Life in the Wake of the Great Quake, pt. VI: The Cycle Goes On

Spring came late this year, but it came nonetheless. Neither the ravages of the Great Tohoku Quake of 2011 nor the fallout (literal as well as figurative) left in its wake could stop the cycle of life.


The famous cherry blossom canopy framing the road into Ye Olde Academy usually appears just in time to herald the new school year and welcome the new students. This year it came just a little too late.


The delicate beauty of the sakura blossoms normally forms a welcome contrast to the brown-tinted, pollen-belching sugi trees [*ACHOO* sniff...] that ring the campus. Now the short-lived blooms seem pale yet defiant, standing against the gray of a troubled month, reminding us that things may not be the same, but at least life is going on.


Look one way, and you see the visual song of life, almost forgetting that scars of the quake are still there right behind you.


Even now, only a short drive away, there are still neighborhoods without working sewers or running water. There are still roads that are shattered ruins. There are countless roofs whose wounds are covered with blue tarps. There are still store shelves standing bare of certain products. The nearby beaches are still covered with tsunami debris and oil that is likely radioactive. The news from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is like a pendulum bouncing between hope and despair. Aftershocks continue to shake us several times a day, and seismologists warn another big one could hit at any time. And yet here, in the middle of it all, nature tells us that we have only to take what we have and keep going.


The new school year got off to a weird start, but at least it started. Preparations for the annual Sports Festival in late April got disrupted, but they are progressing nonetheless. We were forced to cancel our Big Regular Concert in late March so that refugees could stay in the performance hall, but we're going to have a scaled-down performance tomorrow in our own school auditorium...a performance that will come complete with emergency evacuation instructions, but a performance nonetheless. We move on a path that is less secure, less certain than usual, but we are moving forward.


We're told that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster is now officially on par with Chernobyl. People fear the rain. They fear the sky. But if you look up, you see that things aren't as ugly as you might believe. The radiation contamination is still largely local, and is far less dangerous than what Chernobyl belched out. Actually, farm produce in many parts of Fukushima and Ibaraki prefectures that were banned from sale a few weeks ago have been retested recently and found safe. The worst danger may already be over.


Instead of cowering, we should be moving ahead and upward. Damage can be fixed (like this stairway, which was damaged by the quake and blocked off, but is now open again). Instead of crying over our losses, we should be counting our blessings.


The healing will take a long time, but it has to move forward. Life will go on.