The 72 Japanese Microseasons of my Discontent - Part 6 : 穀雨 Kokuu (Grain rains)

One of okasan's recent hand painted postcards, complete with her personal stamp in the lower right hand corner.

April 20–24葭始生 Ashi hajimete shōzu - First reeds sprout

April 25–29霜止出苗 Shimo yamite nae izuru - Last frost, rice seedlings grow

April 30–May 4牡丹華 Botan hana saku - Peonies bloom

And just like that, another Easter weekend to our backs. Funny... if it weren't for social media or the BBC morning news, I'd have no idea that it'd come and gone.

I find it odd that the Japanese never jumped on the Easter bandwagon and monetized it like they have Christmas, Valentine's Day, and most recently, Halloween. I mean, the 'cute' factor is there, with the bunny rabbits and colourful eggs - not to mention a potentially huge commercial pay off for advertisers, retailers and confectioners. It seems like a no-brainer All the pieces seem to be in place; yet it remains strangely ignored.

In these precincts there were no egg hunts or chocolate bunnies...just another weekend of minding okasan.

According to Mina, the whinging and grousing started as soon as she arrived at Mayumi's to pick her up on Saturday morning. At the top of mother's shit list is Surly Sumo Son's spouse, Fat Wife. No surprises there. The two of them have been at odds since the old lady moved in after breaking her back shoveling snow almost a year and a half ago.

It's hard to pin down what the exact issue between those two really is, or how far back the problems go.

Mina claims that mother's had it in for her since the wedding reception. Something to do with her attending family representation not being very classy.

It seems to me that the real problems started within a month of her taking up residence with the extended family, when mother somehow caught wind that Fat Wife was getting a monthly stipend from Mayumi to ostensibly 'keep an eye on her' during the day, while she was out at work.

Apparently the old lady interpreted that as carte blanche to take full advantage of the situation, and order Fat Wife about like hired help.

After all...she was getting paid, wasn't she?

Perhaps her aim was to ensure that Mayumi got her money's worth. Suffice to say, this caused a degree of resentment and animosity that could have easily been avoided had their little 'business arrangement' remained confidential.

As the old saying goes....

It also came to okasan's attention that when Mayumi got home from work, she was fully aware of the minutiae of her daily activities - including the snide comments that she'd made to Fat Wife. It wasn't long before she pieced together that she was being watched and reported on by 'you-know-who'. This heightened her already burgeoning paranoia, and further fed into her animosities.

After all, who appreciates having their every move surveilled?

They've had a few major meltdowns - one so bad that Surly Sumo Son actually had to drive the old lady over to our place on an hour's notice one Friday evening last summer, so everyone over there could decompress. Both Mayumi and Fat Wife had reached the respective ends of their tethers.

That our weekend plans had effectively been torpedoed dead in the water seemed of no concern to anyone, whatsoever.

Fortunately, things cooled down by the next day. As always, we made entreaties to okasan to try to behave herself just a little more. In these types of situations, she initially denies that she's knowingly done anything wrong, then finally relents with her favourite go-to response,

"はい、わかりました." (Yes, I understand.)

<Hai, Wakarimashita.>

The thing is, she really doesn't. It's just lip service.

In the interim, we've learned to fear the LINE message tone on Mina's phone. If it's from someone over there, chances are it's nothing good.

With three generations of that family's women attempting to live together under one roof, I suppose a few bumps in the road are to be expected.

There's an old proverb here in Japan about how 'adult children shouldn't live so far from their parents that they can't carry them a bowl of hot soup'. There are several different ways to interpret this - one being that the perfect amount of space between the residences of adult offspring and their parents can be ascertained by measuring the maximum distance over which a bowl of soup in transit can best retain its optimal serving temperature.

Upon delivery, the soup should be a sight better than tepid, yet not so hot as to scald the tongue.

I think it would be safe to assume that there are a couple of regularly scalded tongues over at Mayumi's place.

Mother's broken back has mended slowly; almost sixteen months in, she finally appears to have made about as good a recovery as is possible. Happily, her improved mobility has enabled her to spend most of her weekdays out at 'day-service' facilities, where she's involved in physiotherapy, 'cognitive training', and perhaps most importantly, has the opportunity to socialize and connect with people her own age. With Japan's greying society currently out numbering all other age demographics, these places are big business, and a real godsend to families who lack the resources to be able to farm their aging parents out to full-on residential nursing homes.

