Setsubun was the other day, and it was a bit of a whopper for me.
I lucked out by being invited to lunch with a few members of the Association of Foreign Wives of Japanese, which is an awesome group to be a part of, especially when you feel alone and weird, which I do a lot.
There we had some lovely curry and between bouts of toddler-filled distraction, I talked. A lot. Like non-stop. After lunch was shopping and looking out the observation tower and even a lovely coffee and tea break while Julia ran around a kids-play-area.
I got on the train, came home and immediately, the smart part of my mind which had been a no-show earlier sprang to life, detailing each and every stupid thing I said and how little I listened and how awful it must have been, or ludicrous, or weird for all those other ladies to listen to my yammering.
I slept on it though and this morning realized two things. First, I forgot that I am an introvert and the running around and talking thing takes a lot more out of me than I realize. Second, I spent a lot of the time chasing Julia around in circles or begging her to stay seated or distracted long enough to pretend I'm an adult for just a minute. So I probably didn't make quite as much of an ass of myself as I could have.
Though now I wonder what that looked like. too. Maybe I seemed inattentive or lazy or crazy or who knows.
The point is I got out of my house and was social with new people and enjoyed it. That is not common.
A great point was that I have something in common with these ladies and that most of them have been in this country twice as long as I have or longer.
Since I was feeling old and dumb last month for not recognizing the musicians on the New Year's TV Specials, it was especially nice to see that I'm not the oldest foreign woman in Japan, and that staying longer doesn't mean I am doing anything wrong.
I'm actually doing okay. I'm on my own journey, and I am loking it overall, so yay!
After coming home and realizing it was Setsubun, the bean-throwing day, I raced through the grocery store looking for peanuts (in shell, to throw at the demon and cleanse the house) and soy beans (the only bean they use in other parts of Japan for the throwing or the eating. Here, we eat the same number as our age for good luck) but found all the Setsubun stuff had been taken away, as everyone else had apparently already got their bits in a timely fashion.
So I raced to the bean and dry snack aisle, where I still didn't find what I was looking for so I spent about $10 on other random beans and hoped for the best.
When Tomo came home a few hours later, he brought with him a new oni mask, a pack of peanuts and two packs of dried soybeans, Soon after, he dressed as the oni and I threw peanuts at him in each room of the house. Julia is not quite ready for this ritual, which was made obvious by her desire to pick up and eat the peanuts in their shells as well as her displeasure at hitting her father with peanuts.
Or maybe she's just too Americanized right now.
Now it's almost 4AM and I am about to get some rest. With my in-laws comign to set up the dolls next week, I took it upon myself to get all of the old recycling out, which meant scrubbing the labels off of bottles of alcohol that were brought to my 30th birthday over a year ago. Needless to say, there was a lot to get done, but done it is.
As am I.
Sweet dreams, Universe!
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