Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.

Ursula K. LeGuin, National Book Awards speech

So, this is it. My last day in Japan.

There are many things I wish to say. Endless thoughts swirling in my head. Today won’t be the day I find the time to write them.

7 May 2023

• This day needs to be written. It includes a final, tearful goodbye to the British student

8 May 2023

• Yanaka Ginza: manju @ 福丸饅頭
• Yanaka cemetery (~1.5h)

A Rare Incident of Anti-Semitism

Last night, I went to bed at 2:00 again, after hours of writing. I didn’t stop until me eyelids fell, and slumber overtook me.

I woke up at 9:30 and spent the day in bed until 16:00, writing and planning my upcoming trip. I didn’t eat anything. I had a few sips of water. I didn’t even notice six or seven hours had gone.

Instead of nourishing myself, I sent a gazillion couch-surfing requests, making sure to read about each host and tailor my requests to them. It reminded me of the years I’d spent reading about agents and tailoring my query letters to them. Dozens of agents had ignored my queries; a select few had sent form rejections. In the past five years, only one agent replied with a personalised rejection, stating he liked the idea of it, but could not longer afford to represent literary fiction.

Now, most couch-sufring hosts were ignoring my requests as well. A few sent lovely, apologetic rejections, offering to hang out nonetheless.

“Sorry,” one person wrote, “I don’t host Jews.”

He was an author of books about racism. So I hadn’t expected him to react this way.

“Enough,” I thought, and headed out.

My plan for this last day of sightseeing was simple. I took the bus to Yanaka Ginza, a small shopping and dining area famous among locals. First stop: a tiny bakery selling various flavours of manju for insanely cheap. Insanely. I got a red bean manju, yomogi (mugwort) manju, custard cream manju, zunda manju (!), zunda mochi (!!), and a plain dorayaki, all for 800 yen.

I made it to the shop right before closing time. Next time I’d be in Tokyo, I’d return there in the morning. There would probably be even more flavours.

Yanaka Ginza and Cemetery

Next, I visited the actual Yanaka Ginza street – short, old-school atmosphere, mostly fresh produce, but some cheap souvenirs and street food as well.

My next stop would be my final attraction in Japan. For that, I’d chosen a cemetery.

I walked to Yanaka Cemetery, one of the biggest in Tokyo. On the way, I stumbled upon a guy with a tiny, organic vegetable and fruit juice stand. I got a small bottle of carrot, apple, and lemon juice. The carrots had been raised in the snowy mountains of Niigata.

The cemetery was busier than I’d thought. A large group of loud French tourists. Locals walking their dogs, and cyclers passing through. In Israel, people only came to cemeteries to pay respects to the buried.

There was a children’s playground and signs warning against crows. An old man was practicing golf at a small lawn between graves. No ball – just swinging his bat back and forth.

I found a bench in a secluded and silent area, surrounded by plants and graves. Crows were flying and cawing near me. I ate some of the pastries I’d bought. My hunger was not unlike my first day in Iya Valley, after camping and barely eating at all.

Strolling through the cemetery, only one thing occupied my thoughts. A line from a Fiona Apple song, from her flawless, second album.

“I’m a mess and I don’t know what I’m doing,” I sang in my head, again and again.

After half an hour or so like this, I played the song.

I’d misremembered the lyrics. The first line of the chorus, whose melody I kept repeating, was different. It was the second line I’d botched.

“’Cause I know I’m a mess he don’t want to clean up.”

But that wasn’t what my brain had come up with. I was a mess, and I didn’t know what I was doing. I wish I could say I knew, but I didn’t.

Was there any adult who did?

Listening to the lyrics was eye-opening. Searching the sky for stars and spotting a mere paper bag instead – this image couldn’t have illustrated my attitude toward life better.

“Hunger hurts, but starving works,” Apple sang. I’d been feeling that again and again throughout this trip.

“I want him so bad, oh, it kills.”

