Rock on! or Thank you so much ladies in the koto group!

Oh Wow.
Things got a lot better in the last, oh, hour and forty-five minutes, mainly because of one little adventure.

Today I left right on time from work and made it down to the weekly koto group meeting at town hall, where I was met by a surprisingly large gathering of smiling, old ladies arranged like shapes according to how their kotos would best fit in the small, little room. After the building manager introduced me, the first question the asked me was, "Did you bring your tsumi?" (Tsumi means "nails" and is the word for the picks you attach to your fingers to play koto.) YES YES!! I DID!! Then, what kind of stuff have you played before? Well, I actually I brought my old music from koto club two years and a half years ago (wow, has it actually been that long?)! I watch with nervous excitement as the group leader looks over Hana Ikada, the other song I learned besides Sakura, Sakura.

I tell them it's been a long time since I've played and their response is to have everybody retune their kotos to a song they've been practicing and have me play along with them! From the start! Stopping calmly and patiently for every part I don't get, which was almost every one, and showing me how to play. Oh my gosh. By the end, I actually starting to get back the feeling of playing the koto.

After, they said they would pick an easier song and let me play with them at the cultural festival next month! What?! Then, I start to pick up bits of conversation about if I could practice at home, who lives near me, what kotos I could use. No, it couldn't be. I dismiss it and try to figure out what they're really talking about. Then, they start gesturing toward a koto standing in the corner of the room. "This one's really old, but could you use it?" the leader asks. What? Uh, yes, it looks awesome! "Okay then, she lives close to you so she'll take it to your house by car and you can meet her when you go back home by bike." .... .... Oh my gosh, thank you so so so so much. There were plenty of sumimasens and arigatou gozaimasus to follow the whole way out the building, loading the koto into the car, and saying goodbye to the super nice old lady as she drive away from my house leaving me with this:












































YES.
YES YES YES!

I am so happy and cannot wait to practice this thing all the time yes yes.

I was just so excited I had to tell you right away. So there you go, my life for the next year.

Oh yeah, also, I just had a revelation! I had starting thinking, and worrying a bit, about how no matter how good you get at a language, the moment you stop using it your ability starts to decrease, and how after a couple of years of not speaking it much you're nowhere near where you used to be and making back to point one. Now, this train of thought may be a bit exaggerated, but in any case, I just realized: koto is my connection to Japanese. I had this realization when I thought that I would definitely return to the U.S. with a koto, that it was something I was happy to invest the funds and time into. So that means studying it in the U.S.. I'm also guessing that my sensei would most likely be an old Japanese woman, or Japanese, and while my lessons may be in English, I think there's a pretty good chance they could be in Japanese, as would much of the society around that music. Just a thought, but an inspiring one.

People can be so kind.

I am excited :)