NAGAMURA
editor, columnist, writer; cover photography by Kerry Raftis, www.keyshots.com
Images Kerry Raftis/www.keyshots.com
our cover girl
KIT PANCOAST
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I get back from travel abroad, [Japan] just feels, viscerally, like home here now. Whenever Full name: Kit Pancoast Nagamura Nationality: US resident of Japan Grew up in: Coconut Grove/Nova Scotia Time in Japan: 20 years Japanese level: Me talk pretty, read pretty, and maybe write pretty someday. Works at: Editor at Kodansha, columnist for The Japan Times, regular contributor to four other publications, and author of five books, including most recently The Ultimate Japanese Phrasebook (Kodansha International). Why did you come to Japan? The funny answer is that it’s a family tradition. Actually, nearly everyone in my family, from my great-great-grandparents down, has visited and loved Japan. I grew up surrounded by artefacts and stories, and from birth even the atmosphere of Japan, because my father, an architect, studied design in Kyoto and our home in Florida encompasses much of what he learned. The more immediate answer is that I took a course with the late, great Dr. Shuichi Kato when he taught at Brown University, and he convinced me that I absolutely had to come study in Japan. During my senior year at Brown, I applied for a Samuel T. Arnold fellowship, overseen by IBM’s Thomas
Watson, Jr. and (to my amazement) was awarded it. When I arrived in Tokyo, Kato-sensei and his wife Midori Yajima were extremely generous with their time and in helping me to get to know Japan; their enthusiasm for intercultural exchange was infectious. I ended up staying initially for three years. Why do you stay in Japan? I doubt I’d be as happy anywhere else. I have a mile-long list of things I love about Japan (efficient transportation, relative safety, orgasmic food, and intelligent and sweet people are just some) but there are three key reasons I’ll probably never leave. One is that my husband’s work and family are here; the second is that I’m addicted to the challenges (a new kanji!) and charming surprises (a novel backstreet!) and layers of history (another famous temple!) I find in Tokyo on a daily basis; and third, whenever I get back from travel abroad, it just feels, viscerally, like home here now. How do you manage to balance everything in your life? Balance? Is that a good thing? It strikes me as a static goal, but I understand people worry about it a lot. I’m interested in a huge variety of things, so my life is usually gleefully chaotic and unbalanced from trying to squeeze in too much; I’m OK with that. When
A Day in the Life: Most days, I am up in the morning stumbling around like a post-hibernation bear. I don’t know what hour it is because I can’t see yet. My son is usually just heading out the door in a blur, and we call out last-minute plans for his day. My husband has coffee waiting and I pick at my son’s breakfast remains. Once that’s in the system, I plan the day, answer email, make calls, and from there, the morning is anybody’s guess. I might go on a shoot if the weather is good, read for work if it’s raining, meet editors, draft an article, transcribe an interview, or go running. Afternoons I am most often at Kodansha, out preparing one of the Backstreet Stories, working on essay ideas, researching, or doing (badly) some domestic chore. Dinner is my meal to make, and I try to get fresh food that day to cook and I also try to sneak in a new recipe every week; when time doesn’t allow this, my son (suspiciously ecstatic) orders in for us. My son and I engage in parallel homework until about 9pm-ish, when we either watch part of a movie or we read aloud to each other from some dense but edifying tome (currently, The Count of Monte Cristo). Once my son is off to sleep, I check email again, do more writing (it really never ends!), have a glass of wine with my husband, and then, returning to work until 1–2 am, I finally end the day by writing haiku, and then, my soul satisfied, I crash. On a great day, I do all of the above. On a crummy day, once in a very great while, I bond with my PJs and a trashy magazine, a latte and big pillow, and doze in the warmest corner of the sofa like a Matisse odalisque. But that kind of day is rare. work seems to be gobbling more than its fair share of life, or I’ve been forgetting to eat or exercise, I think I automatically gravitate towards friends, go take a walk, call my mom, pester my son, garden, pretend to cook, or do something small that makes someone else happy. That’s as close to a balancing act as I can pretend to get. Oh yeah, and almost every night I let my mind wander back through the day and write a haiku about it—for me, this validates meditation on the nature of things—and if there is anything I do that can be seen as spiritually balancing, maybe that’s it. What do you do to relax? Whoops, I sort of already answered that. My whole life is geared toward the writing process, and when that goes well, I’m as relaxed as silken tofu. My husband and son are my lifesavers, though, because they pull me off the keyboard and out to dinner or to see movies. When we laugh together, there’s nothing better. I’m not adverse to a great reflexology session BAB or shiatsu massage, however.