Land of Tomorrow : Outreach to Awaji

Another day in Japan and an agreement to play for an outreach for HPAC took me, three quartet-mates, two members from the HPAC office and a very brave Jumbo Taxi driver two hours south to a nursing home on the small island of Awaji. We drove on a rainy mountain highway, mist rising from the autumn leaves.

After crossing the Akashi Strait, we took a short break at a ferris wheel rest stop, and then continued into the heart of the island of Awaji towards its minami (southern) side. As we departed from the highway, the roads connecting the patchwork of fields and towns became more twisted and less predictable (at least to those concerned with navigation). Our tires touched far more pavement, our driver spoke to far more locals, and our eyes saw far more of the of the landscape than planned. My camera captured so many blurry moments, trying to hold on to some of the impression that the countryside gave me, and I was reminded of my mother taking picture after picture of the open sky in Wisconsin. Sometimes it's hard to live in such a beautiful world.

As we twisted our way towards the nursing home, I enjoyed a childlike state of ignorance and freedom. I listened to all the other members of the car speak a mysterious language, feeling my mind make sense of sounds, parsing consonants and vowels and syllables and words into some dreamlike meaning, cloudy like the countryside, but slowly, slowly clearing. I had no idea where we were, how we would get there or when. Just me and a window in a Jumbo Taxi and a stream of happy voices whose meaning I could only glean by intonation and gesture. Perhaps I could have stayed there for a lifetime, being lost in a world without a sun or meaning on a little island in Japan.

And then we were there. We were served a lunch and given green tea. Another performance in slippers for an appreciative elderly group wearing masks. For our encore we had them sing Aka Tombo (Red Dragonfly) with us, a beautiful traditional song previously unknown to me. I had a flashback to elementary school children in Madison singing Do Re Mi with our quartet–such a spiral is life. And it is still one of my favorite things, to play with a group of singing people, to sing with a group of singing people. I love people's voices. And such beautiful lyrics of the fall in this song. So nice to share it together.

On our way back we stopped by a bakery run by the nursing home which I believe is a project for their residents. They were waiting for us with bags of baked goods and lots of smiles. And with a more straightforward trajectory towards home, we made use of the extra time to enjoy some stops along the way that featured specialties of Awaji: tako (octopus), onions, and senbei (rice crackers). A gentle feast towards home.