🦊 Tales of picnic
"The people around me started moving like ants when someone steps on the anthill, going back and forth collecting their items of interest and slowly forming a wave of humans walking..."
Last Sunday was the Pride Parade here in Tokyo. Back in 2023, I hosted a picnic with my then-future ex-boyfriend, an experience that led me to strong reflections on self-confidence (written in Portuguese here). Since I arrived in Tokyo again in January this year, I have been weaving new relationship networks and thought that having a picnic could be a moment to connect all these people.
Needless to say, the plan went very different than expected.
I arrived at Yoyogi Park with my utensils: two 3x3 meter picnic blankets, two boxes of cold juice (orange and grape), snacks, cakes, fruits, colorful plastic cups, a card game (Love Letter), and my Kindle. I located a corner that seemed suitable, laid out a blanket, put weights on each corner (my backpack, a sneakers, the other sneakers foot, and also a stone), and laid down. I had almost two whole hours until the agreed meetup time with my invitees, so I just stayed there reading my book about the human gut.
On weekends, Yoyogi Park is filled with people having picnics. There are large groups, small groups, couples, individuals... Everywhere, I see people laying out their picnic blankets, sharing food, and celebrating life.
Near me, there was a group of adults and children. A man was coordinating a boy and two girls, whose ages might have ranged from four to eight years old. When I first saw them, the adult was demonstrating how to run from one point to another and back. Then, the children began to race each other. One of the girls was very small, so she consistently lagged behind. At one point, the older girl (I say older, but she was no more than seven or eight years old) reached the point, turned around, and started running back to the finish line. I believe that at that moment, she only had eyes for the competition against the boy who was about her age, so she didn't see that the little girl was in her way. They collided (back in Brazil, in my home state, we say something like “they fished each other”, which is very funny for everyone in Brazil who is not from where I was born), and the little one's crying became the center of attention for children and adults alike. An adult woman distracted her a bit, she stopped crying, but then started again shortly after, as children do when their tears are not coming from physical pain.
The boy came up to her and gave her two gentle taps on the head, saying something I didn't hear. The girl straightened up and returned to the starting position. All the adults around applauded and celebrated her return—or the return to silence, I'm not sure. I thought that scene beautiful and went back to reading my book with a smile on my face.
Random comment: I don't know if it's the effect of low birth rates or some other cultural aspect of Japan, but rarely do I hear children crying around here. I would love to learn more about other people’s experience on that topic.
About an hour later, I felt a raindrop.
I was still alone with my book. Some of the invited people had already canceled, and others told me they would arrive later.
More raindrops.
The people around me started moving like ants when someone steps on the anthill, going back and forth collecting their items of interest and slowly forming a wave of humans walking toward the subway station.
The weather forecast suggested that if it rained, it would be brief. I thought about that, about spending the rest of Sunday playing video games, about waiting longer for people, about the frustration that would accumulate if I got rained on and no one showed up.
I decided to pack up and leave.
As soon as I finished sending messages to the invited people informing them of the canceled picnic, two people replied.
One of them told me they were with another group and could accommodate me since I was alone. This person had committed to attending the picnic I organized, so I felt frustrated and preferred not to meet them.
The other person who messaged me was a Japanese guy I had been talking with on Tinder. He told me he was with a group of people he didn't know because the person who originally invited him to the park had left. Since I was already there, I decided to at least say hello.
When I found him, he was in a group of people speaking Japanese. I was initially intimidated, but it was okay. A girl in the group asked me (in English) if I wanted to join them, as they were going to sit somewhere and drink. I decided to share my picnic utensils, and we all went together under a tree. The rain had stopped, so we spread out the blanket, put the food and drinks in the middle, and continued talking.
In the end, besides the Tinder guy, only another one of my guests came to the picnic. However, I don't know if it was because I was having fun or because my years of experience organizing events prepared me for this, but the truth is that I didn't feel frustrated with the failure of the original plan. My initial intention was fulfilled: to spend the day enjoying a good time with people. It just happened that I have never met those people before.
Recently, I saw a video on Instagram where a woman suggests that, as writers, we should collect the little things that delight us when we read, those moments when something affects us in a special way, and then replicate those moments in our own writing.
I think this idea applies to many things: the path to a good life involves paying attention to what touches us and cultivating more of those moments. Besides, of course, taking note of what didn't work for us and finding ways to improve.
On the way home, I took the train with the Tinder guy. When we got to my station, it was time for goodbyes, so I asked if I could hug him. “On the train?” he asked, discreetly looking at the people around. We said goodbye with a shy wave of hands and then with another wave through the train window.
Life can be very beautiful.
Ask me things
I've always liked the format of answering readers' questions, so I created a Google form for anyone who wants to ask me anything, ask for an opinion, tell a story, etc. Just click the button, write your question, and in the future I may write an edition of A gay fox in Japan about it.
Thank you very much for reading!
With love,
Tales
Oh boy. First, the metaphor of stepping on an ant hill and watching the little buggers go nuts is PERFECT for when three drops of rain fall on Japanese people. I could see precisely what you are talking about. My metaphor, not nearly as good or as group oriented, has always been cats scurrying for cover under the house’s front patio.
I was thinking I don’t know such flakey Japanese people. If they say they are coming, and if they are domestic-type Japanese (not the Azabu, overseas educated crowd), they show up. Yet my friend Stewart here is saying he knows all about this flakiness. Maybe my memory is spotty, as it is known to be.
That exactly meets my experience of social events in Japan. The Japanese are surprisingly flakey / unreliable in such contexts.