On my 41st birthday, I decided to have a big party. I wasn’t able to celebrate my 40th, so I just postponed it for a year to have friends come over to enjoy each other’s company, and celebrate getting older. I had set up the table for 14 people, stood in the kitchen for hours preparing food and was looking forward to an evening of stories and happiness. One after another arrived, and it was only with the last group of people that someone asked me: “Stephanie did you hear?”
It was the 11th of March 2011.
The atmosphere changed very quickly. What was supposed to be a happy and carefree evening became tense and strained. The very next day, I called my boss and asked him for a leave of absence without pay. I wanted to take the next flight to Japan and help people, knowing that one of my friends lives in an area close to the earthquake’s epicenter. As it turned out, foreigners were not allowed into Japan to help, and after a long weekend, I went back to work.
When I arrived at school, the first thing I encountered was students coming up to me and asking, “Miss Jansen, are you okay? Are your friends okay? Can we do something?”. I was overwhelmed because not too many people were aware that I had connections to Japan. But word spread very fast. Over the next couple of weeks, my students participated in various fundraising activities to support the Japan relief effort. Interestingly enough, it was difficult to find a suitable place to donate to. In the end, we found an orphanage that was in the process of being rebuilt and was supposed to also serve as a community centre, especially in times of danger.
Why am I telling you this? Because the book I will review is about the survivors of the tsunami. Let me start with how I came to buy it.
Last year, at the end of my summer vacation in England, I came across a little bookstore in the middle of nowhere. It is called “Morethanabookshop” and run by a wonderful older man called Robert, who just has incredible knowledge. It is a non-profit organisation, and the money is used for literacy projects. Read the reviews, they speak for themselves!
We started a conversation and I was not sure what I wanted to read. After a while, he went to one of the bookshelves, took out the book and said, “This one!” He found a book I would never have chosen, and was not aware that I needed it. But he did.
I did not start reading it until a couple of days ago, because I somehow knew it would be too heavy on my heart to read it, until shortly before I leave for Japan.
The story is about two people who have both lost loved ones, one of them during the tsunami. They cope differently, and their challenges differ. They meet when they first visit Bell Gardia, and the telephone box in the Garden of a private home in Otsuchi, the place that suffered the highest loss of lives. This telephone box -also called “The phone of the wind” – serves the purpose of talking to the loved ones that are gone.
The book takes you on their journey of how to cope with such a traumatic experience. Needless to say, that more than once I had to stop reading because I became quite emotional. Everyone who had to let go of a loved one will be able to relate, as the questions asked are universal. For example, how do you make a child happy to be alive?
Both, the author Laura Imai Messina and the translator Lucy Rand live or have lived in Japan. And it shows! There is a deep understanding of Japanese culture in this book that makes it special.
The language is easy and the structure is simple. Short chapters, sometimes just a bit of information about a character, a radio show or topics of conversation. But it is this simplicity that strikes a nerve. On one hand, enough information to get a clear idea of what the situation is about, and on the other hand, not too much to take away your own imagination. And it is in itself very Japanese. A „reduced“ beauty that reminds me of the traditional arts.
Do I recommend it? Yes, just be prepared that it is not an easy read when you are mourning someone’s death.
The end? I am not going to spoil it for you but…
… Bell Gardia is not an imaginary place; it does exist and the Michinoku, which I am going to hike from the beginning of September onward, will lead me to this place. Needless to say what I will do…
One Year - Five Continents 