They operate much like kid's daycare centres, opening from 8:30 or 9 am until late afternoon. To take the pressure off of busy working families, many of them run shuttle services that pick up the oldsters in the morning, then drive them back home at the end of the day. Some are even staffed by licensed practitioners, depending on the range of services on offer.

At the centres, the aged punters get meals, and have the opportunity to take part in various group activities. Here's where things get tricky. Instead of participating in the assigned arts and crafts assignments with the other seniors, okasan insists on bringing her own 'projects' from home. She takes a certain amount of pride in her elaborate hand painted postcards, and looks down on the simplistic, 'boring' work that everyone else has been assigned by the day service staff. She considers these activities simply 'beneath her'. A waste of her time and energy.

Coming from a fine arts background, I totally get it. She's been painting for years. That's what she does.

It's actually all she has left.

In group oriented Japanese society, this attitude is bound to ruffle some feathers. Here, group dynamics mean everything. Everyone is expected to toe the line, to maintain that all important group harmony. As soon as someone wants to assert any kind of individuality, the group dynamic is threatened...and the individual that isn't conforming may find themselves in a precarious position. This brings to mind another well worn Japanese proverb,

“The nail that sticks out gets hammered down”

Mina has expressed concern over this to okasan again and again, and her response is always an unenthusiastic,

"はい、わかりました." (Yes, I understand.)

<Hai, Wakarimashita.>

The last thing anyone wants to see is mother get the boot from a day service she's made friends at, and enjoys going to.

While getting her out of the house has gone some way towards easing the tensions in their living situation, the bottom line hasn't really changed, and things still occasionally boil over.

In addition to everything about Fat Wife getting on her tits, there's the matter of Little Bully Boy, Fat Wife and Surly Sumo Son's young biological son. At seven years old, the kid is precocious and outspoken; lately he's apparently taken to targeting okasan, loudly snitching her out for everything from wiping the bathroom mirror with a dirty towel ("she took it from the laundry hamper! I saw!"), to cherry picking the best pieces of chicken karage from the evening meal serving platter ("If you touch it with your chopsticks, you should take it!"). Most recently, Mayumi said that he'd excused himself from the dining room table without finishing his meal - claiming that watching okasan eat was making him feel sick.

Apparently she'd been loudly sucking on the bones of a fish head, quite oblivious to the fact that this might be a turn-off to anyone else at the table.

It has to be pretty gross to gross out a seven year old.

Okasan gets her back up in the air and denies everything, of course. Kids are honest, though. Mostly, at least. I have to wonder if this stuff is really coming from the kid, or if he's simply repeating what his mother says to garner favour and approval. In any case, this wasn't how I was brought up. Regardless of what she does, she's his elder, and deserves a little respect and deference. As such, that he isn't at least scolded or reprimanded for sassing the old lady off seems bad - even though she may well have it coming.

Regardless, she certainly does have some off-putting table manners. In addition to cherry picking from platters on the table, she's put on some gross displays over here, as well. It's actually got so bad that we've made a short list of things not to give her (soups, noodles and pasta, anything with small bones), and depending on what we're having, we even stagger her meal times - sometimes getting her fed and out of the way before we sit down to eat.

Anything to preserve the peace.

Mina says that all of this is recent, and that she never used to be a gross heathen at the table. Sometimes it actually adds fuel to speculations that she may be experiencing early symptoms of dementia. She absolutely bristles if she thinks we're even alluding to her losing her faculties.

I wonder if all those years living alone up in Shiga made her go a bit feral?

Just before driving her back on late Sunday afternoon, we sat down to have tea with some donuts that she'd picked out (and had Mina buy) on the way over the morning before. She's always at a low-ebb when it's time for her to go back, and was on her usual lament about how no one over at Mayumi's place ever talks to her.

This is all very deja-vu to me. My late Mum lived under Gramma's roof for the last twenty five years of her life. Things finally got so bad that they didn't exchange more than a couple of sentences in the last three years Mum was alive. I think there might have been a brief 'good-bye' when Mum was finally off to the hospital for the last time, and that was it. It was a real tragedy. I remember standing in Gramma's kitchen on one of my last visits over there, listening to her complain about mother not speaking to her...claiming not to understand why she had to be so miserable and stand-offish. I could tell Gramma was hurting. She had no idea how to go about bridging the gap, and Mum had effectively shut her out. I can't even recall the event that triggered it...only that it was something really trivial. Gramma never had much sensitivity for Mum, and tended not to measure her words very well.

