Portraits

Twelve months ago I meandered into a stand up drinking bar in Shibuya by accident, because I had a bit of extra time in the late afternoon, and because it seemed like an interesting place to be. I had been living in Tokyo for three months and had just come through an unreasonable series of travails. Still weak and recovering from a bad bout of pneumonia that had seen me hospitalized a few weeks earlier, and only arriving in the country six weeks before that, I was still completely and passionately in love with the enormous city of Tokyo, a place  that seemed to pull to it my kind of people; creative, eccentric, and brave souls. Being happy hour, the bar began to fill up with an equal collection of Japanese and expatriates who were winding down from a long day out on the job. It was there and then that I met the talented photographer Alfie Goodrich, who would more importantly become my friend. Alfie was with another photographer, and the two of them and myself began a fascinating and humorous conversation with an interesting young journalist from America who spoke with a strong Southern accent. 

Sometimes you meet people that you understand very quickly, and who understand you. Alfie and I were like that. We were born in the same year, 1969. We were the baby busters who arrived on this planet after all of those baby boomers had already blazed their path to greatness and used up a considerable amount of resources in doing so. Both of us understood what it is like to get to the table too late for the big helping of easy come opportunities. Alfie and I also had the shared history of being freelancing artists, him as a photographer and me as a performer, who had managed the pressures of supporting children without the security of being an employee. Pursuing your professional passion when it is only your own provision that you are risking is one thing, but to pursue your passion with a small crowd of foot growing dependents that need supper every night, that is a more complicated and costly type of bravery. 

After discovering that we had a lot in common, Alfie suggested that we do an exchange of talent. He would photograph me and I would write an article about portraits for his website Japanorama. This would also allow me to meet his beautiful family. About a week later the two of us did the planned portrait shoot and I got to spend an afternoon with the Goodriches. I even got to take a nap in the kids room before eating the delicious supper that his wife prepared for us that evening, because people who are recovering from pneumonia need a lot of naps. Supper with the Goodriches was actually my first meal shared in a home since I had arrived in Japan. Until that evening for almost four months my every meal had been in isolation, in public, or in a hospital bed. 

During the photoshoot before my nap and supper with the Goodriches, I was surprised at how quickly and accurately Alfie was able to capture the images that expressed what I was feeling. Before we got together I had confided in Alfie about some of the things that were happening in my life and what I wanted to say in the portrait. At that time it had taken everything I had within me in order to survive and to overcome the initial circumstantial difficulties that met me upon my arrival in Japan, the place where I felt so passionately it was my destiny to be. My youngest son was eighteen and back in Canada living in a small apartment on my friend's property during his grade twelve year. The trials I was encountering in Japan were making it hard for me to predict my long term situation and my ability to provide for him. Popular opinion back home was that I should give up on things working out in Japan and return to Canada. However after almost dying by myself on my apartment floor in a city full of strangers a few weeks earlier, and experiencing fever induced hallucinations, and honestly being terrified that my young adult children were possibly hours away from not having a mother anymore, I had come to believe, possibly for the first time in my life, that I was actually an incredibly important person. Since those scary moments of facing my mortality I  believed that I was important enough to pursue my dream of having a life in Japan where I felt I could be of much greater benefit to others than in a dead end local job back in Canada. It was in consideration of the way that I was feeling, stronger than ever in spirit, albeit still needing frequent naps due to my physical state, that I wanted Alfie to record those emotions visually through the medium of a photographic portrait. I wanted him to capture my feelings of spiritual strength during a time of physical weakness. I knew that I did not need to return to Canada. I knew that I just needed to be myself, to stick some tough things out, and to believe that things would work themselves out, which they did. 

