (you can chose which ones), binaural beats (which you can turn off or on), and has a nice little gong at the end (you can set the timer for however long you like). I often meditate without headphones while walking, which was mostly what I was doing when I first arrived in Yokohama. Then, in the midst of creative frustration (more on that in upcoming editions) and several miserable rainy days, I pulled out my headphones and Ananda. I was a bit shocked at how familiar, and thus centering, the experience was. Way better than HBO and F1.

You know when you were a kid and you’d go for a walk in the forest—I hope you had the chance to walk in the forest when you were a kid—you’d inevitably find a stick that you then carried with you for the duration of the walk. The best kind of stick would be one of walking-stick size that made you feel a bit like Gandalf. And then at the end of the walk, because you couldn’t very well bring every stick you ever picked up home with you, you had to chuck it, which usually became a contest to see who could chuck their stick the farthest. Sometimes, a particularly Gandalf-ian stick was just too good to chuck. So you’d hide this too-perfect-to-chuck walking-stick in a little spot by the side of the path, thinking to use it again when you came back this way, which, you being a kid and having a short attention span, you almost never did. Putting on headphones and using Ananda was like heading into the forest of Coming Home to Oneself and finding that too-perfect-to-chuck walking-stick right where you left it. It’s less about the stick—a stick is a stick—and more about it being there, and being familiar. And about that feeling of having chanced upon something just right, and it being returned to you.

I leave you with a few images of Yokohama, and a 4 minute talk I did a few days ago, about City Trees (more on that as well, in coming editions).

*If you go looking for Ananda, you'll have to follow the provided link. I can't find it on the App Store searching with either "Ananda" or "Ananda-Premium." The one that does come up, all blue and whatnot, with "Togananda's teachings" isn't it.