Bon O Dori

Once upon a time there lived a girl. Every summer this tall, honey -coloured- haired girl would dance in the Bon O'Dori festival. She would don her fan, tucked delicately into her obi and dance as no other native Japanese had ever seen gaijin dance.

This evening my roomate, ObiOne, warned me that there were some serious "festivities" going on in our neighborhood. As I glanced out the window to hear Caribbean drum beats I was reminded of the Taiko drums in my old Japanese neighborhood in Maborikaigan. My sister and I would drag my mum to the Bon O'Dori festival, where we would be to be allowed to dance. Muttie, my mum, thought it a little presumptuous of the resident foreigners to jump up and dance without any invitation. But, anyone who knows me knows the impossibility of keeping me off the dance floor. It's like asking Eminem not to curse on his next album, or Kristie Allie to quit flaunting her weight loss routines, or certain political leaders to stop talking in inane tones in public venues. I am a magnetic dance machine.

As ObiOne and I glanced out over the various teens and adults hanging out of cars, blaring music, honking horns, donning Dominican flags, I thought about how I wanted to dance: right there in the middle of the street. I wanted to shake my bootie like it had to business being there (and it really didn't). But, I kept the hysteria to myself. Instead, I pointed out to my cousin that the group we were passing by were dancing to salsa music.

I still remember the lanterns, fireworks, drums beating through the night and the magic that seemed to permeate the heavy weight of Japanese summer humidity. Cicadas would chatter and scream alternately and the ocean would lapalap softly against the concrete barrier sea wall. There are forbidden love, tears of joy and sadness, long walks to blow off steam, and mad poetry sessions. All of these memoirs are rolled up in one word, in Japanese: natsukashi. Natsukashina. A longing for what was.

In longing for what was, I wish to remake what is now. As I lean out the windows to my bedroom I hear the drums once again, and I dance slowly, quietly to myself.