By Karen Hill Anton
“Karen! Hey! How’re you doing?”
“Fine, fine. And you? It’s been a long time.”
“You’re telling me. It’s been about fifteen years. But I’ve heard all about you.”
“Oh, really — what’ve you heard?”
“That you married a millionaire, have seven children, and live in China.”
“!!??!!”
That was part of a telephone conversation with an old friend during a visit to the States some years ago. I had to set the record straight, on all counts.
“So, when are you coming home?” she wanted to know.
I used to hear that all the time. No one asks anymore.
I’ve lived in Japan for the past fifty years. Quite naturally, this is home.
Growing up, I traveled outside of New York City once. That was when my father took my brother, my sister, and me to his hometown, Yazoo City, Mississippi. Two of his sisters were still living there in the shack their sharecropper parents had left them.
Aside from that trip, my world was my block — 159th Street between Amsterdam and Broadway.
My world grew larger, if not in reality, then in my mind, when I took an Art History class my senior year at George Washington High School. New to our school, the teacher, Mr. William Spilka, shared his passion for the world’s great art with us uptown kids from Black, Jewish, Greek, Irish, and Puerto Rican working-class families.
At the time, I’d never seen an airport, let alone been on an airplane. But I knew then that one day I’d go to those faraway places Mr. Spilka introduced us to. My post-high school prospects were limited at best. I’d failed the modern dance audition at Juilliard. The head of the math department laughed when he delivered my SAT scores.
Going to Europe seemed as good an idea as any I had about what to do next, and having saved enough money for a one-way flight on Icelandic Airlines, at age nineteen I took off. In those days, 1965, it was safe to hitchhike even for a young woman alone, and I hitched rides the length and breadth of France, Spain, and Germany.
By the time I left Europe after one year, I’d made many discoveries, and the one that had the most lasting impact was that there was so much to learn about the world, about the different people in it and their cultures, and that the American way was just one of many, many possibilities. Looking back, I think I was fortunate to have found out in my young years that our world is such a wonderful and exciting place full of endless lessons. And I could live anywhere.
That first experience of living outside the United States changed me. I haven’t been the same since.
My husband and I are New Yorkers. I was born and raised in Washington Heights; Billy grew up in Greenwich Village. We’ve been friends since we were teenagers. And no, we didn’t meet in high school. Billy went to Stuyvesant when it was only for boys. My high school, George Washington High School, is at the opposite end of Manhattan. We met so long ago neither one of us remembers when and where. But we figure it was probably at a friend’s party, which was a regular weekend feature of our coming-of-age years.
In 1974, we were living in Vermont when Billy was invited to study at a yoga and martial arts dojo (training center) in Japan. His interest in all things Japanese included his practice of Zen meditation, reading Alan Watts and D.T. Suzuki, and following the macrobiotic diet and philosophy. The opportunity to go to Japan was exciting, but he’d never traveled abroad and was hesitant to leave America. Whereas I, after that first visit to Europe in 1965, had gone back in 1966 and lived in Denmark from 1968 to 1971. “Japan. Sure,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