A brilliant photographer and a beautiful person, Alfie put into images the sentiments that I was feeling. He helped me to express that I was not ashamed to be who I am, to pursue what I feel is my fate, and to ask for and to receive help along the way to it. The photographs that Alfie took remind me that I am an intense woman who resides in a physical form that reflects exactly who I am; strong, solid, mature, feminine, and non apologetically passionate. I do not behave in a way that has a stamp of socially accepted responsibility on it. Instead my life is about learning, experimentation, and the determination to be of the greatest benefit possible to others by using my talents and accepting and rejoicing in the life experiences that are uniquely mine while following the exact pursuits that bring my soul the greatest amount of joy. I found almost dying while alone in a foreign country a wonderful reminder of such things and I am grateful for every single circumstantial trial that met me upon my arrival in Japan. Those experiences made me a stronger and more determined person. 

The above would make a wonderful conclusion to what happened when Alfie and I collaborated on a portrait session, however there is more to the story that makes those photographs from one year ago even more meaningful to me. The unexpected and unpleasant event of having plastic surgery on my face four months ago due to a cancer diagnosis has permanently altered my appearance. I will never again have the scar free face that Alfie photographed. How much more precious to have those Alfie Goodrich images now that I am temporarily disfigured and awaiting my physical healing and long term facial changes as created by my plastic surgeon? Alfie and my portrait session and the circumstances that followed reminded me of the importance of grabbing the moments of now, to work with the artists and circumstances that are available to us in each moment in order to create what we can, when we can, things that may no longer be available to us in the future. I believe it is the fleetingness of opportunities that makes our 'now's so precious. Thank you Alfie for grabbing that winter now with me and for giving me the gift of documenting images of my strength and beauty in Tokyo in January of 2012. You are a wonderful artist and I consider myself privileged to have been photographed by you and to call you my friend.

To see more of Alfie's amazing photography click on the links below;

More of Alfie's work

A couple of roosters meet up in Tokyo 

trying out those crazy ass japanese boots... not so much

Being Naked with your Neighbours

Public bathing is part of the culture in Japan. Until a few decades ago many families did not have their own baths and showers. Each neighborhood had its own bath house and in the evening people made their way to it in order to get clean, to relax, and to catch up with each other about the day. Many of these bath houses still exist, and even though now families have their own bath tubs and showers, almost all Japanese families still take the time to go to onsen when they get the chance. The onsen bathing is segregated by sex, but children of both sexes can be found on either side.

For a Westerner, it is disorientating to be naked among strangers, and even more intimidating to bump into a person that you know. Ya, so this is me naked.....and apparently that is you naked..... maybe next time i will bump into you at the grocery store instead of here at the onsen where we are both naked....this kind of neighborly experience feels pretty awkward for a Canadian who always preferred to put my bathing suit on in a change room, and who learned very fancy ways to put on one item of clothing on while still wearing another, then taking off the first one after I had replaced it with the second one. I went to boarding school during junior high, so I have great skills at changing clothes without ever being seen naked. Those skills are wasted in Japan.

Not being one to miss out on opportunities to learn from another culture and to appreciate all of the things that other cultures get right, I have recently started to get into onsening. The most profound part of the experience of this activity that I find so intimidating is how it has affected my sense of adequacy versus inadequacy. When we onsen we cannot hide anything physical from one another. Being naked in public requires us to accept things about ourselves because in the presence of others there is not time to obsess over our imperfections as it would only draw more attention to them. When I am naked with my neighbors in a bath house, even though no words are spoken between us, I know that they know that I have had children, just like I can see the maps of stories written on their bodies.  The other women see my comparatively curvy build, and the dramatic cancer surgery scar across my face when they look into my light blue eyes, so different than their own. My body silently tells them that I am a bit of a war torn woman who once had a completely different life thousands of miles away from here and now she chooses to bathe with her new neighbors, to be a part of their world.

In the onsen I am different and I am flawed and nobody panics. There is peace among us. We are all adequate. We surround each other with thoughts of kindness and acceptance. In our ultimately vulnerable state I even become less afraid of aging, because when we are naked with our neighbors, together we inexplicably become more beautiful.

Website link to One of the local Onsens