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Tilt and Sway

Looking Back on the Tohoku Disaster 11 Years Later

By Apple DaintyPublished 2 years ago 4 min read
3
Meiji Shrine - Barrels of Sake

In February 2010, I arrived in Japan ready to start training for what I thought would be a year of rebuilding my inspiration. I was a Florida girl fresh out of university with an art degree I had been working toward most of my life, battling a depression I only vaguely understood, and hoping to escape some of the economic devastation that my classmates were experiencing in the wake of the recession.

When I arrived at my assigned school, I was immediately asked if I would mind extending my one year contract by a month - through the end of March 2011 - so that my students would have a full school year with the same teacher. That decision, made ten years ago now, was a fateful one - had I not signed on for that additional month, I would not have been in Yokohama during the events of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

I remember the morning of the earthquake as being nothing but normal. My school was located halfway between Tokyo and Yokohama; just a half hour by express train either way would get you into the thick of things. It was a nice town with tree lined sidewalks that bloomed with effervescent pink cherry blossoms in the spring.

I walked down the hill to the train station mall that my school was located in, went in through the employee entrance and up to the 7th floor. We were on the top floor of the building, and on a clear day had a nice, if small, view of Fuji-san (Mount Fuji). It was a slow afternoon for me; I had a private lesson student in the afternoon - a retiree who wanted to keep hold of the English she learned living in California.

When the shaking started, I was standing and writing something on the board. I nearly tripped, but caught myself by bracing with a hand against the wall. I had experienced earthquakes a few times in the year since I arrived in Japan, made a joke about my poor balance, and chuckled a bit.

I remember my student looking up from her book with mild concern. She said "This is the largest Earthquake I've ever felt in my life."

Then I realized the shaking was getting worse. I opened the door of my classroom, bracing myself against the door frame. My manager ran back and fourth through the hallways checking on the students and teachers, her high heels clacking against the cool tiled floor, as the pipes in the ceiling overhead burst.

It was not a dramatic pressurized expulsion of water that you see in movies. In fact, we wouldn't know the full extent of the damage until we returned to the school building the following day when we found that our new computers were sadly taken out by the water that slowly leaked from the ceiling all through the afternoon and evening.

The class next door was a Mommy and Me class, and when the shaking had subsided enough for us to make our way downstairs, we helped the mother carry her child and stroller down the stairs to safety. It was several floors down, as we were on the top floor of the building, and I remember how odd - and perfect - it was that the baby had no idea what kind of danger we were in, negotiating the stairs as the building around us tilted and swayed.

When we reached the lobby of our building, where the rest of the mall's employees and customers had gathered, it struck me just how eerily quiet it was as we all waited to be given the green light to leave. The pervasive silence was only broken by one crying child, whose parents did their best to shush her.

Without a word, I picked up some candy and a small packet of stickers from a nearby shop. The look in the little girl's eyes when I knelt down to give her the candy and stickers, and whisper to her in my broken Japanese that things were going to be ok, is one of the things that saw me through the weeks of constant aftershocks that followed. It was a look of hope.

There are still nights when I wake up in a cold sweat, feeling as if the world was tilting and swaying - shifting suddenly beneath my bed as I slept. Those nights are rare now, as it has been so many years, and a lot has happened - both great and terrible - since then. I was lucky; the area of Japan that I was in was largely unaffected. Life moved on with relative ease.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to the child whose fears I tried to help soothe. Has her experience of the world left her just a little jaded, as it has done to me? Despite all that's taken place in the time between then and now, I'd like to think that for both of us the hope still remains.

asia
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About the Creator

Apple Dainty

Tsumami-zaiku craftsperson based out of Canada.

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  • Colleen Flanagan8 months ago

    Outstanding memoir, I actually got a little anxious reading your descriptions, as if I were there with you. Glad everything turned out okay, now I wonder about that little girl too. Thanks for sharing.

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