At that moment, it felt like all my dreams in life – everything I was so desperate to achieve – would either start unfolding, or end me.

“I would do everything to chase my dreams,” the British student had told me last week, “even if it killed me.”

I came across an enormous tree with gorgeous, green foliage. I imagined being buried in one of the graves underneath it. It was one of the most beautiful trees I’d seen.

Typing all this took forever. It was so cold, that my fingers hurt. I’d come to the cemetery with the intention of staying here after dark, yet kept shivering. I’d given all my warm clothes to my couch-surfing host for safekeeping.

I left the cemetery at sunset and ambled back to my ryokan for thirty minutes. Locals were staring at me with curiosity. I thought about a lot of things, mostly the end of them all.

My phone beeped.

“But we can meet up!” the antisemitic host texted me.

Sometimes I couldn’t understand people.

The Final Night

By the time I returned to my room, it was nearly dark.

I took a two-hour-long hot bath and wrote all this. Then came the time to play a different song.  

Every song featured on this blog had a special meaning to me that went beyond its lyrics. This one was no different.

I’d chosen to sing it when karaoke-ing with the British student almost two weeks ago, thinking about today and this present moment. I’d developed a tradition of listening to it the night I left a certain place; when a certain period in my life was about to be over.

It had begun on August 19, 2020, when I’d left Norwich after a year of living in the UK. The full story was too long for now. I’d written a scene where a character was dancing to it, and ended up enacting this fictional scenario myself. Thus, this song had become among the ones that were closest to my heart.

Tonight, it marked the end of my trip to Japan. I shut the light, played the song, and – half like the character I’d written, half like my recent nights of clubbing – danced in the dark.

With my eyes shut, I imagined I was back in Norwich, in a time in my life that was more hopeful. I imagined I was back in Japan, three months from now, making progress with my aspirations.

When I opened my eyes, I was back in the present moment.

I went to bad infinitely sadder than that night in Norwich. The happiest chapter of my life had reached its final page.

Today’s highlights: manju heaven; the tree at Yanaka cemetery; and dancing in the dark.

9 May 2023

Today, a new chapter begins.

It’s one I never imagined would unfold. A three-month trip to South Korea, followed by a three-month return to Japan.

I am writing this in Narita Airport, wishing time could stop.

My flight is at 11:15. Last night, I found a cheap train from 9:40-11:00.

I woke this morning earlier than my alarm after six short hours, and recalled one had to show up at least two hours before a flight, rather than fifteen minutes.

I dressed like a madman, checked out, and rushed to take a bus to a different train station with a fast limited express to the airport, twice the money of yesterday’s cheap line.

At least I made it in time.

The airport was quintessential Japan. Everywhere was clean quiet and in perfect order. Everything went smoothly. I would miss this country. I would miss it like no place in the world.

The airport was surprisingly sparse. The gate section was nearly empty. Half of the shops were closed. I managed to buy some food using every last yen I’d had.

A Changed Person Leaves Japan

Now, I am waiting at the gate. I leave Japan with zero bills and zero coins.

The next two phases of my trip will be very different from the first. I am going to spend all my life’s savings on them. But money is tight. I can barely afford enough food to fill me up. I will couch-surf as much as possible, and volunteer at places in exchange for accommodation.

I will also take it easy from now on. Three months of fast travel have worn me out.

Perhaps a slow travel in South Korea would’ve been the better period for publishing my coming out story, in addition to documenting my trip. I can’t believe I’ve managed to do both while sightseeing three of Japan’s main islands.

But now that story is also behind me. And I couldn’t have been more incredulous about it.

When I first envisioned this blog, a “re-living of my past” was not part of what I had in mind. I hadn’t glanced at my childhood diaries once all these years. They’d always been in my room, within reach. But I came around to doing so only before going on this trip.

Reading them again after all this time, and getting back to this habit of writing about my life on a daily basis, made me realise something. Keeping a journal is not so childish. Japan was the first place where I met other adults who journalled on a regular basis.

