In Japanese they say Meri Kuri, shortened slang for Merry Christmas, but it makes me think of Marie Curie, the scientist, which is fitting for this nuclear meltdown of a year. A few weeks ago marked my two year anniversary in Japan, and eight months since the coronavirus shut down schools, restaurants, and eventually countries.
I was supposed to get married. We never made solid plans, bought expensive things, but we’d talked about it, a small autumn wedding in the park with the changing leaves. His parents looked up flights. But then the shutdown happened and we said, well, let’s postpone it for now, until we know what finances are going to be like, never suspecting that November would still see lockdowns in America and closed borders in Japan.
Someday, we say, when things settle down.
We put up our Christmas tree last weekend. It’s just a little artificial one, shorter than me, and I said, let’s put it on top of this cardboard box, and Andy asked “Why?” and I said “So it’ll be taller,” and I arranged an old white curtain over the box and we put the tree on top just like my Dad always did with his little fake tree. And Andy spent half an hour fiddling with the lights, but in the end we decided they were too old and broken to deal with further, so they went into a plastic bag by the trash bin because Monday is Plastic Trash Day and Tuesday is Burnable Trash Day but I’ve got no idea when Broken Christmas Trash Day is.
We argued. We argued over the Christmas music. We argued over which Christmas movie to watch. We argued because we were anxious and sad and homesick and worried about our friends and families back home but those things were too difficult to talk about so we argued about the cardboard box under the tree. Andy’s right, it looks stupid, with the Amazon logo peeking through the sheer curtain, and the tree balanced precariously on top with its bright red skirt. But my father always had a box under his tree and I haven’t seen my father in three years.
When I lived in Hawaii, I rarely saw my family. I celebrated Christmas on the beach. I had Thanksgiving with friends. I’d call my mom and my dad and wish Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. And I’d go years without seeing any of them.
There’s this thing that happens. Not theory or a phenomenon. I don’t know the word for it. But it’s just the idea that losing the choice makes things so much harder. Like dieting. I’m fairly ambivalent about a piece of cake until you go and tell me I can’t have any. And so I’d go years without seeing my family, but I always knew that if I wanted to visit for Christmas, we’d find a way to scrape up the money for a plane ticket. They seem to like me, my family. They’d make it happen.
It can’t happen right now, even if I wanted to. Even if I could take the time off work, even if I could afford a plane ticket, that visit just can’t happen. It’s not safe to travel. The borders are closed.
I wanted to make Christmas cookies. Everything is trickier here. We don’t have an oven, so we’d have to do small batches in the toaster oven. At the grocery store, we found one box of premade cookie mix. The label clearly showed a toaster oven with a big red X over it. Andy and I shrugged at each other. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
There were tiny tubes of decorating icing, but no big containers of frosting. “We can make our own,” I say, pulling up a recipe on my iPhone and reading off the ingredients. The grocery store doesn’t have confectioner’s sugar. Regular sugar should be fine, right?
“Do we need eggs?” Andy asked.
“We have eggs at home.” The eggs were from September. I ended up buying more at the convenience store. You can’t buy confectioner’s sugar at the grocery store but you can buy raw eggs at the convenience store.
At home, Andy suddenly remembered that he was a baker in a past life (also known as America). He took charge of mixing the cookie dough, calling out to me for various cooking supplies that we didn’t have, things like wooden spoons and spatulas and cooking sheets. We made do.
The toaster oven did not catch fire. The cookies were edible. The frosting was gritty and bright red
We decorated Christmas cookies together in our apartment, my fiancée and I. We’ll get married someday, and maybe our family can be there with us.
Osaka is festive for the holidays. Decorations in shop windows. Shopping squares aglow with colorful lights. In the park at Expo City, twenty minutes from my home, the giant Tower of the Sun glows ominously. We are at pandemic Stage Red.
Four Thousand Miles 