Selections From Unknown Spring
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The Recovery of Memory
Winter Reflections
It’s a hard thing to let yourself feel whole again and move on after undergoing the kind of trauma that 3/11 brought. It’s as if by moving on one diminishes the meaning of suffering, forgets those who were lost.
The winter of 2011/12 was a long and lonely one. Missing the warmth of their houses people lived isolated lives in new apartments or kasetsus (government provided temporary shelters.) The days were the essence of loneliness: grey, short, wet and cold. People were surviving, but that is not the same as living.
One night at dinner I overheard a friend of mine mention the first thing she wanted after the tsunami. It was a dictionary. Discovering new words, she said, made her feel alive. Curious to know what others hoped to regain, I asked them what the first items were that they replaced in their lives.
Koji Takahashi
I didn’t really want anything, not for myself. The first thing I bought? I bought a bracelet for Tami. (His then girlfriend, he has married since.) I wanted her to have nice things again. When the tsunami struck I was with her. The waters nearly engulfed us and we only survived because we clung onto downed power lines. Holding onto them, one by one, we waded for a mile until we reached the suddenly new shore. We clung onto a sunken ship and waited for the self defense forces to rescue us.

Aftermath Soundscape
As I walked through the vast swaths of destruction sometimes I’d close my eyes and imagine what life in Yuriage was like before the tsunami came. Eyes closed, I heard sparrows singing and wondered what they were doing in this battered town, where they could possibly still be living. In the distance I heard the all-encompassing vastness of the Pacific Ocean. It soundedlike the ocean I loved as a child. If I was near an evergreen that survived I heard the wind blowing through the needles. I felt lively spring energy all around me.
Eyes open there was only death; all I could hear was the drone of helicopters and the mocking cawing of crows. Eyes closed there was life somewhere that I did not perceive when only seeing.
If Not for Their Hands, Whose?
Before the tsunami struck Tohoku was in the midst of generational change. Mirroring global migration trends, the young were leaving for cities in large numbers, abandoning life in the countryside for greater mobility and opportunity. It was estimated that in 30 years there would not be enough people to work the land. In a day the tsunami completed that trend.
Yuriage’s rice fields were some of the most fertile in Japan, producing rice that has been a staple for thousands of years. Because of the saltwater the fields will not produce rice again until least 2016. The farmers who remain, some in their 80s, most of them elderly, dutifully work the land. It’s all that they know. The summers are stifling with temperatures reaching 38c (100.4 f) with oppressive humidity. Buried in the fields are boulders, shards of wood, tires. If tractors are to plow in the future all debris must be removed by their hands. Nature that once produced sustenance became opportunistic resulting in ever encroaching weeds.
All that stands between the grasses and the future health of this land are the dedicated hands of these men and women.
Original Project Design
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