Every time I open my computer and spend hours writing posts, I wonder if I am wasting my time. So many hours could have gone to even more sightseeing. But I’m unable to not do it. Even if I don’t make money from it. Even if only one person reads it. Even if only me.

It is worth it.

Whether publicly on a blog or privately as I’m used to, writing will continue to help me organise my thoughts, and, in the future, prove to me how far I’ve come along.

On February 8, 2023, I left Israel as Omer. The next day, I landed in Japan, and started calling myself Kesem.

Three months later, it was still a bit weird when someone used it to call me. I didn’t feel like Kesem. I didn’t feel like Omer. I didn’t feel like anyone.

But I did feel like a different person.

When I was 16, the wires in my brain suddenly shifted. I began to find inspiration in everything. I undertook writing. And I developed an attraction to the opposite sex.

When I was 26, it happened again. After a decade of writing fiction, I began composing songs, almost on a weekly basis.

I’ve always disliked poetry. But now, at 28, my brain began to think in poems. I’ve been writing at least one per week. They all came to me out of nowhere, and took no time to complete.

But the way I thought and saw the world wasn’t the only thing different. My actions spoke for themselves.

Omer has never gone clubbing, let alone for five nights in a week, danced for hours, and enjoyed it.

He never hiked for hours, let alone for four consecutive days, and yearned for more.

He never enjoy meeting so many people, had fun with dozens of them, and missed them in the end. Never initiated conversations and became immediate friends with strangers. Never approached people, choosing to stay quiet instead.

He never divulged so much of himself to others, let alone those he had just met. Never opened up his heart to them. Not even to the people closest to him.

He never tried to eat everything there was to be attempted in a certain place, apart for meat. Never put something in his mouth without knowing what it was.

He never appreciated alcohol, because he’d always been surrounded by wine and beer. Sake and plum wine were the drinks for him.

He never cried this often in front of people. Years passed without friends and family witnessing his tears. He didn’t witness them, either. That was the worst thing about it.

He never showed his childhood diaries to anyone, let alone posted them on the internet.

He never dared to consider running a blog and writing about his life, because his life had always been boring.

He never acted so spontaneous and reckless, not knowing what his life would look like in a year, in a week, in a day. He always had a plan. Even if it failed.

He never had a lingering regret that haunted him on a regular basis. He never regretted his big life choices, despite their collapse. But now he made his first big mistake.

Many things have changed over the years. Many haven’t. I am proud of myself for abiding by my values, while also growing and achieving things I never thought I could. It’s funny – my biggest aspirations in life haven’t come into fruition. Other things came instead.

Writing about my life at 28 and going back to my life at 14 have turned this blog into a full circle moment. Except the circle is not so perfect, and precise, and intact. It resembles more of an ouroboro, which is an image that has always been near and dear to me.

When I think back of these past three months, there are only two things I would change. First, I would stay in cheaper accommodations. I’ve spent too much money to continue traveling without inhibitions. From now on, I will couch-surf as often as I can.

Second, I would ask the Miitaka guy for his number.

I’d never felt what I did the day I met him. And I’m afraid I never will.

If all goes well and I return to Japan in August, I will go back to Aoni Onsen.

For now, his two favorite snacks, which he’d bought before boarding a shinkansen with me, and gifted me in the end, will have to do. Green Jagarico and blueberry Hi-Chew. I took them with me to the plane: my final meal in Japan.

I landed in this country reluctant to stay in non-private rooms and afraid of making connections. Sometimes I still am.

Now that I am departing it, I realise I have a lot more growing to do. I look forward to the day I stop being so anxious.

If you enjoyed reading my blog, I hope you pick up journalling, too. And if you already do, and feel comfortable sharing, hearing your story would be an honour.

You never know what someone is going through. You never know how they see the world. Words are our best way of breaking that barrier. To me, they’re invaluable.