Japan & Taiwan

I’m home after three weeks in Asia, tottering through the day in a jet-lagged haze. Astral Eric and I are grading the trip an A+ for many reasons - the food, our traveling companions, the delightfully absurd public signs, baseball stadiums that let you bring your own beer - but mostly because we did it. And it was fun.

It got off to a remarkable start. As soon as I walked to the flight’s gate at O’Hare, a fellow passenger came up to me in the waiting area and said, “You look really familiar. How do I know you?”

“Shannon?” I asked.

“Yes.”

She was the office manager at Evanston Hospital’s neuro-oncology department, the first person I spoke to when Eric had his first recurrence in 2004. I remember her because she was kind and helpful when staff at many other hospitals were not. Eric ended up receiving treatment there for the next 18 years.

Shannon left Evanston around 2006 to go back to school. She’s now an oncology nurse at Northwestern. She was traveling to Tokyo with her husband and two friends to see the Cubs play, like we were. I told her Eric died, though he’d outlived the stupid cancer for almost 30 years.

“We have a friend who was diagnosed with a GBM and died within a month,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons we’re going to Tokyo. We said, ‘F*ck it - tomorrow is not promised. Let’s do this!’”

Right on, sister.

It was a very Eric’y way to start the trip.

Things got even more Eric’y a few days later, when I dropped a smidge of his ashes by Basho’s house. Eric was a big admirer of the 17th-century poet, so I made the jaunt to where he once lived in Tokyo, now transformed into a museum. It was kind of lame, no original artifacts other than Basho’s stone frog statue that emerged from the depths during a recent earthquake. But outside a lovely path ran along the Sumida River. Little metal plaques dotted the way, each inscribed with a Basho haiku. I left E near one of these with a view toward the water.

Nearby a cherry tree had burst into wild pink bloom. That’s perfectly poetic, I thought, and then an iridescent yellow-green bird landed on it and stared at me before hopping from branch to branch to suck nectar from the blossoms. Hi Eric! He always was a tease.

I had planned the Basho ash site. For Taiwan I was winging it. Figured I’d know the right place when I saw it. Which I did in the form of a giant banyan tree growing in the center of National Cheng Kung University’s campus in Tainan. The convergence of a sacred tree (banyans are revered) with a school setting (to honor Mr Markowitz) prompted me to sprinkle Eric right then and there despite the student graduation ceremony happening a few feet away. The sign on the old tree said:

“Its roots clutch far beneath the realm of men and women. Its soul - its chi - presages much about what the human spirit can achieve and endure. For generations this gracious host has beckoned birds and clouds with its unassuming demeanor. “

That sounds nice, right? Plus we get a bird motif again to tie it all together.

I’ll post more when my brain finds its place in the time-space continuum. In the meantime, know that I upheld many of our travel traditions: Stole a poster in Tokyo. Brought home a beer can from Taipei. Went to a stationery store in Tainan and lugged home 10 notebooks.

Can you find the bird in the cherry blossoms? (Yep, this is a haiku.)

Eric’s waterfront view by Basho’s house in Tokyo.

E under the banyan tree.

We saw the Cubs sole win in four games at the Tokyo Dome.

Purloined poster from Tokyo, which I think is some kind of political ad?

This tall boy traveled from the 7-Eleven in Tainan by fast train to Taipei, where it was consumed in the Taipei Dome, and then flown to Chicago in my bag, destined for the basement beer can collection.

Notebook haul! Eric loved weird local notebooks. As do I.