A postcard from Yakushima (one)
“As I type, I am sitting at my favorite domestic airport in Japan - Kagoshima Airport. It’s the southernmost airport on the mainland of Japan and about a 20-minute flight away from my favorite place in the world. I can’t count how many times our family stopped at this airport, waiting for the tiny airplane to take us to Yakushima.”
I can’t believe it has been a week since I started writing the first postcard for Yakushima. Shortly after I wrote the above text, we received an update from the airline stating that our flight from Kagoshima to Yakushima had been canceled due to heavy smoke and ashes from a nearby active volcano. We quickly shifted our plan and took a bus to the harbor and hopped on the afternoon “Toppy”, a high-speed jet foil boat to Yakushima.
Since then, we have been settling into our routine. We have a good month ahead of us here, so being tourists for the entire time wasn’t an ideal option. Instead, we asked my dad if we could be helpful to his island business. Kids first tried to help out at the farm early in the morning, waking up at 6 am and pulling weeds from his cresson farm until it got too hot and humid to work in the field by 9 am. They quickly figured that farm work was not something they wanted to do every day for the upcoming month in Yakushima. Rather, they decided to help with his cafe operation for a few hours every day, serving farm-to-table smoothies and iced coffee to customers and creating original artworks when the cafe is quiet. That has been our routine for the past week. We have a slow morning at our home with Frido’s homemade breakfast. I check in with the BK team while our work hours overlap between different time zones, and then we all head to the cafe. The cafe is a relatively new operation for my dad, and it’s slow… a much-needed change of pace for me and the kids who tend to lead busier lives in LA. (However, if you asked the kids, they will tell you without missing a beat how completely and absolutely bored they are here on this island from their perspectives.) While kids are embroidering, painting, and needle felting during the cafe downtime, I have had a chance to tidy up the back-end operation of BK, start a new batch of Kombucha drinks for my dad and his team, and chat with the guests who stop by the cafe. After our shift is done in late afternoon, we either head to a local waterhole or the beach to cool down. If it’s rainy (which is often on this island), we treat ourselves to other cafes on the island, and immerse ourselves in the tastiest shaved ice, island-flavored gelato, and home-baked cakes and bread.
For the first few days on Yakushima, I couldn’t shake off the exhaustion. I just felt tired in every inch of my body and my bones. I initially thought it might have been jet lag, but the exhaustion felt like it was coming from a deeper place, as if I had opened the lid of a container where I had stuffed all of my life’s overload from all that had unfolded in last 12 months - multiple cross-country relocations, moving both home and studio, wildfires, and everyday drives in Los Angeles traffic. Though after a few nights of solid sleep, with the background sound of crushing waves and pouring rain (which is often), my body is starting to feel lighter and softer. It feels… as if it can hold possibilities and potential again.
Perhaps this is how one’s body heals and restores when in a safe space. I believe each of us has a special place like that in the world… Sometimes it takes a while or maybe a lifetime to locate that place… and maybe Yakushima is one of those places for me. I am grateful that I could return once more, adding another ring to my 40-year-old relationship with this island.