"Your mother's a funny kind of person"

"You know she's dying, right?"

"Well, I don't know anything about that..."

That kind of stumped her. There was no way to sugar coat it. I don't think she ever accepted it, either. Denial is a hell of a thing.

Mina's mother has a tendency to shoot off her mouth, too. It's caused trouble over here...and it causes problems at Mayumi's place. At points, Mayumi seems to just give up on even trying to have a civil conversation with her - just like Mum finally did with Gramma . Everyone has their limits. If they'd had the luxury of a bit more personal space and privacy, things would probably have been different.

Scalded tongue syndrome.

Given that okasan is 88 years old this year, I doubt that she'll be around long enough for things to get that bad. While she's definitely obstinate, selfish, and tells tall tales, she doesn't drink. No one over there does. That simplifies things quite a bit. Nothing aggravates difficult situations like alcohol. Putting out fires with gasoline was Mum's specialty.

As we were finishing up our tea, I reminded okasan that I actually spend the bulk of my days in silence...and I deal with it.

*(As the old lady can't understand any English, Mina worked up a nice running translation, to fill in the gaps in my broken Japanese...)

"Don't worry, okasan. After Mina goes to work, no one talks to me, either. On most days I spend ten or twelve hours without conversation. Then it's a little dinner time chat, a bit of TV, and time for bed. At least you have friends at day service. You're lucky! I don't have any friends or family here at all. Only Mina. Who cares if no one at Mayumi's wants to talk to you? You guys have nothing in common, anyways."

Her eyes lit up with recognition. I'd connected.

"はい、ラッキーです。それはあなたにとって孤独であるに違いありません。私は自分のベストを尽くします!"

(Yes, I'm lucky. It must be lonely for you. I'll do my best!)

<Hai, rakkīdesu. Sore wa anata ni totte kodokudearu ni chigai arimasen. Watashi wa jibun no besuto o tsukushimasu!>

More lip service. Of course, we'd be here again.

With that, Mina took the last of her over night bags out to the van, while I waited with okasan by the door. As is our custom, I gave the old lady and hug and squeeze. She doesn't pull away or stiffen up like a lot of Japanese will when confronted with any physical sign of affection. She leans in and squeezes back. While I really do empathize with her, I'm glad that she's on her way. She's a ball of stress and randomness. She's also had to deal with an extraordinary amount of change in the last sixteen months. They all have. Okasan is a tough old bird. She is also very lucky to have the safety net that her daughters provide. With no children or family to fall back on, if I were unfortunate enough to survive Mina...I wonder what would become of me? It freaks me out.

Fingers crossed that nobody at Mayumi's place has a meltdown, and we aren't treated to any sudden LINE messages or phone calls between now and our next 'weekend'. That will be May 29th... the holiday Friday that kicks off Golden Week. We'll have her for three days. If something's going to go sideways over here, it usually happens on those knock 'em down and drag 'em out extended weekends.

As far as okasan's bi-weekly report card goes, this time around she manages another 'C'. She's been pretty subdued the last couple of times. Depressed. At least there was no sobbing or waterworks like two weeks ago.

On the seasonal front, this week saw the last of the very latest blooming sakura give way to the rich verdant green of fresh leaves. There's nothing quite like the fresh late April canopy in the park and out along the canal. I also noticed the clover and dandelions starting to come out in the park field across the road. This is the most beautiful time of year - the six weeks before rainy season. It simply doesn't get any better.

April 15–19虹始見 Niji hajimete arawaru - First rainbows

With the brilliant warm and sunny days being so regularly punctuated with cooler rainy ones, I half expected to catch a rainbow around the end of last week...but alas, t'was not to be. It's either bright and sunny, or pissing down. There's no cross over going on at all. Too bad.

And there we have it. All the bits that matter, and a lot that just don't. A wrap until sub season seven - Rikka (Beginning of summer). That'll be in two weeks (or thereabouts).

Until then, "No matter where you go, there you are".

There, and nowhere else.

.