The foods are different:  I try them all: heavy meats for breakfast, cottage cheese, radishes, cucumbers; things I associate with another time of day.  I think of Japan, a small village outside of Tokyo where the women wore kimonos on the street and I was an oddity with my obvious different ways.  The rice and the rice patties rolled in dried seaweed for breakfast.  I remember grumbling all the way, tired from working day after single day, not grateful, not curious–just let’s do this and get this job done, let it be finished.  Still the Japanese appeased me saying, Ganbatte! ne? Do your best, while I begrudgingly let them transform me moving this way and that, becoming what they wanted me to be: Kawaii, ne?  Always adding the question –or so it seemed to me.  They nodded approvingly on the other side of the bright lights while I stared out the window, thinking of something.  One thing triggers another.

Here, with a plate full of meat and cheese, I stare out the window, the garden beyond unseen from the street, hidden by a high and thick concrete wall.  The name of the place fitting: The Secret Garden.  Right now I am this city.  Each place feels different and new; in each place I feel different and new.