I dunno why it's so hard to write.

Most days I see something or hear something or do something that a few years ago would have made it into a blog entry, no problem. Like when I wanted to make a comment to a woman next to me rubbing her bare arms how cold the air conditioning is on the trains, before I remembered that in Japan you never talk to strangers. Or about the t-shirt I saw in Kamata station that, I swear, said "I'm too tired to lie to everyone all the time".

Maybe Japanese weirdness becomes proportionally less funny with every year that passes. Or there's such a background level of weirdness that you get used to, so that the exceptional things slip under the radar. Maybe that heightened sense of awareness, that craving for minutia that I had has been dulled with the stimulus of much bigger things like being torn from people I care about, being uncertain about the concrete details in my immediate future, being in love. Or maybe- and this is awful- maybe so much of that analysis, that awareness, that obsessive chronicling of tiny moments was all somehow a part of my single self. Maybe it was all somehow directed at finding someone. How Jr. High.

Its not as though I couldn't write without that sense; certainly my life is presenting me with much more "material" than I ever had before. But with so much uncertainty, so many audiences, so little resolution, I find it hard to find my way here.

I read about a book a week since I have so much time on the train. The last three, in succession, cut into me deeper than normal. Perhaps the first, "Everything is Illuminated", left me with so many open wounds that after that anything could find its way in. It's one of the most unique, most touching, most affecting books I've read in a while.

The next, Bitter Sweet was about a lot of things, but I of course glommed on to the story about the giddy young couple in love whose marriage slowly falls apart. Despite the employment of characters named things like "Felicity Trueman" (uh, how about John Everyman, while we're at it?), I really enjoyed the book, all parts of it.

And lastly, I read Prep, an excruciatingly long novel about an insecure Midwestern girl who attends Ault boarding school on a scholarship. She's too shy to talk to anyone and instead obsesses about the popular students and one boy in particular. The pathetic amount of scheming, self deprecation and missed opportunities would make you wonder why anyone should feel any kind of sympathy for the narrator, and moreover, why anyone should care about what goes on at Ault boarding school. Except... except for the fact that her scheming, her analysis, her insecurity ring so damn true. The way she describes feeling like a fish out of water is so honest that anyone who's ever felt out of place even once can relate to it a little. And anyone who's ever been an insecure teenage girl can relate to it a lot, a lot, a lot. I found myself being able to relate to it so much that it took me a day away from the book to recall where the narrator ended and where I began. I actually had to remind myself that I always had too much respect for myself for what happened to her to happen to me, and I was never without friends in high school, which itself was never as cliquey as high schools are made out to be.

But its probably because of Prep that I'm writing again. I always tend to take on the "voice" of whatever I'm reading at the moment (and if you read "Everything is Illuminated", you'll know what kind of acrobatics that would take), and I realized that if I ever wanted to rid myself of Prep's Lee Fiora, I'd have to do a little writing of my own.

I wonder if my sense of self even exists if I don't write. My life now is mostly coasting in a place I was finished with, and that dulls me. And Selo and I are too stable to write about, although I wouldn't post that on line anyway. Falling in love or out of love would engender writing but yesterday we took a break from me lying around coughing and sniffling from my yearly cold to get some fresh air and buy him some shirts. We walked along the glass-lined walkways of Shiodome, jarred by the sight of other gaijin, and waited in line for the dressing rooms at H&M. They wouldn't let us both into the room at the same time (to prevent theft? tomfoolery?), so I watched him through the small crack between the unlockable doors. In the bright lights I could see his graham cracker skin, the gold glint of his necklace and the blinding white of his undershirt rippling and shifting as he moved. He opened the doors to show me a fitted black polo shirt that made even his ratty zip-off leg khakis look more grown up. I undid his top button and folded down the collar smooth. He looked good.

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Sometime after New Year's, Selo's older brother Yusuf came to our house with a new pair of shiny black shoes and announced that he was heading back to Turkey.

I've known Yusuf for about 5 months now. Selo introduced me to his family after we decided to get engaged, which coincided nicely with the marriage of his next oldest brother Kemal and his wife Suzan. I know that Yusuf is Selo's oldest brother in Japan, that he always wears a suit no matter how hot or cold it is, and that he carries a Muslim rosary, which I always imagine he uses because he's away from his wife and two young kids.

Yusuf calls me “Buka male Sanagawre”, which means “daughter-in-law of White Sana” (White Sana being Selo's mother's nickname). Whether this is a flattering way of including me in the family or a diversionary tactic to conceal how long it took him to learn my name is still a point of debate with me. Yusuf speaks to me exclusively in Kurdish, even if there is no one around to interpret. He does nothing but work and only buys an occasional second-hand watch as an indulgence. This lead to Selo's nickname for him- “the bank of Yusuf”.

At the McDonald's at the airport, I asked Yusuf how long he's been in Japan. I was under the impression that he came about a year ago, just before Suzan. So when he answered “6 years”, I thought he was either teasing me or was unclear about the meaning of my question. I didn't believe him until he showed me his passport, and the only stamp in the midst of all those blank pages clearly said Narita, 2002.

