lavender

Lately, I've been suffering from despondency, (de-spon-den-cy, n. Depression of spirits from loss of hope, confidence, or courage; dejection.) with no immediately apparent cause. Well, no, I do know what's causing it, but I promised I wouldn't talk much about my work (la-bor, n. One of the processes by which A acquires property for B) so for the purposes of this post we'll politely avert our eyes and pretend it's something hormonal.

It's a great comfort to me, being a woman. To be able to blame the most outrageous acts and irresponsible behavior on hormones -- "Out of my control! My gonads did it!" -- may set back civil rights for women by about a hundred years, but it satisfies my wounded dignity when I'm caught slowly flushing the toilet paper rolls down the company toilets.

(I learned the trick from my Calvin and Hobbes book, a cornucopia of joy that has already returned on my investment with many splendid ideas for killing time. One end of the toilet paper in the, yes, clean bowl; one hand on the flusher; dizzying hours of fun ensue, interrupted only when the toilet paper runs out or the colleagues start to wonder exactly what kind of bowel movement Yuhri's having the warrants this much celebration. Have you ever yelled "Wheee!!!" while watching a bog roll unwind itself down the toilet, only to look up and discover a solemn-faced array of round Asian faces staring at you from around the stall door?

Nope, neither have I.)

As I was saying, I have been despondent of late.

There's something mildly pleasant about a nice fit of the lavenders, that noncommittal, pastel chromatic just one key up from the blues. You mope a little, you sigh, you feel gently sorrowful about something, it doesn't matter what. Lavenders makes you a little drowsy, so you droop a bit; when you're by yourself you curl up with a nice plump pillow, cradle something hot and yummy in a chipped mug with cartoon cats on it, and think vague, meditative thoughts about the curtains.

I could tell I had the lavenders because I started thinking about killing people. Not in the nasty, pain-woe-death-Alcatraz sense, but in the mystery sense, the good old-fashioned, get-the-bad-guy tradition that requires little from readers beyond a suspension of belief. Poison in the tea, blackmail letter in the desk; I began to ponder a bit, just how and why would I kill one of my neighbors?

And here, you see, this is where I knew I was despondent: I couldn't think of anything. This is not normal to me, pacifist though I may be. Death, in that titillating, Who Dunnit? fashion is something of a hobby to me and mine, an abstract exercise of our most flexible cultural memories.

When we were younger, my sister and I were Japanese in the unconscious, unavoidable way owed to upbringing and nature. We lacked choice in the matter. As children we never really gave thought to what might be different about our household as opposed to those of our blue-eyed, yellow-haired friends. In our house, there was a picture of the Emperor on the mantle. Well, wasn't there one in every house? In our family, we ate rice with every meal and eel for special occasions. Well, didn't every family?

When it finally occurred to us that to be Japanese was to be something special -- or at least weird -- the differences were no more baffling than the fact that there were differences at all. Determined to make it official, Masako and I painstakingly reviewed what cultural uniqueness we possessed against the assumption of our classmates.

As it happened, our parents were fans of Japanese historical dramas, samurai adventures that influenced my Japanese in the most archaic and comical way. People dropped like flies in Japanese historical dramas. After a lifetime of watching the enthusiastic, graceful violence and listening to homilies on the satisfaction of honor, Masako and I decided that our Japanese heritage meant we were homicidal, suicidal lunatics. Quite well pleased with ourselves -- what eight year old wouldn't be, having based the meaning of life off of a television show? -- we therefore gave it no further thought.

Discovering race memory was one matter. Exercising these budding instincts was quite another. Our parents would take us to dinner with grown-up friends of theirs, beautiful meals where we'd sit seiza¹ on flat pillows, smelling straw mats and warm soy sauce. Bored out of our minds, dressed in starchy dresses and full to bursting with good manners, we'd make a game out of murdering people with bits and pieces confiscated from the restaurant table.

"How would you use this?" I'd whisper to her, waving a cloth linen napkin shaped like a swan.

"You could suffocate someone," my sister would whisper back, gravely.

"Or put poison on it so when they wiped their lips--"

"--Put a pin with poison on it at the corners, so when they open up the swan--"

"--or stuff it down someone's throat--"

"That's suffocating."

"Isn't."

"Is."

"Isn't."

"Is!"

--and all the while the grown-ups seated next to us would talk brightly to their neighbors about politics, or gossip, carry on glittering, laughing conversation ("Did you hear last night's symphony concert with Martha Argerich?") and maybe shift just a little in their seats to move away from the scary Hirata children.

"And their parents are so nice, too. It's such a shame."

We lost the habit as we got older, abandoning it in favor of other games. There were Barbie dolls to melt, plants to kill, and boys to attract or scar emotionally, as the whim moved us. Still, it continued to serve as a fairly good indicator of mood.

As I say, I was feeling mellow, and tried to think up a murder mystery. And failed. And this is how I knew I was despondent. Take a note, folks. Nothing kills a nice fit of despondency like a boyfriend can.

"Whining about it isn't going to do any good," the Guy told me rather brutally in the car.

Bastard. "I whine?" I asked in a small voice.

"Yes. A little."

I sulked in my seat and gave him the silent treatment. He didn't notice. Double-bastard. After a moment, I picked up the conversation again. "So," I said pensively, eyeing him in a significant way that failed to make an impression . "How would you go about killing someone?"

1. seiza - Japanese word. To sit with legs folded underneath the thighs, cutting off circulation to anything below the knees. It's a graceful pose, but an agonizingly uncomfortable one, since your entire body weight is basically squashing shut any blood vessels unlucky enough to wander below the thigh. My mother can sustain it for hours and then walk away, spry as a goat. Then again, she's made out of paper mache. I could balance her entire weight on my pituitary gland, for all the good it'd do me. [back up]