The Distance from Home
Tokyo and California, where my parents and siblings live, are separated by 8,290 kilometers (5,151 miles). The distance between home and me, however, has become much farther lately. I haven’t been home in almost four years, adding to the sense of yawning distance. My son’s school schedule in Japan and the difficulty in being able to take more than a week off from work in the Japanese corporate environment have made it difficult to visit California. Now, with the coronavirus pandemic, travel restrictions from Japan into the United States are being considered by the federal government which may make going home a moot point for months to come. My parents are in their eighties; visiting them may even endanger their health if I inadvertently contaminate them after flying on a jet across the Pacific Ocean.
Even so, there’s a sense of distance from home that feels like it’s growing ever wider in my heart.
I feel it when I initiate the phone calls home on every major holiday in the United States — Thanksgiving and Christmas in particular. I feel it when my siblings — my son’s aunt and uncle — consistently miss my son’s birthdays as he hurtles through his teenage years. I feel it when my brother tells me when I wish him a happy birthday — today — that he doesn’t want to hear from me anymore in part because he’s deeply upset by how much his retirement savings have shrunk in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
I haven’t been able understand why this should be. I wonder, sometimes, if life in Japan viewed from those who have never been here before seems more glamorous than it really is. Tokyo is a wonderful place to live, to be sure, but I still struggle with life’s vicissitudes like anyone else. Is it that I am removed (escaped?) from my parents’ decline into old age? Is it there a latent jealousy of those who have left the comforts and confines of home and family?
I now sit here at my desk, the setting sun sharply outlining Mount Fuji far outside my window. The distance to its conical silhouette reminds me once again how very far from home I really am, in so many ways.
And, with that, good night from Tokyo.