I thought of the times Yusuf came and sat on our couch, twirling his rosary and calling for “chai” and I thought of myself wondering what his wife thought about him being away for so long. I know he originally intended to bring his wife and children here, but he must of realized that was impossible fairly quickly. I wonder if she gave him permission to go, or if she was always begging him to return. Then I thought about what it must be like to prosper or flounder based on the health of a flock of sheep, or the skyrocketing price of food in Turkey. About having to send your sons away to the city to live with relatives just so they can go to middle school. And being a Kurd in Turkey is no picnic either. But 6 years.

The mixed feelings are palpable in the van ride to the airport. I am with Suzan and Kemal and Yusuf, and another cousin who is driving us there. I'm sure they feel what I feel, only in different proportions: relief that he is going home, that he managed to spend so much time in Japan without being shut into a detention center, happiness that he will be reunited with his family, sadness that he is leaving, and then the wondering. When it is our turn to go- and go we must, for we all know that unless you have married a Japanese woman, as our driver has, there is no future in Japan- how will we leave? Will Kemal and Suzan be able to stay here unmolested for years, as other couples have, or will Kemal be refused his visa and be taken to Shinagawa, leaving Suzan to fend for herself? Will they eventually get sick of it all and leave, even knowing that once Kemal goes back to Turkey he owes the government a year or more of military service, and possibly some prison time for trying to get out of it? Will Selo and I arrive at this airport with bags carefully packed, visa documents in order with a bank account full enough to establish our life together in the states? Or will we be rushed out, or carted out, long before we planned? We all know what it took for Yusuf to arrive at Narita. He had to go to the Turkish embassy and extend his expired passport (Turkish passports are only good for 2 years), then he went to Shinagawa and told them he was giving up on his refugee application and that he was prepared to leave in February.

They gave him a temporary visa and told him to be out by the end of the week.

We know this, and we know that for Yusuf things are simple, because he has done his military service already. For the rest of us, it will not be so easy.

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I lead them through Narita's many floors, counters, and escalators. The cousin brags that he has taken someone to the airport before and therefore knows the way. But I have been in and out of this place more than twenty times in the past 3 years. Leaving for Shanghai, leaving for Hong Kong, leaving for Paris. Arriving here for he first time to study, and going home for Christmas. I met Sean Lennon here, and I said two tearful goodbye's to Selo here. When we pass the security gates, I feel the last memory more acutely, and I wish Selo could have gotten the day off to come with us. As I am stewing in this, Suzan puts her hand to her forehead. She arrived in Narita with her entire family, thinking she was going to get married. Instead, she spent five months in a detention center. Narita gives her a headache.

Suddenly, Yusuf frowns and begins digging in his carryon. He pulls out a small video camera and takes out the tape. Kemal informs me that the tape contains a video of their Nevroz celebration this year, and footage of Yusuf dancing in front of Kurdish flags is enough to get him arrested right in the airport.

We say our goodbyes inside the security gates. Suzan cries a little, and Kemal reminds me that he has no idea when they will see each other next. But we are happy for him, and when he finally makes it through security we wave him down the escalator to immigration through a plexiglass partition. Downstairs, something else is happening. We meet another cousin comforting a sobbing Japanese woman, and see two more Turkish people whom I have never met. They are both wearing shiny gray suits over sweater vests. The woman is sobbing because the two men had trouble getting through immigration. But they did, and now Japan has two more Kurds on their hands.

Their presence perplexed me the entire ride back. I had assumed that Yusuf's departure, and the departure of another cousin tomorrow represents a general resignation, an acceptance of Japan's dead ends. Japan is too chummy with Turkey to admit to any human rights abuses against anyone there, and even if they did, Japan has granted refugee status to only about 400 people in the past 20 years. Not exactly terrific odds. Why does anyone come here? Is it enough to stay here for a few years, to save up some money, to feel the odd refreshment of being marginalized as a gaijin, rather than discriminated against as a Kurd, and then go home? Do they expect to marry a Japanese woman, open a kebab shop and live the easy life? Or are they just taking their chances, willing to live from residence permit to residence permit, willing to jump through immigration's hoops and maybe serve a term in Shinagawa, until Japan gives up on them and lets them stay?

Selo says the Kurds are an impatient people, but I have only seen the opposite. I have only seen people willing to live for years half settled, half legal, half happy. I've seen brides talk to their mothers on their wedding day over a web cam and housewives try to beat Japanese flour and milk into passable Turkish bread and yogurt. I have seen forty people cram into a two room tatami apartment and do dances they should be doing outdoors, in a field.

And I see in the stormy hazel eyes of my love how guilty, and how angry he feels that he doesn't feel at home in the only place that feels like home.

Yusuf called this morning to let us know that he arrived safely in Gaziantep, that he was with his wife and Sanagawre on a bus back to their village. I know they have been busy planning a welcome party and have killed a lamb as part of the preparations. Selo says Yusuf may try and take his family someplace else, maybe Europe, and may he have better luck. But for now, tonight, I know he is happy.